United Utilities

United Utilities have been one of our Christmas clients for a number of years, but until now hadn’t opted for office planting.

However, after refurbishing their workplace over the 2020 lockdown, they wanted to create a welcoming environment for returning staff and felt that planting would complement the contemporary look to the new interior design.

The planting was to be focussed on bringing a relaxed feel to the atrium break out area, adding a sense of remove from the call centre area by providing natural barriers and softening the sound in this vast space.

Working closely with the management company, client and designer, Urban Planters North West’s Carole Milligan created a planting scheme to soften the space and entice workers to take a break there.

A row of three 4.5-metre-tall Ficus lyrata (the popular fiddle-leaf fig) are a centrepiece feature, their structural forms reaching up to the next storey. To demarcate the space and add a feeling of seclusion, large-leafed scandens growing up a frame in troughs provided perfect natural barriers around the perimeter.