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Q: Where is The Wright Gardner’s email address?
A: The best way to reach us by email is by sending a message to our general service inbox: [email protected].

Q: Where is The Wright Gardner’s website address?
A: Our website URL address is https://thewrightgardner.com.

Q: Where is your service coverage?
A: Our service territory covers all the major metropolitan regions surrounding the San Francisco Bay Area, Silicon Valley, Sacramento, the Central Valley, Napa and Wine Country. This includes the downtown areas of San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose, Sacramento, and Stockton. Outside these markets we can design, sell, and install plants, and perform service on a subcontracted basis, or can refer out to another qualified provider in our network.

Q: Do you work outside your service territory?
A: We can do design, sales, and installation outside our territory and in other major metros, but we make exceptions on a per client and per project basis. We can also subcontract with other qualified firms for certain elements of a project outside of our service area. 

Q: What counties do you serve?
A: We provide service in the following counties in Northern California with utilizing own trained and uniformed staff: San Francisco County, San Mateo County, Santa Clara County, Alameda County, Contra Costa County, Solano County, Marin County, Sonoma County, Napa County, Sacramento County, San Joaquin County, Stanislaus County, and Merced County.

Q: What cities do you service?
A: We provide interior plant service in and around the following major cities in Northern California utilizing fully trained and uniformed full-time employees: San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose, Redwood City, Stockton, Sacramento, Menlo Park, Fremont, Pleasanton, San Mateo, Napa. 

Q: Why is there a minimum monthly service fee?
A: As a company, we set our minimum monthly service fee to protect us amidst rising labor and material costs and to ensure we can cover our fixed costs and ongoing investments into making our service as excellent as possible. 

Q: Do your technicians make a living wage?
A: We pay our technicians a living wage which includes regular rate increases as their experience grows so that they can afford to live here. We also provide 100% subsidized medical coverage, a generous PTO policy, as well as other benefits.  

Q: How experienced are your technicians?
A: Our technicians have an average of 10 years of experience, data security training, background checks, and regular horticultural and customer service training workshops. 

Q: How do you handle customer service?
A: We pride ourselves on our customer service, with dedicated team members who answer calls and emails right away. We have dedicated replacement teams out in the field daily, replacing items within days of receiving a replacement request.  

Q: How do you track your service?
A: We have a proprietary app we we built for our technicians to log their service and to track GPS location.  They also use the TWG App to request replacements as needed, so that we know exactly what needs to be done, where, and when. 

Q: Do you offer service outside of Northern California?
A: We can sub-contract service throughout California and in much of the rest of the United States through our network of highly qualified and well-trained service partners. If you’d prefer not to be in a sub-contracting arrangement, we can refer one of these partners instead to work with you directly. 

Q: Can I work with you for my office outside of Northern California?
A: If you’d prefer to primarily work with us and have us oversee the subcontractors, we can work with you and make the project and ongoing service as easy as working with us directly in the markets where we utilize our own service employees.

Q: Do you rent plants for events?
A: We typically do not do very short term plant rentals for events or staging needs, but we are happy to talk to you about your needs and see how we can help or point you in the right direction if it’s not a fit for us.

Q: How does your service work?
A: We have a complementary design process that starts with a walk through and follow up quote. Our minimum monthly fee for Guaranteed Plant Service varies somewhat by market, but typically is $275/month and we typically require a one year contract to start in order to ensure we can recover the costs required for us to start up a new service and be sure we get everything dialed in.  Our plant guarantee covers rapid replacement of any plants you get from us that are under our care. Our job is to keep your plants looking on point, we guarantee it!  What truly sets us apart is our stellar customer service.  We answer the phone, return emails promptly, and work hard to maintain our reputation as the top service provider in the industry. 

Our plant care technicians are all vaccinated and boosted, and will come about every 10 days on most service plans.  Please keep in mind that they’ll need to be able to access the space anytime on weekdays during business hours.  We typically don’t offer service by appointment or on limited days of the week, but would be glad to discuss your situation if that is a concern or limitation. If you have a hybrid office schedule that limits your days or hours in the office, you can provide us with a key or fob so that we can take care of the plants. 

