CLIMATE CHANGE THE ONLY SHOW IN TOWN

Increasingly it falls to the horticulture sector to temper the effects of climate change through thoughtful planning, planting, and biodiversity enhancement at every level.

Consumers are demanding solutions that allow them all of the benefits of their green spaces with minimal negative impacts on nature. But implementing such ideals can be easier said than done.

Professionals across our sector need to communicate the very real challenges involved in ‘green horticulture’ in a way that is practical and honest. No one benefits if we jump on the ‘green washing’ bandwagon. There is much work here to be done!

Across five days over the June bank holiday weekend, 100,000 people relished the cornucopia of gardens, plants, products, flowers, food, music, education, demonstration, inspiration and craic provided by Bord Bia Bloom in Dublin’s Phoenix Park. HC celebrates the occasion across multiple pages, and shouts “Bualadh bos!” for the festival’s increasing commitment to biodiversity and sustainability in horticulture.

Landscape plays a lead role in this issue of HC. Michal Slawski describes the award-winning Green Cities Parklet at Bloom, a concept streetscape to promote design and innovation that encourages greening in even the tightest spaces of our towns and inner cities…

…while in ‘What’s in Your 15-minute Landscape?’ Terry O’Regan urges us to get intimate with our locales, thereby empowering ourselves with the landscape knowledge and language to influence our environments for the better.

Turning to sustainability, Féidhlim Harty wows us with the potential of willow wastewater systems to make one-off homes in the countryside viable, whilst reducing pollution and boosting biodiversity.

HortiRecruit’s Patrick Hussey and Teagasc’s John Mulhern write respectively on the value of recruitment, and the exciting ‘apprenticeships in horticulture’ scheme. Together they provide readers with the hows and the whys of a thriving horticultural workforce.

In research in this issue of HC, Paul Fitters and Dónall Flanagan analyse the results of Teagasc’s recent Spiraea quality trials, name the winners, and urge a new respect for these useful and attractive flowering plants.

Also from Teagasc, Alberto Ramos Luz assesses the most important physiological and environmental factors that impact apple size, in a piece providing great practical insight for apple-growers.

As the cessation of large-scale peat harvesting forces the compost industry to explore alternative materials, the race is on for peat compost replacements. UCD horticulturalists Zoe Valentine and Noeleen Smyth in ‘Bring Out Your Dead!’ describe compost research being carried out by Teagasc, and analyse investigations undertaken by Zoe into compost alternatives made from sustainable materials.

Meanwhile, Noeleen Smyth and Scott Drew’s article, ‘Can We Go Green?’ provides a timely and balanced analysis of the controversial glyphosate herbicide debate. The article describes the results of critical research, conducted by Scott, on the effectiveness of organic herbicides compared to those that are glyphosate-based.

When it comes to AI, if you’re feeling fear, bamboozlement, or a desire to pretend it’s not happening – or a combination of all three – then move swiftly to Mark O’Loughlin’s ‘The Future is Here’ article, where you’ll get a comprehensible summary of the implications of ChatGBT for the horticulture industry.

Filming for Home Grown series 2, sponsored by Bord Bia, is currently underway, due for broadcast in spring 2024 on RTE1. As our article here shows, Home Grown series 1 – through its celebration of horticulture in Ireland – has elevated public awareness of the sector to a whole new level.

And keeping with the celebratory mood, we at HC celebrate you – our sponsors, advertisers, writers and readers. Thank you for your continued support. ✽

Hc Team

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Cover Photo: “First 5 Garden of Wonder and Discovery” designed by Oliver & Liat Schurmann, Photo by Fennell Photography

Printers: Azure Communications

Print Run: 3,000 copies

Distribution: Readership of 10,000 across Ireland to businesses and professionals in the following sectors: Landscape / Garden

Retail /Florists / Nurseries

Greenkeepers /Sports

Surfaces / Local Authorities & Parks Departments

Machinery / Education

Edible Horticulture & more...

