Enjoy the silence while it lasts. The din of the snow blower has finally faded, the drone of the lawnmower and other power garden tools is about to begin.
Let’s look at how Canadian households cut the grass, gathered leaves and, perhaps most importantly of all, how many owned a chainsaw in 2019.
Over 8 in 10 households in Oshawa have a lawnmower
Three in five Canadian households owned a lawnmower in 2019, essentially unchanged from 2011. Just under four-fifths of the households that owned a lawnmower in 2019 had a gas-powered mower, one-fifth had an electric or battery-operated mower, and 7% had one of those old-fashioned push mowers.
Households in Oshawa (85%) were the most likely to own a lawnmower in 2019, followed by those in St. John’s (81%).
Conversely, households in Vancouver were the least likely to own a lawnmower, with just over one-third (37%) reporting owning one in 2019.
Less than half of the households in both Toronto and Montréal reported having a lawnmower.
On the Prairies, households in Regina (74%) were the most likely to own a lawnmower.
Grass trimmers are most popular in St. John’s
Just under half of Canadian households had a grass trimmer in 2019. Three-fifths of the grass trimmers in Canada were electric or battery-operated, while 43% were gas-powered.
Two-thirds of the households in St. John’s, St. Catharines-Niagara, Oshawa and Sudbury had a grass trimmer in 2019—the highest share nationally—while one-third of households in Vancouver and Montréal had one, the lowest share nationally.
Just over one in five Canadian households have leaf blowers
Just over one in five (21%) Canadian households told us they had a leaf blower in 2019. Seven out of ten of the households that had a leaf blower owned an electric or battery-operated blower, and just over 3 out of 10 had a gas-powered blower. A few households reported having more than one type of leaf blower.
Perhaps ironically, households in the relatively tree-barren Prairie provinces of Manitoba (29%) and Saskatchewan were most likely to report owning a leaf blower, while households in heavily forested Atlantic Canada were the least likely to report owning one.
One in six Canadian households own a chainsaw, channeling their inner lumberjack or jane
The moose, the Mountie, maple syrup and lumberjacks are quintessentially Canadian symbols. The lumberjack and jane tradition lives on, with about one in six Canadian households (16%) reporting having a chainsaw in 2019, unchanged from 2011. Four-fifths of the households that owned a chainsaw had one that was gas-powered, and just over one-fifth had an electric or battery-operated chainsaw. Some households reported having more than one type of chainsaw.
Households in the Maritimes were twice as likely to report owning a chainsaw than households in British Columbia, Quebec and Ontario (one-third vs. one-sixth).
About 1 in 10 households in Canadian cities owned a chainsaw in 2019.
The drone of garden equipment getting you down?
The sound of a lawnmower, leaf blower or grass trimmer firing up early on a weekend morning can grate on the nerves, especially if you are among the half of Canadian adults aged 18 to 64 years who reported high variability in sleep onset time between work or school days and free days in 2020.
On the bright side, hearing that drone on a regular basis is a sure sign that nature still abounds in your neighbourhood.
In fact, a recent study showed that just over two-thirds of the total land area in Canada's large urban population centres (100,000 or more people) was classified as green in 2019. Montréal (70%) and Vancouver (68%) were the greenest among Canada's five largest cities.
Medium (78%) and small (87%) towns were on average greener than large cities. In fact, more than one-third (35%) of all small towns in Canada were deemed entirely green.
We have everything you would like to know about what types of garden equipment Canadians had in their garages or sheds in 2019.
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Contact information
For more information, contact the Statistical Information Service (toll-free 1-800-263-1136; 514-283-8300; infostats@statcan.gc.ca) or Media Relations (statcan.mediahotline-ligneinfomedias.statcan@statcan.gc.ca).