Hurricane Irma,

As we start gearing up for fall tradeshow season. Most of the tradeshow plant rental companies such as ours, are starting to buy plants and line up the tractor trailers to transport them. On this day, the 7th of September there is a huge hurricane approaching south Florida, we need to pray for the growers, especially the ones around the Homestead area.
With 185 mile per hour winds approaching with Irma we know the mess it can leave. Last time the Homestead are got hit with a cat5 storm was Hurricane Andrew in 1992 which completely leveled ALL the nurseries down there. If the storm stays on track we might not be seeing plants from southern Florida for 6-8 months for the shorter material.

UPDATE:
IRMA came around Florida but still did much damage to the nurseries in the Homestead area and throughout Florida, very little of the southern portions were spared. The problem are these plants are grown in “shade houses” which are basically poles with shade cloth on it. so the wind comes and blows these structures over and the plants which are fine start to burn from the sun. These rental plants are grown in shade so they are used to low levels of light so they will not fall apart or shed during the rental period. Strangely enough some of the nurseries are fine, they lost no shade houses and the nursery next to them within 1/8 of a mile were completely knocked down. So whoever had product that was not hurt are selling out fast it’s going to be between 3-8 months till we can get all the rental plants we need.

ANDREW

Thank goodness the busy season is over! We’ve been busier with plant rentals for the first half of this year than we have in many years. We notice that the exhibitors are purchasing more cut flower arrangements then they are doing plant rentals. Over the last few years the exhibitions have gotten larger by square footage, there are more individual exhibitors at the tradeshows but they are taking smaller exhibit spaces. So the need to get plants to fill empty spaces have gone down. But the show managements are actually using more rental plants then ever before. Just makes for a nicer richer looking show and the exhibitors appreciate it because it makes the overall show look better and hopefully attract more buyers. These are some of the decorations management has been doing.

This management took the existing hallway and divided into a lounge with just 3 hedges and 2 plants $750 and it done! delivered and removed at the end of the convention.

If they used pipe and drape there would be similar costs and it would not look like this. Plant rentals do make a difference.

So I was finally able to get my hands on some more Ficus Lyrata to put into my Las Vegas plant rental inventory.

Years ago the name was Ficus Pandurata or commonly referred to as a “Fiddle leaf fig”. They were a very common plant being sold by a good portion of growers in Florida. Then in the early 2000’s the demand dropped off mostly because they are “Ficus” and without proper sunlight these plants do not last very long inside homes with “just a little light”. Without proper lighting the sun does not reach inside the plant, so the leaves start dropping from the middle and then all you have left are leaves on the outside of a very thin plant.

Then about 2014 when all the realty home buying and home building shows started all of a sudden they started putting some very nice Ficus Pandurata or used to be called that. Now the name is Ficus Lyrata, which i’m sure is just a different name for the Pandurata. Only a few growers were left that grew this product and they cut there production way down. So now they are starting to amp up production and it will probably be 2018 when you can finally buy big numbers of the plants. Now we are lucky to get 15 at a time.

So let’s talk about why my Lyrata plant rentals do so well.

1. we buy from the best rated growers.
2. being able to supply ourselves with adequate inventory – we stock 40 – 6′ and 35-8′
3. after we rent the plant it goes back to the greenhouse for a minimum 4 days R&R
4. handling the plants properly
5. Fertilizing constantly to give the customers the darkest green possible

So if you’re coming to Las Vegas and want to do some Lyrata plant rental, you know where to get them. http://www.springvalleyfloral.com

So once again, we teamed up with expo ease and some good people and successfully supplied rental plants to the entire event.  The show used the entire north and central halls of the LVCC and the upper level and meeting rooms at the south hall. Aside from that we had many jobs at Caesars Palace and various hotels around town. It took a crew of 2 plus 14 delivery men and women to set this show. Two and a half days to get all delivered. We just supplied the rental plants for the show, cut flowers were done  beautifully by expo Ease. Such an event takes many hour of preparation. Luckily we have the large (12,000 square feet) greenhouses, so we had the stock of rental plants to cover any and all last minute orders.

As we try and tell our clients that if you know you want a specific type of plant, please let us know a couple of weeks before the show and we will try our best to supply them.  When a customer comes at the last minute and say that they need 25 – 4 foot palm trees we do our best to accommodate them, but I cannot guarantee we will have them. So please get your orders in early so we can make sure we can supply you with what you need.

Most of the customers at this show are mall owners so they all seem to know there rental plants very well. Most malls use low light plants like Dracaenas. Since they are not the ideal rental plant, we do not stock many of them. the biggest problem with the dracaena’s are the plants themselves are very fragile. If you bend the leaves the plant is ruined! So that is the main reason we do not keep too many in stock.

 

Another year goes by and another big show in Las Vegas. This year the NAB show covered the entire Las Vegas Convention Center, including the North, South , and Central hall. The exhibits were beautiful and spacious. This show we service about 100 exhibitors with rental plants and flowers.

On a show like this with all the electrical cords and wires for the cameras there was much that needed hiding.  Plus flowers and plants are perfect for the camera sets. It was a 4 day event so some of the flowers in the actual sets needed to be replaced under the hot lights.  One of the customers decided to save money and use silk flowers, but once it was all set up they realized that the silk flowers did not have the brilliant colors that real cut flowers have. So at the last minute we had to switch out silk and replace with live. Once the real flowers went into the set the look was exactly what the client wanted.

Below is one of our favorite sets at the show. All the detail that goes into these sets with the placement and the lights, have to be perfect, so we move things around and after a while it all comes together.

We also needed to come in each morning before the show to replace and water anything that did not look perfect, fortunately at this show the exhibitors understand that the flowers cannot look perfect under the hot lighting conditions and they know and are willing to pay for the replacements. Although some exhibitors think the flowers should last 4 days under these conditions.  They need to realize that this is not someone’s home set at 74 degrees, the day before the show opened it was about 85-9o degrees in the building and that the plants and flowers dry out under those conditions. The plants take a beating at shows like this, this is why at the end of an event like this the plants need to go back to the greenhouses for some well needed R&R.