In the series Stromberg, to which one should by no means attach the inflationary term “cult”, but actually has to do it because the ensemble around Christoph Maria Herbst satirizes the gray everyday German office routine so perfectly, they are the only splash of color: plants. They filter the room air, produce oxygen, and they also have a positive effect on the psyche. After all, people are drawn to the countryside, and if you can hide behind the rampant philodendron from the boss who is looking for volunteers for the weekly service, all the better.
But how do the office plants make it through the winter when the employees are slowly crawling back into the home office due to rising corona numbers? Gardener Max Poller knows what to do. “If you leave your place, you should put the plants as light as possible.” Most popular office plants, including bow hemp, yucca palm and rubber tree, cannot be harmed by the mild winter sun – on the contrary, sufficient light is one of the two main factors that enable them to get through.
The other is as surprising as a mask grumpy in an organic shop: water. The plants should be watered at least once a week, depending on the size and type, even twice. The popular weeping fig, also known as Ficus benjamini, is particularly sensitive. “It quickly loses leaves when it dries out,” explains Poller, who has worked for the Seebauer garden center for 13 years and made it to the head of the garden plants department. In the figurative, not in the botanical sense, the ficus is quite a mimosa. The related rubber tree would be tougher. Just like bow hemp and yucca palm, this one still has the best chance of surviving 10 to 14 days without water.
Only at some point will even the most frugal plant want at least a little water. Whoever takes care of it in the end, says Poller, “usually has to be worked out by the employees themselves”. There are already one or two employees per department, let’s call them the green soul of every office, who ensure that the green lungs keep pumping. One can only hope that these colleagues of all people do not have to go to the home office now. Because bosses who buy plants for the office are sometimes strict, reports Poller: “I’ve already heard: if she dies, there won’t be a new one.”