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“You know what I'm really pushing for is actually a plant graveyard, because I feel like it'd be nice to know how many plants I've killed over time, and I feel like that's a little bit of fun, too,” says Tom Van Wingerden, sales director at Van Wingerden Greenhouses, who joins Greenhouse Success Stories to share a refreshingly candid—and often humorous—look at the realities of running a multi-generational greenhouse operation in the Pacific Northwest.

From childhood “oasis plug fights” among eleven siblings to the challenges of losing major retail accounts and the necessity-driven innovation behind their custom fundraising software, Tom Van Wingerden reveals how loving plants (and people) is at the heart of greenhouse success. Tune in for actionable business insights, real-world stories, and the evolving blend of tradition and technology that helps this family farm thrive.

Key Takeaways

1. Diversify your customer base—don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Proactively seek new wholesale and retail partners to safeguard your greenhouse’s future.
2. Streamline your operations with tech—build or adopt software tools like Plant Buy to simplify fundraiser management and scale effortlessly.
3. Leverage fundraisers for growth—collaborate with local organizations to attract new customers, expand reach, and strengthen community ties.
4. Focus on what works—hone in on a select range of products and customers so you can control quality and master your market.
5. Connect with people—relationships drive success. Invest in trust, nurture partnerships, and make every interaction count.

Memorable Quotes

"I think it has to start with a love for plants. I don't think anybody gets into this industry because they want to make money. It's more about loving to grow plants and loving to be around plants, and if they make money doing that, that's the lifestyle we're looking for."

"We're trying to help people be successful with their plants at home, no matter what plant it is. You can buy a monstera and bring it home, and we'll help you take care of it—you’re not in this alone."

"You really need to love both plants and people to be in this industry. Plants and people—you need to love them both to succeed."

Connect with Tom and Wingerden

Tom's LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-van-wingerden/

Wingerden LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/vanwingerden/

Wingerden Website - https://www.vanwingerden.com/

Wingerden Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/vanwingerdengreenhouses/

Wingerden Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/vwgreenhouse/

Resources Mentioned

Grocery Outlet: https://www.groceryoutlet.com/

Plant Buy: https://www.plantbuy.com/

Plantsome: https://www.plantsome.com/

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You know, what I'm really pushing for is actually a plant graveyard,

because I feel like it'd be nice to know how

many plants I've killed over time.

And I feel like that's a little bit of fun too. But—

Welcome to Greenhouse Success Stories. Tune in every week as we share

conversations with growers, operators, and innovators from around the world,

providing insight into what's working in their greenhouses. We discuss

firsthand experiences, and provide insights into how these farms are

succeeding and thriving. Special thanks to our title sponsor,

Arnois Greenhouse. With your host, founder of Little Greenhouse That Could,

Trina Semonchuk. Welcome to Greenhouse Success Stories,

everyone. Today's episode will be

featuring Tom van Wingarden. Tom is the sales

director at Van Wingarden Greenhouses. Welcome

to the show, Tom. Thank you, Trina. Thanks for having me. Yes,

yes, I'm glad you made time for the show. So just to

get this episode started, how we usually get these episodes

started is we really want to hear about your story.

I know you're the sales director at Van Wingerden Greenhouses. How

did you get to where you are today, and where did you first

start when it comes to the greenhouse industry?

Yeah, sure. Um, so I feel like being a

Van Wingerden, I'm almost part of a bigger

story because the Van Wingerden family has kind of

settled all over the— all over North America. But

my dad originally moved out to Washington State

in, well, just before 1980, so like the late

'70s. And he was helping his cousin build a

greenhouse out in Eastern Washington.

And, he met my mom and he wanted to kind of settle down

somewhere else that wasn't too close to other

greenhouses so he can build his own. And, he

ended up moving across the mountains to

Blaine, Washington, picked a little spot over here,

and started building with his brother. So, that's how Ben Wingerden Greenhouses

was born. And he then married my mom and

started, you know, growing plants and raising children.

We've got 11 siblings. Oh, wow.

Pretty large family. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think he wanted to hire

anybody. I think it was just all child labor at the time.

So, but, um, we, you know, we had a really

nice upbringing here, so we Grew up right next to the

greenhouse. We could wander in and out as we pleased.

We trusted everybody that worked here, and it was a

great, you know, great way to raise a family.

