Poor lonely Christmas tree |
Stewarts Office Plants
Thursday, December 24, 2020
At Christmas, spare a thought for the lonely...
Friday, December 11, 2020
Christmas trees - here's what you didn't have!
Jazz hands Christmas tree! |
This is an 8-9ft tree (they are ordered in bands by height) which we had ringfenced for a very exacting client who wants a tall tree but doesn't have a huge amount of space. It looked like a nice slim tree in the net so we put it aside for them.
It should be a nice even conical shape from tip to base, instead it looks like two trees stapled together.
The funny thing is if you put a hand over the screen and cover up the top 40% of the photo, the rest is a reasonably nice 5ft tree, albeit with a rather thick top stem.
Luckily we slightly over-order Christmas trees so that we can mitigate for eventualities like this.
Fear not: it hasn't been cut down in vain. Someone wanted a whole lot of foliage to make garlands out of, so it was of use. Just not all in one bit.
Christmas trees - here's what you could have had
9ft artificial Christmas tree
As is usually the case it's slightly perverse of me to start marketing our Christmas tree service as we have no finished deliveries, but as is often the case I am filing photos of same and taking the opportunity to show off our product.
This is one example of the ~ 40 trees we delivered this year, a particularly fine 9ft artificial tree in teal and silver.
Most of the trees we deliver are artificial, save some we have done for long-standing clients; quite simply in a commercial setting we think they are far superior to the real thing.
For a start most offices are simply too hot to install a cut tree and then expect it to look good right up until Christmas. Also, even with the best of intentions, some live trees simply aren't as good as others in terms of shape, thickness etc.
Secondly the artificial trees are so good these days that habit really is the only reason to continue to have live.
Finally, they are much less messy! Put it this way we take a broom and a long-suffering vacuum cleaner in whenever we deliver a live tree, neither with an artificial one.
So if you want one next year get in touch nice and early (we start organising deliveries in late summer!); we have some decorated trees in stock so you'd be welcome to see one in the flesh (in the needle?) at our Broomhill HQ.
Wednesday, November 25, 2020
Feature pest: hard scale
In order to save this blog from being just "Jonathan posts funny signs from offices" here is one of my irregular posts about a common houseplant pest. This one is a little swine, thankfully not the most common, but very tenacious when you do have it.
Hard scale is a part of the larger scale family that also includes my favourite Snow Scale and also Mealy Bug, which many people don't realise is a type of scale at all.
Now, the reason hard scale is a particularly tenacious pest is because it is hard! As you can see in this image they somewhat resemble barnacles.
This means that scale is well-armoured (so nonabsorbent) against any pesticide applications etc. In practice the younger softer scales may be killed, but not the harder ones, so the key if using pesticides is repeated applications.
I am told that rubbing alcohol is also quite effective. But I have found the best method is physical removal, to whit scraping them off with a finger.
Monday, November 23, 2020
More silly office signs...
I'm no plumber, but... |
All I ever seem to post on this blog now is funny pictures from our clients' offices.
Part of the reason is that we now have a Facebook page (hint, hint) which is where I tend to post the more obviously promotional stuff, and pretty pictures of plants.
Anyway I'm not stopping, so there.
I took this photo in a Hampshire engineering company, specifically in the loo. Now, I'm no plumber, but I'm fairly sure putting a sign on the window won't stop a tap running.
My best guess is it is one of those motion-activated ones and somehow the light through the window sets it off.
Reminds me of the famous 'pigeon alerter' from 2012. I wonder if the creator ever got their patent?
The one below really defies all rational explanation. The only mitigation I can offer is that it was about 5 feet long and drawn on one of those wipeable wall/noticeboards, and is in the office of a Norwegian-based (I think) engineering company in Bristol staffed by some very quirky people, who also produced the 'cake is real' sign.
Yes, that really does say 'Norwegian Mountain Cat' |
Thursday, October 22, 2020
Funny Covid office signs
Long time no post (sorry), we have been frantically busy as usual.
I have a habit of posting funny office signs (example) and the proliferation of one-way systems in offices has been a rich source of humour for me.
I give you:
Walk this way... but don't. |
It's good to have choices. |
Tuesday, August 18, 2020
I still love my scissors!
My trusty scissors and battered leather holster |
Why the level of love for some cheap florist's scissors? To quote my 2014 eulogy:
The best I can currently find |
Thursday, July 23, 2020
One in, one out (with a Lockdown in-between)
Roger, giving his van a clean-out |
Wednesday, July 15, 2020
Some more funny signs
Safety signs at their best |
The one on the left is a very Covid-topical effort in the gents' loos in a very healthy-and-safety-obsessed client near Southampton. The rest of the cubicles had a fairly generic safety sign on; this one on first reading is similar, but gets sillier as you read down.
The one below is from an office kitchen in Bristol. It really defies any rational description, I can only assume that an original announcement was doctored. It is a very geeky office, so it may be a science joke that goes over my head.
Jonathan
The cake is for real, apparently. |
Friday, June 26, 2020
World's happiest suitcase sighted in Surrey
Look at its happy face! |
On the roof terrace of a lovely new building we were installing plants in yesterday (in that heat...) is a suite of garden furniture, the table of which is a suitcase.
Viewed from inside the building it looks like happiest suitcase in the world!
Apart from the temperature, the job itself was very enjoyable, as it was one of those buildings that just looked 'right' with the plants installed.
