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Mary Keenan - Are Garden Centres Missing Sales Opportunities During National Tree Week 2012?
- 02 February 2012
Mary Keenan of the Tree Council of Ireland reply's to the above question from HortiTrends.
With regard to encouraging garden centres to get more involved in promoting National Tree Week, I am not entirely sure why the opportunity hasn’t been seized in previous years. Tree Week is now in its 28th year and activities have traditionally tended to be organised by local authorities, OPW, Coillte, schools and other environmental NGOs.
My own background is in the nursery trade and I think that makes me more conscious in my position within the Tree Council of the opportunity that is there for garden centres and nurseries. The garden centre trade traditionally gears up to start the spring sales season around St. Patrick’s Day but participation in Tree Week which is always during the first week in March could bring that forward by a few weeks. I know that plant sales trends in recent years have leaned more in favour of the fashion for herbaceous perennials, grasses and exotics to such an extent that some garden centres no longer stock trees.
I know too that gardens are smaller and there is probably less demand for trees but there is a tree suitable for every garden irrespective of size and the growing environment. It is all a matter of continuing to educate the gardening public about trees and present them with the right tree product. All I can say is that we would very much welcome the active input of garden centres in promoting Tree Week and we will give them all the support that we can in promoting their events and providing promotional materials.
The types of promotions that might be organised could include straight-forward advertising of special offers on trees for the week, devising a promotional campaign for a selection of 5 or 10 tree species in stock and for particular purposes including eg. a native tree, tree for small garden, fruit tree, evergreen tree etc., tree advice clinics, competitions that can be entered by visiting the garden centre during Tree Week, talks or workshops on trees in-store or at a local venue, writing a relevant piece for the local newspaper, staging tree or wood-related exhibitions such as wood-turning or paintings of trees, promoting garden furniture made from sustainable wood sources, promoting and providing the information on planting and growing trees for farm forestry or for a self-sufficient supply of firewood in the future – as they say we are limited only by our imagination!
For more information on National Tree Week 4-10 March 2012 click here.
Source: Mary Keenan - Are Garden Centres Missing Sales Opportunities During National Tree Week 2012