And we're doing it, you know, more and more because now there's

5 of us are now active in the business with my dad

now. And we also have children that bounce

around the greenhouse a bit. So, It's, you know,

we're continuing the fun and

we've grown from, let's see, the first house he

built was probably about half an acre. And now, we're up to

about 15 acres of greenhouse growing space.

And, we've got some outdoor growing space as well. In the Pacific

Northwest, we don't grow a ton outside because it rains so

much. So, We tend to grow everything indoors.

But yeah, that's kind of who we are and

how we got here. That's, yeah, that's

cool. When you guys were kids, like, were you ever playing around

in the greenhouse, like, as kids, or was it very much like off

limits? You're just in there when you're working, just outta curiosity.

Yeah, there's, I think when we were younger,

we definitely played a lot. We didn't get, we weren't very productive

children, I wouldn't say. But, playing in the soil pile. And,

I remember one incident was planting

poinsettias. We always had those little Oasis plugs

with the poinsettias. And, for all the extras or the ones

that weren't rooted real well, we'd have Oasis fights through the

day. Well, at the end of the day, the kids

wouldn't clean up, the employees would. So,

they always give us a hard time about that. Um, we don't do

that anymore. And, and where are you in the chain?

Are you like the youngest or are you the somewhere in the middle? Yeah,

I'm in the forgotten middle, so I'm the 4th oldest. And once you get past,

I think, I think it's the oldest 2 and the youngest 2, those are the

important ones. Everybody in between is kind of just filler.

Yeah. And are there any twins? Yeah, one set of twins.

Okay. Wow. Yeah. They're just

younger than me, so they're smack in the middle of the family. That's a big,

that's a big family. When did you officially like start

working at Van Wingarden Greenhouses? And did you ever like try to

pursue something outside of the family business or

outside of the greenhouse industry as a whole? Yeah, that's a good

question because I always regret a little bit

not Trying more things like doing different

internships or, you know, venturing out a little bit.

Uh, not so much that I wanted to get out of the industry, but more

to gain a little bit more, I guess,

experience in the outside world. Right. Because this is all I know. Our

industry is really all I know. Uh, I was briefly a blueberry

farmer, which I'm not sure if that's

really a different industry, but. It was a little bit different and that was fun.

Um, it was owned by the business, so it was just another part

of what we did. Oh, and yeah, yeah, blueberries was

awesome. I mean, the only bad part was like pruning blueberries,

which is out in the cold and during the winter, so it'd be

raining and, you know, freezing. You guys were just

doing that like outside, like not within a greenhouse? Yeah, no, that

was just field-grown blueberries. Yep. Just traditional. You know,

grow them, harvest them, sell the fruit, do it again. So

pretty common in this area for blueberries, raspberries,

and blackberries. So we, we tried our hand at it. We

developed a nice field and sold it, and it was a fun

experience, but we decided to stay focused on the greenhouses.

It didn't overlap like perfectly with our, with, with our

greenhouse business. So we thought what we would do is,

uh, be really busy during the spring in the greenhouse, transition outside

to the blueberries during the summer with harvest and everything, and then

transition back into the greenhouse for fall and poinsettia

season and kind of rinse and repeat. But

there, there was just times where it was like, well, I should be, you know,

growing the blueberries during the spring, but I have to work in the

greenhouse all day. So I'm gonna be in the blueberries at night. Mm-hmm. And it

ended up Kind of compounding on top of each other. So

we decided it wasn't focused enough, so

we just walked away basically. But it, it was good. It was a great experience.

Yeah. Yeah. Whenever anyone's growing like some type of berry or some

type of fruit, I'm always super interested just because I feel like

it's not the norm. So when you got, like, how long

ago was it that you guys tried the blueberries? That

was, let's see, I

think we sold it about 10 years ago. And

well, maybe a little bit less than that, but it was right after I

had, I was running the farm right out of college. So it was kind of

my first role was managing the farm. It was a good step into

the business world for me. Right. And it kind of got my

feet wet. It was a very simple operation, so it wasn't.

like a huge lift for me to run the farm right out of college.

And yeah, and it was an easy transition into

the greenhouse after that. And what did you go to college for?

