Tags: Biophilic design, Facilities Management, Nature & Environment, Office, Planteria Group, White Paper

The Science and Strategies Behind Engage & Bloom

Harnessing nature for workplace wellness and engagement

This resource explores the science and strategies behind Planteria Group’s Engage & Bloom workplace experience programme. It will show how the programme provides employees, organisations and facilities managers with several key benefits from both a commercial and wellbeing standpoint.

Key theories and frameworks are identified, demonstrating the scientific and strategic theory that underpins the Engage & Bloom programme.

An Introduction to Engage & Bloom

Engage & Bloom is a science-backed employee experience
programme that is centred on the principles of biophilia and its scientifically
proven benefits in terms of productivity and wellbeing. Such benefits are
achieved through harnessing the power of nature to create inspirational spaces.

The Engage & Bloom programme teaches clients how to look
after their plants at home, as well as inspiring them in the world of planting
and nature through a range of engaging experiences, including workshops,
interactive QR codes, and educational pieces.

The Modern Workplace Challenge

The modern workplace presents numerous challenges to ensure employees are working at an optimal level that benefits both the individual and the wider organisation. Since 1950, research suggests that we have gradually become more disconnected from nature and the benefits it provides.

A 2023 study by the UK Government identified that people spend 80-90% of their time indoors. To make matters worse research suggests that on average an office worker spends 12 hours per day looking at a screen.

Offices commonly experience a disconnect from nature, due to urban environments and sterile interior settings, as well as the growing importance of technology that has often acted as a substitute for nature as a source of recreation and entertainment.

Increasing Importance of Well-being and Engagement for Productivity

Engage & Bloom is based on the concept of biophilia, which refers to a human being’s innate desire to connect with nature. This is further reinforced by numerous scientific findings, notably an experiment conducted by the Chelsea Flower Show.

This experiment invited participants to take part in a study that measured their creativity, happiness, and productivity across a variety of different workplace designs. The results found that allowing staff to make design decisions in a workspace enhanced with office plants can:

· Increase well-being by 47%

· Increase creativity by 45%

· Increase productivity by 38%

These findings highlight the significant benefits that simply being around plants can have on employees. However, the interactivity of the Engage & Bloom programme enables organisations and their employees to harness these benefits to an even more powerful extent.

The Innate Human Connection to Nature: Biophilia

Biophilia is described as ‘an innate love for the natural world, supposed to be felt universally by humankind.’ The biophilia hypothesis is based upon the belief that humans have an inbuilt tendency to seek connection with nature and other forms of life.

In fact, the word biophilia is a combination of two ancient Greek words: bio (meaning life) and philia (meaning love). The term was first used by German social psychologist Erich Fromm, who claimed that biophilia manifests as the ‘wish to further growth, whether in a person, plant, idea, or social group.’

The growing awareness and popularity of biophilic design is indicated in the below graph, which demonstrates how the word biophilia, along with related keywords, has seen a significant spike in how frequently it is mentioned in publications, particularly from 2008 onwards.

Engage & Bloom is a solution that combines both science and strategy through engaging workplace activities. As well as improving productivity and wellbeing, Engage & Bloom also promotes teamwork and fosters connections with nature and one another.

The Engage & Bloom programme applies Fromm’s concept of growth in terms of people, plants, and social groups by giving individuals the opportunity to enjoy a shared experience that connects them with plants and nature both on an individual and group level.

The Science of Wellness in the Workplace

Workplace wellbeing encompasses how employees feel at work and about work, with a focus on developing and displaying healthy behaviours.

More specifically, it can include some of the following elements:

A positive working environment
Job satisfaction and purposefulness
Good leadership and management
Pay and reward
Personal development
Physical and mental health

Impact of Stress, Poor Air Quality and Sterile Environments on Staff

Factors such as stress, poor air quality, and sterile environments can all have a negative impact on workplace wellbeing. Poor workplace mental health has been estimated to cost UK businesses an incredible £45bn each year. Furthermore, Lumien data reveals how wellbeing impacts employees 27% of the time, and as a result, companies are losing 17% productivity.

Annually, this equates to £5,318.45 per employee, representing a significant organisational cost that could be mitigated through the implementation of wellbeing-focused initiatives.

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Scientific Evidence Supporting Biophilia

Taking an evidence-based approach to workplace wellbeing allows employers to understand their employees wants and needs, along with areas of improvement.

According to the Mental Health Foundation, 45% of people reported that visiting green spaces helped them to cope. Likewise, Harvard research finds that spending 20 to 30 minutes in an outdoor setting where people feel they are interacting with nature can lower stress hormone levels.

Cognitive and Productivity Benefits of Greenery in Offices

The concept of biophilia is supported by various studies and frameworks, including Kaplan’s Attention Restoration Theory which found that exposure to nature reduces mental fatigue, as well as helping improve focus and our ability to concentrate.

Likewise, Ulrech’s 1981 Stress Reduction Theory claims that natural environments promote recovery from stress, while urban environments tend to hinder it.

The Psychological Basis of Nature Engagement

According to the National Library of Medicine, individuals have less mental distress, less anxiety and depression, greater wellbeing and healthier cortisol profiles when living in areas with more greenspace.

This is reinforced by NHS research, which found that people who spend at least two hours a week in nature experience better health and higher psychological wellbeing than those who do not visit nature at all during an average week.

Sensory Benefits of Plant Interaction

Sensory planting encourages an increasingly engaging and
meaningful experience with plants, stimulating senses, including smell, sound,
touch, and sight.

