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 10, 2019

This post is brought to you by the colour teal

Teal Linik trough planted with all white/green plants
I did a very similar post to this about six years ago, though in that case the colour was green.

In that case the colour was being requested by clients and I was only too happy to provide.

In these case I have suggested it as there were teal feature walls/furniture in the offices and I though similarly coloured pots would look good.

So I've done three jobs in the last year or so where I have used various Pantone teals, and all cases they have been matt.

Dracaena Arturo in a Smooth Egg pot
As I have explained before, our glass-fibre planters are available in any colour you can imagine and in matt or gloss shades. For a long time gloss was the default (and it is more durable) but matt looks miles better with some colours, and teal is one of those. Imagine any of these three images with a a shiny blue pot: exactly.

The trough above looked particularly effective as it was in front of a glass panel blocking off a corridor end, so it is in a natural focal point; I'm also quite keen on my current habit of planting 'cold coloured' troughs with all white/green variegated foliage like here. Warm colours look equally good with all lime green/yellow variegation in.

For those that care all these troughs are Pantone 321U (the 'U' stands for uncoated,. i.e. matt), interesting how different it looks in different photos.

Finally, and slightly politically incorrectly, I suspect I am one of a very small percentage of straight men that actually knows what colour 'teal' is.

Same pot as above in the client's office
Jonathan

I REALLY like Chamaedorea Metalica...

Chamaedorea Metalica

Five years ago, my first ever 'feature plant' post was on the Chamaedorea Metalica.

I really like them still (I have one at home) as they are the most flexible, tough plant we have access to. The one in my conservatory is exposed to bright sun, extreme heat and cold and it keeps on trucking. I also rather like the slight silvery sheen to the foliage (hence 'Metalica' I guess).

When I did that last post it was because we were looking for plants for an unheated link corridor in a client's office in Chandlers Ford, as pictured at the bottom; they've been very successful.

175 Chamaedorea Metalicas...
There's always a 'but'... they are very hard to buy as they are only available now and then. Something to do with the availability of the seed, I'm told.

It's a bit of a running joke with my Dutch plant supplier that I keep putting them on my order in the full knowledge that I won't get them. So when he rang me up last week and said "I can get some Chamaedorea Metalica if you want, how many would you like?", I thought on my feet and said "an entire Danish trolley's worth please!"

As depicted on the left, this turns out to be 175 plants... Still, they will most definitely get used, and unlike some plants they last perfectly well if we keep them for a year... until they are available next time!

In one of our clients' offices in brightly coloured troughs

Jonathan

Monday, September 23, 2019

Feature plant (family): succulents

Mixed succulents
Houseplants have suddenly become rather fashionable, and being an old hand at this kind of thing I'm suppressing the desire to say "I told you they were great!"

Having worked in an era where a few large statement plants were the thing, I am having to adapt to the fact that the aim suddenly appears to make your home (or heaven forbid: office) look like your gran's lounge did in the 1970s, i.e. lots of little plants everywhere.

Even those macrame hangers are back, though I still await the return of those glass globes my mother used to have hanging in them.

One thing that seems to have become super-popular is succulents, and I can understand why: certainly if getting in to house plants for the first time, something that needs very little watering is a winner.

The only issue I am having is that there seem to be quite an array of names and I'm just not that up on them. I need to know the Latin names of plants as we order them in Latin from Holland. In fact we order them in Latin with a little bit of English and Dutch thrown in.

Fear not! Holland sell trays of 'mixed succulents', like the picture top left so I don't need to, though I can tell you that there are two kinds of Crassulas and some Echeverias in there, though the two at the front I have no idea on.

One I do know is a rather delicate trailing succulent called a Rhipsalis, which comes in quite a variety of types. I mention it as we have a client in Bournemouth who has them hanging from the roof all over the place in macrame hangers. Not the one shown below; though I rather like these with their built-in water indicator and hope to sell some soon.

