Stewarts Office Plants

No-one gets away from Stewarts!

2008-07-15T16:26:00.006+01:00

A company in Poole asked us to give their beloved Bonsai Ficus Retusa some TLC last week, so I went and collected it from them.

Knowing that Christine, one of my recently retired (and much missed) employees, is a bonsai expert, I invited her back to perform the trickiest work for me. Payment was in the form of strong tea and a lemon slice from the garden centre's coffee shop (and I rewarded myself with a caramel slice for thinking of getting her to come in!).

We (well, she) removed it from its pot, cleaned all the tired old soil from it, then very cleverly tied it to the pot to make it more stable, and finally we replanted it in fresh bonsai compost, and it's now more or less ready to go.

Thanks Christine!

Watch out, there's a Ruth about!

2008-07-11T09:31:00.002+01:00

In an attempt to spread the word about Stewarts Interior Landscaping, I'm out and about one day a week, calling into various business parks and commercial buildings from Exeter to Basingstoke, north as far as Newbury and all points in between! If you would like me to stop off and see you, bringing along suggestions for office plants to enhance your workplace, please give me a call on 01425 283126 or 07714 827961.

I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Ruth

116 years of experience!

2008-05-28T08:42:00.002+01:00

A list of all my staff's employment start dates passed across my desk recently, and it set me thinking. I sat and worked out how many years experience of caring for office plants we had between us, and it adds up to one hundred and sixteen years!

This is of course meaningless without knowing how many of us there are doing the job: nine people, so that equates to an equally impressive (almost) thirteen years experience each! Added to which, none of us have spent less than six years in the industry at present. As far as I am aware, no other office plant company can come close to this average level of experience.

What does all this mean to potential and existing clients? Well, although our new starters (if I remember rightly...) receive a very thorough four weeks of training, caring for office plants is a job that can only be completely mastered by doing it for a few years, so this is one reason why the standard of our maintenance service is second to none.

Jonathan

Hanging basket time - don't delay!

2008-05-07T12:31:00.003+01:00

We usually deliver our summer hanging baskets at the end of May. Now the weather has suddenly turned summery (it's 28 deg C already in my office in the greenhouse!) we expect the phone to start ringing as all our clients' thoughts turn to their workplaces' outdoor spaces at once...

The snag is that hanging baskets need a little time to 'grow on', in order that they are delivered with some flowers already in evidence, so if you want baskets for the end of the month, you need to order now.
Email me or ring the office, and we'll send you an order form. As a guide price, our most popular size of basket (16" diameter) retails at £29.00 + VAT, which includes delivery in our usual coverage area! You can specify colour, and plant mixture as required, and please note that we also provide and plant window troughs, summer bedding etc.

A new look for our coffee shop

2008-04-01T16:55:00.005+01:00

The Stewarts Country Garden Centre (near Wimborne, where Stewarts Office Plants is based too) has just finished having their coffee shop enlarged and refurbished.
While the existing displays were very nice, the new colour scheme and much enlarged space meant we had to put something new in. Rebecca opted for a combination of matt graphite pots in the main area and the gorgeous pearl red in the new section, which is decorated in a dark red colour. For the planting she decided on - among other things - three large olive trees to sit in large square pots in the main area, where the great light conditions are ideal for olives.
We planted them in situ first thing this morning before the garden centre opened, and I have to admit they look great.

Notice also that Rebecca has hung some of our Wall Art range around the coffee shop. While my picture may paint a thousand words, why not come in to the Country Garden Centre, stop for a coffee, and take a closer look at our plants & pictures? If you’re a potential business customer in the Bournemouth/Poole area, what better way to see Stewarts Office Plants’ products in the flesh… and legitimately get out of the office for a couple of hours? You might even be able to claim the price of the coffees on expenses!

Jonathan

Jonathan takes an unexpected journey....

2008-03-18T19:09:00.002Z

Stewarts look after the plants on a pair of passenger ferries called the Express & Vitesse, sailing out of Weymouth & Poole. Due to the somewhat erratic schedule we have to fit in with, these plants are looked after by yours truly, aided by Claire, my assistant.
I went to Weymouth this morning to look after the plants on Express, and found Vitesse there too. As I'm due to return on Tuesday after Easter (bank holiday weeks are busy enough for us with five days' work to complete in four) to do Vitesse, I wandered on board to see if I could get these plants done too. The boat was swarming with workmen, and no-one stopped me getting started, so imagine my surprise when I looked out of the window 30 minutes later to realise we were sailing out of the harbour.
This has happened to us before; the boat occasionally goes out to turn round or change berth, so I casually enquired of one of the other workmen (who seemed very relaxed): "Ermm, where are we off to?"
"Oh, just round the bay I think."
"Oh, that's a relief, I've nearly finished!", I replied.
"I think they're staying out for about four hours, mate", after which it became clear the rest of the workmen were there all day anyway so they didn't mind the trip out.

