Where Should Interior Plant Care Designers Use Colorful Plants?

Colorful stromanthe plants have just been stocked, ready to be delivered to your Boston cityscaped high light planter boxes in your office. These colorful leaves add depth and texture to your office windows. PDIPlants uses these colorful botanicals in many of the Boston, Ma office interiorscapes.

Growth of stromanti is also determined by environmental factors, such as temperature, available water, available light, and available nutrients in the soil like other indoor office plants. However, these colorful plants lack the dark green chorophyll and chloroplasts as say a philodendron, thus they need more sunlight. Any change in the availability of these external conditions will be reflected in the plants growth.

Why PDI uses Dyna-Gro fertilizer 7-9-5 in your indoor office plants.

Plantscape Designs Inc. applies Dyna- Gro fertilizer 7-9-5 to all our indoor green office plants this time of year for the following reasons:

1.contains 7% nitrogen for your healthy greening of your plants by sun absorbing chlorophyll, builds amino acids, proteins, coenzymes, nucleic acids

2.contains 9% phosphate available for your plants vibrant leaf/ flower pigmentations and ATP energy chemical reaction transfer, helps build phospholipids as well as coenenzymes.

3.contains 5% soluble potash ( potassium) for your green plant coenzyme development, for protein synthesis and essential for stomatal function

4. numerous trace elements are also contained in this liquid grow plant food, which promotes healthy vibrant growth of all plants such as :boron, cobalt, Magnesium, calcium, copper, iron,manganese, molybdenum, sodium, zinc.

Plantscape Designs Inc. uses this plant food in all our N.E. plantscape locations Boston, MA.

Why clean and steilize your scissors after trimming your indoor office plants?

Any one trimming their indoor office plants must always clean and sterilize with alcohol their scissors.

1.When trimming what appears to be brown or yellow spots or tips of leaves could be fungus or even viruses.

Fungus spores or virus vectors could adhere to your scissors or pruners and infect the next plant you intend to trim.

2. Like wise when trimming leaves microscopic insect eggs can also stick to your pruners or scissors, further causing contagion of insect larvae with other plants in your interior officescapes.

3.The easiest and safest method to sterilize your trimming scissors is dipping them in a 70% solution of isopropyl alcohol or soaking a clean cloth with this solution thoroughly wiping your tools of these live organisms.

4. By doing this simply procedure you and your company can save hundreds of dollars in plant replacements.

At Plantscape Designs Inc. Boston, MA we always sterilize our tools on a daily basis to eliminate costly interior office plant loss.

What are fungus gnats?

Fungus gnats are tiny flies that don’t bite or spread human pathogens/diseases. The only way they can harm us is through frustration as they invade our houseplants or spring seedlings.

What do fungus gnats look like?

They are small, grayish to black flies that are 2 ½ millimeters long and resemble tiny mosquitoes (minus the bloodsucking). Their legs are long and slender, and their skinny antennae are usually longer than their heads. Their wings are shades of gray. Fungus gnats are relatively weak fliers and generally remain near potted plants, often running or resting on soil or leaves.

What kind of damage do fungus gnats do?

They may not threaten human health, but with fungus gnats you get a triple whammy: Not only do people hate to see them in general, the pests can be vectors for plant diseases – not good! “What’s a vector,” you ask? It’s an organism that transmits a pathogen, so if you have a sick plant, fungus gnats can spread it to all your healthy neighboring plant friends. They can also vector several different fungal root rots, including ones called Fusarium and Pythium, and even foliage pathogens like Botrytis. And as if that’s not bad enough, fungus gnat larvae make breakfast, lunch and dinner out of your plant roots.

So there’s good news, and there’s bad news: The good news is adult fungus gnats only live about one week. The bad news is that in this short time, the female will deposit 100-150 eggs on your plant’s soil surface. These eggs are laid in strings of three to 40 and can hatch within four days of being laid!

The emerging larvae are clear to creamy-white and can grow to about 5 ½ millimeters long. They have shiny black head capsules. The larvae feed on tasty root hairs in the upper 1 centimeter of the soil, then work their way up into the plant stem. (They also love to feed on the roots of your newly planted seed, so watch those seed-starting trays in spring!) The larvae feed on highly organic soils, too. After feeding for approximately 14 days, the larva pupates. In about three and a half days, an adult will emerge from the case. The total life cycle takes two to four weeks.