According to the RHS, selecting plants that are particularly
good for your senses can improve mood and general wellbeing.

Examples of plants with sensory benefits include:

· Fragrant flowers, such as lavender, jasmine, and rose

· Herbs, including mint, basil, and rosemary

· Plants with a particularly textural appearance include lamb’s ear, ferns, and ornamental grasses.

· Vibrantly coloured plants that satisfy the visual sense

· Edible plants such as strawberry plants

Employee Engagement: Why it Matters

In their 2023 State of the Global Workplace Report, analytics and advisory firm Gallup found that nearly 6 in 10 employees are feeling disengaged at work. Traits of disengaged employees can include demotivation, missed deadlines, disinterest in team activities, and avoidance in taking initiative.

Such behaviours have also been described by the term ‘quiet quitting,’ whereby a disengaged employee only fulfils the bare minimum of their duties.

The Impact of Disengagement

Employee disengagement can result in several issues, both for an individual’s wellbeing and the organisation. Decreased productivity is a key risk of disengaged employees, along with high absenteeism and turnover rates and the subsequent recruitment and training costs.

The 2023 State of the Global Workplace report found that disengaged employees are estimated to cost the global economy $8.8 trillion dollars, which represents 9% of global GDP. As well as the financial implications, employee disengagement also results in an adverse impact on team morale, which may cause an overall reduction in workplace productivity and innovation due to an unfavourable working environment.

The Role of Nature in Engagement

Biophilic design can be classified into six key principles illustrated below:

The last two principles provide a clear insight into how biophilic design can foster a sense of purpose and belonging. Place-based relationships refer to the link between culture and ecology. This is based upon a human’s sense of connection with familiar surroundings and feelings of protection or stewardship towards such places, known as Place Attachment Theory.

A study published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology investigated the connection between green buildings and place attachment. It found that biophilic design and opportunities for connection to nature were amongst the most important aspects for supporting Place Attachment Theory and can enhance individual wellbeing, quality of life, as well as increase pro-environmental behaviours and community resilience.

When coupled with the attachment to nature and health and wellbeing benefits that biophilic design provides, it is clear to see the powerful impact that spaces with a strong biophilic element can have on an individual’s sense of belonging within that space.

How Interactive Experiences with Plants Create Meaningful Connections

Direct contact with vegetation represents one of the most successful ways of promoting human connection in design. Dr. Stephen Kellert claims that human evolution and survival require the management of natural environments, particularly with regards to sensory elements. Moreover, DelSesto highlights the variety of often overlooked ways that we interact with plants in daily life.

From clothing to writing materials, plants are used to produce essential daily items. What’s more, the exchange of plants as a mark of celebration or condolence highlights their powerful role in landmark events in our lives.

DelSesto’s below spectrum categorises people-plant interactions into key groupings: physical exertion, tactile immersion, and peaceful abiding. Different aspects can align particularly strongly with some of the identified benefits of biophilia. For example, interactions classified under the ‘peaceful abiding’ grouping are likely to be closely aligned to the benefits of stress reduction, while those classed as ‘tactile immersion’ may be particularly effective at boosting engagement and concentration.

Strategies Behind Engage & Bloom: Tailored Solutions for Every Workplace

Engage & Bloom comprises three modular packages, allowing tailored solutions for every workplace. In addition to an informative biophilic webinar, employees can dial in live and speak to our ‘Plant Doctor’ who will advise on care and maintenance of specific plants.

Furthermore, there is the opportunity to identify and learn about plant species simply by scanning a plant’s QR code, which brings up the relevant page of the Plantopedia. Silver and gold packages also include interactive and engaging biophilic-based workshops, which can encompass activities such as wreath making, floristry, and orchid arrangement.

Flexible Solutions to Suit Workplace Needs

Engage & Bloom is focused on creating tailored solutions for every workplace. The flexibility of several key offerings within the programme allows employers to implement activities in accordance with their workplace’s needs and schedules.

Plant giveaways, biophilic webinars, and workshops can be scheduled at a convenient time and location for the business, whether it is on-site or at a separate location as part of an out-of-office event.

Engagement Through Experience

According to Michigan State University, there are many activities workplaces can implement to improve group cohesion and build trust.

Such activities often give employees the chance to interact with colleagues in a different way and reveal different aspects of their personalities that may not come out during normal work interactions.

Other advantages of team building include:

Boosting employee engagement
Encouraging communication
Mitigating conflict
Increasing collaboration

Engage & Bloom workshops provide an opportunity for employees to experience these benefits, whether working directly together or enjoying a shared experience alongside each other to produce wreaths, orchid displays, and floristry bouquets.

As noted by McKinsey & Company, being amongst nature helps with attention span, creativity, well-being, and happiness and should act as a foundational resource for both individual and team development.

How Interactive Learning Builds Deeper Connection

Referring to DelSesto’s spectrum of people-plant interactions, the different activities within the Engage & Bloom programme can be classified within this framework. Floristry bouquets, moss art, orchid and wreath making workshops are categorised under the ‘tactile immersion’ category due to employees’ physical interaction with plant materials.

Other aspects of the Engage & Bloom programme, such as plant giveaways, dial-in plant clinics, and identifying plant species using a QR code and Plantopedia are categorised under the ‘peaceful abiding’ category, due to their focus on sensory engagement with plant environments and representations of plant environments. Such interactive and informative activities can promote deeper connections within the workplace.

The social element of a shared workplace activity can help employees to feel connected to one another and the activity. According to Times Higher Education, feeling connected to what is being learnt and the people one is learning alongside is what underpins engagement. They go on to state that feeling socially connected enhances an individual’s sense of belonging, which is essential to maintain motivation and feelings of safety and comfort.