Jonathan

Rhipsalis (Cassutha, since you asked)
Planter in macrame hanger with built in water indicator
 

Thursday, September 19, 2019

Feature pest: Thrip

Thrips are a whole family of actually quite varied pests. They used to be very rare but seem to be becoming more common now. Including, sadly in the cafe at Stewarts Christchurch where we recently had an outbreak on our Kentia palms there.

The damage normally looks superficially like the classic pattern of Red Spider Mite damage, but the damage is in more discrete patches and in those patches much worse, where Red Spider is normally quite well distributed. A good plant to see this on is Schefflera Amate (Umbrella Plant). Red Spider will make whole leaves discolour, and on closer inspection be covered in brown spots. Thrip damage will be blobs of silvery spotty damage with healthy leaf in between.


Then the most obvious way of telling is if you turn the leaves over, where underneath thrips are large enough to be seen by the naked eye, appearing as a small insect like a long aphid. Quite often they will be gathered in little huddles together.

Red Spider Mite by contrast is a very small white (not red!) insect that appears like grit or dust on the leaf underside.

In both cases if you rub a wet cloth over the leaf underside it will stain with squished bugs.

In fact a thorough rubbing with a wet cloth (which you then throw away to avoid infecting other plants) is your first line of defence against Thrip; literally wiping them away. It won't eradicate them but it will control them.

Next line of defence is predator control. However, sadly there are different types of predators for different types of Thrip so success is not guaranteed. Amblyseius cucumeris is probably the most likely one to work, so try that first.

Without any sponsorship, a Google search brings up numerous online shopping results.

Jonathan

Wednesday, September 18, 2019

Rubber plant pruning - stopping the bleeding

Before pruning
Ever had to prune a rubber plant (Ficus Elastica or Robusta) or other large Ficuses and had them start 'bleeding' their sap everywhere? Here's a handy tip on how to prevent this.

My most experienced maintenance technician Ian showed me this technique many years ago and I still find it remarkably simple and yet effective.

On the left you have a burgundy rubber plant (Ficus Abidjan), a species I have often said on here that I like. Apologies that this one is very mucky; it's a long-term resident of the Stewarts Greenhouse, and they get water-marked through repeated watering with a hose.

As and when its day comes to go into a client's office it will scrub up lovely with the aid of our secret weapon (Pixie Sparkle!).

Anyway, let's assume that I need to prune the sideshoot shown in this image off back to the joint. As
Bleeding sap after pruning
you can see, it begins to 'bleed' a milky white sap, which makes nasty marks on lower leaves and indelible marks on the carpet. It's also an irritant so you don't want to get any on your skin.

The solution is surprisingly simple. Pinch a little bit of compost from the pot the rubber plant is in between your finger and thumb and press it onto the open wound.

You'll find it sticks to the wound quite easily as the sap is so sticky. This will stop the bleeding dead... with a bit of practice. Once the wound has healed and the sap dried, any excess compost will simply brush off.

Compost preventing further bleeding
Rubber plants benefit from pruning as otherwise they become longer and spindlier as time goes by, so pruning is to be encouraged as it leads to a more branched plant, though normally it's best done in spring/summer.

Jonathan


Thursday, September 12, 2019

Sansevieria ID chart

Shamelessly stolen from a poster on the Facebook "UK Tropical, Succulent and Houseplant Hoarders" group, which I can highly recommend, this handy ID chart will help solve many arguments on which Sansevieria (aka Mother-in_law's Tongue) one is looking that.

Many a dinner party has been ruined by such debates!

Saying that I can already see one (Sans. Black Dragon) that I have an example of at home that isn't listed, and I suspect many of these simply don't exist commercially.

It also doesn't include the circular-leaved variants like Sansevieria Mikado.

Still better than no Sansevieria ID chart!

Jonathan

Wednesday, September 11, 2019

Zen and the art of bench cleaning

I've long held the belief that sweeping with a broom (something the employees of a company that works with compost do a lot) is a curiously Zen-like experience. There is something very satisfying about methodically sweeping a large area.

Anyway... my colleague Michelle has found an equivalent: cleaning the green goo off our new benches.