Q. Do you service Southern California, Los Angeles, San Diego, or other cities outside the Bay Area?
A: Our primary service territory covers the major metropolitan regions surrounding the San Francisco Bay Area, Silicon Valley, Sacramento, the Central Valley, Napa and Wine Country. Outside these areas, we can design, sell, and install plants, and manage service on a subcontracted basis, or we can refer out to another qualified provider in our network.

Q: How does your sales process work?
A: We begin by reviewing the details of the service to make sure it’s going to be a good fit for what you are looking for. Then we will schedule a walk through with a designer who will take detailed notes about your aesthetic and decor, note any existing plants and their specifications and condition, and get an understanding of what you’re looking for and your budgetary constraints. From there, our designer will prepare a full proposal for new plants and containers, any other work we might need to do to bring everything up to our service standards, and any other décor items that will be included. We will revise the proposal as needed until you are happy with everything, then sign a contract, set an install date,  and get to work sourcing everything to our warehouse and preparing it for final delivery. 

Q: Where are you located?
A: Our headquarters and primary warehouse is located in South San Francisco, California but we service the entire Bay Area and the Sacramento markets utilizing our in-house staff, and we service other markets throughout the United States through our service partner network.

Q: What happens if a plant dies?
A: That’s on us. So long as our service team can access the office space and perform our service, we guarantee our work and cover the entire cost of replacement plants. Upon identifying a plant that is not up to our very high standards of health and vigor, we will quickly get a suitable replacement plant ordered and installed, usually within 1-2 weeks.

Q: How do you track your client’s plants, manage service visits, and oversee service quality?
A: We use software and a mobile app that we designed, built and have continued to improve upon for 6+ years to track pretty much everything we do. We have systems in place for quality auditing, tracking service visits with GPS logs, maintaining the inventory of everything we service, and photo-logging all of our plant replacements.

Q: How is your quality program unique?
A:  There are many indoor plant service providers available that deliver horticultural services. Many of them, however, either don’t have or don’t follow procedures for checking quality. They also don’t keep complete service records or keep track of the material for which they are responsible. We do all of this through our proprietary software and operational processes.

Q: Do you have a diversity and inclusion program?
We pride ourselves on our progressive business practices spanning employment, sustainability, social responsibility, diversity and inclusion, fair wages, community stewardship, and corporate citizenship. Those principles are deeply ingrained in daily operational decisions and practices.

Q: Do you prioritize diversity and inclusion in hiring?
A: We consider a variety of factors in hiring including diversity. We are fortunate to have a diverse workforce and draw from a diverse pool of candidates capable of working in our industry.

Q: Do you promote from within?
A: We rigorously train, develop, and manage performance of our employees, and are able to leverage this investment into a strong promote-from-within culture. Many of our company leaders and senior staff started in entry level positions.

Q: Do you have a store I can visit?
A: Not exactly. We have a warehouse in South San Francisco, which is where we bring in all the plants and prepare everything for final delivery. We keep a limited inventory of different plants and containers there we can show, but most of what’s there already has its final destination set. We can arrange a private appointment directly if you’d like to see some samples and how it all comes together. Alternatively, if you are looking for more of a showroom experience to get ideas and see the quality of the specimens we source, we prefer to arrange a visit with you to one of our commercial nursery partners. That will allow us to expose you to a much larger number of plant specimens and give you a window into our world of plant design, sourcing and selection. 

Q: Can I see plants and containers before I purchase them?
A: Physically viewing plants and containers before purchase is not common, but we can arrange it. There are a few options. We have a warehouse in South San Francisco, which is where we bring in all the plants and prepare everything for final delivery. We keep a limited inventory of different plants and containers there we can show, but most of what’s there already has its final destination set. We can arrange a private appointment directly in our warehouse if you’d like to see some samples and how it all comes together. Alternatively, if you are looking for more of a showroom experience to get ideas and see the quality of the specimens we source, there is an option for us to arrange a visit with you to one of our commercial nursery partners. That will allow us to expose you to a much larger number of plant specimens and give you a window into our world of plant design, sourcing and selection. 

Q: How often do you visit the office and water the plants?
A: How often we visit will vary somewhat depending on what plants you have, their needs based on the environment they are in, and how we set up your schedule. Our team will assist with determining what schedule will be optimal for you. Some plant installations and client situations require weekly, and others can work just fine on bi-weekly service. We don’t recommend a service interval extend beyond bi-weekly.