Employee Satisfaction Surveys

Employee satisfaction following increased interaction with biophilia can be measured in several ways. Heightened creativity may be evident in subsequent projects and brainstorming sessions, while reported increases in productivity can also be observed.

Organisations may find that outlined objectives are being reached increasingly quickly and projects are completed ahead of schedule. In terms of wellbeing, employers may observe a positive change in the overall mood and atmosphere within the workplace

Client Success Stories

Recently, we brought the Engage & Bloom program to a leading social media platform’s London office. Employees fully embraced the experience, from learning about plant care to taking home their own plant, the event left lasting impressions and fostered stronger connections with nature in the workplace.

The client shared the following feedback after the event: “I’m so happy that you shared some beautiful pictures with me today. The plants look amazing, and I was extremely happy to see the engagement with our members; they looked happy. Well done to the Planteria team!”.

Case Studies

Engage & Bloom activities have been successfully implemented in a diverse range of workplaces and industries.

Wreath making makes a particularly popular seasonal workshop that can be adapted to the season, whether it is over the festive period, autumn, or spring. As such, materials can also be adapted to suit the season, theme, and even the organisation’s brand colours, creating a truly personalised experience for each individual workplace.

Quantifiable Benefits for Staff Engagement and Wellness

Awareness and application of biophilia within the workplace, through biophilic design elements in the office and Engage & Bloom engagement activities can be quantifiably measured using numerous metrics.

The outlined body of scientific research strongly suggests that organisations would see a reduction in absenteeism and the number of cases of reported stress and wellbeing-related issues when biophilic design and activities are regularly implemented within the workplace.

Implementing Engage & Bloom

According to the KPMG 2024 CEO Outlook Report, the majority of UK CEOs expect companies to shift towards a full return to office work within the next three years. As such, it is important for facilities professionals to look at ways to create calming and inviting workplaces.

The implementation of biophilic design principles is a key way to achieve this and demonstrate the facilities manager’s commitment to wellbeing and engagement. Introducing new and innovative biophilic initiatives can help facilities managers to further strengthen their client relationships and demonstrate proactive awareness of scientific and strategically backed initiatives that benefit their clients.

Preparing for an Engage & Bloom Rollout

The Engage & Bloom team will contact you to book in your events on a date that is convenient to your team. They will talk through the options with you and help you choose the best event type to suit your team, goals and/or the time of year.

For example, the wreath building workshop is most popular in Quarter 4 – as staff get to take home their own handcrafted wreath ready to decorate their home for Christmas.The Engage & Bloom team will identify what sort of space they need to hold the workshop or activities.

We recommend sending out company-wide communications for the larger events or specific invitations to the workshops. Allow staff enough time to ensure they are in the office on the specific days. The anticipation of a fun and engaging event can be a engagement piece in itself – reminding them that the company is committed to their wellbeing and have them looking forward to the event.

Partnership with Planteria Group

Planteria Group is committed to delivering tailored solutions for each individual workplace. With three packages available, employers can choose the one that is best aligned to their budgetary and organisational needs, with each package consisting of several Engage & Bloom initiatives. Silver and Gold packages also let organisations choose between 2-4 yearly workshops, with the opportunity to pick from several different workshop options and tailor them to suit their organisation’s needs.

Conclusion

Engage & Bloom is rooted in a scientific foundation. It’s based upon the key principles identified in Kaplan’s Attention Restoration Theory regarding nature exposure reducing mental fatigue. It is also based on Ulrech’s 1981 Stress Reduction Theory and its belief that natural environments promote recovery from stress.

Engage & Bloom harnesses the power of nature in the form of interactive initiatives that improve cohesion, build trust, and encourage enhanced team relationships.

As highlighted, the implementation of an Engage & Bloom workplace experience programme provides several key benefits, both in terms of individual employee wellbeing, productivity, and creativity. Additionally, there are a multitude of wider organisational benefits, including reduced absenteeism, labour turnover, and heightened team morale.

Discover tailored solutions that provide organisational, individual, and team benefits. Let us help you transform your workplace today.

About Planteria Group

Planteria is the UK’s leading office plant company, operating as an independent, family-run business of experts for more than 40 years and maintaining over 90,000 plant displays nationwide. We are committed to creating best-in-class biophilic design and have worked on some of the UK’s most prestigious projects.

You’ll find our work in offices, showrooms, and public buildings across the UK. Our Services: Design, installation and maintenance of planting for workplaces. Interior and exterior biophilic design, living walls and moss walls. We also offer corporate floristry and seasonal decorations, including orchids, Christmas trees and more workplace experience services via our Engage & Bloom Programme.

Contact Information

ENGAGE & BLOOM TEAM

T: 0345 505 3333

E: engageandbloom@planteriagroup.com

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Tags: Facilities Management, Nature & Environment, Sustainability

Sustainability – what is it and why is it important?

Sustainability is much more than a buzzword. While the use of the word has certainly increased in frequency, the concept itself is hardly new. An ecosystem, a lifestyle, or a community that is sustainable is one which supports itself and its surroundings.
Sustainability itself can be defined by three core elements:

Environmental Protection
Social Development
Economic Development

Environmental Protection

Environmental protection entails examining how our use of the environment affects it, and how we can ensure that negative effects are minimised and behaviours that positively impact the environment are emphasised.

Social Development

Ensuring that human beings have access to basic resources, that their health is being protected, and that they enjoy a good quality of life within a sustainable environment is crucial.

