AN ASHBOURNE-based firm that supplies floral features to towns and cities across the country said it may have found the ‘Holy Grail’ by designing a planter that requires half the water of its normal products.
Plantscape, which is based in Hulland, has been working on the design, which is intended to cut a local authority’s maintenance bill, for two years
The firm’s current stock requires watering twice a week but its new range has been tested in the glasshouses at its base to simulate hot, dry conditions and outside at a number of secret roadside locations.
In all tests, the planters equalled, or in some cases, out-performed displays by the twice-a-week planters, giving the company the evidence it needed to launch them this year.
Managing director Mark Stone, said they could prove to be the firm’s most significant new product yet.
He said: “Manufacturing a planter that genuinely needs watering just once every seven days no matter what the conditions has become something of a Holy Grail for our industry, so we are extremely excited to have become the first company to have achieved it.
“Floral features make a significant difference in making towns and cities look inviting to shoppers and tourists, but naturally there are always calls for products that can achieve that while reducing the time and cost spent on maintenance.
“Thanks to a tremendous amount of hard work and significant investment, we have achieved planters that will save councils and organisations a fortune in staff and fuel costs and will reduce the impact on the environment without compromising the quality of their displays.”
The products, which include hanging baskets, floor-standing planters and lamppost-mounted planters, incorporate an in-built water reservoir inside a modified unit.
