On The Ground In Sydney: What The AIPH Meeting’s Professional Tours Revealed

Large-scale production at Andreasens Green, Australia, is organised to meet project-based demand and precise specifications.

During the AIPH Meeting Sydney 2026, delegates had the opportunity to step outside the conference setting and into working horticultural businesses. While formal sessions set the strategic tone, the professional tours brought the realities of the Australian industry into sharp focus. The same themes explored during the AIPH Horticultural Industry Conference, from climate pressures to shifting consumer behaviour, were evident on the ground.

Across two contrasting visits, organised with the support of Greenlife Industry Australia, delegates gained direct insight into how Australian growers and retailers are responding to changing market expectations, operational constraints, and the ongoing challenge of reconnecting people with plants.

Scaling Green Infrastructure: Andreasens Green

At Andreasens Green, the scale and complexity of the commercial landscaping supply became immediately clear. Delegates were welcomed by General Manager Andrew O’Neill and Sales Director Darren Mason. Both outlined the realities of supplying plants for large-scale infrastructure and urban development projects.

Delegates receive a technical briefing during the professional tour, highlighting operational and production considerations.

With over 45 years in operation, the nursery is firmly project-driven. It works almost exclusively with detailed schedules from developers, councils, and contractors. There is no retail element. Production is disciplined, demand-led, and closely tied to project timelines spanning months to years.

As discussed during the visit, this model leaves little room for flexibility. Plants are grown to specification, often in response to highly detailed briefs, reflecting increasing demands from developers, landscape architects, and contractors for precision and consistency.

“We’re not growing for speculation — everything is tied to a project, a timeline, and a very specific requirement.

The scale is equally striking, with tens of thousands of trees supplied annually across projects ranging from transport infrastructure to major urban developments. Yet, even at this level, biological limits remain a constant constraint. Growing cycles cannot be accelerated to meet sudden demand, reinforcing the need for early collaboration between growers, designers, and contractors.

Container-grown trees are cultivated under controlled irrigation to meet infrastructure and landscaping specifications.

For growers supplying into this segment, the message is clear: success depends on planning, reliability, and the ability to meet increasingly exact specifications. The conversation also turned to the longer-term value of green infrastructure. Beyond compliance or aesthetics, trees are increasingly positioned as essential urban assets, contributing to liveability, climate resilience, and long-term planning objectives. Translating that value into procurement decisions, however, remains an ongoing challenge.

Reinventing Retail: Tim’s Garden Centre

If Andreasens Green demonstrated scale and structure, Tim’s Garden Centre showed something different. Its perspective is rooted in retail agility, storytelling, and direct consumer engagement.

Owner Tim Pickles shared how a renewed focus on social media for his business has transformed it, shifting the emphasis away from product-led selling towards people-driven storytelling.

“It’s all about people, not plants. If you tell a story about a person, with a plant in the background, it works far better than just trying to sell something.”

Retail messaging at Tim’s Garden Centre highlights fast-growing hedging plants, linking product benefits to everyday customer needs.

This approach has delivered tangible results. A single campaign centred around potting mix reached millions online and led to the sale of 43 pallets in just one week, demonstrating the commercial power of engagement when done well.

For Pickles, consistency is key.

“If you’re not posting regularly, your story just disappears.”

What resonated with delegates was the mindset shift. Success now depends less on product range or price and more on visibility, authenticity, and customer connection.

AIPH President, Leonardo Capitanio and Tim Pickles exchange insights on plant selection and retail trends during the professional tour of Tim’s Garden Centre.

At the same time, the visit highlighted changing consumer behaviour. In Australia, smaller living spaces and evolving lifestyles are reducing demand for large trees, while compact, low-maintenance varieties are becoming more attractive to customers.

For growers supplying retail channels, this shift has clear implications for production planning, plant selection, and product positioning at the point of sale.

Efforts to rebuild a connection with nature are visible throughout the business. Community tree-planting initiatives and pot-recycling schemes not only support environmental goals and draw customers into the nursery, often from competing outlets.

Pickles’ approach reflects a broader reinvention of garden centre retail, blending horticulture with storytelling, community engagement, and a clear understanding of how modern consumers interact with plants.

A diverse retail offering reflects evolving consumer demand for compact, colourful and easy-care plants.

A Shared Challenge: Reconnecting Value

Across both visits, the shared challenge facing growers and suppliers became clear: they must demonstrate the unique, tangible value of plants and their expertise, not simply deliver a commodity, whether serving major development projects or engaging with consumers in retail spaces.

For large-scale suppliers, this means aligning production closely with project timelines and demonstrating reliability in meeting complex specifications. For those supplying retail, it means adapting to changing consumer preferences and supporting customers in selecting and caring for plants.

The Sydney Professional Tours underscored that ornamental horticulture’s success now depends on a single unifying challenge: how effectively growers and suppliers communicate and demonstrate the ongoing value of plants to both buyers and end users, adapting to expectations while delivering measurable benefits.

These same challenges are expected to remain central to industry discussions in the months ahead, including at the forthcoming 78th AIPH Annual Congress in Bari, Italy.