We don't quite go as far as Richmond in Surrey with our maintenance service but we have a network of trusted regional partners who we reciprocally subcontract the maintenance service to, so I know the plants will be in safe hands. So if you are a national company, we are able to help you.
Jonathan
Some plants in the building |
Friday, June 12, 2020
Barrier planters (again)
Sansevieria Laurentii in a barrier planter |
There is suddenly a great interest in physically separating office workers' space from each other for some reason I won't relate.
I'm seeing a lot of offices with rather ugly ad hoc screens made of perspex and the like.
I certainly hope as time goes by and a bit more design thought goes in to it, companies will start to look at using planting as a barrier.
Dracaena Lemon Lime in a similar display |
The catch is that compared to normal plant pots they are quite expensive initially, but if you rent them they suddenly become a much more affordable proposition. And much better looking than a sheet of perspex!
Jonathan
Has this pot leaked?!?
It's only when you have to contact all 275 customers in a hurry (as we did on 24 March) that you find out how many obsolete contact email addresses you have.
Anyway, I digress. for the first few weeks after I was 'un-furled' I was madly dashing round as many of our clients as I could getting water on plants that hadn't been touched in two months (most survived just fine by the way). One of the first places I went was an insurance office in Bournemouth (this one), where I was confronted by the sight of a tall yellow planter, surrounded by a large yellow area on the otherwise grey carpet. See my traditionally dodgy photo to the right.
My first instinct was blind panic; one of my yellow pots had leaked its yellow all over the carpet.
On closer examination it appears that the company have - for Heaven knows what reason - decided to replace certain areas of their grey carpet with yellow/grey tiles, but only in patches. This was backed up when I found another area the same.
It's striking I suppose...
Jonathan
Tuesday, February 25, 2020
Well, that was a different job!
Mitch, Julie and I at work |
This job we carried out last week in Poole was notable for several key reasons, and certainly quite memorable for all involved.
First it was a private house owned by a Dutch couple, whose other house - amusingly - is very close to where the plants and pots came from in Holland. Most of Stewarts' clients are businesses. In one of the pics you can see the dog, happily snoozing as we work round them.
Second, while we take photos of the finished product, rarely is the client snapping away as we work, meaning we have a great pictorial record of the work.
Lovely weather! |
Third, as can be seen in the image to the left of Sandra and I working on the lovely balcony, the weather was somewhat against us!
Fourth, it was a four-storey house with no lift, so everything had to be carried in. For this balcony, the pots, plants and six large bags of compost had to be carried all the way to the top floor.
Fifth, as you can see the pots are very unusual. I go on about how most of our pots are made from fibreglass and painted in the colour of your choice. Not these "Mussel Shell" pots, which are formed from a mosaic of mother-of-pearl pieces glued onto a mould. They look fantastic, and at a not-unexpected price premium.
Sandra poses with her handiwork |
Finally, as a consequence of all this complexity, it was a job that involved four of us in two vans, and consequently had a nice 'team effort' feeling to it. Though I think we all agreed we were a tired team at the end.
I put a lot of planning in to making it run smoothly, but it wouldn't have gone as well without the professionalism of Sandra, Mitch and Julie to help me out.
I'll let the rest of the pictures do the talking.
Jonathan
The whole team at the end! |
Trying to take a photo in a gale! |
The completed rubber plant |
One of the floor bowls |
Monday, February 24, 2020
Soil vs hydro roots, and getting watering right
No prize for guessing which is which: hydro plants are grown in LECA clay granules and the secret to the plants' success is keeping the watering as consistent as possible, aided by a floating water level indicator. As you can see, it has fat main roots that have few fine side-roots, and all terminate at the level at which the water should be kept.
This being a Dracaena Marginata, the soil version would be kept fairly dry, hence the healthy profusion of roots in the rootball, all looking for any available moisture.
So what can we learn from this?
1. As I said above, if you are one of those few people tasked with caring for hydro plants, consistent watering is vital. If you overwater them, this dry-loving plant would constantly have its roots in water, if you underwatered it, it would get none at all.
2. More interesting is that if you dig out a soil plant that has been kept too wet over a long period, its roots will look like hydro roots, i.e. not many of them and not very well branched.
What does this last point mean? Firstly, the plant has a much less healthy root structure (though on the plus side would be a lot easier to dig out of a container), but secondly if you started looking after a plant that someone else had kept too wet and started watering what you thought was correctly, the chances are it would die, as it simply wouldn't be able to take up a restricted diet of water.
So make any changes to an existing plants watering regime over a long period and let it adapt.
Jonathan
Thursday, February 13, 2020
A podcast about us!
N.B. non-clickable link, see link below! |
It's a discussion about interior landscaping in general and Stewarts in particular.
I find it very odd listening to my voice (I sound so posh!), and Rebecca can't listen to it at all.
Enjoy!
Jonathan
On Facebook... finally!
First, apologies for the lengthy absence since last posting... once again we have been kept busy by having a technician on long-term sick, so I'm out every day covering her work, or was... welcome back Sandra!
Anyway, at long last Stewarts Interior Landscaping have our own Facebook page!
As we are a small part of the Stewarts Garden Centre chain, we always came under their Facebook umbrella, but we decided that as our audience are rather different we should have our own page.
I am now the editor of said page. I will attempt to update it more regularly than I have managed with this blog.
At the time of writing there is no plan to stop contributing to this blog, fear not!
Jonathan