Economic Development

Sustainability without economic development simply cannot succeed. In order to convince individuals, communities, and organisations to invest their resources in sustainability, there must be incentives above and beyond the long-term advantages.

Why is it so Important?

Sustainability is important for a very simple reason: we cannot maintain our quality of life or the Earth’s ecosystems unless we embrace it.

Sustainability in the Home

There are many different ways to support sustainability at home.

Recycle

Recycling should be something we’re all doing as a matter of course now. Recycling eases pressure on the world’s resources and the environment.

Growing Food

Giving up a portion of your garden to plant vegetables has become increasingly popular in recent years. Container gardens, which can be moved and easily swapped out, are another great choice.

Conserving Water

Choosing plants native to your area that have evolved to thrive under the naturally present conditions is one choice. You can also consider installing rain barrels, depending on your local regulations, or planting a “rain garden”—planting water-loving foliage in areas where water tends to gather, to allow it to be absorbed into the soil rather than running off into storm drains.

Use of Fertilizers, Pesticides, and Herbicides

The chemicals you use on your lawn matter, and not just to your grass. Using safer, organic alternatives can help you keep your landscaping looking lovely without polluting or endangering the ecosystem. Lawn and garden care chemicals can have lasting effects on plants, animals, and insects in your area, and can also have a negative impact on the water supply.

There are so many ways to embrace sustainability, we hope this blog has given you some ideas to get you started.

Tags: Design, Environment, Nature, Nature & Environment

Can I have a Living Wall? And What ‘Green Wall’ alternatives are there?

Without a doubt, living walls look stunning and provide large swathes of real planting from floor to ceiling, creating a real impact…

A living wall can have numerous benefits in business environments; they can help to make staff more productive in the workplace and are equally important in improving the perception of your brand. In this article, you can find out the main points to consider when thinking about a living wall for your space, and why it could be important for your staff or guests.

Can I have a living wall?

Almost definitely yes! Or at least, the effect that a living wall can give. We create bespoke walls for your requirements, though there will be some spaces more suited to live living walls than others.

A living wall works best in a well-lit space with plenty of room and fresh air circulating. For example, entrance atriums and large reception areas with hard or concrete floors. It is ideal to install them when a building is being constructed so that the irrigation system can be put in and the living wall placed on top. This can also off-set some of the cost, as the wall won’t need plastering and painting.

If you have a carpeted area or a space with lower light levels, such as a restaurant or traditional carpeted office reception, you could consider an artificial living wall instead. These look beautiful and give a very similar effect, creating the same kind of wow factor. For office spaces, moss walls also make an excellent option for giving a high impact finish, they are easy to retrofit and require minimal ongoing maintenance.

Another option to include real, live planting without the commitment and expense of a full living wall, is to opt for live dividers or panels. These are self-contained green modular products and give a great effect. These can be replanted on a regular basis to give a different look and so can be treated like art installations. You can also use them to give seasonal variation to your location…

Where is the best location for different types of green walls?

The best type of wall for you will depend on your location and the requirements of the plants you select. For example, some plants need more light than others so if you are planning to place your living wall in a bright and airy reception, you will have lots of options for the type of plants you can use. For dark areas, you may need a growing light. You can also opt for moss walls or artificial living walls as these are perfect options for many spaces. Moss walls look exquisite when executed by professional plant technicians like Planteria. With lots of colour options and three different types of moss to choose from; bun moss, flat moss or reindeer moss, there are lots of variations to make your wall unique. You can also include your logo or a message and have something bespoke and specific to your company.

Here’s some more reading material on living walls to get you inspired for your new project:

It’s Alive! Buildings with Living Walls

Moss Walls: Q & A

What is A living picture and what types of living walls are there?

A living picture is a self-contained piece of art with a frame and a central section of planting. Living pictures look beautiful and can be hung singularly or in groups. Also available in this type of product are living panels and dividers. These are easy to maintain and a cheaper option than a full-scale living wall. There are lots of options for different types of planting and it can be regularly changed to give different effects throughout the year. If you move offices, you can even take these with you which you can’t do with a traditional built-in living wall.

When would I opt for Moss wall?

We supply sixteen different colours of preserved moss which can be used to beautifully create bespoke walls and even replicate your logo. Most moss is not recommended for use in exterior positions, but for interiors it is easy to manage and control. It is lightweight and fairly straightforward to install, making it ideal for most office environment.

Why would I choose an artificial living wall?

An artificial living wall brings many of the design benefits of a real living wall, with far less maintenance or ongoing costs associated with a real living wall. Obviously, an artificial plant does not grow, and you won’t reap the benefits of the air cleansing and CO2 absorption that you get with real planting. You also need to consider that artificial planting, made from plastics, is not as environmentally friendly as the real deal. However, just like interior furnishings, they last a long time and can be moved with you if you are moving offices, so this should be weighed up in your considerations.

Which are best and why?

There is no right answer to this question as whether you opt for a traditional built in living wall with its own Irrigation system, an artificial living wall, a living picture, panel, divider, or moss wall, will largely depend on your vision for your premises and the constraints of your environment and budget.

When planning in your green wall, you need to ask your plant provider questions like:

Is this right for my space?
How much will it cost to install?
What will the monthly cost of ongoing maintenance be?
What possible issues might occur that I need to keep in mind for the future?

If you would like to discuss your location and options to help you decide which is best for you, please get in touch with Planteria group today for a free consultation and quotation service.