A short conversation with the crew confirmed this, so I gave the plants possibly the most thorough clean and prune they will ever get, and when we docked (happily a mere three hours later), I made a mental note always to double-check whether I was staying in port in future.

Needless to say I have endured a wide range of jokes at my expense in the office ('Have you brought us any brie back?', 'How are your sea legs?' etc.), which I rather suspect I deserve.

Plants that improve your office's air quality

2008-02-18T09:10:00.005Z

I often get asked to provide plants specifically to improve the air in a modern office. As you may be aware, the air in modern air-conditioned offices contains a lot of impurities, and the right kinds of plants really can make a difference by absorbing a lot of the nasties. A lot of offices with aircon have very dry air, so the increase in humidity is useful too. Believe it or not, it has been shown that a sufficient quantity of plants relative to staff numbers can actually pay for themselves by reducing the cost of absenteeism due to sickness!

Don't believe me? There's a mass of data available at the Plants for People website to back me up.

As for what plants work best, you need a lot of leaf area, so broad-leaved plants are best, and high humidity is encouraged by thirsty plants. So a broad-leaved Ficus, like the burgundy rubber plant I installed in Southampton last year is ideal.

Air-improving alternatives to the Ficus family include broad-leaved Dracaenas, Spathiphyllums and Aglaonemas. You'll find pictures of all of these on the main office plants website.

How many vans can we get in the greenhouse?

2008-02-15T16:26:00.004Z

Ummm... that'll be one then. We're doing a one-day hire to a training event in Blandford Forum, Dorset on Monday. Plants need to be in place by 0830, so rather than load up in the morning, we've loaded on Friday afternoon and left the doors open. Obviously we have to park the van in the greenhouse as the plants (a mixture of Ficuses and Kentia palms) need to be kept above 15 deg C.

The trouble is we can't get out of the greenhouse now, so it looks like we're in here until Monday too! D'oh...

Edit. Monday morning: we did of course squeeze out on Fiday and delivered the plants on time this morning, with the added benefit of a toasty warm van when every one else was scraping ice off their cars.

This is where we will look after office plants

2008-02-08T14:53:00.001Z

I keep trying to describe our coverage area in previous posts, but it's quite wordy, as it consists of several part-counties (e.g. in Devon we'll go to Exeter, but no further; sorry, Plymouth!).

So I decided to use my extensive MS Paint skills to draw a coverage map and post it on the blog (acknowledgements to Streetmap!).

Note that this line is quite 'fuzzy' (it's not just your eyes!), in other words our key areas are Dorset and Hampshire); we get more choosy as we reach the red line. However if you're just outside the line and you're looking at quite a major project, then do contact us - we do make exceptions!

No danger of Stewarts running out of pots!

2008-02-08T13:42:00.000Z

At the risk of repeating what I've said about our very affordable resprayed pot range, I thought I'd show potential office plants customers that there's plenty of options when it comes to reusing our second-hand pots.

This picture shows about half of them, the big line of our ever-popular Zenith range at back right consists of over a hundred alone, and all can be resprayed in any colour you can imagine.

This makes particular sense if you're buying a large number of plants for an office, as the saving on the initial outlay is significant, and as I've mentioned before the quality is as new.

So if you're in our coverage area (Bournemouth, Southampton, rest of Dorset & Hants, South Wiltshire etc.) and you're on a tight budget, get in touch. If you're fairly local to our base in Wimborne and you want an excuse to get out of the office for a while, I'd be happy to show you what's available.

What colour is 'Royal Blue'?

2008-01-10T11:34:00.000Z

We were recently invited by a hotel chain to put plants in their soon-to-be-completed Southampton branch. The on-site contact was very amenable about what we suggested, but the containers must be 'Royal Blue', as this was the corporate colour.

As anyone who's bought plant pots from me will know I'm a paint code geek, but I really struggled to decide what constituted Royal Blue. A search of Wikipedia - if anything - muddied the waters, as it turns out 'old' Royal Blue was a very dark blue, whereas it is now considered to be a mid to light blue, very like the links in this post.

My paint supplier pointed out that on the old BS381C (middle of page), colour 106 is called Royal Blue, but that's almost black! Help! Eventually I narrowed the choice down to the more modern RAL (top of page) colours, and suggested RAL 5010. The client agreed (rather too readily) and I worried about it until yesterday when we put the pots in.

