A shortlist of interior planting companies is easy enough to find. Working out which of them will deliver to your satisfaction on a 5-star hotel project is harder. Here is what is worth checking before you appoint.
Search for the best landscaping company for a luxury hotel and you’ll find plenty of lists. What you may not find is much sense of whether any of those companies have delivered inside a live hotel construction programme, priced their work at concept stage, or stayed on once the space opened to care for what they created. That’s something that comes from a proper vetting conversation.
Ask for named, comparable case studies
Generic commercial planting experience does not translate directly to a 5-star hotel lobby, spa or restaurant. Ask to see named or clearly referenceable hotel projects, not just a gallery of plants in offices. A company with real hospitality experience should be able to talk through the brief, the constraints, and the result for a specific building, not just describe their general capability.
Check whether design, creation and care sit within one team
Some interior planting companies design a space, then hand the creation to a subcontractor, then hand ongoing care to someone else again. Each handover is a chance for the original intent to get lost. A team that carries a project from design through to ongoing care has a reason to get it right the first time, because they are the ones who will be looking after it in a year.
Ask about experience inside live construction programmes
Hotel fit-outs run on tight, tightly sequenced programmes with fixed opening dates. A landscaping company that has only ever worked on finished, occupied buildings will not necessarily understand how to sequence around other trades, respond to RFIs, or plan delivery of large specimens around a site that is still being built. Ask directly: have they delivered planting within a live hotel construction programme, and how did they coordinate with the main contractor?
Ask whether they can price early
Planting that is priced only once drawings are final tends to get squeezed by that point, because every other budget line has already been fixed. A company with genuine hospitality experience should be able to give an indicative cost plan from concept-stage drawings, in the same way other specialist trades are costed, and refine it as the design develops.
Ask who your point of contact will be after opening
A rotating install crew that disappears once the space opens is a common pattern, and it usually means whoever inherits the ongoing care has to guess at the original design intent. Ask who you will be speaking to six months after opening, and whether it is the same person who was involved in the design.
Frequently asked questions
- What should I ask before appointing an interior planting company for a hotel?
Ask for named, comparable case studies, evidence of working within a live construction programme, and whether design, creation and care sit with one team or are split across suppliers. - Do interior planting companies provide case studies for hotel projects?
Established contractors with genuine hospitality experience should be able to show named or referenceable hotel projects, not only generic commercial examples. - How do I know if a landscaping company has hospitality experience?
Ask for specifics: which hotels, which spaces within them, what the brief was, and how the space is being cared for now. Vague answers are usually a sign the experience is limited.
Brief us on your project, and we will happily talk you through our own case studies, including hotels we still care for years after opening.