Yuma, Arizona - Spring in Great Britain is a special time of the year for avid English gardeners but this year the COVID crisis and the cargo ship that got stuck in the Suez Canal have combined to put a damper on the season, says the Association of Mature American Citizens.
It seems that the pandemic lockdown triggered an early and larger than expected demand for garden supplies and the ship that blocked the Suez Canal cut off the supply of the stuff garden gnomes are made of. Garden store manager Ian Byrne told the newspaper, The Guardian: “Raw materials are becoming a bit of an issue and unfortunately gnomes are a victim of that shortage … Gnomes of any type – plastic, stone or concrete – are in short supply. They’ve been very popular over the last couple of seasons, we’ve seen a massive upswing in the sales of gnomes and definitely a different clientele wanting gnomes too.”