Last month the Mall Silks division shipped out 6 large single trunk Ficus trees that were various heights from 17'–18' tall. Mall Silks shipped and installed the trees at a new travel plaza in Newark, DE. A large contract furnishings company contacted Mall Silks to help them propose several large artificial trees for this project. Mall Silks worked with the architect of the building to specify the exact trees they wanted and the client contracted with Mall Silks to manufacture the trees. The trees were all to be single trunk trees 16'-17' tall and 10'-11' wide. The height of the trees was no problem but the width they requested required special fabrication of the trees and significant onsite installation. A semi truck is only 7'-8' wide and these single trunk trees had to be 10'-11'. So, the Mall Silks design team had to completely fabricate the limbs for all six trees without permanently attaching the limbs to the main trunk of the tree. 

Typically, the large trees we manufacture are made in a multi-trunk fashion so that the individual trunks can be shipped on a semi. After all of the trees were built (foliage and all), the majority of the limbs were removed from the trunks and marked as to what trunk they belonged to. When all was said and done, each tree contained more than 30 individual fabricated limbs. The trunks and limbs were loaded on the semi on the scheduled shipping day and sent to the site. The Mall Silks install crew left bright and early (4 a.m.) the day after the semi was loaded and met the truck in Newark, DE before lunchtime in order to unload the trees. 

The installation took 3 days to complete. The steel tree bases had to be set into the decorative containers and all of the trunks were installed into a base. Hundreds of pounds of gravel were stacked around the base for extra stability. Then each limb had to be attached one by one. Finally, Spanish moss was installed as a top dressing. All together, the trees took approximately 200 man hours to build and over 60 man hours of onsite installation time. There were approximately 100,000 artificial ficus benjamina leaves used for the tree canopies. 6 large tree trunks and numerous fabricated limbs were used to make the trunk/limb structure. 

The client is very satisfied. While on the jobsite, multiple representatives from other companies commented on how realistic and beautiful the trees were. They were very impressed. One gentleman said that he “had not been blown away on a jobsite for over 10 years”. Witnessing the installation of our trees and the final outcome was so amazing that he could not help but be impressed. This is a testament to the great job our design crew is doing. The grand opening of the plaza was 2 weekends ago. So, the next time you travel through Delaware on I-95 north of Baltimore, be sure to stop at the new travel plaza and see our trees! They will be a permanent fixture in this beautiful facility for many years to come. 

To discuss your next large artificial tree project with a Mall Silks Sales and Design consultant, e-mail us at sales@mallsilks.com or visit our contact web-page http://www.mallsilks.com/contact.htm