Care for Plants

Hughes Aircraft has a number of facilities around the country, but it has nearly 9,000 plants in Culver City alone.

And the defense contractor recently retained an Orange-based interior plant-maintenance company to keep the indoor garden green at its world headquarters.

Plant care at Hughes is no job for a weekend green-thumb, either. Just ask Susan Ballew, president of Garden Habitats, the plant-care company that will be trimming Hughes’ 47 ficus trees--some of which are up to 25 feet tall--and watering its thousands of plants.

“We’ll have a crew of three full-time workers there,” she said. “It’s our biggest contract.” She declined to disclose the value of the Hughes contract, which also called for Garden Habitats to install more than 1,100 potted plants at the giant headquarters complex.

Workers will haul 30-gallon water containers throughout the sprawling, four-story building to water the thirsty plants. They’ve got a lot of ground to cover, too. If the 450,000-square-foot, mall-like structure was a single high-rise building, it would stand 50 stories high.

In December, Garden Habitats installed 1,140 free-standing potted plants in the building in addition to the 7,760 other plants that were already there. The plants are scattered throughout the building, with a concentration in the huge granite-and-glass atrium that overlooks Marina del Rey.

Garden Habitats, which had revenue of $750,000 last year, has plenty of experience getting its hands in the soil. Among the 12-year-old company’s current clients are General Dynamics in San Diego and Parker Hannifin and American Hospital Supply in Orange County.