Q: Why is every 10 days your typical service interval for watering the plants?
A: Most clients are on a flexible schedule where they receive visits approximately every 10 days. That typical schedule interval is ideal to give the plants enough time to dry out between each service, which improves overall longevity and plant health. It also affords some flexibility to account for common circumstances that arise in a busy commercial office including unanticipated closures or events, holidays,etc. 

Q: Do you require a contract?
A: We require a 1-year contract on new service accounts and typically a 2-year contract on lease. 

Q: Do you service residential homes?
A: Yes we service homes, but since our service is primarily designed for corporate clientele, we have a set of minimum standards the account must meet in order to qualify for residential service. Please contact us for more details and to discuss if your residence would be a good fit.

Q: What makes you different from other plant service providers?
A: Really, it’s the quality of the service and robustness of our processes and methods. We’ve been working at this for many decades, getting a little better each day. Many of our employees have been with us or in the industry for many years. That experience translates into expertise and professionalism that will show in every aspect of our service from a design consultation to a routine service visit or a response to a trouble call. 

Q: Will you takeover service on plants we installed ourselves or installed by someone else?
A: We will perform service plants that we didn’t source, sell, or install after completing a takeover inspection. 

Q: What is a takeover inspection?
A: A service takeover inspection is a physical onsite inspection performed by one of our plant experts designed to ensure we can successfully maintain your plant installation for the long haul. We look for common issues and may recommend or require certain work to bring the plant installation up to our standards. 

Q: Why do you do a takeover inspection?
A: A takeover inspection is a necessary step to protect us and the client. It ensures we can be successful maintaining the clients’ plants for the long term. Upon starting a takeover service, we will first address the identified issues, deliver any needed replacements, and provide a plant inventory and condition assessment, then commence routine service on a routine service contract.

Q: What do you look for in a takeover inspection? 
A: Some of the most common issues we will try to identify in our inspection include the following: inadequate lighting conditions for the selected species, improper assemblage of the containerization system preventing healthy air flow and moisture cycling, improper water-proofing, improper vertical and horizontal stabilization, improper pest controls, and pre-existing plant health issues.

Q: Do you perform background checks on your employees?
A: We conduct a thorough background check on all employees when hired to ensure our entire team will meet the very high security and safety standards maintained by our clients for their staff and vendors. We use the same background check service, Checkr, used by many of the world’s leading companies and many of our clients. We check driving records and all applicable local, state, and federal courts databases and criminal records.

Q: Do you subcontract out the service?
A: Our service staff performing the work for our clients in our service territory are full-fledged employees of The Wright Gardner and receive all the perks and benefits that entails. We believe in offering our employees a fair and living wage, paid time off, paid holidays, and employee health care. We train, develop, and manage the performance of our employees in an objective and rigorous manner to ensure everyone is always improving their skills. We will subcontract service to vetted and qualified service providers in other markets outside our core Northern California service territories to provide a seamless and consistent experience to our clients managing multiple locations.

Q: Do you guarantee and warranty your service?
A: All plants sourced from and maintained by TWG are guaranteed, meaning if any plants should decline in health or vigor while under our care, we will replace them at no extra cost. Most providers will say they guarantee their work, but often that is simply a marketing statement. They will hide when it comes time to actually redeem the guarantee. Not us. While of course our service intentions are to sustain the vibrant appearance of the plants for as long as possible, plants get old and their appearance can fade or they can be overtaken by pests or disease. We run an active replacement program to ensure our clients’ plants are always healthy and vibrant and replace whenever necessary to deliver to that high standard. 

Q: What do you do with plants that are diseased, infested with pests, dead, or dying?
A: If our initial preventive maintenance measures fail to prevent pest or disease, we will remove the plant and return it to our warehouse for treatment and proper green waste disposal.

Q: Do you use chemicals?
A: We only use safe, non-toxic, organic products in our plant care. We do not use any regulated chemicals or controlled substances in our plant services and do not carry a pesticide applicators license. 

