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Creating a green office

 MARCH 16-22,2007                     Emerald Coast thrives in Thousand Oaks

BY STEVI COSTA
Staff Writer
Improving the quality of your work-place for both customers and employees may be as simple as adding a few plants to your office.
But don't worry if you don't have a green thumb; interior landscaping compa¬nies can take care of all plant-related mat¬ters for you.
As proof of the popularity of plants at work, the five-year-old Thousand Oaks-based interior planting company Emerald Coast Plantscapes has made a name for itself through good design and client refer¬rals. Emerald Coast owner and designer Kevin Urquhart and his team have created the interior plants for the Oxnard head¬quarters of Sysco Food Services of Ventu¬ra, Wachovia Securities of Westlake Vil¬lage and Saxon Surgical Center of Thou¬sand Oaks, among others.
"From a business perspective, build-ings and offices that use plants are per-ceived to have a more prestigious feel to them," Urquhart said. "But it also creates a general well-being for the employees and people who visit the building."
Recent studies by both Rentokil Initial, the parent company of Riverwoods, 111.-based Initial Tropical Plants, have proven that plants in the workplace have a num¬ber of benefits for the workplace, includ¬ing the creation of better acoustics by diffracting background noise, increasing relative humidity for comfort, and purify¬ing the air—all of which lead to reduced absenteeism among employees.
"There are a lot of things that people don't realize that plants do for business," said Todd Ferguson, regional vice presi-dent of Initial Tropical Plants for the Los Angeles offices, which services the counties of San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Ventura and Los Angeles.




Initial Tropical Plants is responsible for the interior land-scapes of Calabasas-based Cheesecake Factory and each of its restaurants throughout the United States. Ferguson and his team also designed and maintain the interior plants at Ventura's Pacific View Mall.
In addition to creat¬ing a more pleasant environment for work¬ers in the building, using plants in restau¬rants and shopping malls encourages shoppers to stay longer and spend more time and money in the facility, Ferguson said.
Another way in which Initial Tropical Plants creates pleasant environments is through MicroFresh ambient scenting. MicroFresh can be filtered through a building's air system so that the pleasant smell will create an ambiance throughout the building. The technology is used in a number of department stores, such as Nordstrom's, and in many Las Vegas casinos. For example, "MicroFresh tech¬nology scents the entire New York, New York hotel to smell like a green apple," Ferguson said.
In addition to his young "plantscaping" business, Emerald Coast owner Urquhart has 20 years of experience in interior design. Emerald Coast Plantscapes works hand-in-hand with local interior designers who are looking for decorative plants and containers to match the feel of the room they're creating.
"I have a background in horticulture and interior design," he said. "Interior designers trust me to create the right look."


Emerald Coast Plantscapes is not a nursery open to the public, although design clients can sometimes visit Emerald's headquarters and choose plant accessories from stock on-hand when faced with tight deadlines.
The company uses live specimen-grade plants that are grown in Hawaii and Florida, imported to California and acclimated in greenhouses for indoor-use.
Emerald Coast also specializes in utilizing interior plants to enhance real estate transactions.
"Plants increase the marketability of a building for leasing or for sale," Urquhart said. Apartment complexes, model homes and commercial retail spaces utilize interior plants to make the rental and leasing spaces more marketable to tenants, and also help in retaining tenants.
Both Emerald Coast Plantscapes and Initial Tropical Plants provide routine maintenance with their interior plant installations and will replace plants that do not thrive. Both companies are supporters of Plants at Work, a national information campaign that works with the interior landscaping industry to promote the benefits of plants in the workplace.
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 VENTURA COUNTY STAR

 Horticulture, design consultant is seeing green

By Jim Woodard Sunday, July 15, 2007 

Juan Carlo / Star staff

Emerald Coast Plantscapes in Newbury Park, owned by Kevin Urquhart, places and services plants in restaurants, medical and law offices and retail centers.

Five years ago, Kevin Urquhart decided to use his 25 years of horticulture and interior design experience to launch a new business from his Newbury Park home. It turned out to be a very successful and strategically timed venture. His firm, Emerald Coast Plantscapes, supplies and maintains selected plants for business and professional offices and other commercial sites in Ventura County. "Initially, we visit the business of a prospective customer and specify the locations that would most benefit from the placement of attractive plants," Urquhart said. "Then we recommend the size and variety of plants that would best complement those spaces. We create plantscapes that will transform a business environment into one that is serene, pleasant and welcoming — one that fosters productivity." After the plants are positioned, one of Emerald Coast's nine staff members maintains them weekly, giving them needed water and fertilizer. If a plant fails, it is replaced at no cost to the customer. The monthly fee varies depending on many factors, but starts at $125. The overall average fee is about $250 per month. In some cases, the firm provides extended services, such as installing large specimen trees or planning built-in planters and atriums. A growing segment of the business is providing plants in model homes in new residential developments, and staging for marketing purposes. The business was launched at a particularly strategic time as recent scientific studies show that the proper use of interior plants clean the air of pollutants found in many buildings. The studies also reveal that plants contribute to the morale, productivity and well-being of those who work and visit in buildings that display plants, Urquhart pointed out. EMERALD COAST PLANTSCAPES WWW.emeraldcoastplants.com 805-480-9141