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, March 09, 2023

Farewell, dear reader

 

You will notice that this blog has been extremely quiet in the last year or two. 

Two reasons:

1. We now have a Facebook page which I urge you to go like. 

2. We have been extremely busy, like three times as many new sales etc than normal, and quite simply updating the company blog fell off my realistic to-do list.

To make things worse, after twenty one years I am leaving my role as Stewarts Interior Landscaping's assistant manager to concentrate on sales only, in a working-from-home capacity. 

My capable replacement Eleanor will certainly concentrate on the Facebook page, and probably even more modern social media platforms than I even know exist.

So, dear reader, there is every chance this blog will become even quieter.

I'll leave you with a reissue of the photo I used to introduce myself back when I took over this blog sixteen years ago, said photo taken in 2002, when I still had hair, and functioning vertebrae!

Farewell

Jonathan

Wednesday, May 25, 2022

In which I feed my Maranta obsession

 As usual, apologies for ignoring this blog for the best part of a year, 'Events, dear boy' as a former prime minister said. In my 24 years in the industry, it has never been as consistently busy as the period since my last post!

Anyway, grovelling aside, I once mentioned a plant that I liked at the start of my career that then vanished without trace, the Maranta Massangeana. 

The fact that if you search for images of this name in quotation marks, you get almost zero accurate results should tell you how rare it is.

The 'normal' Maranta, M. Tricoleur, looks like the plant on left below. It's constantly available, and we use it a lot:

Now, I'm the first to admit that - with its red stripes, and generally jaunty attitude to being grown, it's the pick of the bunch, but the mere rarity and - I'd argue - delicate appearance of the Massangeana has made it my holy grail/unicorn plants for two decades.



Now, every Monday, my trusty Dutch plant supplier sends me an enormous price list of every plant I can currently buy, in either compost of hydroponic, and in what size. This Monday it was 1,838 lines long. Mind you, there's a list of pots and sundries too, and that's 9,858!
While searching for something else, I spotted 'Maranta Exclusive Dark' and 'Exclusive Grey'. Trembling, I clicked on the names, which brings up an image. Exclusive Dark (click link for image) is effectively a Massangeana, but on frenziedly ringing Holland was told was not in stock. Exclusive Grey on the right was, and I ordered a box, despite them being three times the price of a normal one. It's arrived, and I'm in love. One is coming home with me!

I then noticed another type called Maranta Lemon...




I'm rather taken by them too, so I'll be ordering another box of those next week. And one will come home with me too!

Why am I waffling on like this? Well, if you are our South Coast catchment area, and Google has brought you here in search of these elusive species, contact me, and I will happily recoup the cost of my own plant nerdery by selling you one!







Friday, August 27, 2021

You'll never guess what, it's another giant Boston fern!


The latest contender
So I tap away when I can on this blog with - if I'm honest - the intention of driving some traffic to our website, as frankly we aren't the most aggressive firm at marketing office plants. Maybe why our existing customers like us so much. 

But it seems the one thing this blog has achieved is making me the Norris McWhirter of giant Boston Ferns. 

Yes, you guessed it: out of the blue I have been emailed by another US owner of a giant Boston Fern, also convinced they have the biggest one. 

If this is your first foray into the topic, this is the post that started it all. 

This was the first challenger.

This was the most recent one. 


Where this one - the pride and joy of Barry and Jen Hartranft - seems to excel is in length, whereas the previous one in the car dealer I would say wins out on sheer volume. This raises a supplementary question: is it frond length or total volume that determines what constitutes the "World's Biggest Boston Fern"? 

I know the USA is a very large country, but I think the owners of all three challengers to the crown should meet at some central location and argue this one out, then just let me know their decision. 

All joking apart, as a houseplant professional it gladdens my heart to see such enthusiasm, and am both happy and amused to be kept updated on the topic.

Though I should probably own up that the original plant of ours died some years ago after the client moved it to a too-dark area. Sorry....

Jonathan

Barry Hartranft and his amazing ferns






Friday, July 16, 2021

Anyway... here's that giant Schefflera in situ


So last time I posted in early May (sorry) it was with this gigantic Schefflera destined for the Stewarts Broomhill coffee shop. 

On the left is Sandra planting it in the special box our talented handyman Ash had built to accommodate it. 

Then below is a picture I snapped this morning showing it all settled in and the coffee shop open. As usual my great height makes things look tiny when I take pics, but the chairs give an idea of scale. 

My bit of Stewarts didn't supply the artificial plants on hanging frames, just for the record.