Q: Do you carry insurance?
A: The Wright Gardner is fully insured with policies covering workers comp, general liability, auto, and umbrella liability. Industry standard insurance for horticultural work is at least $2M aggregate general liability and $1M in workers compensation. We carry well in excess of these amounts in order to meet the more stringent requirements of some of our clients with stronger risk management policies.

Q: Can you produce a certificate of insurance?
A: Upon your request, our insurers can quickly produce and transmit a certificate of insurance verifying the current policy that is in effect, and specifying all current coverages amended with any endorsements your business requires. 

Q: How do you manage risk?
A: In addition to our rigorous insurance program, we also have a more general risk management program emphasizing safety and compliance best practices designed to mitigate the risks to our business and our clients’ businesses.

Q: What containers do you use?
A: We rigorously vet a number of container suppliers and only select the highest quality of commercial containers.Containers must adhere to our standards of structural integrity, quality of finish, and be practical for commercial use. We put preference on suppliers utilizing environmental best practices in their container design and manufacturing.

Q: Where do your plants come from?
A: We source the best plant material we can get a hold of through a complex global network of world-class growers, plant brokers, and nurseries. Much of the plant material we source is grown by a network of highly specialized growers in Hawaii, California, and Florida.

Q: Can you tell me about your clients?
A: We service over 500 commercial clients including many of the most recognized global brands spanning the public and private sectors representing a wide array of industries. 

Q: Who are some of your public sector clients?
A: Example public sector clients include the US Federal Government (GSA), State of California, the University of California, the City of San Francisco, and KQED

Q: Do you service property managers?
A: We work with some of the largest property management companies in the world including JLL, CBRE, Cushman & Wakefield, Avison Young, and more.

Q: Do you service banks or other financial institutions?
A: We service many banks, financial institutions, and financial services firms including Bank of America, Wells Fargo, US Bank, Fidelity, and Northwestern Mutual.

Q: Do you service law and other professional services firms?
A: We service many law and professional services firms including Accenture, Kirkland & Ellis, Sidley Austin, Armanino, and more.

Q: Do you service venture capital and private equity firms?
A: We service quite a few prominent venture capital & private equity firms including a16z, Bessemer, BlackRock, TCV, Brookfield, Accel-KKR, and Thoma Bravo.

 Q: Do you serve the health care and biotech industries?
A: We serve many clients in the health care and biotechnology industry. Some example clients include Amgen, Chan Zuckerberg Biohub, Dignity Health, Johnson & Johnson, and Kaiser Permanente.

Q: Do you serve tech companies?
A: We serve many technology clients. Example clients include Airtable, Compass, Cruise, eBay, Illumina, OpenTable, Paypal, and Shopify.

Q: Do you service hotels and retail stores?
A: We have many clients’ retail and hospitality locations incdluing Gucci, Intercontinental Hotels, Marriott, Ritz Carlton, Shane Company, and Darden Restaurants.

Q: Do you service very large corporations? 
A: We have many Fortune 500 clients. Examples include Abbott, Constellation Brands, Darden Restaurants, General Motors, Google, IAC, and Samsung.

Q: How big is your team?
A: Our staff consists of ~25 professional horticulturists bring hundreds of years of combined industry experience. 

Q: Is your staff independent contractors?
A: We rarely use independent contractors to provide plant service to our clients – our team consists entirely of employees of the company. 

Q: What experience do your owners have?
A: Our owners bring deep experience in management, finance, and technology at companies ranging from startups to Fortune 500 enterprises. 

Q: Are your employees well paid?
A: In order to attract and retain the best team members we can, our staff is paid well in excess of typical industry wages. They are receive benefits including health care, 401(k), paid vacation and holidays, and a variety of perks.

Q: Where is your service area?
A: We service the entire San Francisco Bay Area, Silicon Valley, and Wine Country, as well as the greater Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys. Overall we cover ~11 counties in Northern California. We can also arrange and sub-contract service in other metro areas through our partner network.

Q: Can you tell me about your Customer Service? 
A: We have built our reputation on our boutique level of service.  We have a dedicated team member to field all inquiries, trouble calls, and billing questions.  We aim to resolve any issues that are brought to our attention the same day.  We have multiple dedicated teams in the field doing replacements and making deliveries to ensure we can always respond quickly to client needs.

