Welcome to part two of my Landscape Juice review (read part one here).
July brought the first of 2009's weather warnings from the Met Office as temperatures nudged into the thirties. A heatwave is confirmed as the threat was raised to level 3.
The Barton Grange flower urinals hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons - great publicity for Dobbies but it got John Walker's hackles up that Hort Week had made it a major news item.
The Royal Show came to an end after 170 years and Landscape Juice beats Hort Week to the scoop of the day as their boss Lord Heseltine is made up to Vice President of the RHS. Meanwhile, there is talk of lay-off's at Marshalls as the hard landscaping material supplier continued to struggle.
I put a little bit of extra pressure on our incumbent landscaping associations with an open letter - the message? It's time to change - as the APL and BALI struggled to understand the needs of their membership, the Landscape Juice Network's 'open association of landscape industries' continued to flourish.
BALI chairman Richard Gardiner's rather arrogant response left me a little confused. The public face of BALI says it is working for all in the landscaping industry, yet Richard signed off 'First and foremost, though, BALI is there to ensure its members thrive and to give them every advantage it can over their competitors. And that's the harsh reality of business success.'
Annabel Downs responded and promised to get back - still waiting!
On a more light-hearted note, the warm weather brought swarms of ladybirds into Britain.
Yell went on the offensive in August by appointing a handful of part-time garden bloggers to provide content for their online trade directory. £30 a pop was offered which I thought was pathetic. I told Yell's head of content Nick Haworth what I thought. Nick responded and asked I print his reply in full.
The RSPB released a report about the illegal practise of poisoning birds of prey in Scotland.
Meanwhile Hort Week subscriber numbers fell as the recession gripped the print industry.
Everyone went back to work in September and garden centre owners immediately started to moan that their working week was not long enough and that Sunday trading should be extended.
I told Trustmark that their scheme was just another level of unnecessary and expensive bureaucracy which damaged landscaping and only served to hinder people from doing their jobs. CEO Roman Russocki defended Trustmark but asked if I would contribute advice to their website (now there's an irony).
Donald Trump moved a step closer to his 'super course' as planners gave permission for him to expand into land adjacent to that he already owned.
BALI's new website went live - looks nice but no real functionality and nowhere on it does it say how many members it has. BALI says over 700 I can tell you it is actually 676 - transparency anyone?
Former horticulture heavyweight Avoncrop went plop - the recession speeded up its demise but poor financial management seemed the likely cause.
Machinery operators were reminded of the dangers of their job after a greenkeeper was killed while working at Stanedge Golf Club - the greens mower he was using overturned.
Landscape Juice came out top in a readers' poll and RHS Director General Inga Grimsey resigned early from her job stating personal reasons.
The APL's much anticipated website went live whilst journalists remained selective about what they wrote about Glee.
In October, Garden Expo joined the Landscape Juice Network asking members what they wanted to see at a landscaping trade show - I had a long conversation with the company who are putting together their inaugural show in June 2010 - not a great deal has happened since.
The Garden Media Guild delayed its judging fiasco awards blaming the Royal Mail.
Glee event director Daniel Thurlow gets in touch and promises to do more for landscapers. I told him that I was talking to Marwood Events about the Hard Landscaping Show and Garden Expo about their show and I was keen to see organisers stop trying to profit at our industry's expense - Dan promised to work with Landscape Juice - in 2010, we will know if all these relationships are paying off?
In November, the Knapdale Forest Beavers build their first lodge and Landscaper Magazine released its first audited ABC figures and reveals a staggering 18% drop.
BALI CEO Sandra Loton-Jones apparently upset landscapers. She was quoted by Hort Week as saying that landscapers who are not VAT registered damaged the industry. It turned out that HW had selectively used some of a conversation in a longer interview.
Yell's profits drop a further 21% and it is revealed that social networks were sucking the life out of magazines' profits.
The HTA lost £13k in 2008 even though they turned over £26m, and the National Trust got fantastic coverage with their pee on compost PR.
John Walker slammed growing media organisations for working against government targets and Phytophthora ramorum is found to infect conifers for the first time.
The crisis at Hort Week's owner takes another turn as owner Haymarket shuts twenty five year old brand, Media Week with immediate effect - IPC media also makes redundancies as printed media continues to melt down.
M&G take over sponsorship of the Chelsea Flower Show, signing a three year deal. The people of Cumbria were promised long term help after the catastrophic floods and the Landscape Institute were forced into a U-turn over its archive.
Hort Week were getting into more hot water as the Chief Executive of gardening charity, Garden Organic accused Deputy Editor Matthew Appelby of 'misinterpretation'
As we roll into December, Google adds Kew Gardens to Street View,
Coode-Adams retires from the RHS, and the RSPB takes an extraordinary step in building bridges with the shooting fraternity.
The Gardening Media Guild's farcical awards take place in London, The Met Office announce that the last ten years were the warmest on record (or were they?) - as Tiger Woods' life falls apart, garden PR companies are warned not to adopt his relations model.
Haymarket's boss Michael Heseltine stands down in the midst of the crisis that grips his empire and that of the wider printed media industry.
The Landscape Juice Networks cruises past 800 members and Norman Hambrook bemoans cold callers for trying to ruin his name.
Clive Nichols shares some winter photography tips and for the first time the question many must be thinking but nobody has dared ask - 'is Haymarket Publishing to big to fail?'.
Evidence that the Landscape Juice Network is gaining ground as Marshalls Plc joins us, and the Landscaper Magazine continues to show us how out of touch they are with the current market.
Well, that's it; The year's over (almost) and I am taking a break and will be back at the end of December to pick up where we left off.
It just leaves me to wish all of my loyal readers and network members a very happy Christmas and a healthy and prosperous 2010.
All the best
Phil
Recent Comments