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Here's the real reason for all VanDusen's great publicif.v

Aoril 27 .2012. 8:53 om . Section: ln the Garden

Mike Bell, our videographer, and I were at VanDusen Botanical Garden on Friday to shoot some video ofthe preparation work under way for the monster plant sale on Sunday.

This is the biggest plant sale in the Lower Mainland with more than 10,000 people turning out to gobbleup about 40,000 plants within six hours. The sale runs from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

But what most people don't reahze is that the reason VanDusen is getting all this publicity is due in nosmall part to the creative efforts of Nancy Wong, the garden's media and marketing director.

f it were not for the fact that she put out such powerfullywritten press releases this week, I am somewhat doubtful that we, or other media, would have given the

event as much coverage as we have.

After all, I had already done a full-page feature on local plant sales a few weeks ago and, frankly, Ithought that was sufficient.

But then Nancy's extremely persuasive press releases arrived via email and caught everyone'simagination, not just mine, but also our photo editor, arts and lifestyle editor, city editor, even a coupleof the senior editors. That's some eye-catching media release.

Everyone was excited about the idea of this huge plant sale and the stampede of people who would bethere early Sunday morning to snap up all 40,000 plants. That was Nancy's creative pitch.

Which is why I ended up writing a piece for our West Coast Life section and why Mike and I were alsoassigned to do a video and it is no doubt the reason you are going to see the sale splattered all over TV.

Yes, Nancy is some persuasive force when she puts pen to paper. And I applaud her skill because it is notthat we are being tricked into doing what we don't want to do or manipulated into doing what we shouldnot do, it is more a case of her being able to put the event in a fresh, more interesting light, one we hadn'treally considered before. And that is essentially the skill of a good PR.

Anyway, if you go to the planbt sale on Sunday, remember admission to the garden is free, so you shouldmake a point of not missing the stunning sea of blue formed by hundreds of forget-me-nots with red, pinkand purple tulips rising above the blue that you will find in the area just beyond the rose garden.