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, July 23, 2020

One in, one out (with a Lockdown in-between)

Roger, giving his van a clean-out

My very last act before Stewarts heeded UK Government advice and closed until mid-May was to drive Roger (pictured above) home on the occasion of his retirement. Roger had worked for us since 2005, and for fifteen years prior to that at another firm that Stewarts then bought.
Despite his very sprightly appearance, he was 70 years old, a fact which surprised many of his clients when I told them. He will be greatly missed but is still keeping in touch with me. 

On March 30 his replacement Eleanor was meant to start with us, but that plan went out of the window! In all the chaos that has followed the Lockdown period it has only now been possible to bring her onboard. It takes four weeks to train up a new maintenance technician to a level where we can safely release them in to the wild on their own, so we were simply too busy to do that sooner, so we are very grateful to her for her patience. 

Just to add insult to injury, we made her help with a very arduous installation on her first day. Arduous because it took place in a very hot (30+ deg C) and humid indoor pool area at a five star hotel in the New Forest. While Michelle glowed delicately and I sweated like a pig, Eleanor seemed to positively love it, despite - as is expected now - wearing a facemask, which makes one feel even warmer. 

The plants, by the way are 3m high Caryota Mitis, aka Fishtail Palms. I discovered many years ago that these absolutely love the indoor swimming pool environment; surprisingly almost all other tropical plants don't do very well, for reasons that are quite beyond me. 

I am also a big fan of the pots - 'Polystone' Globes - though the job would have been a lot simpler if they were made properly waterproof... these had to be installed on a very tight time schedule for a promotional photoshoot, then removed to be properly lined... then reinstalled this week. 




Eleanor, rocking the Covid PPE look

Caryota Mitis