May 2013 – Shoot Blog

May 30, 2013

Introducing Shoot +

By Nicola Gammon, Founder of Shoot

David Edelman’s article Give Me My Data has inspired me to open a conversation with my members and plant retailers about getting more seamless access to our own plant buying history.

One of the key differentiators for brands in the future will be how they make the data they have gathered about us more accessible and usable … and then turned into a service of itself

Shoot provides over 60,000 gardeners with a ‘my plant list’ and ‘my plant care advice’ service as well as detailed information on 15,000 (and growing) plants. If you tell us which plants are in your garden we send you pro-active, personalised plant care reminders each month. Shoot was born out of my own frustrations with plant buying and care. It has now gone on to win awards awards including Website of the Year 2012 from the Garden Media Guild and a Which? Best Buy. Some members love our service so much they are now Lifetime Members. I am thrilled to see how well Shoot is received.

I find Shoot invaluable for the jobs to do every month, for knowing what plants I have where, when I put them in, where I bought them

However, I am also aware that our service could be easier to use. It is a time consuming and boring task to gather all your plant labels before you throw them away, search through our 15,000 plants to find each one you just bought and then to add each plant to your own plant list.

An easier way could be so beautifully simple – I am calling it Shoot +. When you shop at your favourite garden centre or plant nursery, simply hand over your club loyalty card at check-out and Shoot will take a feed from their till systems to update your plants list for you with a note of when and where you bought them … automatically on your behalf.

Shoot is looking for one plant retailer to conduct a trial of Shoot +

How can you help? If you are a club member of a Garden Centre please suggest they trial Shoot + If you are willing to wear a badge or hand over a Shoot + leaflet please contact us. Or if you are visionary plant retailer and want to trial the Shoot + service for your own customers please get in touch with us. We’d love to hear from you.

May 23, 2013

Hidden Garden Art Show

By Maureen Michaelson.

Hidden Garden Art Show in Association with Chelsea Fringe 2013, which began last weekend on Sat 18 May, and is open every Sat and Sun from 12 -6pm until 9 June. This is a reminder that there are now only three weekends left to visit the Hidden Garden Art Show. This coming Sunday 26 May, we are featuring Glass in the Garden. Multi-award winning artist LISA PETTIBONE, who delighted the audience last year at the Artists Talk, will be in attendance from 2 – 5.30pm for visitors to talk to.

Don’t forget the Artists Talk with FRANCES DOHERTY on Sunday 9 June at 3pm, for which there are still spaces available. This will be a chance to hear about the fascinating career trajectory which Frances has had; her life which sees her travelling between France and England sometimes more than once a week; and details of how she creates her extraordinarily complex handbuilt ‘insect eye view’ plant forms.

PATRICIA VOLK, ARBS who has been creating distinctive outdoor sculpture for over 20 years, and has pieces in several important art collections is exhibiting with us for the first time this year.

Another newcomer to the show this year is PAUL COX, also a multi-award winning artist, whose humorous and witty pieces are to be found in several high profile international collections. Since most of Paul’s work is on an enormous scale, including a nine ton Noah’s Ark bought by an Armenian museum overlooking Mount Ararat where the Ark was supposed to have found land, he has provided two pieces which are scaled to fit domestic gardens.

For those of you who were disappointed to have missed out last year on a slate table by HELEN NOCK, there is another chance to nab one. This year she has made an 80cm table which comes with two rare hand forged metal ladder back chairs, plus tables and stools in smaller sizes. Best to come early to the show if you want to secure one.

PETER CLARKE, ARBS, after his sell-out show last year has not disappointed with a new selection of copper and stainless steel leaf forms, including a fabulous Hanging Leaf which can be suspended from a tree or pergola, and the re-appearance of old favourite Organic verdigris copper forms which were so popular in early years of the show.

Finally, stalwart of the show JONATHAN GARRATT has made a selection of his all time best ‘Garden Punctuation’ installations and will be bringing a small selection of his pots.

Find out more visit Hidden Garden Art Show in Association with Chelsea Fringe 2013

May 21, 2013

Chelsea Flower Show Centenary

Chelsea Flower Show is the greatest flower show on earth. Once againt this year we were given press access to cover all the main show gardens. We are pleased to share with you all the main Chelsea Flower Show gardens including description, garden and plant photos as well as plants lists so you can bring a little bit of Chelsea into your own garden.

Please click on any of the links below to read more.

Best in Show Trailfinders Australian Garden presented by Flemings

Homebase 'Sowing the Seeds of Change' Garden — Homebase ‘Sowing the Seeds of Change’ Garden

Stockton Drilling's 'As Nature Intended' — Stockton Drilling’s ‘As Nature Intended’

Stoke-on-Trent's story of Transformation — Stoke-on-Trent’s story of Transformation

May 18, 2013

MyGardenSchool Courses £45 OFF

By Elspeth Briscoe, MyGardenSchool.

Just in time for The Chelsea Flower Show, we’re delighted to announce that the world’s first online gardening school, MyGardenSchool, has teamed up with Shoot to sell online gardening courses via the Shoot Marketplace.

MyGardenSchool is offering all Shoot members a £45 discount off four week online gardening courses as part of their membership package.

MyGardenSchool has attracted some of the world’s greatest gardening authors and horticulture experts to teach via this thriving global online horticulture school.

You actually get personal advice from these experts in the online classrooms, as well as video lectures, downloadable notes, and critiqued assignments. The latest course to be developed is by Michael Marriott, Chelsea Flower Show regular for David Austin Roses. The new online gardening course on roses goes live on May 4th for the first – just in time to co-incide with The Chelsea Flower Show (which starts on May 20th this year).

All MyGardenSchool online gardening courses start on the first Saturday of each month, and run throughout the year. More can be found about How it Works here.

