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.

Thursday, October 24, 2013

What houseplant should I put here?

When we are asked to go and look after people's sick plants that they have sourced themselves, one of the frequent reasons why the plants are sick is that they are completely wrong for the area.

As anyone that has been supplied with new plants by me will know, I can be extremely awkward about letting people have the plant they want. Unfortunately, everyone wants something colourful, preferably flowering, but this is rarely appropriate. This is know as "flowering cactus" syndrome, after a famous sales call I did to a Southampton Tex-Mex restaurant that, despite being pitch-dark and very warm insisted that I sell them flowering cacti. I flatly refused, and didn't get the job as a result. Flowering cacti would have been a mushy mess in a few months at the most.

Clients also have some fairly difficult briefs to fulfil - I recall a client that wanted "slender but bushy" plants  - but that's another story.

When choosing plants without expert advice in a garden centre it doesn't help that the plant labels tend to all say the same thing, namely:

"Plenty of light but avoid direct sunlight, never allow the compost to dry out completely".

So here's my little guide to what plants to put where, based on the two most important criteria: light and temperature.

Yucca Elmila
Cold and light

By which I mean cold some of the time, maybe hot at others, so think conservatories, windowed porches etc.

The classic choice here is the Yucca, either the straight 2/3 stem ones you see a lot or the lovely branched type shown here.

You can also try Nolina Recurveata, or as a small plant Chamaedorea (Parlour Palm) will do ok.

Cold and dark
Kentia palm

There's one plant that makes our profession possible: the Kentia Palm. This will survive low light and pretty low temperatures with reasonable ease. That's why we use them so much.

If you're talking dark and completely unheated, this is where you want to look at shade-tolerant plants that are also outdoor plants in the UK. The two that come to mind are Aucuba Japonica and Fatsia Japonica. Both will happily live in unheated indoor spaces. Though as I kill Fatsias, I'm a fine one to talk.



Sansevieria Laurentii 
Hot and dark

This is the worst combination, surprisingly, but it describes a lot of modern office buildings' environment.

Mother-in-Law's Tongues (Sansevieria) will cope with this well if you keep them nice and dry.

Also most of the darker-leaved Dracaenas (Dragon Trees) will cope pretty well.


 Hot and light

The world is your oyster! This is generally the best combination and all the plants above would do
Ficus Amstel Gold
fine here if adequately watered. However - as I'm often reminding my staff - if you can use a high light plant do so, as you can't use it somewhere else.

The number one choice has to be the Ficus family - with the exception of the Rubber Plant, all the Ficuses need medium to high light, and while they can survive lower temperatures than some houseplants, they don't like cold draughts.

If anyone wants more information, I have a more extensive table of plant suitability that I use for staff training purposes, contact me at the email address below and I'll send one to you.

Jonathan