Tags: Butterfly, Nature & Environment

Celebrating Butterfly Awareness Day

The 2nd June was a cause for celebration at the beauty that is the butterfly. Every year BEAD (Butterfly Education and Awareness Day) allows you to learn all about the stunning insects and their habitats, creating a cross-curricular learning environment where you can find out various fascinating facts about the incredible creatures.

Butterflies play an important role when it comes to flowers due to their pollinating capabilities. Pollen collects on the body of the butterfly and is transferred onto the flower that it next encounters, spreading the pollen and thus continuing the cycle of pollination.

As we celebrate butterfly awareness day, find out which flowers attract the special insect, and how you may be able to attract them to your garden.

What Flowers Attract Butterflies?

With butterflies, you must incorporate plants that best serve the needs of all of their life stages to attract them. As is common with most animals, the insects need a space to lay eggs and also need food plants for their larvae.

Adult butterflies are attracted to bright colours such as red, yellow, orange, pink and purple blossoms. Here we have listed some of the top flowers and plants which you can use to attract butterflies:

Buddleia
Verbena
Knapweed
Ivy
Eupatorium
Marjoram
Michaelmas Daisy
Lavender
Scabious
Hebe

Find out more about these plants and what species of butterfly they attract.

How to Attract Butterflies to Your Garden

Butterflies are a beautiful and welcome visitor to any garden, however, in recent years some species have seen a decline. Many ask the question; how do you attract butterflies to your garden? Here at Planteria Group, we have the answers.

One of the main elements that will attract butterflies to your garden is planting pollinator friendly flowers. Ones rich in nectar, such as wildflowers, are a great choice.

Why not create a butterfly garden? This will provide the resources to sustain resident breeding populations of native butterflies. Take a look at the top 10 plants for butterflies..

If you are a lover of butterflies, you can transform your space into a butterfly garden with these easy steps:

Avoid insecticides.
Plant nectar rich flowers, such as bramble.
Keep nectar and host plants close together.

Celebrate National Insect Week

18th – 24th June hosts National Insect Week, an event which aims to educate and raise awareness, by encouraging people of all ages to learn more fascinating information about insects. This fun filled week sees hundreds of events and activities across the UK, giving you the chance to discover insects you might not have known existed. It also gives you the opportunity the meet the entomologists who study them, answering any curious question you might have.

The week is supported by a large number of partner organisations who are interested in science, natural history and the conservation of insects, helping to reach a wide audience and create maximum interest for those who attend.

One of the partner organisations is the Butterfly Conservation, whose aim is to save butterflies and moths. Through their work, they have been able to raise awareness about the decline in numbers that many species of butterflies and moths are currently experiencing.

Butterflies are a beautiful part of nature, playing an important role in pollinating flowers. Will you be celebrating National Insect Week? As a specialist in plants and flowers for business, we offer a range of plants and we can help you turn your outside areas into butterfly attraction zones giving you an eco-friendly space that can be enjoyed by your colleagues and the local butterfly population.

If you would like to find out more about our services, contact a member of the team today by calling 0345 505 333. Alternatively, email enquiries@planteriagroup.com with any enquiries – our friendly team will be more than happy to help.

Tags: Bees, Nature & Environment

Bee Aware

Bees have been getting quite a lot of ‘air-time’ of late, but for all the wrong reasons. They are in danger.

Bee populations are declining

Since 2010, there has been a 45% decline in the number of commercial honey bees. Pesticides play a large part, but agricultural techniques have changed too over the decades, with an emphasis on increasing productivity which has meant a loss of the bees’ natural habitat as wildflowers have disappeared from our countryside. It has been estimated that we have lost 97% of our flower-rich grassland since the 1930s. Just why is this so important? Bees are the world’s most important pollinator of food crops. It’s estimated that one third of the food we consume each day relies on pollination, mainly by bees. These crops include, vegetables, rapeseed and sunflowers as well as cocoa beans, tea and coffee. Crops used to feed livestock also rely on that same pollination. It’s not just food crops that the bees play a huge part in, cotton crops rely on bee pollination too. The annual global cotton crop is estimated to be worth $170bn.

So what can we do about it?

On an individual level you can include bee friendly planting into your own garden, balcony or window boxes. In the UK alone, domestic gardens cover over one million acres.

Think about adding bee boxes for them to nest.
Bees love flowering plants which are rich in pollen and nectar.
Lavender is an easy to care for option that bees love.
Avoid using pesticides, especially ‘bug killing’ sprays.

Wildflowers are important for bees, so why not allow a space in your garden to let things run a little wild, and encourage bees and other insects for flourish? At Planteria we use flowering bedding plants for our client’s outside spaces, and we are fans of including lavender for its attractive colour and fragrance as well as its bee-friendly factor. We also grow sedum for green roofs, the bee’s just can’t resist it, so it makes a perfect green roof for city locations which are so often lacking in natural bee habitats. Go to http://bumblebeeconservation.org/about-bees/why-bees-need-help/ for more information and to find out what else you can do.

Tags: Happiness, Nature & Environment, Workplace wellness

Celebrating National Parks Week

There are many things associated with the UK: tea that solves a multitude of ills, rain that never ceases and queuing that is a national sport in itself. Yet this sceptered isle is also renowned for its green spaces and as such boasts an astonishing fifteen National Parks across the nation.

This month, a week-long calendar of events is taking place to celebrate our National Parks and encourage us to get out and explore them.

From Sunday 22nd to Sunday 29th July a range of activities that the whole family can get involved in will be taking place up and down the country and here at Planteria Group we take a look at what’s going on and why you should get involved.

A Walk on the Wildside

Amongst the many studies that support the theory of the benefits that nature has on our mental health as well as our physical well-being, there is increasing focus on how interaction with animals influences this too.

