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.

Tuesday, May 24, 2016

Our plants in a stylish new restaurant

Without naming names, we have supplied the plants to a lovely new restaurant in a prime spot right in the middle of Bournemouth.

I like our plants every time I supply them, but just occasionally they really make a difference to where they are delivered.

To such a degree that I am just going to post the pictures and stop waffling...
















...except to say the pot colour here is matt dark bronze - very popular at present - and the graduated height group of three pots is a great way of filling a redundant space under a staircase, and also stopping people banging their heads.

Jonathan

Tuesday, May 10, 2016

How having indoor plants keeps us healthy

Wow, where did the whole of spring go since my last post?

Well, we've had a member of staff off sick and new recruit to train, and as is often the case around the start of the new financial year, lots and lots of new work to do.

We've taken over all the local branches of a national chain of restaurants in Dorset and Hampshire, plus a very nice new restaurant in central Bournemouth, not to mention several new offices.

So sadly, blogging has taken a back seat.

Anyway, so a press cutting about some RHS research has been sat in my tray since back then and I now have time to post a link to it, and reprint the text below:



The prescription for a healthy life? A house plant! Indoor greenery boosts mood, reduces stress and cleans the air around us 

·         Indoor plants improve our mental and physical health, experts claim
·         Workers are more productive when their office is filled with greenery
·         And hospital patients tolerate pain better if there is a plant on the ward

You may not need to pull on your wellies to get the best out of nature - the house plant on your windowsill might already be giving you a boost.
Indoor plants improve our mental and physical health, experts claim.
City dwellers today spend an average 90 per cent of their time indoors - but experts from the Royal Horticultural Society say that ‘bringing the outdoors inside’ can offer some of the benefits that are lost by retreating indoors.
Plants reduce stress levels, improve mood and filter polluted air, they say.
A review of the scientific evidence suggests that workers are more productive when their office is filled with greenery, and hospital patients even tolerate pain better if there is a plant on the ward.
Perhaps most importantly, plants also trap and filter pollutants that are linked to thousands of deaths a year.+2
RHS principal horticultural advisor, Leigh Hunt, one of the authors of the paper, said that even common houseplants will do the trick.
As long as they can withstand shade and fluctuating temperatures - and are attractive to the eye - most plants will give people a benefit.
Mr Hunt said: ‘A spider plant is a good choice, or even common English ivy - anything that will survive indoors is a good choice.
‘We know that plants are calming, but there is also a lot of evidence that they are beneficial to human health.’
The best-known advantage of indoor plants is psychological, the RHS scientists said.
The presence of plants reduces stress, anxiety and fatigue.
Writing in the The Plantsman horticultural journal, the scientists said: ‘Indoor plants can also elicit a number of physical health benefits, including the removal of airborne pollutants, both particulate and gaseous, which lead to better indoor air quality and associated improvements in physical health.’
A major study published by the Royal College of Physicians this week estimated that indoor air pollution contributes to 99,000 deaths in Europe every year.
Everyday kitchen products, faulty boilers, fly spray, air fresheners, deodorants and cleaning products contribute to poor indoor air quality in almost every home.
This causes eye, nose and throat irritation, headaches, skin conditions and breathing problems.
A study by Nasa scientists found that plants absorb and break down the most harmful of these chemicals through their leaves, to create a healthy indoor eco-system.
Just three plants in a room can vastly improve the air in the room, the Nasa team found.
The RHS scientists said that plants can also improve mental facilities - including reaction time and concentration.
They pointed to a Washington State University study which found that the presence of plants in the room increased speed of reaction in a computer task by 12 per cent.
Greenery was also found to reduce students’ blood pressure and increase attention span.
And a Kansas State University in 2008 found that hospital patients treated with plants in the room required lower levels of painkillers.
The RHS team concluded: ‘Research to date shows that indoor plants clearly have a number of benefits for the occupants – they include psychological as well physical, with low rates of any adverse reactions.

‘As placing indoor plants in rooms is one of the simplest changes that can be made to enhance the environment, it stands out as a practical and affordable support for human health.’