As readers will know we have not long moved in to a lovely new purpose-built greenhouse, and when we did we bought thirty shiny new plant benches, which came with flood trays. The theory is excellent: as you can see in the image they are criss-crossed with grooves that fill up with water but don't wet the base of the pots, so they increase humidity without keeping the plants too wet.

We had the option of drilling a drainage hole in each but we like this system. The only downside is that the standing water turns green, and that stains the benches. The only solution is to take them out now and then and scrub them down, though we are thinking of trialling a pressure washer. I would welcome any suggestions from my readership on how to stop them going green.

In the meantime, Michelle is curiously drawn to the nice methodical process of scrubbing them down. Mind you, this is the same Michelle who got far too much pleasure from reorganising my tools and DIY bits & bobs, so I shouldn't be surprised.

Jonathan

Thursday, August 15, 2019

My Dracaena Burleys have gone mad!

Perhaps this should be one of "how you've grown!" posts...

First I apologise - as I am prone to doing - for the big gap since my last post. One of my staff has been off sick since May so I have been doing most of her maintenance as well as what passes for my own duties. Her rotas are in Bournemouth, Southampton and Winchester, plus a few across the New Forest. If I'm honest I've got rather attached to them...

Anyway, on my own little rota - which encompasses Bristol, parts of Somerset and Gillingham (the Dorset one), I planted a trough with three Dracaena Burleys a while back.

Those with long memories will recall that I did a feature plant post on this species about four years ago. Well, they now seem to have become unavailable, and were actually rather a prima donna. They look similar to the larger Dracaena Massangeana, and were similar in that they were very prone to bruising.  Having three going begging I planted them in this trough and just looked after them as normal. And they have gone completely nuts!

This photo doesn't really do them justice; the trough is 90cm long and 30cm wide! They started off about a foot high/wide and are now easily three times that height and width, to the extent I'm having to remove lower leaves to avoid them getting between the nearby desk workers and their monitors.

My sincere hope is that they stop growing before I'm forced to pull them out as they are in fantastic health. Maybe I should try and be a little less green-fingered...

Jonathan

Thursday, May 09, 2019

What plants do we choose for ourselves?

Our new greenhouse plants in situ
As per my recent post we are now in our fancy new greenhouse.

We are now putting the finishing touches to the place, and despite having benches full of plants for use at our clients, it was decided we should have some 'proper' plant displays adjoining our kitchen area. 

I was given the task of picking them and I chose two types of Ficus (Ficus loving light and the new greenhouse not being short of that), namely Ficus Amstel Gold (long one of my favourite plants), and burgundy Rubber Plants (ditto x 3).

The pots are 90cm high Cylinders in an old BS code green (12D45, rather uncharitably described by a colleague as 'like a 1970s bathroom suite') and RAL 4007 burgundy, the latter meant to match the chairs, and not a bad effort there.

Technician Graham has been volunteered to care for these in the full glare of his colleagues' critical eyes. Naturally, he's thrilled!

Jonathan

Another photo of the lovely rubber plant, showing our swanky drive through loading area!

Tuesday, April 23, 2019

Feature plant: Chlorophytum Green Orange

Chlorophytum Green Orange
 Time for one of my occasional 'feature plant' posts I think, prompted by ordering some of these recently.

Chlorophytum Green Orange is an unusual little plant. The basic green/white Chlorophytum is what's commonly known as the 'Spider Plant'; a very hardy little thing that easily propagates by putting out runners. So you rarely meet someone that just has one!

This one is very different. As the name indicated it has very vivid orange leaf stems. It really rather hides its light under a bushel when viewed from above, so to appreciate it best it needs to be viewed from the side. At Stewarts we tend to use it in cabinet-top
Viewed from below
troughs and bowls for that reason.

As for care, it's nowhere near as indestructible as the ordinary Spider Plant. It is a medium drinking, medium light plant that needs keeping warm as far as we can tell, and it is noticeable for going pale with age, which leads me to suspect it's a rather hungry plant, so keep well fed.

