What’s happening at Zants Plants? August Edition

An internal newsletter for the Zants Plants Team

In this edition:

New Installations!
Farewell!
The Potting Shed!
This month’s SAFETY FOCUS
Plant of the Month!
and much more!

**AKCELO 154 Wellington St, Collingwood: Service by Lucas**

**MLCOA 485 La Trobe St: Service by Jeff**

**Citywide, Nth Melbourne: Service by Lucas**

New Installations!

AKCELO
MLCOA
Citywide
Rockwell (sort of)

**Rockwell Hawthorn has our mobile wall on loan: Service by Alison - Watch this Space!!!**

THE POTTING SHED

Sheralee and Karlie have been soooo busy potting up plants for new installs and replacements! Good work girls, I have it on good authority that replacements are back to “pre-covid” schedule on top of all the new jobs going in, really great effort!!

One of Vinnie’s favourite jobs to do is picking things off hard rubbish to use, love this one! A multi-purpose “thing”! Vinnie is the master of re-purposing! Woody is always on hand with expert advice and the guys continue to go from strength to strength. Part of Ringwood is a mini workshop that can fabricate mobile walls, mulch plates and can custom colour planters.

Finally say hello and goodbye to the masked man. Alex helped Shrek and Vinnie out for a short time but has now gone on off to fight the good fight for our armed forces. All the best mate!

Health and Safety - Ladders

Please refer to your Trello board on Ladder Safety. Review the information and tick the boxes to say you have read and understood the information.

AUGUST 2022 - PLANT OF THE MONTH!!!

RUBBER TREE

Botanical Name: Ficus Elastica

Common Name: Rubber Plant

Family: Moraceae

Country of Origin: Easter parts of South and South-east Asia - places like Nepal, Bhutan, Bhutan, Indonesia, China and Malaysia.

There are several varieties of the Rubber Plant, the ones we are most familiar with at Zants are probably “Burgundy”(has deep red foliage) and “Ruby” (the variegated one with a pink blush) but there are many more such as “Decora”, “Tricolor”, “Robusta”, “Black Prince” etc., etc.. Do you know of one that’s not mentioned? Please if there is and you think it would be good to have… let us know.

Most Rubber Plants do well in medium light to retain their characteristics, they tend to lose those features if they don’t get enough light. Ficus Elasticas tend to like the warmth but if acclimatised slowly they can survive in other conditions, but beware they are susceptible to red spider mite in very hot rooms. Overwatering will cause their lower leaves to fall, let the top half of the mixture dry out before re-watering. It likes a liquid fertilizer every so often when established and they also like their shiny leaves to be sponged carefully and regularly to keep them free of dust.

As far as re-potting, use a soil-based mixture and a pot that looks as if they are a size too small for the plant.

What’s happening at Zants Plants? August Edition /August 4, 2022 by Peter Corke