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, August 15, 2016

Workplace safety

Here at Stewarts we take safety very seriously, and we obey our many clients' requests to obey their health & safety rules without complaint, even the ones that don't make a lot of sense. For example, don't get me started on having to wear a reflective jacket to water plants in an office...

So it's quite nice occasionally to see one of our clients doing something not only a bit unsafe, but funny too.

Obviously I am honour-bound not to divulge such things, unless the Wiltshire client in question cancels their contract with us and closes the building, in which case anything goes!

So here, for your entertainment, is a self-closing kitchen door (i.e. self-closing as a fire protection measure), held open with a loop of tinsel attached to a cupboard door opposite. It was in place for many months that I sporadically visited the site. If I remember rightly the door even had a sign saying "keep closed" on it.

In a way, you have to admire the creativity, but...

Jonathan


MY, how you've grown!

Four years ago I did a blog post I called "How you've grown!" which featured a couple of examples of big specimen plants that have really grown.

This time I'm calling it "MY, how you've grown" because these really have excelled themselves. Sadly, to a degree where we had to dig out and replace them, as they were in a narrow brick-built bed in a client's premises in Andover, and they were wedged in solid (and took quite a lot of digging out!). So they've been a victim of their own success, sadly.


So these were four Nolina or Beaucarnea Recurvata (which ever name is currently in fashion, I can't keep up) with their woody bulbs about 40cm wide. What's incredible here is that I planted these in 2002, when their rootballs fitted in 13cm pots, exactly like the empty pot I've placed in the photo. They looked like the ones on the left. 

But they've grown just a bit since then.

Want to know about Nolinas/Beaucarneas? They need lots of light, very little water, and will tolerate low temperature, so they are a perfect porch/conservatory plant. A word of advice though: they have a rough leaf edge and can give you a nasty 'paper cut' if you run your fingers down the leaves.

Tuesday, August 02, 2016

Bonus feature plant: Ficus Benjamina Open Braid


Yes, I know I only did a feature plant post yesterday, but I'm just prepping these Ficus Benjaminas for an upcoming installation in Southampton, so I thought I'd talk about them, as they are a little unusual in shape.

Ficus Benjamina is of course a very common plant (common name being Weeping Fig). Usual bit of care info: like most other Ficus, these need a decent level of light, to be kept moist at all times, and they really don't like draughts, thought they can tolerate a cooler (maybe 13-14 deg C?) spot than many indoor plants.

What makes these unusual is their 'open braid' or 'cylinder' trunk. This is formed by planting about six small plants and weaving them as they grow.

A particular client, who owns a number of office buildings, particularly likes these, so in this new site in Southampton's Ocean Village they are having nothing but these, just in different sizes. As you can see, they are available in as small a size as 1.5m. Though be warned:they cost more than four times as much as an ordinary Ficus Benj of the same height. Plant costs are largely determined by the speed of growth, and these clearly take a while.

They are also going in some rather unusual pots called, rather inauspiciously, 'Blobs'. I won't spoil the surprise yet, perhaps I'll post some pictures of the finished installation, and let my readers judge if the name is appropriate.

Naturally, if this shape of plant really grabs you, and you're ready for the price premium, get in touch. You'll struggle to find one for sale in a shop; we can get you one direct from Holland in at worst three weeks.

Jonathan

Monday, August 01, 2016

Look at our lovely summer hanging baskets


Now, I'm not sure I should be taking much credit for this, as I don't personally make up our hanging baskets, and like most of our basket clients, we just supply these; we don't look after them. But even so, I was so impressed with how good these looked that I had to take a picture.

I don't reveal the names of our clients, suffice to say it was a pub adjacent to a large ruined castle
between Swanage and Wareham...

In fact the baskets were so good this year that one was the victim of its own success, and had got so heavy that it had pulled its rather dilapidated bracket off the wall.

So my visit was to replace the bracket with this rather gorgeous hand-made bracket, once I'd drilled some holes into the extremely tough Purbeck Stone walls.

It is, of course, far too late to buy any summer baskets, in fact we will be taking orders for Autumn/Winter baskets (made by the same lady as made these) in a few weeks. If you are interested, get in touch.

Jonathan

Feature Plant: Philodendron Brasil

This month's feature plant is a rather lovely trailing plant called Philodendron Brasil, which is noted for its very striking and well defined two-tone green leaves.

Often mistaken for Scindapsis (Devil's Ivy), it is in fact a variegated version of the plain green Philodendron Scandens. None of which may mean anything to the casual reader. P. Brasil is odd for two reasons:

1. It is arguably a stronger plant than the plain green version. As plant lovers will know, variegated plants tend to need more light and be generally a bit less forgiving than the plain green 'vanilla' variety. Another that follows this pattern is Sansevieria (Mother-in-Law's Tongue), where the yellow variegated version (S. Laurentii) is generally agreed to be tougher than the plain green version (S. Zeylanica). I blogged recently about this plant..

2. Annoyingly, it's only available in the two sizes shown, i.e. a trailing plant or a 1.2m mosspole plants. The default specimen plant size is 1.5m; if I had a pound for every time one of my maintenance staff had tried to order a 1.5m P. Brasil, and I'd had to break it to them that they don't exist... I'd have at least enough for a round of drinks. I gave up understanding the vagaries of Dutch plant supply years ago, I just take what I can get.

Anyway, so assuming an internet search brought you here as ever, here's a little care advice. P. Brasil can tolerate middling to low light, does not enjoy getting cold, and can be pruned simply by cutting runners back to the soil or mosspole. One more tip: if replanting any mosspole plant out of its growing pot into a new container, be very careful. One of the common ways to damage such plants is to be a bit rough with the interface between the mosspole and the rootball, causing sudden death. For similar reasons, avoid carrying them by the pole; lift them by the pot.

Jonathan