Thankfully, this story has a happy ending, as the client was delighted, and look at the colour match with the chair next to it: spot on!

(Incidentally, this display features one of our specialities for prominent places like receptions: three Anthuriums in different colours. You pay about twice as much per month as for an ordinary plant, but we change the plants when they stop flowering. It still works out a fraction of the price of fresh flowers)

So did I get it right? Is this Royal Blue in your opinion? Feel free to look at the colour chart and email me with your own nomination - release your inner 'paint code geek'!

All ready for Christmas...

2007-11-28T11:12:00.000Z

Apart from a shopping centre who had their trees weeks ago, the first of our customers received their fully-decorated Christmas trees this week. Here's a photo of a a few more all ready to go out.

Unfortunately, all the red & gold ones are at the front, but we also do some great combinations of silver, blue, burgundy, black, lime green (honestly!), bronze, etc. etc.

Delivering 72 trees to Dorset, Hampshire and Surrey in three weeks is quite a challenge; the real challenge is collecting them all between New Year and Twelfth Night. That's three working days!!!

As Rebecca said above, if this service interests you, then contact us in early autumn next year and we'll send you a 2008 price list.

What a difference a respray can make...

2007-11-16T15:54:00.000Z

Rather than being a plain gloss colour, a lot of our latest planters are finished in matt metallic shades, which look great; a lot less plasticky (is that how you spell it?).

This looks just as good on more traditionally-styled planters, such as this Zenith planter, which is finished in a matt dark bronze, a perfect match for the brown leather furniture in this recently refurbished reception area in Salisbury.

Apart from our great range of competitively priced new fibreglass pots, we make extensive use of pots that have come back from old rental contracts, then been resprayed by the manufacturer, making them as good as new.

The reason for doing this? It's very economical! This display cost less than £70.00 + VAT; alternatively you could rent it for as little as £7.00 per month, which would include us looking after it for you. If you select the next size down of Zenith pot, we'll do it for even less!

So if you're in our coverage area (Dorchester, Bournemouth, Salisbury, Southampton, Portsmouth, Basingstoke and surrounding areas), and your office plants are in horrible old-fashioned pots, give us a call. You might be surprised how little it costs to upgrade!

Christmas

2007-11-14T09:51:00.000Z

Well, the team are well into Christmas now, preparing everything ready to install the Christmas Trees into clients' offices and receptions. This is an extra service that we offer to our clients alongside the office plants. We supply and decorate live and artificial Christmas Trees right around Dorset and Hampshire. Included in the service is collecting them before the twelfth night after Christmas. We are pretty full now with orders, but you are welcome to call to ask if there is any room to squeeze you in. If we are unable to help this year then bear us in mind for next year...put it in your diaries for 2008. It is best to contact us at the end of September or the beginning of October. Happy Christmas.

No Parking!

2007-11-08T16:14:00.000Z

I recently installed seventeen plants at a health club in Guildford. The club had a problem with customers parking on the pavement right outside, so rather than having a line of ugly bollards, we put a line of six simple blue square pots planted with Chamaerops palms (my favourite outdoor palm) across the kerb..... and bolted them to the ground!

As I worked, the occasional customer arrived and gave me a very dirty look as I permanently cordoned off 'their' space - job done! Got a similar parking problem? Drop me a line!

New balls for Portsmouth Football Club?

2007-10-16T15:25:00.000+01:00

No, just 3 Echinocactus, chosen by Pompey for the Reception desk at their new headquarters in Portsmouth. Stewarts Interior Landscaping have recently supplied the Club with plants and containers for each area of the offices in Fratton. We are hoping they may choose some artwork for the office walls too: www.stewartswallart.com.

With regard to the wall art, we do have many more landscaping images than those appearing on the website - just give me a call and I'll send through the web links if you don't find what you are looking for on the wall art website above.

Ruth

Stewarts help Hags win gold!

2007-09-13T16:28:00.000+01:00

We recently provided the planting to the trade stand of Dorset-based play equipment supplier Hags at a commercial landscaping trade fair in Windsor. They subsequently won the gold medal for their category of stand!

Clearly it wasn't entirely down to the planting we provided, but I bet we tipped the balance in their favour. Quite apart from our contribution, the whole stand looked great, and their gold was well-deserved.

The brief was to plant up two beds that Hags staff would be constructing for us with 'sensory' plants (i.e. scented or tactile plants), so I used thirteen types of plant, three of each, including grasses, lavenders and rosemaries.