Book now to secure a place. Next courses start 1st June.

o Planting Design with Perennials – Noel Kingsbury

o Designing with Shrubs – Andy McIndoe

o David Austin’s Growing Roses – Michael Marriott

o Edible Gardening Made Easy – Alex Mitchell

o Flower Photography – Sue Bishop

o An introduction to Garden Design – John Brookes

o Planting Design with Grasses – Michael King

o Garden History – Toby Musgrave

Please contact founder Elspeth Briscoe if you have any other questions.

May 17, 2013

Chelsea Flower Show 2013

The countdown begins for Chelsea Flower Show 2013!

We will be profiling the show as we do each year. Please click here for show gardens and plant lists for each garden.

Meet Shoot member Bar Lawson who has been selected as a Chelsea Flower Show plant hunter. Exciting news.

Finally please take a look at our RHS Chelsea Flower Show pinboard for beautiful images of previous year’s show gardens.

May 16, 2013

New & Improved Garden Planner

Our award-winning garden planner is now even better!

Improvements include:

– full screen planning
– more flexible drawing shapes
– more printing options
– save as a JPEG or PNG

– easy to find my plants list

– more plant information on 15,000 plants (e.g. height, spread, soil and other growing conditions) to help you plan your garden

Join Shoot today.

May 15, 2013

Smarter Plant Lists and Care

The smarter way to provide plant lists and care advice to clients

I’m a professional garden designer or landscaper. Why would I use Shoot Professional membership?

Time

Working with Shoot’s online plant database of over 15 000 varieties can literally save you hours of work in compiling and researching planting schemes. You can select varieties at the click of a button and add them to a client planting list. Every variety has both a photograph and extensive variety information for you to present to your clients. If a plant is missing from the database, our experts will add it for you. Tweak the list until your client is satisfied, then upon the project’s completion, Shoot allows you to
hand over a detailed plant list online.

Revenue

You simply send a plant list on Shoot to your client, and Shoot’s unique plant maintenance software generates a bespoke plant care calendar with timely email advice reminders on what to do when to keep their garden in tip-top condition. You can offer a Shoot membership as a costed extra part of your contract or include it as a free additional service.

Maintain your vision

When you leave a site, equip your clients with the essential knowledge to care for their new garden. With a personalised Shoot planting plan you are giving clients the confidence and the tools to look after their garden and helping to maintain the garden vision you designed.

Develop your profile

Profile your work in Shoot’s ‘Inspirational Gardens’ section, be listed on the ‘Gardening Services’ directory, and contribute guest blogs and views in the active gardening forums.

“Time and value for money are Shoot’s huge benefits to my business. I am logged in a lot! I use Shoot in the preliminaries when I’m proposing planting schemes to customers and researching new plants and fresh ideas. And at the end of the project, I either sell Shoot membership and the personalised plant maintenance programme or, for larger projects, provide it as part of the package.” Matt Nichol , MSGD MBALI Matt Nichol Garden Design, Cheshire

www.mngardendesign.co.uk

“Shoot’s plant information and image database is so comprehensive that it saves me a huge amount of time. I use Shoot when I am proposing a design, and as part of the closing package upon completion. Our customers really love it. Shoot is an important selling point for the Haskett’s service to the client.” Helen Boem, BSc (Hons) Hort, Haskett Ltd, Essex

www.haskett.co.uk

“We use Shoot to give our clients monthly maintenance advice and the clients that sign up for it have been very happy. We also contribute guest blogs and finished projects for Shoot’s featured gardens and Pinterest boards.” Helen Elks-Smith MSGD, Bsc(Hons) Dip(GD) Cert(Hort) Elks-Smith Design Ltd,

www.elks-smith.co.uk

The bottom line: just £130* per year

As a Shoot Professional Member you can give unlimited number of one-year Shoot membership accounts to your clients during your subscription period. Many designers and landscapers choose to earn their membership fee back by charging £50-£120 per client account. *pricing as of April 2013 subject to change

Vectorworks Landmark teams with Shoot

NEW! If you are a Vectorworks Service Select member using Landmark 2013 and a Shoot Professional membership, you can associate a Shoot plant with any native Vectorworks Plant Objects within your designs, and then export your plant lists from Vectorworks software into the Shoot website to create online virtual maintenance schedules for clients. This exciting integration saves you even more time!

Join Shoot as a Professional Member here

View PDF version here

May 15, 2013

Garden designing downunder

By Garden Designer Andrew Fisher Tomlin.

Just back from a quick week trip to New South Wales where the inaugural Australian Garden Show Sydney was launched. I’m honoured to be one of three Ambassadors for the show and, together with Tom Harfleet, have been commissioned to create the main show feature from 5th to 7th September in Centennial Park in Sydney. The show is support by Destination New South Wales and is a sure winner in a city starved of garden shows!

It’s a vast garden called September Sky, that celebrates the wide open landscapes of Australia and emphasises the beauty of the native flora to be found. As travellers wherever we are in the world it’s these skies that bond us together and link us back to our different homelands.

Our garden references the need to protect and conserve highlighting typical Australian natives from a perspective of the outsider to the country in a contemporary garden where strong architectural forms engage with a much wilder planting. The challenge is that we don’t use Australian natives in our daily work so it’s been a bit of a baptism of fire to work out the trees and plants to use. So far we’re looking at Waterhousea trees and a visit to Alpine Nurseries just outside of Sydney revealed some stunning specimens and a whole range of grasses and shrubs like Westringia that we can use.

I have two key people arriving for Chelsea next week – they are our landscaper and main design support – so we’re working on drawings and plans to discuss with them. Then we have just 12 weeks to pull it all together! I’ll keep you up to date with progress.

Contact Andrew Fisher Tomlin