There’s an app for that

Last year, I spent about 75 days on the road. That’s about a week each month traveling to trade shows, conferences, contractor offices and manufacturer events. My editors were gone for another 25 each.

Apart from racking up frequent flier miles and learning a lot more than we ever wanted to about the surreal nature of pre-packaged sandwiches sold in airport kiosks, all this travel helps me and my team do one thing very well: understand the landscape industry, identify our readers’ problems and figure out what they need from a publication like Lawn & Landscape.

Having great reporters and editors with boots on the ground across the country helps us bring original and independent stories from the industry at large to each of our readers in many ways. And while we cover events like the GIE+EXPO and Next Level University on Twitter, our website and then, later, in the print edition, each medium is limited in its reach and scope. Tweets tend to disappear fast and the printed magazine comes out too long after the events to have any immediate impact.

But now, thanks to our talented team of developers and designers, we’ve got an even better way for you to get the latest, most up-to-the-minute news, product announcements and multimedia from us.

This month, in partnership with our sister publications in the nursery, greenhouse, garden center and golf course industries, we’ve launched the GIE Media Horticulture News app. It’s a clearinghouse for breaking news, industry updates, feature stories, the latest products and videos from our crack team of editors on the five markets we serve.

So now, you have access to breaking business news in the landscape industry, updates on tree and shrub diseases from our nursery team, turf science updates from the golf editors, retail insight from our garden center editors and seasonal color insight from the greenhouse group – all in one place, updated 24/7 and right at your fingertips.

The first phase of the app launch works on iPhones and iPads, and we’ll expand its functionality to work on Android devices later this year.

It's the next iteration of innovation from GIE Media – you do already have the Lawn & Landscape app, right? Download it for free on iTunes or your Android Market. You’ll be glad you did.