It’s the time of year when you’re thinking about annual flowers—a boost of color to spruce up drab winter beds. Maybe you’re writing specifications for annual flowers that you’ll provide to your landscape professional. Or, perhaps you will collect several RFPs for flower installation.
How many flowers do you want this season?
You write in, “6 flats.” You figure, six flats of flowers will be plenty to fill the landscape beds at the entrance of your commercial property. Your annual flower specifications are complete, right?
Instead, here is the terminology you should use when specifying annual flowers so you can be sure that the landscape provider understands not just the quantity of flowers, but other key factors involved in planning and planting annuals.
In order to properly bid annual flowers, your landscape professional will collect three crucial pieces of information:
Let’s explain this further and provide you with some pointers and the proper terminology so you can win at specifying summer annuals this season.
The reason why “measuring” how many annuals you’ll need by specifying flats does not work is because not all plants are the same. Larger plants need bigger containers, and you’ll need fewer of those sizeable flowers to fill a bed. So, before you begin talking about number of plants, talk to your landscape professional about what flowers will thrive on your commercial property.
Bulk plants don’t come with tags, so we base spacing upon size at the time of planting for most varieties. Properly placed plants have room for root expansion, foliage growth and flower bloom. Clearly, plants that are smaller when purchased will be placed differently than larger plants. Smaller plants are placed closer together so that the bed looks fuller and fills in faster.
Flats come in different sizes. Are you talking about a flat that holds 32 plants or 12? If you only specify number of flats, the number of plants is vague. How many plants are in a flat, exactly?
For these reasons, square footage is the gold standard for estimating annuals. At Klausing Group, we like to give clients a visual point of reference so they understand how plant size and plant placement impact the number of flowers needed and cost. Just as we create site maps for landscape maintenance, we use a design program to produce an annual flower map. This provides a clear, concise picture of the landscape bed. Annuals are plotted into the map, and the design is presented to property managers to review. This way, they understand what exactly goes into the cost of annual flowers and how many plants will be required.
This annual flower map becomes a ready resource for future property managers and the landscape provider.
Here’s your new script for specifying annual flowers so you can be sure you are clearly communicating your needs to the landscape provider. Go beyond talking about flats and be specific about your annual flower needs.
Let’s talk annual flowers and determine how you’d like to fill your landscape beds this season. Give us a call in Lexington at 859-254-0762 or Louisville at 502-264-0127. Or, fill out this simple contact form and we’ll get in touch with you.