With that in mind, the wildlife-friendly events organised as part of this week-long festival provide the perfect opportunity to get involved.

If you’re local to Exmoor, why not join the Evening Deer Search for a two-hour walk over three miles looking for the Red Deer at the Exmoor National Park on Tuesday 24th July starting at 7pm? Naturally shy beasts, it might be worth taking binoculars to ensure you catch a glimpse, but no dogs please!

Earlier on in the same day, the Yorkshire Dales National Park hosts a Secret Squirrel event in which a specialist guide will show you how to look for the squirrels and other wildlife that make the peaceful woods their home. Being a gentle afternoon stroll covering just a mile and a half, this is an ideal event for young and old alike.

Treasure Hunters

A fantastic family event takes place on the Thursday of National Parks Week on the Cleveland Way National Trail, part of the North York Moors National Park. Taking around two hours to complete and costing five pounds per family, this fun Geocaching activity involves using a GPS unit provided as part of the event to locate clues that have been hidden in boxes. What’s more, as long as your dogs are on a short lead, they are welcome to help sniff out the clues!

The little ones can take charge with the Young Explorers Smugglers’ Treasure Hunt – with one nearly every day of the event – and use their smugglers’ map to search for hidden treasure, meeting at the Danby centre.

Getting Active

If you fancy something more physical, the Run ‘n’ Park event at Balloch on Saturday 28th July might just be for you; with a 2k and a 5k course marked out taking in the stunning, iconic views of Loch Lomond and with no official recording of times, you can take this event at your own pace and enjoy the great outdoors.

The kids can get involved at the New Forest National Park on each day of the festival on the Holiday Adventure Days. With activities throughout the whole day that they can enjoy, you can guarantee they’ll have a good night’s sleep after all that fun.

Getting Crafty

If you’re more of a hands-on type of person, there are plenty of great events for you to take advantage of. From dry-stone walling, letter-carving and archery to machine embroidery, there’s plenty of opportunity to learn a new skill in beautiful outdoor settings. Take a look at the diary of events to find an activity near you.

Of course, you don’t have to wait for an official week of events to enjoy our National Parks – nor are you only restricted to visiting a National Park to reap the benefits of spending time outdoors amongst nature.

Dr Andrea Mechelli of the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience at Kings College London, acknowledges that whilst it has long been understood that there is a positive link between contact with nature and health – in particular mental health – the lack of ability to gather qualitative data has led to little compelling evidence to support this.

With this in mind, he collaborated with the developers of an app called Urban Mind which tracked users’ movements through mobile devices and randomly asked them questions about their feelings and their immediate environment.

The findings were quite staggering, including not only demonstrating this positive link between the outdoors and health but also providing surprising but measurable results in terms of the length of time these positive effects lasted. He found, for example, that a single exposure to nature such as a walk or even time spent in a garden can have beneficial effects lasting up to seven hours.

Additional studies have shown how incorporating a green outdoor space in other settings, such as hospitals and care homes, has had a positive influence on successful outcomes for patients in relation to aiding their ultimate recovery in the case of the former and their improved well-being whilst being cared for in both circumstances.

So, the recent trend for providing an outdoor space in unexpected locations such as offices has been shown to be more than just improving the aesthetics; it can actually have a beneficial emotional impact on employees that can last a whole working day in addition to creating a pleasant environment to take a break and enjoy the visual stimulation, access to vitamin D and peace quiet from the humdrum of an office.

Additionally, these spaces provide an easy talking point that enables colleagues to engage with each other naturally thus improving relationships, whilst also providing handy sustenance and shelter for local wildlife.

The good news is that you don’t have to find the room to recreate the Hanging Gardens of Babylon in order to do this; any amount of space can accommodate an element of nature, from a small collection of pots planted up with flowers, a green ‘living wall’ to a roof garden hosting low-maintenance plants such as lavenders and other scented butterfly attracting plants.

Here at Planteria Group, we specialise in Corporate Floristry to help organisations to provide green spaces for the benefit both of their employees and their customers so to see how we could help you bring nature closer to home – or rather the workplace – get in touch with us.

Tags: Nature & Environment, Plants, Workplace wellness

The Greening of London (with the help of BID’s)

A Business Improvement District (BID) is a not-for-profit collective of local businesses who have come together to help improve their immediate area. There are currently 47 BIDs in London, each of whom create, develop and fund projects that benefit local business and the community.

In 2008 ‘The London Plan’ the Mayor’s spatial development plan for London, introduced a new concept, ‘Green Infrastructure’ or GI including; green walls, living walls, roof gardens, rain gardens and ‘parklets’.

Increasing green infrastructure brings with it may benefits; Cooling the built environment and reducing energy consumption, improving air quality, improving health for residents, increasing wellbeing, enhancing biodiversity and creating attractive places where people want to be.

In 2015 Boris Johnson launched a new and more specific initiative called the “Wild West End” designed to link up Regent’s Park and St James’s Park with green ‘stepping stones’ to encourage more birds, bats and insects to the built-up busy streets. This initiative was handed over to the local BIDs. A variety of installations have since been put in place including green roofs, planters, beehives and bird and bat boxes to provide a permanent habitat for London’s wildlife. Adding wildflowers including oxeye daisy, birdsfoot trefoil, and field scabious attract butterflies and bees and create more natural habitats to provide foraging opportunities for robins, goldfinch and other species.

The London Wildlife Trust said it was a “fabulous step” towards attracting nature to the heart of the capital, and demonstrating “how wildlife can flourish amidst the hustle and bustle of the city centre”.

