In the blink of an eye 2018 was over!

Thank you to everybody who shaped our year. We continued to have our wonderful online community active and growing, with the added excitement of the Austraflora Photography Club establishing as a group running alongside our page. Each month we received approximately 1,000 photos posted on our page and delighting our followers. We often had members commenting on how friendly, welcoming and relaxed the group has been, as well as how beautiful and impressive the photos are. The club now has over 3,500 members, so together with our Facebook page we’re reaching out to over 41,500 people. We hope that in 2019 it’ll continue to be a hive of activity. It’s been an absolute pleasure to run.

Our annual Photography Competition launched for the seventh time, and we received 1,400 photos of Australian flora, nature and landscapes. Photographers of all skill levels entered; it was a great mix of professional and amateur. There was a terrific range of prizes this year, including flights, accommodation and tickets to the Melbourne International Flower & Garden Show for the first place winner, Beth Baker. We look forward to seeing her at MIFGS 2019, and it was great meeting up with our 2018 winner David Ashley this year. The 12 winning photos were featured in our 2019 Austraflora Calendar, with proceeds going towards MS Australia. Well done to our shortlisters, finalists, and winners! Again, the quality of photography was absolutely outstanding.

The Austraflora website continued to be a popular source of information for growers, retailers, landscapers and home gardeners. Our articles page “Dishing The Dirt” reached over 160 blog posts this year!

Have you seen our new plants this year? We’ve added lovely labels some to our range. There’s more to come in 2019.

The biggest thank you to our friends at Fiskars, Searles, and Seasol for your very generous prize donations this year. It’s a fun part of our job running our competitions, and we can promise more to come!

We appreciate your enthusiasm and involvement at Austraflora. Thank you and happy gardening!

The Austraflora Team

(Image credit: “Galah on Eucalyptus” by Paul Green)