One last twist is that for some unknown reason whenever I order them from my Dutch plant supplier, each comes with its own green/orange ceramic pot. Very nice, but no use to us so they are normally sold off to the public at the Nursery's Thursday morning sale.

Jonathan

Love this plant and pot combination

Ficus Ginseng in S-planter
 As is my way on a quiet day I'm just going through some photos I've taken of recent installations. This was one of an install of twelve planters to an office in Bristol just over a month ago.

As an aside, the day was not without its challenges. You'll recall that before this glorious period of weather we had a week or two of very breezy weather. This office was on a narrow street flanked by very high buildings right in the centre of Bristol; the result was like a wind-tunnel.

These S-planters have a 'false base' in so the bottom half is empty, meaning they are easier to lift, but very top-heavy. Consequently it was quite difficult to stop them literally blowing away as we unloaded them.

Plus these gorgeous S-stem Ficus Ginsengs (of which there were four) were too tall to be delivered ready planted so we had to take pots, plants, compost etc. into the building and plant in-situ. Needless to say there were steps up to the building door, so everything had do be unloaded off the trolley, lifted up, reloaded... all while the wind was trying to blow us away. Anyway, I'm getting sidetracked.

I was very pleased with the outcome. I love S-planters, much more so than the related Curvy planters that are more common. I think they are slightly more subtle, but also they are much more stable, as the centre of gravity is not off-centre.

I think it's a great combination to use Ficus Ginsengs with their S-shaped stem in them too.

As for the colour (Pantone 032C for the record)? I wasn't too sure when I went to see the client. As I've said before, we often suggest we use their actual corporate colour as we did here, but the office had a lot of crimson fittings and furniture, whereas this is a pinky red. But in the long shot below I think you'll agree it works.

Nothing I can do about the view out of the window, sadly.

Jonathan



Wednesday, April 10, 2019

Our new greenhouse - at last!

New greenhouse
Well, as of about a fortnight ago, we are finally in our new greenhouse. When I joined Stewarts in 2002 it was already a plan that we were going to move to a bespoke new building on site, so our existing building could become part of the garden centre. 

Planning, overhead wires, electrical supply and many other niggles have held up the scheme but we are finally in. Though as a couple of the pics below show, there are still a few bits that are a work in progress.

Pictures tell a better story so I've attached a few of the images I've taken during the move. I say "during the move" but I had the good fortune of having a week's annual leave booked for the actual move week, so Michelle, Julie and Sandra get a well-deserved thank you for moving the plants and all our equipment across the car park.

Our plant area 


Our lovely kitchen 

My black and orange office, still not quite there!

We've had a contractor in every day until this week, this was a particularly noisy day that I took this selfie!
It really is a 'show greenhouse'; any of our existing or potential clients are very welcome to come up to Wimborne and have a look round!

Friday, March 01, 2019

Farewell, T-card board!

Bit of a silly post, this.

As long term readers will know, I have posted a couple of times about the imminent move to our new greenhouse. 

Well, it's finally only a few weeks away, and we are either transferring stock across, or furiously de-cluttering the old greenhouse.

When I started at Stewarts in 2002 the maintenance contracts were arranged on an old-fashioned T-card board. Each member of staff has a week 1 and week 2 column, then days of the week go down the left-hand side, then each client has a card. Rearranging the rotas was the (theoretically) simple act of moving cards from place.

It didn't take me long to realise I needed an electronic version of our rotas, which I rapidly created.

However some of my longer-serving staff claimed that they actually looked at this for reference, so my occasional attempts to get rid of it were vetoed. Finally at a staff meeting this week it became clear no one cared any more, so this morning I said a few words, then threw it in the metal skip.

Now no longer will I confuse the hell out of myself trying to rearrange several rotas at once, ending up with little piles of T-cards all over my desk.

I'm almost getting nostalgic already!

Jonathan

Tuesday, February 12, 2019

Health benefits of houseplants

Stewarts' magazine for Privilege (our loyalty scheme) customers featured this excellent summary of the health benefits of houseplants, which I'm delighted to reprint in its entirety:


I have every intention from reading from this to potential clients!

Jonathan