Uh, just a, uh, it was a business adminis— or no, what

was it? I don't know, just to have fun, I

think. No, I got a degree in

business management, so it's a bachelor's degree. It took me a long time to

finish college, which everybody kind of makes fun of me for, but I had a

bunch of surgeries during college, so I was on crutches a lot of the

time. And, uh, so it took me about 7 years to get a 4-year

degree, which I'm not particularly proud of, but hey,

but usually I finished it. Yeah, exactly. You didn't, uh, you didn't

quit. It took me, uh, like almost 4 years to do a 2-year

master's degree because I was, you know, perfect. Yeah, because I don't feel

bad at all. Yeah, yeah, exactly. But you

didn't quit, which was, uh, which was what counts. So what does Van

Wingerden Greenhouses currently sell today?

Maybe just give a bit more information on your guys' like day-to-day

operations. Yeah, so currently we're mostly selling to

grocery in our wholesale division, and that includes

companies like Safeway Albertsons, some independents, Trader

Joe's, Grocery Outlet, Whole Foods. So, you

know, pretty diverse customer base, I would say.

And the reason for that is we've

had incidences in our past where we didn't have a

diverse customer base and then events happened that kind

of sucked the life out of us. Mm-hmm. So we've kind of

learned to be a little bit more less focused on

single customers and more focused on fewer products,

if that makes sense. So fewer products, more customers,

easier to control. Mm-hmm. So we've got that side of the business, and then

we've got our young plants division, which is mostly

working with Ball Seed. We're a gold supplier for them, and

our region for, uh, with them is the Pacific Northwest and

Western Canada. So we've done, and that's

kind of the, I like to call that our foundation because it's a very

stable, predictable part of the business that we can

rely on every year. And we're, we're very much in

control of inventory. We, we've got processes

that are, uh, very clean and

well-practiced here. So that's, uh, That's a

very stable part of the business. And then, we have our garden center as well.

And, our garden center, it's seen a lot of growth in the

past 10 years. We're not located in a big

populace or anything, but we've been able to build it

up into a decent-sized garden center. And, we'd really like to do more

of that. We love the interaction with customers and

having more control over where our plants are going

and when they're going there. And

yeah, it's a very stable garden

center at the moment, and we think we can replicate it elsewhere. Part of

that is our fundraiser program, which is a little

bit shared between the garden center and our wholesale division.

So we sell things like hanging baskets to

fundraisers, and then the local

fundraisers can actually sell coupons instead. And then when they sell those,

they can— those will be redeemed in our garden center. And this

way, it's almost like a marketing effort where

we're able to get people in the door that we would otherwise never meet.

And so that's been, that's been a really successful part

of our business as well. And when did you

start like partnering with people for fundraisers

and, you know, getting these hanging baskets? Like, When have you started to

notice that this method was really attracting more customers to

your guys' garden center? Yeah,

so I think we've had a fundraiser program for probably

15, maybe 20 years, but it hasn't

become a real serious part of the business until more recently.

And the reason for that is it's very hard to

organize. So a lot of times a fundraiser

group will sign up, but it's a new organizer,

say, at the school or, you know, somebody at the,

that's running the band boosters or whatever it is.

And so teaching them how to run their fundraiser

and then also making sure they're organized on their end

is half the effort. Hmm. And so what ended up

happening is we'd add more people to kind of train

these organizers, and then it wouldn't really help us

advance the program because it's costing us

more and more every time we add an organization. Yeah.

So it really was difficult to kind of get

that growth out of that program without adding

employees. What we ended up doing is started developing

software to help us do this. And that's kind of a new

part of the business is our software, our software business called

PlantBuy. And that has helped us

a lot in our fundraiser program. Just

one person can manage the entire thing. All the communication comes

out of one place. All of the organizations are living in one

piece of software, and then they can also kind

of pick up the ball. Even if they're a new, a new

organizer, they can pick it up from where it was left off last year

without having to relearn anything. Oh, that's great.

Yeah. I don't know if you've ever run a fundraiser yourself, but

it's very confusing when you first start. I've done a

few for my kids' school and it's, you know, I do the, the

golf tournament. For my kids' school. And I don't know why I,

I feel like every year after we're done, I'm like, okay, now we gotta figure

it out. Next year it's gonna be easy. It's just kind of plug and play.

Mm-hmm. And every year it's like the day before the, the tournament,

we're like, we don't have anything ready. Like we got

work to do. So it kind of sneaks up

on you. And I think it's because it's not your job, right? It's

like, mm-hmm, all these organizers have a job or

You know, say it's, even if it's a stay-at-home mom, like she's

busy. She doesn't have time to like, you know,

organize this fundraiser every day. So it's just not a focus.