Q: What technology do you use?
A: We use our own proprietary software to deliver a seamless and high quality service experience to our customers. Our technicians use our GPS-enabled phone app to log their service time at each account, view info such as client contact, account inventory, and to request replacements as needed.  Everything we do is tracked and documented in real time, checked for accuracy, and reported on to ensure we consistently perform.

Q: What plants do you install?
A: We provide a wide range of indoor tropical plants that are grown, acclimated, organically pre-treated, water-lined, and physically stabilized using industry best practices to avoid tipping, spills, pests, and disease. All materials we use are specifically designed for indoor commercial use in a professional office environment. Our unique setup is designed to ensure we can deliver and sustain a highly professional-looking presentation of the plants over the long term, and that service can be performed efficiently and unobtrusively by our staff.

Q: What is included in your plant services?
A: Plant service is our marquee offering – what we do most and what we do best. Our service is provided by trained professionals, in company attire, between 8:30-4:30, M-F. We water, fertilize, trim, rotate, and dust the plants to maintain their health and vibrancy.  We are unobtrusive. We typically visit accounts 3 times per month. We generally do not schedule time windows or conduct service by appointment in order to maximize our responsiveness for all clients. We can do weekly service if required, but still need flexibility to enter during normal business hours to account for holidays, office closures, vacations, and extenuating circumstances.

Q: What does your guarantee cover?
A: Plants sourced from and maintained by The Wright Gardner are covered under our Service Guarantee.  This means that if any guaranteed plants decline in health or vigor, we will quickly replace them at no additional cost. Our job is to make sure our client’s plants look on point, all the time, and we have a full supply chain and delivery operation designed specifically to fulfill this guarantee. 

Q: Do you offer colorful plants?
A: While our core business is plant maintenance, a significant share of that is providing high-end color foliage options.  We create arrangements including orchids, bromeliads, fresh cut flowers, succulents, tillandsias, and other creative décor in house.  These are sold as add-on subscriptions to our regular service contract.

Q: Are you insured?
A: We carry above standard insurance including general liability, umbrella liability, auto, and workers compensation. We can quickly and seamlessly process insurance certificate requests from building owners and property managers to meet or exceed their requirements. 

Q: What is the company culture?
A: Our company is designed around 3 key operating principles that permeate everything we do…

1. People First: We know life and business can be a rollercoaster. We embrace the ride and the people we’re on it with by putting our clients and colleagues first. That is the symbiosis we strive for. 
2. Better Every Day: While we always aim for perfection, we’re most obsessive about creating an environment of constant learning and improvement in everything we do.
3. Have Fun: We do this because we love it, so why not have a little fun while we’re at it? 

Q: Tell me about the company history.
A: Our roots run pretty deep. TWG was originally founded in 1987 as Urban Gardner by Matthew Gardner. In 1991, Gardner partnered with John Wright and changed the name to The Wright Gardner. In 2017, TWG was acquired by new owners Nick Haschka and Anupam Sharma, enabling Gardner to retire. Since then, TWG has grown and positioned itself as a premier horticulture brand serving the region’s leading companies, as well as the successor of choice for other local plant company owners seeking retirement. It has acquired and integrated customers and staff from Nelou’s Greenery, San Francisco Plant Company, Bay Plant Company, SF Greenscapes, Barry Brown & Associates, Insight Interiorscapes, Peninsula Plants, and The Plant Fairies. 

Q: Tell me about your Business Practices  
A: We pride ourselves on our progressive business practices spanning employment, sustainability, social responsibility, diversity & inclusion, fair wages, community stewardship, and corporate citizenship. Those principles are deeply ingrained in daily operational decisions and practices. In addition, we support charitable causes through a three-pronged giving strategy supporting People (Bay Area United Way), Plants (The Plant Exchange), and Animals (San Francisco SPCA) to ensure our community impact extends well beyond our day-to-day work. 

Q: What is your email address?
A: The office email inbox that we always monitor is [email protected]. 

Q: Can you recommend a plant company in another area?
A: We maintain a network of other excellent plant companies in other markets we’d be glad to refer you to if we think there’s a good fit. Call the office at 415-431-3632 or send us an email at [email protected] with the details and we’ll do our best to provide you with a referral.