Australia: New campaign to inspire more green life and benefit nurseries
Peter Thorburn, who owns the group of Honeysuckle Nurseries across Sydney, said he’s looking to the Plant Life Balance (PLB) initiative to get the nation excited about the ways they can integrate green life into houses and apartments and, in doing so, boost demand for high-quality Australian nursery stock.
Plant Life Balance is funded by Hort Innovation using funds from the nursery marketing levy. Having launched on 30 October it is now being rolled out across retailers and independent garden centres. The campaign includes seven different plant looks and a smartphone app to assist in styling homes with plants, along with useful information about the health and air quality benefits of green life.
“For instance, the ‘Sharehouse Heroes’ and ‘Desert Dreams’ looks are great for the younger, busy person with a range of succulents and other easy-to-care for plants,” Peter said.
“The plant looks, together with the app that’s launched to support the campaign, empower customers to come into their local retail or garden centre and say ‘I want that plant, and I know that’s going to be great for my house and my family’.”
Honeysuckle has operated for more than 40 years and in that time has won a plethora of awards including Best Retail Nursery in Australia 2016 and Best Small Production Nursery in NSW 2017 at the Nursery and Garden Industry Awards (NGIA).
Peter and his son, Tom, now operate three retail nurseries across Sydney at Bondi Junction, Mosman and, most recently, Turramurra, together with a production nursery at Dural, which supplies 35 per cent of their retail stores’ nursery stock.
Peter said the business supplies high-quality and exclusive plant species for the higher-end market and adjusts crop lines to ensure they are matched with consumer demands and trends.
“We position ourselves as a boutique business producing a high number of species in smaller quantities,” Peter said.
“At our site in Dural, we’re growing more than 300 plant species with 50,000 plants under production at any one time. These are grown from larger plants, seedlings and cuttings, and we also import high-quality nursery stock from interstate.
“If we can’t produce it here, due to climatic or other reasons, then we’re looking for suppliers producing the best plants that are backed up by best practice and industry accreditations such as BioSecure HACCP.”
Indoor ferns, orchids and succulents are just some of the plant species Peter has seen take off in recent years and he expects this trend to continue, particularly in light of new consumer-facing campaigns like Plant Life Balance which are set to help bridge the gap between retailers and production nurseries.
“In my experience, I’m seeing many more young people buying plants, who are increasingly health conscious and are looking for labels like organic or chemical free. “As an industry, we need to respond to these trends and I think Plant Life Balance is a great way to guide these developments and ensure that we’re producing the perfect product for our customers.”
Peter said another vital part of Plant Life Balance was the upskilling of staff to ensure they are well informed and able to share not only their knowledge but also positive stories of working within the green life industry.
“The flow on benefits from such a campaign could be huge but we need to be out there with our Plant Life Balance displays and sharing our story with customers, which we can achieve via the Plant Life Balance accreditation.
“I’d like all the staff to be Plant Life Balance accredited and I’m even considering building it into our induction process so that anyone who wants to work in our nurseries can also confidently speak with customers about the latest marketing initiatives happening within our industry.
“At the end of the day, this is a very professional campaign that is backed up by leading global research and beautiful design.
“It’s a resource available to us – so let’s use it!”
For more information:
plantlifebalance.com.au