Changes In Nursery Trade

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32220, 12 February 1970, Page 14

Changes In Nursery Trade

Small nursery businesses had found it increasingly difficult to compete with the larger nurseries during the last year, said the president of the New Zealand Nurserymen’s Association (Mr P. C. Gardner) in the sixty-third annual report of the executive committee presented yesterday at the association’s conference.

The year was a particularly hard one for the smaller businesses, said Mr Gardner, and these comprised the majority of the association’s members, he said. The last year had appeared to show a marked change tn the pattern of trading of many of the members of the association. The pattern in both the type of plant being purchased and the method of purchasing had changed There had been a distinct swing away from mail ordering and forward ordering of plants, and an increase in cash garden centre and shop purchases, said Mr Gardner.

After several years of discussion at conference and district council level the association changed its name at the 1960 conference from the New Zealand Horticultural Trades Association to the .New Zealand {Nurserymen's Association. The new name had been well received throughout trade circles, said Mr Gardner, and a new. modern insignia has been adapted which the association hopes its members will promote. Decline in Membership Since 1965. membership in the association bad been declining .and over the last four years

'there had been a drop of nearly 19 per cent. Something must be I done to prevent the decline, land the best way of achieving this was through present members endeavouring to interest prospective members in the association, Mr Gardner said. Last year 24 new members joined the association, giving it a total of 330 ordinary members, in addition to whom there were 20 allied members. Officers Elected The following officers were

elected the conference: President, Mr P. c. Gardner (Levin): immediate past-presi-dent, Mr T. C. Davies (New Plymouth); secretary-treasurer, Mr C. B, Grant (Lower Hutt); executive, Messrs A. D. Gourdie, G. Rainey, L. R. Bell (Auckland), Mrs M. R. Jones (Bay of Plenty), Messrs N. V. Davies (Taranaki), B. Blackman (Waikato), S. Desborough (Wellington), A. C. Morgan (Canterbury), C. H. Willis (Gtago), R. Vercoe (Southland).