Publishers: Horticulture Connected Ltd www.HorticultureConnected.ie

24 WHAT’S IN YOUR 15-MINUTE LANDSCAPE?

Now is the time to get cosy with your locales, urges Terry O’Regan

27 THE FUTURE IS HERE Head in the sand? Wake up to ChatGPT in the horticulture sector with Mark O’Loughlin

URBAN DESIGN

30 URBAN GREENING

Michal Slawski on the significance of The Green Cities Parklet at Bord Bia Bloom RESEARCH

32 BRING OUT YOUR DEAD!

Zoe Valentine and Noeleen Smyth dig up alternatives to peat compost

36 RESPECT FOR SPIRAEA

Paul Fitters and Dónall Flanagan of Teagasc on recent Spiraea trial

38 SIZE MATTERS

Teagasc’s Alberto Ramos Luz on the physiological and environmental factors impacting apple size

SUSTAINABILITY

40 WILLOWS ARE A WIN-WIN Willow wastewater systems are the solution for one-off houses in the countryside, writes Féidhlim Harty

FRESH PRODUCE

43 ‘FRESH, LOCAL, IN SEASON’ Lorcan Bourke on Bord Bia promotions at Bloom and Body & Soul 2023

INSIGHT

38 CAN WE GO GREEN?

Getting to the heart of the glyphosate issue, Scott Drew and Noeleen Smyth research the effectiveness of organic herbicides

Education

48 ENTER THE INDUSTRY!

John Mulhern of Teagasc on the ‘apprenticeships in horticulture’ scheme

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Primary School Teachers From Across The Country Join Together For Food Dudes Presentation Days

The regional Food Dudes events celebrated the success of more than 500 schools, who completed their three-year participation in Food Dudes.

The three-year curriculum-linked programme includes a 16-day intervention in year one, with repeated fruit and veg tasting and rewards, followed by an in-school Food Dude week in each of year two and year three, aimed at promoting healthy eating habits amongst primary school children. The healthy eating programme encourages children to eat more fresh produce and is based on repeated tastings of fresh fruit and vegetables, rewards and positive role models.

The Food Dudes Presentation Days provide teachers with an opportunity to network and feel part of a community of change. Ideas about ways in which the Food Dudes programme can be integrated into the curriculum and daily routines are shared, and peer-to-peer support is encouraged.

A new and improved Food Dudes programme is currently being rolled out in schools. It includes new varieties of fruits and vegetables, additional tasting days, new eco-friendly rewards, and new teaching and learning materials such as videos, recipes and a range of bilingual activities.

There are currently 1,700 primary schools engaged in the three-year Food Dudes programme, creating a movement of life-long change. The goal is to embed healthy eating within the school and the wider community in a way that promotes healthy eating habits amongst children, helping to reduce obesity rates and improve overall well being. Over the lifetime of Food Dudes, over 3,300 primary schools and more than one million pupils have taken part.

The Food Dudes Healthy Eating Programme is managed by Bord Bia in Ireland. It is funded by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine with support from the European Union under the School Fruit and Vegetables Scheme. The programme was first developed by the Food Activity Research Unit, School of Psychology at Bangor University, Wales.

More information about the Food Dudes Programme can be found at www.fooddudes.ie ✽

GEPC PROMO LAUNCHES NEW EU CO-FUNDED MUSHROOM CAMPAIGN ACROSS EUROPE

The European Mushroom Growers Promo Group (GEPC Promo) will shortly be launching an EU co-funded €5 million promotion campaign entitled ‘European mushrooms, the Hidden Gem’ to promote the benefits of mushrooms around Europe.

The GEPC Promo, which represents ten national organisations, will be running a promotional campaign targeting millennials in nine European markets: Belgium, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland and Spain. The campaign aims to increase consumer awareness around the many advantages of European mushrooms for a healthy and balanced diet.

‘BEST IN SEASON’ FRESH PRODUCE CAMPAIGN CELEBRATE STRAWBERRY SEASON

The annual ‘Best In Season’ campaign continues to be Bord Bia’s ‘always on’ promotion of fresh, local and in-season produce, which is targeted at a broad consumer audience from 35-55 years old. The campaign seeks to complement our millennial fruit and vegetable campaign, ‘Life is Better with Fruit and Vegetables’, hosted on www.fruitnveg.ie

This strawberry season, Bord Bia developed an additional label with the sector for their own use, and to be used at their own discretion, to highlight local and in-season messages.

