Glenvale Publications - Greenworld Magazine

Greenworld Magazine

Established in 1983, Greenworld magazine has a proven track record as Australia's leading trade magazine to the retail and landscape sectors of the horticultural industry, delivering news and views to an audited circulation base of around 5,500.

Inside the current issue

April/May Issue cover April/May
Greenworld
Well there have been some big changes here at Greenworld since our last issue. Leigh Siebler, who edited the magazine for 11 years, has stepped down after the mammoth task of finalising the 30th anniversary issue. A big thank you to Leigh for all his work with this magazine, particularly for his knowledge and coverage of industry events, people and products. With this issue I have taken on the editor role and I am looking forward to meeting up with lots of garden centre owners, nurserymen and women, landscapers and of course members of the Australian Institute of Horticulture. I am a gardener, a horticulturist and a writer. I have a history with both trade and consumer magazines. For many years I edited the industry journal Australian Horticulture (now sadly defunct after more than 100 years of publication) before moving into consumer magazines. I was the editor who launched Burke’s Backyard magazine and more recently was editor of ABC Gardening Australia magazine.

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As Greenworld continues to celebrate 30 years of publishing, there have been dramatic changes occurring in mainstream gardening magazine circulations.

Falling circulation and plummeting ad revenue forced the closure in March of Burke’s Backyard magazine. The magazine was launched in June 1998 as a spin-off from the television show of the same name. Fifteen years on, the show has long gone and March 2013 was the final issue of the magazine.

Its closure follows that of the trade journal, Australian Horticulture. It folded last year after more than a century providing information to the nursery industry.

The closure of Burke’s Backyard magazine leaves ABC Gardening Australia magazine (which is monthly from News Ltd) and the quarterly Your Garden magazine (Pacific Publications) as the main specialist magazines serving consumer gardening.

The bi-monthly titles Organic Gardener (an ABC magazine) and Good Organic Gardening (Universal Magazines) continue to cater for organic gardeners – a niche market within gardening that seems to be booming.

There are also regional gardening magazines with local slants including SubTropical Gardening, which is based in Queensland.

Homemaker and design magazines also carry gardening and are catering for home gardeners who are also homemakers. Among the leaders of these, Better Homes & Gardens (Pacific Publications) is going from strength to strength, as is Australian House & Garden (formerly ACP and now Bauer Media).

But the growth of these titles doesn’t account for the tens of thousands of readers who have turned away from pure gardening magazines in the past few years. For some it is a financial choice, but for others it is generational. Some readers have turned away from gardening magazines because gardeners like others are time poor. Much of it is because people are not shopping the way they used to.

Specialist magazines have become more expensive mostly due to increases in paper, printing and distribution costs. But as their cover prices have gone up, less advertising content has seen their book sizes fall. With fewer pages, they no longer look like value for money the way non-specialist magazines do which are often two or even three times the size of specialist magazines.

As well, specialist garden magazines traditionally appeal to an older demographic. Not only are these traditional readers downsizing (and dying), they’ve been hit by huge drops in their superannuation and erosion of their savings. For many, cutting out their favourite garden magazine has been a matter of survival - not to mention the pressing need to fund internet access, pay television and even international travel.

Even hoarding has played its role in some people’s decision to not buy. Many magazine readers report they re-read past copies of the magazine to get advice on what to do in their garden each month. That’s really taking the recycling message to heart!

As well as failing to value the up-to-date information specialist magazines contain, many prefer the more generalist, easy-on-the-eye approach of lifestyle magazines and television.

Technological advances have also accounted for many readers as more and more households have computers, tablets and wi fi access at home. Why buy ABC Gardening Australia magazine when you can see the television show on iView any time of the day or night, download an episode from the Gardening Australia television website or browse the huge bank of factsheets also on offer through the website?

As more people get on line and discover the benefits and companionship of social media, time once spent relaxing with a magazine is now taken up by Facebook, Twitter, reading blogs or browsing the World Wide Web. Talk to your customers about their reading habits. We’d love to hear where they go to get trustworthy garden information in this modern age.

In the meantime, Greenworld is on a mission to provide garden centres, landscapers and horticulturists with the most up-to-date information and ideas to help you to communicate with customers, clients and gardeners. And, we’ll continue to bring you that information in magazine format as well as online!

Jennifer Stackhouse

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What's new in this issue

Biglittle blueberry
Backyard growers are going to be very excited by this new Australian-bred blueberry. Blueberry Burst is a dwarf-growing bush that produces large, flavour-filled fruit. With its fruit reaching 15-25mm in diameter, which is the size of a dollar coin, Blueberry Burst is larger than the biggest large-fruited commercial varieties including ‘Brigitta’ and ‘Liberty’ and much bigger than the commonly grown ‘Sharpblue’ and ‘Biloxi’. Selected by the Australian Nurserymen’s Fruit Improvement Company (ANFIC) it is being released by PlantNet under the Backyard Beauties logo. Other Backyard Beauties include Sunset Peach, Sunset Nectarine, Pinkabelle and Leprechaun apples. All are dwarf trees with large fruit. Blueberry Blast ticks all the boxes for the backyard grower. The bush is self-pollinating, has low chilling requirements and at around 1m high and 0.75m wide is compact enough to grow in a large pot. It should grow in most parts of Australia including the subtropics. Breeding and trials The blueberry was developed in Western Australia as part of a commercial breeding program. Mark Dann, horticulture marketing coordinator at ANIFC, has been growing the blueberry and is impressed with its productivity and resilience to summer heat and humidity. Mark says his plant has reached 80cm high and 70cm wide growing in a 55cm pot in a well-drained potting medium. In his garden in South-East Queensland, Blueberry Burst begins flowering in March and is fruiting by July. The fruiting period lasts for around three months. “Flowering and fruiting is progressively later in colder areas,” he explains. “Trial plants at Narromine in New South Wales began flowering in May with fruit in September.”

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