Merry Christmas to all

After what has been a very different year for everyone, I sincerely hope you all manage to enjoy some time with family and friends over the festive season.

It would seem that some interior plantscapers have had a different experience to others working in the horticultural industry. While the consumer demand for plants and biophilic design is rising and growers, retailers and the landscape sector have seen dramatic increases in their workload, greening the workplace has been difficult due to the number of people working from home. This has had a significant impact on our industry, particularly those in Victoria who were in lockdown for a long period of time.

From necessity comes innovation. One business owner I spoke with said the demand for plants was so strong and supply limited, people were calling their business wanting to buy plants directly. So they decided to grow their own indoor plants and now have regular sales every weekend.

People are worried that so many people have become used to working from home that they may never go back to the office. Although from what I am hearing, lots of people are a bit over ‘zooming’ meetings and miss seeing their colleagues at work. We are social creatures after all. So my gut feeling is that there may be some positive outcomes for the future. People are investing in plants and nature and will want to continue to do so. They may very well want the same when they return to the office creating a healthy biophilic workspace.

I was at an industry function this week and Costa Georgiadis was the MC. He said we should all be ambassadors of our industry and make the most of this time to promote the health and wellbeing of plants and engage young people as that is what our industry needs for the future.

As an industry, we need to look at other ways to educate the public, including journalists who, from time to time target government departments for “wasting” money on plants without balancing their argument with the true benefits of plants in the workplace. We will be sending out many media releases to the media and hopefully, we will be able to gain some traction from those.

Wishing you all a safe and happy Christmas.

Karen Smith

President

E: editor@hortjournal.com.au

M: 0425349137