Jonathan











Wednesday, May 05, 2021

A recent installation

 

I try not to fill this blog with 'look at the job we just completed' posts as they can get a bit repetitive, but this one more or less took over my winter - let's say the client was a little indecisive and leave it there - so I am happy to boast about it. 

The other good news element of it is it's a long-standing client of ours from Weybridge who has moved to - for us - a rather better location in Guildford, and gone from a 14 planter contract to 45 planters. 

It's a very modern, very quirky office and features outdoor balcony plants, built-in cabinet-top planters and the free-standing 'Polystone' planters shown here. 

To complicate matters we got all ready to do the installation and found we could only use the lift from 7-8am (and we are two hours drive away), so it made the install days a bit more challenging. The first time we went we took about five bags too many of compost up (did I mention it's on the 5th floor?), ran out of 'lift time' and Yours Truly had to carry them back down the stairs. I'm getting too old for that kind of thing. 

Anyway, I'll let the pictures do the talking. I had to include an image of the illuminated wall art. I'm a big fan of bulldogs as I own two British bulldogs, so this Frenchie appeals!

Jonathan




Biggest Schefflera we've ever ordered

 

I hesitate to use the Betteridge's-Law-braking headline "is this the biggest Schefflera Amata in Europe?" as (a) I know it isn't and (b) after the long running 'World's biggest Boston Fern' saga, I'm a little wary of such claims. 

But I can say with confidence that it's one of only two of this size in the whole of Europe, as when I enquired of our Dutch supplier on 2.5-3m Schefflera Amatas I was sent pictures of both of them and told to make my mind up fast!

You may know this plant as one of the Umbrella Plants; it's an open secret that I love them.  

Eleanor tells me she is about 5'7", so 1.7m tall, so I'd say it's comfortably taller than its advertised 2.8-3m size judging from this image. What's surprising is what a small rootball it has, given its size; it's making it a trifle hard to keep it upright. 

As a species they are also very easy to damage the foliage of in transit. Luckily it's going all then way to the Stewarts Broomhill coffee shop over the road. Still, will be an interesting carrying job!

Jonathan



Wednesday, February 10, 2021

Mosspoles, canes or wire frames?

 

Devil's Ivy on a 'mosspole'
It's long been the tradition that trailing plants such as Epipremnum (Devil's Ivy) as shown here, or the old favourite Swiss Cheese Plant (Monstera) are grown up a moss-covered plastic pole for support, known in the trade as a 'mosspole' for short. 

However it is increasingly possible to buy the same species grown up either bamboo canes or a wire cage. See image below of Philodendron Brasil (left) and a rather fantastic Scindapsus Trebie (right)that arrived from Holland this morning. 

Many people believe that the mosspole is better for the plant; I suppose in theory if you misted it on a daily basis the plant may gain some moisture from it, but in an office setting the moss is bone-dry and it's simply there for support.

In fact empirically I have found that plants that are available either on a mosspole or on canes/a frame perform far better when they are not grown up a mosspole. 

In particular they seem to last longer and perform better in low light.

Why is that? Short answer: I don't know. 

I suspect that the plant puts more of its energy in to growing strong roots and less in to attaching itself to a pole. But that is a pure guess. If anyone has a better theory, educate me!

Jonathan 

Philodendron Brasil on cage and Scindapsus Trebie on canes


Tuesday, February 09, 2021

The 'biggest Boston Fern' competition heats up!

Well, here's an odd one. 

I've been typing away for something like 15 years on this blog and I'm never sure

Our giant Boston Fern. 
anyone that isn't a close friend or current/former employee is reading it, with one topic exception.

Back in 2012 I wrote a un-serious post about a serious contender for the world's largest Boston Fern, which was under our care in a Hampshire call centre. 

A couple of years ago I was contacted by an American gentleman who was sure his was bigger, and allowed me to post a picture.

Last week I was contacted by an American car dealer who are quite justifiably proud of their Boston Fern: so proud in fact that they are seriously attempting to establish if it is the world's largest, and stumbled upon my blog while doing so. 

It really is a monster; in the words of the owner of the dealer: "The fern measures over 7 feet tall and commands an area that is 8 feet by 8 feet!" 

They are attempting to find out if such a Guinness World Record exists. I think they must be in with a chance. I will update if I hear so. 

Obviously if anyone thinks their Boston fern is bigger than this magnificent specimen, I want to be told!

Jonathan

New contender for world's largest Boston Fern