‘Celebrate Strawberry Season’ in itself is a focused promotion of the broader produce campaign, specifically promoting the availability of locally grown in-season strawberries. The Irish strawberry season was officially launched by Bord Bia in the first week of May this year; however, the main campaign commenced on 25 May to coincide

Millennials are the target audience for the campaign, as across Europe they consume less mushrooms than older cohorts. The campaign will have a central message, which will then be tailored to each of the nine countries. The activity in each country will consist of digital, social media, and work with influencers and campaign ambassadors, with a central website to tie the campaign together.

The campaign has a budget of €5 million of which €270,000 will be targeted directly in the Irish market. The website for the campaign has been under construction and goes live in July, followed shortly by the launch of the social media accounts.

Mushrooms are a source of vitamins B2, B3 and B5, and are high in B7 and B9, helping to maintain bones, teeth and muscles, reduce fatigue and contribute to the normal functioning of the nervous system. Specially treated mushrooms are a source of vitamin D.

Whether raw or cooked, table mushrooms are a source of potassium and are a good source of selenium. They are also low in sodium, making them ideal for low-salt diets. Better still, with their high levels of umami, table mushrooms serve as natural flavour enhancers, making them perfect for reducing salt consumption without sacrificing flavour.

Mushrooms are inexpensive, and can be used in a wide variety of dishes, adding taste with their meaty flavour. ✽ with the first major flush of strawberries on the market.

Activities commenced with strawberry recipe inspiration on Bord Bia social media channels, and native advertorials across Irishtimes.com and breakingnews.com, which promoted three strawberry recipes to suit all meal occasions.

There were also collaborations with TV cook Aisling Larkin, who created a delicious ‘Italian-inspired strawberry salad’, and food content creator Jennifer Fox, who created ‘strawberry toasts with whipped vanilla ricotta’.

Starting on the week of 5 June, Bord Bia also organised for strawberry growers to deliver strawberries to ‘influencers’ in their local areas eg North Dublin, Wexford, Kildare, etc. Burst 2 of the strawberry campaign commences on 21 August and follows on into September.

All social media and influencer communications are being directed to the Bord Bia website https://www. bordbia.ie/recipes-and-inspiration/ collections/strawberry-recipes, which hosts all Bord Bia strawberry-related recipes. The recipes are delicious and well worth a visit! ✽

BORD BIA /

Uk Mushroom Promotion

A new campaign has been launched to promote Irish mushrooms in the UK, backed with funding from Brexit Adjustment Reserve funds provided by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. The campaign is a collaboration between commercial mushroom producers Farm Fresh Produce, Northway Mushrooms Co-Operative Society, Monaghan Mushrooms and Walsh Mushrooms. As part of the campaign, high impact activity is driving awareness of the nutrition and versatility credentials of mushrooms, specifically highlighting their abundance of B vitamins and their ability to boost energy levels during the active summer months.

The campaign is anchored around a central message –“B energised this summer with mushrooms” – developed by creative agency, Spinnaker. Spread across major broadcast, social and print platforms including out of home advertising, video on demand, Meta, YouTube, TikTok, Tesco magazine, and radio and influencer marketing, the fully-integrated 360 campaign is targeting grocery shoppers across the UK, with a skew towards engaging a younger consumer audience.

The campaign is focused around a hero film, fronted by a TV talent-led partnership with ITV’s top cooking expert and mushroom enthusiast, Juliet Sear. Juliet created four brand new recognisably summer-focused recipes to be placed across ITVX throughout July, timed around prime programming slots such as Love Island. The

Easy Steps To Dream Gardens At Bord Bia Bloom

Once again, Bord Bia brought the Dream Gardens designs to life at Bord Bia Bloom 2023. Easy Steps to Dream Gardens has proven a huge success with both the public and the industry alike.

The purpose of Dream Gardens is to give the public a sense of how the gardens look in real life, and to encourage people to recreate the Dream Garden looks in their own gardens.

The Coastal Garden by James Purdy took a prominent position in the show garden area, and garnered a great reaction from the public during the five days of the show. The consensus was that the Coastal Garden was achievable; the public could envision creating the planting scheme in their own gardens.

While The Coastal Garden was the focus in the public arena at the show, it also served to drive the public to the Easy Steps to Dream Gardens area on the Bord Bia Bloom website, bringing renewed attention to the other six gardens in the Dream Gardens suite.

recipes featured in this core film showcase the versatility of mushrooms, and aim to entice viewers to incorporate mushrooms into their summer recipe repertoires.

