From the greening of horticulture to diversity in writers
The Garden Press Event takes place in early spring, so the gardening press can meet horticultural companies and see the latest products.
Held at the Business Design Centre in London, it’s a date I always look forward to. My back and arms don’t, as a lot of things come home to trial. That’s the point – writers get to test new products, and then we publicise them, so gardeners can make informed choices. It occurred to me yesterday how much has changed in the six years since my first event. The biggest development is how most horticultural companies are putting real effort into producing greener, organic, more eco-friendly products. This is now the norm, not the exception.
Recycling’s the name of the game at the Garden Press Event
Black plastic pots were hard to find (you can’t recycle them), and packaging was recyclable and mostly brown paper. Huge amounts of paper were wasted in catalogues and press releases. While these still do exist, most companies send information by email or on a USB memory stick. Another swing has been in the diversity of the members of the press themselves. Six years ago, I was still a print journalist with a new website done in my spare time. I felt I didn’t belong among the ‘great and the good’ of TV and the national press.
Now, my website/blog/copywriting is how I earn a living, with my newspaper columns falling victim to the contraction of print journalism. Instead of regional gardening columns, readers are now fed a generic column, which offers the same advice to people from Portsmouth to Scotland. As we all know, real-life gardening’s not the same even in towns just 20 miles apart!
Garden Press Event – Bloggers filling the vacuum left by regional newspapers
That’s where the dedicated army of bloggers comes in to fill the vacuum. Whether they are writers who garden or gardeners who write really doesn’t matter. What’s important is that you can get accurate, LOCAL information from a range of garden lovers that’s relevant to you.
Bloggers work extremely hard, often with very little reward. It’s a real labour of love, and it can be quite isolating when you’re working on your own. That’s another reason why the Garden Press Event is so vital to get information out there to gardeners. Of course, the national glossy magazines still have a major role to play (who doesn’t love opening the new issue of their favourite), but it’s very much a complementary one with bloggers and social media influencers.
Watch out for my posts over the next few weeks about new plants, products and trials and let’s give our UK horticultural industry the backing to be greener and succeed in these troubled times. Read about GardenSkill products.