Boris Johnson said the initiative could transform the city for thousands of residents, workers and tourists. “London’s population is at an all-time high, so while we need to build new homes and improve transport infrastructure, we also need better quality green spaces,” he said in a statement. “There is absolutely no doubt that parks and green spaces in urban areas improve people’s wellbeing and quality of life.”

The widespread public benefits of the greening of public infrastructure mean that the delivery of GI has previously been seen as the role of the public sector and the challenge has been to make the case for businesses to invest.

Evaluation of Victoria BIDs Cleaning and Greening programme suggests that businesses increasingly recognise the value of Green Infrastructure in;

Attracting Customers – guiding customers to a retail space and making locations more inviting.

Maximising Spend – increasing the amount of time a customer spends browsing.

Motivating Staff – and retaining them.

Adding Value – working with suppliers and building relationships in the locality, giving back to the wider community.

Looking to the future, the ‘London Green Infrastructure Plan 2050’ projects ahead to our needs for the coming decades, it calculates that the capital will need the equivalent of 13,000 football pitches of new green cover by the middle of this century. These findings prove that green infrastructure projects are much more than nice-to-have and certainly not an afterthought. Green infrastructure is about conservation as much as it is about aesthetics. The future of land and property management will be more proactive and less reactive and better integrated with efforts to manage growth and development.

FM Manager or Eco Warrior? We can help you with a ‘GI’ project; Green roof, green / living wall, eco-friendly planting, roof gardens and more. Contact us today.

Tags: Environment, Nature, Nature & Environment, Plants

Top Ten Scary Plants

We love plants; they’re calming, they improve your décor, and they reduce C02 levels in the home and office. But there are plenty of plants that you wouldn’t want to find in your office at 9 am on a Monday morning. With Halloween fast upon us, this blog will take a look at nature’s finest arboreal warriors. Perhaps you’ll appreciate your office peace lily a little more after seeing these horrors.

10) Cuscuta – Strangle Tare

Often appearing overgrown and tangled, Strangle Tare isn’t harmful to human beings, but it is certainly scary to read about. Occupying a ghost-like role in plant life, the Strangle Tare will leech the life out of its host plant(s), detaching itself from its own roots in order to survive solely on the hard work of other vegetations. Strangle Tare thrives in hot climates, and there are only four species native to Northern Europe.

9) Utricularia – Bladderwort

Everyone has heard of venus fly traps, but did you know about Bladderwort? Bladderwort flowers, like venus fly traps, feed on whatever prey they can catch in their snapdragon-esque maws. You won’t see bladderwort on land though, Bladderwort lives in fresh water, so next time you go wild swimming, remember the carnivorous Bladderwort!

8) Dering Woods – Screaming Wood

Dering Woods sits next to Pluckley, England’s most haunted village, in Kent. Dering and Pluckley purportedly house between twelve and sixteen ghostly residents between them, alongside the 1,069 living people who reside there. However, the trees themselves don’t seem to have any bearing on how this woods came to be a hotspot for the supernatural; if anything, what’s really scary is how its ghoulish reputation has led to its destruction. Campers looking for a thrill descend on the Screaming Wood with hopes of meeting a famous ghost, leaving a trail of litter in their wake. Pluckley village has spent £6,000 on litter clearing, and a further £41,000 has been sunk into trying to protect Dering Woods from future ghost hunters. So if you go down to the woods today, you’d better go with an eco-friendly attitude, the ghosts and residents will both be grateful!

7) Armillaria Solidipes – Humongous Fungus

The colloquially named Humongous Fungus spreads itself in the American underground of Malheur National Forest. A mushroom that transcends millennia, the Humongous Fungus is considered to be somewhere between 1,900 and 8,650 years old and covers an area of 3.7 square miles. If you ever get to see these Oregon woodlands, try not to think too much about the expanse of mushroom growing secretly beneath you.

6) Actaea Pachypoda – White Baneberry, Doll’s Eyes

These creepy berries are aptly named; looking like eyeballs on flesh-red stems, these berries will watch you unceremoniously as you walk through hardwood forests in the USA or Canada. As if they weren’t already unsettling enough, these plants are highly toxic to human beings, causing cardiac arrest or death upon their ingestion.

5) Hydnellum Peckii – Bleeding Tooth Fungus

Mushrooms are already rather odd-looking plants, known for having multiple poisonous variants, but mushrooms can be somewhat charming in the context of being described as fairy houses. The Hydnellum Peckii, by contrast, isn’t going to be considered a suitable home for any fairy. Like its nickname implies, this fungi produces a gross, jammy substance from its pores.

4) Nicotiana Tabacum – Tobacco

All parts of the Tobacco plant are incredibly poisonous, especially its leaves. Even though it’s so poisonous, tobacco continues to be used worldwide, and is estimated to cause more than five million deaths per year. Tobacco might not be visually scary, but it is deadly.

3) Amorphophallus Titanum – Corpse Flower

The Corpse Flower is infamous. It is known for having the largest flower on Earth, but also for emitting the most foul aroma of rotting flesh! The Corpse Flower can reach a whopping three metres in height. The Corpse Flower’s odd aroma is an evolutionary effect which grew to attract carnivorous insects in order to achieve pollination. Even weirder, the Corpse Flower can warm itself up to further resemble dead flesh when attracting flies and dung beetles.

2) Mammillaria Elongata Cristata – Brain Cactus

Just as the name implies, the brain cactus looks freakishly similar to a human organ – the brain. Brain cacti aren’t actually dangerous to humans (aside from the prickly spikes) so you could keep them as indoor office plants if you wanted, but you should first consider the history of how the Brain Cacti develop.

