Stewarts Office Plants

We supply many businesses across the South, from Sussex and Surrey, through Hampshire and Dorset to Wiltshire and Somerset. For more information about the services we offer visit our home page, or contact us here. In this blog you'll find news, interesting snippets, stories and pictures of our staff's adventures out on the road.

Monday, March 26, 2012

Another challenging installation

I think the last challenging install I blogged was palms bolted to the end of Bournemouth Pier, which incidentally are still going strong. This time we were at a private house in Branksome installing a very big plant. But this was a cracker:

1. The photo shrinks it: that's 3m from soil to tip, and as heavy as that implies. Incidentally, it was a lovely example of the Dracaena Song of Jamaica - one of my favourite large specimen plants.

2. The pot is about 1.8m high.

3. The pot (the client's own) was not watertight, which is kind of a must indoors.

4. The approach is from the left of the photo with a relatively low ceiling.

5. Once in the pot we'd never get the rootball out of the growing pot, but if we removed it first we wouldn't have anything to hold on to.

So.... we carried the plant in top-first then some of us carried the head up the stairs while the rest of us carried the rootball in an old bulk bag and lifted it on to the top of the pot. So the plant is now diagonal across the banister. We then whipped the bulk bag off (like a waiter removing the tablecloth without knocking over the glasses) and plopped the plant in the hole.

Oh, and I'd previously cut a double layer of pond liner to size so that when the plant plopped, it formed a waterproof layer round itself.

Re-reading that makes it sound easy. Holding a 50kg plant vertically and 1.8m off the ground while someone pulls a bag out from under it is no mean feat. You name it, Stewarts can install it!

Jonathan

Monday, March 05, 2012

Even more gorgeous spring hanging baskets




























You don't have to be the most attentive student of our blog to know I posted a picture of some spring hanging baskets in the back of my van less than three weeks ago.



These however are even nicer, and deserved a post of their own.



They are destined, I fear, for a rather unlovely office block in Portsmouth, however, it can't fail to be that bit lovelier with these adorning the front.



If you check our website's 'latest news' section you'll see an article about hanging baskets. The picture on there is of the building where they are going. When that was taken they had all-pansy baskets which at the time I thought couldn't be bettered. Now I'm not so sure! The test will be whether these primrose-heavy baskets go the distance until the end of May. We'll see...

















Thursday, March 01, 2012

How do we make our plants so shiny?

One of the questions my technicians get asked frequently when out and about doing maintenance is how we make our plants so shiny. I am happy to explain, though you may not like the answer if you were thinking of buying some!

We use a product called Pixie Sparkle. No, I'm not joking. Here's a pic:


















We dilute this down to almost homoeopathic levels (more than the instructions say) and spray it on in the little spray bottles you see us carrying. It doesn't have a lot of effect the first time, but repeated use gives the plant a natural sheen. The alternative is aerosol leaf shine which (in my opinion) imparts an unnatural 'wet look' shine to the foliage, and can damage the leaves if not used carefully.

You can buy it online from a few places. Here's one place.

But look at the price: now you know why we dilute it so much!

Ahem... what I meant to say is, when you get your plants maintained by Stewarts, no expense is spared!

Jonathan