FosterPlants.com

We’ve been doing plants in interior, terrace and courtyard spaces for a long time — over 20 years in fact — ouch, we’re old!

That’s a good thing though. We know what we’re doing and we do it well. With age comes experience!

Ok, back on topic now. There are only so many plants that  will survive in interior spaces and most of them have been around for a while. Some of them are classics and sometimes, some of them are some new genus that was created through tissue culture — that’s kind of like cloning — but for the most part, there really haven’t been that many new plants introduced in the past several years.

Not to worry though. We’re experts at creating Award Winning Interior Plantscapes and often we achieve our end result by combining the ordinary with the unusual and creating the extraordinary. For example, for this Award Winning installation for Espirito Santo Plaza — itself an award winning  property  in Miami’s Brickell Finacial District — we combined cast stone vessels by a New England Artisan with juncus sporalis and fresh stems of tropical flowers which are changed out weekly.  Visitors, tenants and residents of the building get quite a surprise every Wednesday as we perform our floral change. They never know what to expect, but they’re always pleasantly surprised!

In this rotation shown at left we have Beehive Gingers  installed into the aqua-tubes and we chose to keep them low and comingled with the Juncus sporalis. The Juncus which is permanently planted, was selected for it’s quirky corkscrew-like character and also because it’s a plant that most are not familiar with.

The rotation of Heliconias shown above is one of our favorites and three different colors of Heliconia are installed over the course of the year.

Kangaroo Paws shown below are a favorite for both Spring and Fall — although we don’t really have much in the way of seasons here.

I’f you’re looking for a way to spruce up your lobby or reception area, consider adding some FosterPlants™ and AwesomePlanters™ to your space. We’d welcome the opportunity of meeting with you to discuss how we can make your space green.

Call Steve Foster at 305.962.0990 to schedule a complimentary initial consultation.

Envision this.

You’re sitting at you desk working on the computer and there’s this annoying little miniscule bug… or perhaps a few of them that keep flitting around — right in front of your face — between you and your monitor and they’re really annoying.  Just about impossible to swat too!

Have you been there?

Say hello to the Fungus Gnat.

This little critter isn’t harmful to humans or animals, but they are extremely annoying, as you may know, and eliminating them from your space can be quite a challenge.

Where do they come from? Well, several possible sources. they could be coming into your space in the soil of your plants at the egg or larvae stage, or they can fly into your space through an open door or window at the adult stage. Kind of like mosquitoes or flies. The only way to eliminate them once an area is infested is to treat both the nesting area  (which could be, but isn’t always necessarily the soil of your plants) and the adults that are flying around.

I won’t get too technical here, but if you’d like to find out all the technical details, there’s a great article at https://class-insecta.com/Fungus_Gnats.html

How can you prevent the likelihood of an infestation?

• Make sure that your plants are sourced from a reputable Interior Plantscape Professional (we know a good company if you need a recommendation )
• Make sure that that company treats all of your incoming plants to eliminate any larvae that may be present in the soil. We do.
• Ask your staff not to bring gift plants or plants from home into the office as they may unknowingly introduce the dreaded fungus gnat into your space.
• Use covered trash receptacles in your kitchen areas and require that they are emptied daily making sure that the trash is properly disposed of outside of the space.
• Require your staff to dispose of any food that they may have taken to their workspace in that covered trash receptacle in the lunch room.

What to do if you do have an infestation?

• Call your Interior Plantscape Professional  and let them know that you’re having the problem. They will know what steps to take to eliminate the infestation.
• Call your Pest Control Professional also, as the infestation may not necessarily be emanating from the plants.
• Be patient and understanding during the process as the only way to completely eliminate the problem is to break the life cycle.
• Realize that your Interior Plantscape Professional is on your side and wants the issue resolved as much as you do.
• Understand that the plants, although they may now be the nesting area may not necessarily have been the cause of the infestation.

Please leave us a comment if you found this post useful.
Our thanks to Class-Insecta.com for the use of their photo.

Ok, I’ll make this one short

We offer a program called FlowerCuts™ to our corpporate and residential clients and I was doing one of our FlowerCuts™ routes last week to fill in for one of our people.

As I was just about finishing up at my second stop, a very high end fitness center, when this lady walks up to me and asks for a business card. Knowing that I had just reordered business cards, and that I had given out my last one the day before, I explained to her that I was completely out, but may have one in my wallet that I had written a note on.

So, I take a look and pull out a kind of worn business card and flip it over to see what I had written on the back. Hmmmmm…. a name and phone number that are meaningless to me, but strangely enough she takes a peek and says “that’s my name!”.

We both got goose bumps, as I said “I hope the phone number isn’t yours?”

Turned out that it wasn’t, but it’s  kind of creepy anyway and I wonder what it means. It must mean something!

What are the odds of my having the name Yiel written on the back of a business card in my own handwriting, not recalling when I put it there and then having someone ask me for a business card and her name turns out to be Yiel?

Coincidence?

Do strange things like this ever happen to you too, or am I the only one?

Just like there are Toyota’s and there are Lexus’, there are Majesty palms (Ravena rivularis)  and there are Kentia palms (Howeia forsteriana)

While both the Toyota and the Lexus are great automobiles,  they’re just not the same! Sure, they both have four wheels, an engine and some seats, but that doesn’t make them quite the same, does it?

Well, the same applies to the Majesty and the Kentia palms. They’re just not the same thing, although they’re both plants. The Majesty palm is the equivalent of  a Toyota and the Kentia, well it’s a Lexus.

Why are we telling you this, you may wonder? Because, in the Interior Plantscape business, there are some companies that may be inclined to try to sell you that Toyota for the price of the Lexus, thinking that you won’t notice the difference! There are others that may suggest that you purchase the Toyota instead of the Lexus, because the price would be a LOT lower, but really, it’s about what you are interested in purchasing, not what someone wants to sell you!

So here’s where we’re going with this. If you haven’t established a budget and you don’t have a set of design specifications for your Interior Plantscape project, then you’ll likely end up with prices that are all over the board when you receive your proposals because one bidder may be proposing Toyota’s and the other may be proposing Lexus’.

Here’s the thing. The Kentia palm (Lexus) costs  more than the the Majesty palm (Toyota), but it also looks ten times better, will last considerably longer, isn’t prone to as may pests and is a much better value in the long run. Not to mention that it just looks a lot better… did we say that already?

The bottom line here is that you have to think in terms of cost vs. effect.  Would you rather save a few dollars up front and a few dollars a month to have a plant that really dosesn’t look that great, is more prone to pests and really won’t project the high quality image of your company or would you rather spend minimally more in the long run and project the quality image that you’ve worked so hard to nurture.

Our objective here at FosterPlants isn’t to sell or lease you something that you don’t need or don’t want, it’s to provide you with the absolutely best value that’s within your budget  and provide your FosterPlants with the on-going horticultural service that’s second-to-none!

Want the Toyota, we can sell you that (we like Toyotas), or prefer the Lexus, or something in between the two, we can sell you that too. We just can’t sell you the Toyota for the price of the Lexusand we’ll never try to pull a switch on you!

Not all plants are created equal. Nor are all Interior Plantscape companies.

We’d love to show you the difference between “us” and “them”.

For a complimentary consultation, just call Steve Foster at 877.647.1782 or in Miami-Dade 305.251.7383