Hanging basket time - don't delay!

We usually deliver our summer hanging baskets at the end of May. Now the weather has suddenly turned summery (it's 28 deg C already in my office in the greenhouse!) we expect the phone to start ringing as all our clients' thoughts turn to their workplaces' outdoor spaces at once...

The snag is that hanging baskets need a little time to 'grow on', in order that they are delivered with some flowers already in evidence, so if you want baskets for the end of the month, you need to order now.
Email me or ring the office, and we'll send you an order form. As a guide price, our most popular size of basket (16" diameter) retails at £29.00 + VAT, which includes delivery in our usual coverage area! You can specify colour, and plant mixture as required, and please note that we also provide and plant window troughs, summer bedding etc.

A new look for our coffee shop

The Stewarts Country Garden Centre (near Wimborne, where Stewarts Office Plants is based too) has just finished having their coffee shop enlarged and refurbished.
While the existing displays were very nice, the new colour scheme and much enlarged space meant we had to put something new in. Rebecca opted for a combination of matt graphite pots in the main area and the gorgeous pearl red in the new section, which is decorated in a dark red colour. For the planting she decided on - among other things - three large olive trees to sit in large square pots in the main area, where the great light conditions are ideal for olives.
We planted them in situ first thing this morning before the garden centre opened, and I have to admit they look great.



Notice also that Rebecca has hung some of our Wall Art range around the coffee shop. While my picture may paint a thousand words, why not come in to the Country Garden Centre, stop for a coffee, and take a closer look at our plants & pictures? If you’re a potential business customer in the Bournemouth/Poole area, what better way to see Stewarts Office Plants’ products in the flesh… and legitimately get out of the office for a couple of hours? You might even be able to claim the price of the coffees on expenses!

Jonathan

Jonathan takes an unexpected journey....

Stewarts look after the plants on a pair of passenger ferries called the Express & Vitesse, sailing out of Weymouth & Poole. Due to the somewhat erratic schedule we have to fit in with, these plants are looked after by yours truly, aided by Claire, my assistant.
I went to Weymouth this morning to look after the plants on Express, and found Vitesse there too. As I'm due to return on Tuesday after Easter (bank holiday weeks are busy enough for us with five days' work to complete in four) to do Vitesse, I wandered on board to see if I could get these plants done too. The boat was swarming with workmen, and no-one stopped me getting started, so imagine my surprise when I looked out of the window 30 minutes later to realise we were sailing out of the harbour.
This has happened to us before; the boat occasionally goes out to turn round or change berth, so I casually enquired of one of the other workmen (who seemed very relaxed): "Ermm, where are we off to?"
"Oh, just round the bay I think."
"Oh, that's a relief, I've nearly finished!", I replied.
"I think they're staying out for about four hours, mate", after which it became clear the rest of the workmen were there all day anyway so they didn't mind the trip out.

A short conversation with the crew confirmed this, so I gave the plants possibly the most thorough clean and prune they will ever get, and when we docked (happily a mere three hours later), I made a mental note always to double-check whether I was staying in port in future.

Needless to say I have endured a wide range of jokes at my expense in the office ('Have you brought us any brie back?', 'How are your sea legs?' etc.), which I rather suspect I deserve.

Plants that improve your office's air quality

I often get asked to provide plants specifically to improve the air in a modern office. As you may be aware, the air in modern air-conditioned offices contains a lot of impurities, and the right kinds of plants really can make a difference by absorbing a lot of the nasties. A lot of offices with aircon have very dry air, so the increase in humidity is useful too. Believe it or not, it has been shown that a sufficient quantity of plants relative to staff numbers can actually pay for themselves by reducing the cost of absenteeism due to sickness!

Don't believe me? There's a mass of data available at the Plants for People website to back me up.

As for what plants work best, you need a lot of leaf area, so broad-leaved plants are best, and high humidity is encouraged by thirsty plants. So a broad-leaved Ficus, like the burgundy rubber plant I installed in Southampton last year is ideal.


Air-improving alternatives to the Ficus family include broad-leaved Dracaenas, Spathiphyllums and Aglaonemas. You'll find pictures of all of these on the main office plants website.

How many vans can we get in the greenhouse?

Ummm... that'll be one then. We're doing a one-day hire to a training event in Blandford Forum, Dorset on Monday. Plants need to be in place by 0830, so rather than load up in the morning, we've loaded on Friday afternoon and left the doors open. Obviously we have to park the van in the greenhouse as the plants (a mixture of Ficuses and Kentia palms) need to be kept above 15 deg C.

The trouble is we can't get out of the greenhouse now, so it looks like we're in here until Monday too! D'oh...

Edit. Monday morning: we did of course squeeze out on Fiday and delivered the plants on time this morning, with the added benefit of a toasty warm van when every one else was scraping ice off their cars.

This is where we will look after office plants

I keep trying to describe our coverage area in previous posts, but it's quite wordy, as it consists of several part-counties (e.g. in Devon we'll go to Exeter, but no further; sorry, Plymouth!).

So I decided to use my extensive MS Paint skills to draw a coverage map and post it on the blog (acknowledgements to Streetmap!).

Note that this line is quite 'fuzzy' (it's not just your eyes!), in other words our key areas are Dorset and Hampshire); we get more choosy as we reach the red line. However if you're just outside the line and you're looking at quite a major project, then do contact us - we do make exceptions!

No danger of Stewarts running out of pots!

At the risk of repeating what I've said about our very affordable resprayed pot range, I thought I'd show potential office plants customers that there's plenty of options when it comes to reusing our second-hand pots.

This picture shows about half of them, the big line of our ever-popular Zenith range at back right consists of over a hundred alone, and all can be resprayed in any colour you can imagine.

This makes particular sense if you're buying a large number of plants for an office, as the saving on the initial outlay is significant, and as I've mentioned before the quality is as new.

So if you're in our coverage area (Bournemouth, Southampton, rest of Dorset & Hants, South Wiltshire etc.) and you're on a tight budget, get in touch. If you're fairly local to our base in Wimborne and you want an excuse to get out of the office for a while, I'd be happy to show you what's available.

What colour is 'Royal Blue'?

We were recently invited by a hotel chain to put plants in their soon-to-be-completed Southampton branch. The on-site contact was very amenable about what we suggested, but the containers must be 'Royal Blue', as this was the corporate colour.

As anyone who's bought plant pots from me will know I'm a paint code geek, but I really struggled to decide what constituted Royal Blue. A search of Wikipedia - if anything - muddied the waters, as it turns out 'old' Royal Blue was a very dark blue, whereas it is now considered to be a mid to light blue, very like the links in this post.


My paint supplier pointed out that on the old BS381C (middle of page), colour 106 is called Royal Blue, but that's almost black! Help! Eventually I narrowed the choice down to the more modern RAL (top of page) colours, and suggested RAL 5010. The client agreed (rather too readily) and I worried about it until yesterday when we put the pots in.

Thankfully, this story has a happy ending, as the client was delighted, and look at the colour match with the chair next to it: spot on!

(Incidentally, this display features one of our specialities for prominent places like receptions: three Anthuriums in different colours. You pay about twice as much per month as for an ordinary plant, but we change the plants when they stop flowering. It still works out a fraction of the price of fresh flowers)

So did I get it right? Is this Royal Blue in your opinion? Feel free to look at the colour chart and email me with your own nomination - release your inner 'paint code geek'!