At Plantscape Designs Inc. ,we combat the infestation of fungus gnats with bological control such as the use of parasitic nematodes in our N.E. plantscape clients.

Philodendron - A Versatile Plant For Your Office

Philodendron oxycardium, heart leaved Philodendron, has been a staple in the foliage plant industry with unlimited uses. It works beautifully to enhance your office space as a hanging plant, desk plant or a floor plant when trained on a support. Some of the creative uses are when it is used in dish gardens, terrariums or groundcover in large architectural planters.

This Philodendron also has an interesting past. First collected in the West Indies in 1793 by Captain William Bligh, yes, the Captain Bligh of Mutiny on the Bounty, and returned to England where it has graced homes and offices around the world since. We currently use these in many of our Cambridge Ma. office locations.

Why use opuntia cacti in your office plantscapes?

Indoors, Opuntia cactus can be grown in pots but they generally don't grow to more than a few feet tall. They do best in full sunlight with very little water. No cacti likes to be over watered and they will rot if they remain in saturated soil. Water sparingly and improve soil drainage in areas that receive a lot of rain. My cactus lets me know when it needs water with thin pads and droopy tips. One year we got over 20 inches of rain and the pads swelled up with so much moisture they broke off under their own weight.

We at PDI are currently using opuntia cacti in our downtown Boston cityscapes Boston,Ma.

Also called Prickly pear cacti, opuntias typically grow with flat, rounded platyclades that are armed with two kinds of spines; large, smooth, fixed spines and small, hairlike spines called glochids, that easily penetrate skin and detach from the plant. Many types of prickly pears grow into dense, tangled structures.

Like all true cactus species, prickly pears are native only to the Western hemisphere; however, they have been introduced to other parts of the globe. Prickly pear species are found in abundance in Mexico, especially in the central and western regions. They are also found in the Western United States, from arid regions in the Northwest, throughout the mid and lower elevations of the Rocky Mountains, and especially in the Southwest. Prickly pears are also the only types of cactus natively found to grow far east of the Great Plains states, as far northeast as Long Island, where it can be found in Northport.

Prickly pear species were introduced into Australia in the late 1800s, causing major ecological damage in the eastern states. They are also found in the Mediterranean region of southern Europe, especially on the island nation of Malta, where they grow all over the island, and can be found in enormous numbers in parts of South Africa, where it was introduced from South America.

Plantsape Designs Inc. of Boston, MA uses these cacti in your cold unheated entrance ways when no other tropical plant can survive.

Opuntia are the most cold-tolerant of the lowland cacti, extending into western and southern Canada. Prickly pears also produce a fruit that is commonly eaten in Mexico, known as "tuna"; it also is used to make aguas frescas. The fruit can be red, wine-red, green or yellow-orange.

Charles Darwin was the first to note that these cacti have thigmotactic anthers: when the anthers are touched, they curl over, depositing their pollen.

How Plantscape Designs Inc. uses cork screw ficus in office interiors.

PDI uses cork screw ficus trees in office interior lobbies as well as office cafes.

These tall stately low light ficus trees add character to your office work place.

Planting these soft leafed botanicals in Lechuza Cubicos further enhances the long elegant lines of these indoor plants.

Plantscape Designs Inc. currently services the Woburn, MA. office parks.

Do you know that one of the most popular plants in Europe is the Ficus benjamina

and its many cultivars.

There are many perceptions in the US on Ficus trees with differ from Europe

Ficus drop their leaves

Ficus are short lived in the interior environment

Ficus are uninteresting

Ficus are inexpensive

A Ficus is a Ficus

There is nothing new in Ficus

In fact over 15 years ago Ficus trees accounted for over 11% of all potted plant sales sold and over 60 Ficus varieties were being cultivated commercially.

Now not all Ficus cultivars are superior but some select varieties are indeed superior. Plus we continue to see new selections both unique in color form and growth habit.

This image is of a crop of 14 inch Ficus Benjamina ‘Monique‘ trees grown as ‘corkscrews’. These trees are undergoing the acclimation process getting use to lower light levels soon ready to be a conversation item as a houseplant or in an office.

Ficus Benjamina Monique is more drought tolerant than past benjamina varieties. Learn more on Ficus tree care here.

Ficus trees are one of PDI main staple plants for your Boston cityscape atriums.