It’s that time of the year again!
The day that marks the true start of spring for us – when activity for gardening brands truly ramps up and the season kicks off. The Garden Press Event!
It’s an event that we always look forward to, as our focus at the show is to talk to as many people as possible about our clients and to share their latest news, products and messages – something that we love to do! All while networking, mingling, catching up with old connections, making new friends and all in all having a great day out! What’s not to love? At this year’s show, we were representing eight brands – Baby Bio, Phostrogen, Nemasys, Hillier, Cobra, Town & Country, Wilkinson Sword and WOLF-Garten – so we weren’t short of things to talk about!
Baby Bio and Phostrogen were united by the launch of Seezon, a new online inspiration and advice hub launched by SBM Life Science. Check it out here! Both brands were also shouting about their organic ranges, as well as the new natural bug and fungus plant defence products from Phostrogen which were incredibly popular with visitors. It was brilliant to see the fantastic Andie for Dahlia Beach popping by too!
Over on the EP Barrus stand, enquiries were flooding in for Town & Country, Wilkinson Sword and WOLF-Garten, with the focus for the stand being split into two categories of gardeners – time rich and time poor. Those who wish to while away hours pottering in the garden, taking their time in creating something beautiful, and those who simply need a tool to get the job done and keep the garden looking its best. With three brands under the same roof, Barrus has it all!
The Garden Press Event is a special show for Cobra, as it’s where our very own Holly, launched the brand 10 years ago. Since then, Cobra has grown phenomenally and has cemented its position as having the largest range of powered garden machinery in the UK – something which is expanding once again with the introduction of the new ride-on lawnmowers that we launched at the show!
The Nemasys stand was also a hive of activity with nematodes being as popular as ever. With nematodes becoming the go-to pest control method for gardeners, particularly organic and veganic ones, the team were kept busy answering questions and sharing advice on how to tackle slugs and other garden pests, as well as discussing the launch of its new product, Nemaslug 2.0.
Finally, Hillier was part of the Gardeners’ World stand. The show provided a great opportunity for Hillier to talk about how it is sponsoring not one but two Gardener’s World shows this year (Spring Fair in May and Live in June). This comes as we announced the design for the Hillier Secret Garden, which will feature Hillier’s new plant introductions for 2023 for the first very time. We gave visitors to the Garden Press Event a sneak peek of the new plants, with Charles Carr, Hillier’s head of wholesale nurseries and expert plant breeder, on stand to take any questions. Charles was followed by the lovely Lucy from She Grows Veg who was discussing the plans for the Secret Homestead garden that she is designing, growing and building for Gardeners’ World Live – which also just so happens to be sponsored by Hillier too!
While it was great to see so many familiar faces at the show and to catch up with people we’ve known for years and work regularly with, it was also amazing to see lots of new visitors with more influencers and bloggers at the show than ever before. Just a quick check of #GardenPressEvent shows just how many people from the online gardening community visited, a lot of whom were there for the first time. It was great to meet them in person and put faces to the Instagram handles and personalities, and chat about how we can work with them to support our clients and their campaigns. Watch this space for some exciting collaborations!
Another great change for the year was the introduction of talks. A particular favourite of ours was the fabulous Kirsty from Rebuildagram who talked all things reels and shared her top tips on boosting engagement.
The Garden Press Event truly is unique. Not many industries get the opportunity to meet journalists and influencers in such a way. Exhibitors aren’t there to sell, they are there to have genuine conversations, which is a great means of building rapport between brands and journalists. It’s win-win really!
Now that the show is over, we won’t be putting our feet up just yet! With all the planning and the show itself now complete, the real work begins! Now it’s time to gather all our notes and follow up with all the enquiries to get all the coverage flying in over the coming months!
