Vol. 7, Issue 2 | June 2015

Getting Plants into the News

By Othmar Ziswiler

From March through Easter, the Swiss newspapers wrote a lot about gardens, plants and the awakening nature. After Easter the media interest in garden topics slows down and this year we wanted to do something to continue the interest. We chose three plants from which we wanted to come in the daily press. These were strawberry hanging basket, Pelargonium Calliope / Caliente and grafted basil.

It isn’t as easy as just sending a PR text to the editors. We have set up appointments with the journalists and have met them in person. The surprising thing was that the journalists often took an hour to talk with us about the plants and other garden topic. It showed clearly that our respondents have heard about “Urban Gardening” and this is an issue for their colleagues. The coverage of the plants with several articles and images was very appealing.