Landscape Juice

Haymarket Publishing post second consecutive loss

Figures obtained from Companies House reveal that owners of Horticulture Week, Haymarket Publishing, posted a loss in 2009 of £8.09m (2008 £8.29m) as the recession and changes to the advertising market impacted on their business.

Turnover dropped 19.3% from £145m to £117m and employee headcount was reduced by 114 leading to an exceptional restructuring cost of £3.8m - the UK and US operations bore the biggest brunt of the losses.

These latest figures are a clear vindication that traditional print media was heading for trouble and I'm convinced that their is still more pain to come.

Calls to change the hedgerow regulations

The Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) is calling for changes to the current hedgerow regulations.

The CPRE would like local authorities to be given more power to protect hedgerows by a broadening of the categories and a simplification of process.

This follows survey results that reveal a six per cent fall in the length of England's managed hedgerows, a drop of 26,000 km or 16,150 miles between 1998 and 2007.

Where to buy Ceonothus 'Tuxedo' using the Internet

Well I can tell you FitzGerald Nurseries of County Kilkenny, Ireland sells them and they doing very well at it; partly (and it's a big part it seems) to the success from their use of social media.

Owner, Pat Fitzgerald, explains in an interview on Horticulture Week, how his controlled use of social media platforms such as Twitter, blogger and Facebook has helped connect his business to potential customers all over the world.

Pat commented "Keeping up to date with all the tweets, posts and updates is not always easy - it makes me dizzy a lot of the time. This is where the iPhone came in. In my opinion, it is revolutionary. Once I started using the iPhone in July 2009, it became so easy to share stuff and it started to allow me to do more on Twitter and Facebook.

Green-tech sponsors Landscape Juice

It's all a bit me me me at the moment so I apologise for the news focussing on Landscape Juice rather than what's happening further afield...but I hope you agree that these developments are important ones for the landscaping and horticulture industry?

It has been a momentous week for the site and me personally; earlier in the week I announced that Marshalls, Britain's largest hard landscaping manufacturer and supplier, has agreed a sponsorship deal for the Landscape Juice Network and yesterday evening I also announced that Green-tech too, have signed up to sponsor the site.

Thanks to advertisers

Being an advertiser is usually a thankless job; they pay their money and their advert gets published....job done!

For me and Landscape Juice, the support of advertisers and sponsors is the lifeblood of the site and without their financial support, I could not continue with what I'm doing.

If your one of this months +68,000 visitors and you've enjoyed reading some of the stories and issues on the site then please consider using on of our advertisers before making a purchase.

Free recruitment advertising on Landscape Juice

Are you currently looking for staff or are you planning a recruitment drive in the near future?

Before you think about signing on the dotted line and parting with a handful of cash, consider sending me the details of the position you plan to fill..it literally cold save you thousands of pounds.

Bau Outdoors agrees a sponsorship of the Landscape Juice Network

It is with much pride and satisfaction that I can announce Bau Outdoors as a principle sponsor for our fast growing Landscape Juice Network.

The details were agreed this week and an announcement was made to members via an internal mail this evening.

My personal thanks go to Bau Outdoors for agreeing to support us for the next six months and I hope this is the beginning of a very beneficial partnership.

Trade magazine advertising fell by more than a quarter in 2009

To the online community it's not going to come as a big surprise but for magazine lovers, 2009s ABC figures, barring miracles, aren't going to make happy reading when they are published at the end of August.

According to America's Publishers Information Bureau, US advertising revenues for 2009 were down 18.1% on 2008. The number of advertising pages that were generated fell by 25.6% (although some commentators are estimating that real declines could be as much as a third).

The six monthly figures for consumer gardening mags has already provided us with a clue as to how the UK's business-to-business publications might fair.

Sponsor news and information articles on Landscape Juice

Landscape Juice will be expanding its role as an independent news and information service for the landscape and gardening industry and will be employing one or more freelance news reporters to help me get more news items published in faster time.

I will be using funds that have been generated through advertising and sponsorship to do this and I would like to lever Landscape juice's dominant position to provide much more exposure to small and medium sized business; as well as continue to publish information and opinion that affects all of the land-based industries.

Landscape Juice visitor statistics for February 2010

It's been just four years since Landscape Juice started out and it's fair to say that the first year of development contributed very little in the way of visitors.

It's a different story today and I'm delighted to say that February was a record month for Landscape Juice.