Predator bugs

2007-08-10T12:06:00.001+01:00

This week, we've been to two of our sites (one in Weybridge, one in Chandlers Ford), releasing insects into the office plants there. Don't believe me? Read on....

We are forbidden by law from using chemical pesticides indoors. Keeping the plants very clean and shiny prevents most pests, but it's impossible to keep large (4m+) trees spotlessly clean all the way up. This is where predator bugs come in. We were treating a common pest called Mealy Bug, by releasing some bugs called Cryptolaemus, which are very small orange ladybirds. We can treat any pest this way, but only on large plants or display beds.

The theory is that the predators start eating the pest, then if there's almost none left their numbers decrease too, so that a stable population is established.

However... They are somewhat frustrating to release, as they seem to be quite happy to stay in the tube in which they are delivered, thank you very much, and don't seem that enamoured with their prey at first. Plus they need releasing in the evening, so a nice late night for me. D'oh!

P.S. It's worth noting that the garden centres sell a whole range of these predators too. You take a card and send it off and they are mailed directly to you.

Gorgeous burgundy rubber plant

2007-08-06T16:24:00.001+01:00

I'm in love again!

White/pink-walled office, one of our lovely new burgundy/brown pots and to top it off, a burgundy-leaved rubber plant. My dutch supplier says it's called Ficus Elastica Burgundy or F.E. Abidjan; all I know is it's a real head-turner, and got a lot of attention when we installed it.

You've seen the old-fashioned green rubber plant, well this is similar, but with a deep, glossy dark red colour to the leaves.

As far as I know it's the only one in an office in Southampton, or anywhere in Hampshire & Dorset. Who's going to be second then?

Photographic images on display in Dorchester

2007-07-03T11:11:00.001+01:00

Some of our wonderful photographic images are on display on canvas in Dorchester, Dorset. Prospect House, part of the Enterprise Group, approached us and asked if we would display our artwork for their one year anniversary of the building. Prospect House is located on the Poundbury development is designed for start up support for new businesses this includes rented office space.

Beautiful Photographic Pictures arrive at Stewarts

2007-06-25T20:00:00.000+01:00

Stewarts Hampshire and Dorset Office Plants have just launched an exciting new product. As well as providing tropical indoor plants to many offices in the South we can now offer you unique and stunning photographic art. Perfect for receptions, offices, hotels and restaurants these stunning pictures will enhance your wall space for both your employees and clients to enjoy. The wall art is available as a print or canvas and can be ordered direct from the website or we would be happy to visit you to recommend the perfect colours/images for your space.

Canvas Wall Art arrives

2007-06-24T18:02:00.000+01:00

We have just launched a new website. We are now able to offer beautiful photographic images on quality canvas and prints ideal for your home and office area. Take a look at the beautiful unique picture gallery for you to choose from....they really are stunning. We have just recently sold some of our art work to an exclusive Golf Course in Dorset. Our images will also be displayed soon in an office in Basingstoke and on display in a gallery in Dorchester.

New Forest Ponies

2007-06-22T15:25:00.000+01:00

A visit to the New Forest in Hampshire is a must. Visit now and enjoy seeing the New Forest Ponies with their babies basking in the sun. We visited recently and took some photographs of them, take a look, through our gallery. You can order these pictures as a print or a canvas as wall art for your home or office.

Special offer - buy 6 for £320!!

2007-06-19T08:59:00.002+01:00

In case you'd like to try your hand at looking after your office plants in-house, why not purchase 6 assorted plant specimens from Stewarts, in smart tapered square containers like the ones shown in the picture, for just £320 + VAT. Round containers are also available.

After some time, if you find you need some help to look after them, we will be pleased to take over and maintain them for you, for a bargain price of £25.00 + VAT per month, which would include any plant replacements needed.

We are happy to offer this service to anyone south of, or on the A303/M3, from Guildford to Exeter, and all points in between (Portsmouth, Southampton, Bournemouth, Basingstoke, etc.).

You don't just have to restrict your plant purchase to 6, of course ...

Let me know if you'd like further details.

Ruth

You missed your chance!

2007-05-21T14:07:00.000+01:00

To be the first to have the lovely Ficus Amstel Gold in your office, that is. That honour belongs to a civil engineering company in Ringwood in Hampshire, who took delivery of a pair in simple silver square pots a couple of weeks ago.

Here's a picture of Mike watering them for the first time, which is a reminder that we're famous for the standard of our maintenance service, with our staff having on average ten years service at Stewarts. Very few firms can say that, and having racked up nine years myself, I know that experience is the only way you can master the care of indoor plants.

Jonathan