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 25, 2012

No job too small

If you're a small company looking for a very small number of interior plants for your office, and you're thinking that a contract office plant company like us won't be interested in supplying you, think again. We will supply any size of order.

If you think you'd be better off just going to your local DIY store and getting some plants and pots from them, think again. Not only does one of the most famous chains get us to supply their head office plants anyway, you'll struggle to get the right plant, the right coloured pot, properly planted in the correct soil and delivered to your office for less than we can do it for.

Equally, if you'd like your plants looking after for you and think we won't be bothered with a small potential contract like yours, definitely think again!

Maybe I'm biased, but nothing makes an office look less professional than a half-dead plant in reception that everyone is meant to look after, but no one does; whereas you could have a single plant kept in constant good health - maybe in a pot in your corporate colour - as the first thing potential clients see when they walk in the front door.

We have a very high density of contracts in our core area of Dorset and Hampshire, which means we probably have a job just round the corner from you already, meaning our travel costs are low. For example, we have thirteen whole days' work every fortnight in Poole, Bournemouth & Christchurch alone.

We actively encourage small clients to come to us, as we often find that they grow later, whereas some of our competitors have a minimum contract size that rules out many small businesses' needs.

I just did a quick survey of our client base: Out of just shy of four hundred contracts, we have twenty five with three planters, twenty five with only two and thirteen of them have just a single plant display! But we love them all equally, and they all get the same level of service as the clients with several hundred plants. Plus, bear in mind that you can rent them from us for as little as £7.00 a month each, so you won't be breaking the bank.

So if you'd like this few plant displays for your business premises, but want someone else to look after them, get in touch. If you're still not convinced, we will lend you some plant displays, with our full maintenance service, for a couple of months free of charge!


Jonathan

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Stewarts set world record for biggest Boston Fern...

...ok, so there isn't (to my knowledge) an official  "biggest Boston Fern" world record, and if there is then we haven't tried to win it. But we should do with this monster: the picture may not make it clear: it's about 5 feet high and four feet wide!

My obsession with Boston Ferns is well known, after I ordered a greenhouse full of them last January for a large event hire in Bournemouth.

This one, though, is in one of our maintenance customers's offices, near Havant in Hampshire. I'll admit that we actually inherited this plant we we won the contract from another firm, as this site own their plants (many of our clients rent). However, it seems to be getting bigger every time I see it. The regular technician for this site - Roger -  has a reputation for making plants get big and bushy.

The fern doesn't come without its problems: Boston Ferns tend to shed bits of leaves when you touch them, so maintenance of this one is a messy business. They are also very thirsty, normally not a problem, but this one has pushed its 'crown' (the lump in the middle the leaves come out of) the best part of a foot clear of the edge of the pot, so that prodigious supply of water once a fortnight has to be applied with a great deal of care!

Jonathan

Monday, October 15, 2012

Silly office signs part 3

Continuing my 'silly office signs' series (part 1 and part 2 here); though in fact this one has a very sensible purpose.

One of the crosses we have to bear in the interior landscaping industry is people putting the dregs of their hot drinks in the plant pots. I think some people are doing it in a misguided attempt to help the plant, and some people just don't care.

The tea or coffee itself is not a problem, but the milk and sugar are. As our pots are sealed the milk and sugar just sit in the pot until they decompose, and they become a breeding ground for little insects.

We have tried various humorous signs over the years but to date this is the first time a client (in Fareham in Hampshire) has taken it upon themselves to put one up.

I'm not sure if I get the reference to Bonsai trees, but if it works for the Fareham office, then great!

Jonathan

Tuesday, October 02, 2012

How you've grown!

Now I have a phone with a working camera and the ability to move the pictures to my work PC I am able to take photos when I'm out covering maintenance contracts. These two in particular grabbed me.

The first one has featured in its own blog post before, as the purple pots resolutely refuse to appear anything other than blue in photos.

To the left is what one of these 3m Yuccas looked like when they were installed:

















This is what they looked like last time I looked, after two years in situ:
















The next one is a children's centre in Andover - this time two 4m high Ficuses.

This is when we installed them in about 2009:














And this (rather iffy) photo was taken this summer:

Just look how much bigger the 'lollipop' heads are!










Once again I have to sing my staff's praises - it's so nice to walk in to one of my contracts and see big (i.e. expensive!) specimens doing so well.

Jonathan