Harnessing the power of social media and digital, video taken from the campaign’s flagship film has been edited into further educational content that delves into the nutritional benefits of mushrooms, to be advertised across Meta and YouTube platforms. The video content is also being published on Juliet Sear’s own highly-engaged social channels, in partnership with @ morewithmushrooms.

Capitalising on viral food trends across social media platforms, Irish mushroom producers are enlisting nextgeneration influencers to spark a mushroom movement across Instagram and TikTok, tapping into this summer’s most exciting recipe content, with the aim to reach a combined audience of 4 million people.

As the chief brand ambassador for Ireland’s mushroom producers for the campaign, Juliet Sear is partnering with a nutritionist to speak on national and regional radio channels. They’ll deliver the campaign’s key messaging, aiming to broadcast to an audience of 10 million listeners in the UK.

Ensuring that grocery shoppers are also effectively targeted, eye-catching mushroom digital outdoor advertising panels are launching in proximity to two key retail chain supermarkets, Sainsburys and Tesco. They showcase the four new recipes, and will reach 3.5 million shoppers.

Additionally, two full-page print adverts with fresh, eyecatching imagery, make their mark in Tesco magazine over the summer months, delivering strong messaging and targeting a further 12.6 million shoppers across the UK. ✽

A full social media campaign –utilising the assets developed for virtual Bord Bia Bloom – alongside a PR campaign, took place in the lead up to and during Bord Bia Bloom. A suite of specially commissioned point-of-sale and social media assets was sent to and utilised by garden centres around the country, to focus attention on the plants featured in the garden.

As one part of the Bord Bia social media campaign, we collaborated with gardening enthusiast and YouTube blogger, Niall McCauley of Niall Gardens. For this collaboration, Niall highlighted crucial elements of creating your Easy Steps to Dream Gardens with Bord Bia’s resources in the lead up to Bord Bia Bloom.

Across his four-part video series, Niall takes the viewer on a step-by-step process to create their dream garden, whilst highlighting the success of James Purdy’s Coastal Garden. Alongside a consistent presence on his YouTube channel, Niall also shared all Dream Gardens content to various social channels, such as Facebook.

YOUTUBE RESULTS

Video views – 10,302

INSTAGRAM RESULTS

Reach – 14,300

Engagement - 609

TIKTOK RESULTS

Reach – 4,624

Niall utilised Instagram reels and stories to highlight the Dream Gardens content he created for his channels, and made a series of faceto-camera reels highlighting the runup to Bord Bia Bloom, whilst keeping focus on the downloadable resources for Dream Gardens on the Bord Bia Bloom website (bordbiabloom.com/ dreamgardens). ✽

Home Grown, the seven-part TV series sponsored by Bord Bia celebrating the Irish horticulture industry, aired on RTE1 for seven weeks from 7 November to 19 December 2022, and was repeated in its entirety during spring 2023. Feedback from the sector and the public was overwhelmingly positive, as demonstrated in the results of separate consumer and industry evaluations carried out following the airing of the series.

Viewing Figures

Final viewing figures for the two broadcast runs of the series showed that two million viewers tuned in to watch Home Grown, despite stiff competition during the first run from the World Cup matches and I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here! These figures are for the live broadcast and do not reflect viewings on the RTE player, or on recording for watching later.

Consumer Evaluation

A nationally representative online survey was carried out amongst 1,000 adults aged 18+, to understand awareness of Bord Bia sponsorship of the TV show, the reception of the content to viewers, and the impact on the brand.

Key Findings

16 per cent of regular viewers were able to spontaneously identify Bord Bia as the sponsor of Home Grown, with a significant uplift to 42 per cent when prompted. Respondents were asked: “To what extent do each of the following statements apply to this sponsorship for Irish horticulture? (By ‘Irish horticulture’ we mean fresh fruit and vegetables and ornamental plants grown in Ireland).”

The following scores were achieved for each statement:

● It made me realise that we have a vibrant Irish horticulture industry: 96 per cent

● It made me more aware of the Irish horticulture industry: 93 per cent

● It provides inspiration to choose Irish-grown fresh