Brain cacti are a type of ‘Cristata’ cacti that form into these brain-esque shapes if they are injured at a young age. Unable to grow past the painful experiences of their youth, the brain cacti grow into a twisted and convoluted shape.

1) Algae Bloom – Red Tide

‘Red sky at night, shepherd’s delight. Red sky in the morning, shepherd’s warning.’ This old saying, was a way for shepherds to predict the next day’s weather. The Red Tide, however, is always an omen of ill portent, irrelevant of what time of day it strikes. Red Tide is toxic algae rising up from the sea floor, which can occur after a particularly bad storm. The Red Tide isn’t especially pleasing to look at, being somewhat reminiscent of the shower scene in Psycho, but what’s more horrifying is the destruction that reveals itself two weeks following: fish and marine life will begin to wash up dead on shores and beaches, having been killed by the toxic algae in their water.

These are the top ten scariest plants in the world. Insect-pollinated plants are good greenery for hay fever and asthma sufferers, but your employees would probably not be too happy if they had to share their workspace with the magnificent Corpse Flower. When looking to choose the perfect indoor office plants, consider getting in contact with Planteria instead.

If you’re looking for more material on scary plants, why not to turn to literature and film?

1) 1907, The Willows, by Algernon Blackwood

2) 1962, The Silent Spring, by Rachel Carson

3) 2000, House of Leaves, by M. Z. Danielewski

4) 2008, The Happening, by M. Night Shyamalan

5) 2011, A Monster Calls, by Patrick Ness

6) 2015 (Uk), The Vegetarian, By Han Kang (translated by Deborah Smith)

7) 2016, The Forest, by Jason Zada

Tags: Environment, Nature & Environment, Tips & Advice

Beekeeping: Our Story and Advice

Our head office team are all buzzing about our honeybees, and you might be too if you knew how important they were and how easy it is to keep them. In this article, we share our experience of beekeeping and offer you some advice to help you get started.

Beekeeping at Planteria

We take the environment and the stewardship of it very seriously. It’s our job to work with nature and improve workplaces across the UK, and this encourages us to understand the importance of natural habitats and how to protect them. Caroline works in our New Business team and she recently became our resident Beekeeper. Read Caroline’s blog below which includes tips and facts to inspire you.

Beekeeping at Planteria – by Caroline

It seems a little ironic to decide to become a beekeeper with a postage stamp for a garden. But, with my first nucleus hive just set up and prepped for winter, here’s how I started my beekeeping adventure.
I have always had a fascination with bees; they are remarkable insects! Every colony is a highly complex community made up of around 50,000 bees, each with a specific role to ensure the survival of the colony as a whole. Bees play an essential role in all ecosystems, pollinating most flowering plants, in turn serving all other animals, with around a third of human food-producing crops reliant on them.

The honey they produce boosts our immune system, provides protection from pollen allergies and has wound-healing benefits through its antibacterial properties. It is also a delicious and natural source of sugar which our bodies find easier to process. The bees produce honey to feed on and, more specifically, to store to ensure their survival through winter. Given enough nectar to forage, and somewhere to store it, they will keep producing it to excess all through the summer, which we can then extract.

There are approximately 44,000 amateur beekeepers registered across the UK, managing over a quarter million hives. Over the last few decades, most of the honeybees’ natural habitats have been destroyed, along with their food supply, so these managed hives make up most of the UK honeybee population today.

I had the opportunity to take part in a beginners’ beekeeping course run by my local beekeeping association. This involved six fascinating evening classes and a little hands-on experience with the bees and their honey. I really just wanted to learn more about bees and maybe lend a hand at the local apiaries. It created a lot of interest at work and I suggested we could have our own hive at Planteria.

We have a clear view of environmental issues and are proudly a zero-to-landfill site, alongside other positive changes like using hybrid vehicles to further limit our environmental impact. It wasn’t a stretch to think Planteria would be open to the idea of a little backyard beekeeping, and I have such amazing employers who not only thought it was a great idea – but they also covered the cost of bees, the hive and equipment too.

We are so lucky to have a rural office space with over an acre and a half of meadow. With it already home to our sheep and lots of chickens, the bees are barely noticeable and have lush hawthorn hedgerow and dandelions to forage from. Our year-round supply of office flowers, awaiting delivery to our customers, also provides a unique and diverse menu for our bees.

With any little luck, and despite my novice beekeeping skills, our bees will be producing honey from spring next year. In fact, if all goes to plan, I should be harvesting upward of 10kg honey from our single hive.

Starting Your Own Beehive and Supporting the Bees

We highly recommend meeting with your local beekeeping association who are experts at beekeeping and can support you with both knowledge and resources. They can give you lots of advice on the local species, how to build your own beehive and the cost of beekeeping.

Spring is the best time of the year to start beekeeping if you are starting from scratch, so prepare ahead. It is best to introduce bees to a new hive during spring, so they have the whole summer to forage and settle with a good stock of honey for winter. Plan to have all your equipment ordered during late autumn and installed before the end of winter so that you can order bees, get some training, and be fully prepared for their arrival.

There is a lot to think about when installing bees on your property; you’ll need to think about appropriate areas of shade, raising the hive to a good height so you can access it easily, and buying protective clothing to tend to your bees without getting stung. You may also want to get tested for allergies by your doctor before you go all-in on your beekeeping. There’s a lot to consider, so speak to your local beekeepers and refer to our blog for more stories about our real experiences with honeybees.