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.

Friday, October 24, 2014

Lovely modern planters


Far be it from me to blow my own trumpet, but I'm really rather proud of this new contract.

We do a lot of installs, and most of them aren't this photogenic. A combo of a client with lots of room wanting ultra-modern plant displays, and good natural light (which means I can use lovely plants and take lovely photos).

So here we have a row of five 1200mm high S-Planters with 1m high bonsai Ficus Ginseng in them, complemented by the little curvy bowl with a red Guzmania in. All in the incredbly vibrant scarlet red RAL 3020.

There were other planters on site, including these Dracaena Surculosas (one of my favourite plants!) in the same pots but in the unmissable RAL 6018 green (one of my favourite pot colours!).

Even better, these displays can be clearly seen from outside the building, so they are a great advert for Stewarts Office Plants.

Jonathan

Thursday, October 16, 2014

Anthurium Rainbow Champion

I'm always on the look out for unusual house plant species but occasionally my staff alert me to something new and interesting. In this case credit goes to Michelle.

Here we have Anthurium "Rainbow Champion".

Anthuriums usually have plain green foliage and red, white or pink flowers, but crucially all the same colour on each plant. Typical ones can be seen in this old post.

Rainbow Champion has darker foliage in various shades from green to deep crimson brown.

In addition, the flowers seem to start white and fade to red as they age. Or it could be the other way round! So the whole effect is quite different from the usual Anthurium, and actually rather appropriately autumnal.

Anyway, if you are a Stewarts maintenance customer, you may see some soon, or if you're not, get in touch if you want one and you're in our coverage area.

Jonathan

Monday, October 13, 2014

Meet the author

I was looking for a picture in our enormous photo archive on our server (the photo gallery on the website is tiny by comparison) and I found a rare picture. One of me!

Rare in two ways:
1. I tend to be in charge of the camera, as we generally take photos of every installation we do. So pics of me tend to be rare.
2. I'm doing some actual work!

I have appeared on this blog back in 2007. But I thought that, having stumbled on this picture, I'd post it so people on the internet can point and laugh.

My reason for searching the archive was to find a photo of Pantone 382C pots for a client. We label all our photos diligently by plant species, pot type and colour, to enable searches like this

These green pots are 382C (as you know, we love green pots), carefully chosen to match this Bridgwater client's logo, as you can see from their sign in the top right of the photograph. It's a really useful result of our pots being hand-made to order. If you know what the colour code of your company's logo is, we can match it.

Jonathan


Thursday, October 02, 2014

Featured plant: Chamaedorea Metallica

OK, so I'm going to try something new in my constant battle to keep this blog updated: 'featured plant' posts.

I was going to call it 'plant of the month' but let's see how I go at keeping it up.

This month's special - hot off the lorry from Holland - is the Chamaedorea Metallica.

The common Chamaedorea is the C. Elegans, otherwise known as the Parlour Palm.

This looks really nothing like it, having broad, flat leaves with a distinct metallic sheen to them, hence the name.

My reason for ordering some in is that they have a reputation for toughness, and I have a client with a very difficult brief to fulfil, namely a sometimes very cold, sometimes hot, sunny indoor walkway.

I've said before that there is a right plant for each location. But the obvious choice for high light and extremes of temperature is the Yucca, which wouldn't fit in the troughs we are using in this site, especially as the plants are sited near handrails, and Yuccas' leaves are quite sharp. So my Dutch grower suggested these...

The job in question is still in the pipeline, but I've taken the opportunity to get some C. Metallicas in, so my team can try them out and see what their performance is like.

Jonathan

This seems such a shame


Excuse the dodgy phone pic...

As I've posted before, I sometimes find it a wrench to get rid of seasonal planting when it's time for the new set.

As it was October 1st yesterday it's time for the winter planting, but because we've had such good weather some of our contracts (like this hotel in Bournemouth) still look fantastic.

But out it must come, and be replaced with tiny little Pansies, Ivy and Polyanthus.

This hotel followed my advice and has three seasonal changes a year, rather than just two. I find the winter stuff struggles to make it all the way from October to late May so a refresh in late winter makes it look better for spring.

Still, there's something deeply odd about planting winter flowers when it's 20 deg C.

Jonathan