SALT LAKE CITY — Salt Lake City International Airport is getting its annual holiday makeover. Decorations are already starting to appear on the airport grounds, but the real stars of the show will make their appearance in several weeks.
More than 1600 poinsettia plants are starting to change into their brilliant colors and will soon be placed around the terminal buildings. “It gets you excited,” said David Tingey, SLC’s airfield maintenance manager. “It gets you happy for the holidays.”
All of the airport’s poinsettias are grown on site, at the airport’s own greenhouse. They were planted during the summer and are blossoming into colorful white, red and pink plants.
The airport grows its own plants to control what goes into the secure terminal facilities and to control the quality.
The poinsettias will be moved from the greenhouse to the airport on Thanksgiving weekend. Transporting them that short distance can be a challenge if temperatures drop because the plants are native to the warm climate of Mexico.
“We have had to stop [moving them],” Tingey said. “Temperatures had been cold enough and plants were freezing just from getting them from our greenhouse on the airport property to the terminal. We were seeing plants freeze.”
There are other challenges – like utilizing a greenhouse built in 1993 for a considerably smaller airport that had less ground to cover with decorations. The current airport is nearly four times larger than the airport in 1993.
“You have to maximize space for sure,” Tingey said. “If you pack the plants too close, you're not going to get a quality plant.”
But Tingey and his team are happy to work through the challenges to make the airport come alive with holiday cheer. “People don't want to see the same thing. They want to see something special. They want to see something that stands out to them,” he said. “It just brightens up their day going through there.”