And then it kind of goes on the back burner until it has to be

done. And then we have to jump in and help. So the

software has helped a ton with that. So whose idea was it for

the software and where did the idea like come from? just

tired of organizing or, you know, wanting to

make things easier for people? Maybe talk a bit more about

how PlatFi got started. I think it really came out of necessity,

right? Because we, we wanted to grow the program. We knew the

program was something that we could build

into a bigger part of the business, but we didn't have the

tools to do so. And so, uh, Brian

Crosser, our partner In-plant buy. He, he was working

in-house at the time and we'd, we'd kind of throw ideas back and

forth together just on what we would imagine the perfect

software would look like. And then slowly, like little

pieces of it would come together and like, yeah, that looks like it will

work. And then just over time, we were able to develop it to

a point where we could use it. And that was probably 2

years ago now. We first started using it and

definitely trying to onboard every single organization we

possibly can now, just because it's, it's so

much simpler for the greenhouse. It, like,

on the greenhouse side of the business, it makes a lot more sense because we

don't have to deal with cash or checks. We don't have loose

papers floating everywhere. Like, if you send a team of

20 kids out to start selling hanging baskets, And they

all come back with a pile of cash and some paperwork that,

you know, have their handwriting all over it. It's a little bit scary

to think like, okay, I think we got the order right. And then you

deliver it all and then their customers have to come pick up the

baskets. And yeah, it happens quite frequently that you're

missing a few pieces of information. So

this helps the kids just sell, and then all the

information comes in, you know, through the software and we don't have to worry about

it. So is it like when a kid goes to sell a hanging

basket, if someone agrees to buy, they— do they like click a button on

the software and then that's how it's automatically updated? Is that

part of the process? Yeah, it's just a— so

the, the consumer, if you want to call them that, or the, the donator,

they'll buy the basket through a website and

it'll, it'll have actually the, the seller's name on it.

Oh, okay. You know, like my, my daughter's name is Daisy,

so she'll go out and sell a basket and Daisy will get

credit for selling that basket, and then that will go to

whatever group she's selling for. So— Oh yeah, that's easy.

Yeah. And then at the end, like, that group can say, oh Daisy, you sold

20 baskets and Maya, you sold 12 and

okay, you guys, you know, you guys get rewarded for this because you did so

good. And so there's a little bit of competition in there too that helps.

So when you guys were thinking about how to make, you know, the

fundraiser part of your business easier so that you could scale,

did you try to see if there was an existing software

app that was already out there or did you go straight to

creating your own? Oh, absolutely. Yeah, no,

we definitely looked for an existing solution, but,

and there, there's other solutions out there, but what they're mostly

focused on is creating kind of a seller's

website where the organization can set

up their own website with a sales side to

it, but nobody built anything for, say, the

manufacturer or the greenhouse. So we

think this is much stronger because it's

organized all the way up at the manufacturer, and then

it flows through all the way to the donator.

So all that information is compiled back up to the greenhouse.

And it's for the greenhouse, it solves cash flow because

you're getting— Mm-hmm. All of the money that comes in actually goes to the greenhouse.

So then it comes into your bank account, you're getting paid before you even

produce them. Then you ship them and you bring a check to

the organization to pay them, to give them their

margin or their, the donation amount that the consumer

gave them. So then they, they're happy, the

organization is happy because they're able to take in

all of this money, but never have to handle it. Yeah.

Right. I mean, it's like, yeah, so risky and things are

flying everywhere. So it's really nice to be able to just say,

oh, here's your check for $2,500. That's what you made on this

fundraiser. And here's all the baskets. And they're like, thank you. Bye.

Yeah. And they put it in the bank and hand out the baskets and they're

done. It's very simple. Yeah. That does actually sound

really simple. Just a few more questions, but when you first

started Plantbuy, How many organizations

did you have signed up for it, like, in the first year? And

how many do you have now? Like, what has the growth been over that last

2 years? So let's see. So for Van Wingerden

Greenhouses, we had, I think, I think like only

20 of them were signed up for the first fundraiser season, and

that was a poinsettia season. And then For

spring, I think we went up to like 100

and then now we're over 200.

Oh, wow. Yeah. So it's definitely doubled,

added up fast. Yeah. That must feel really rewarding thinking about, okay,

how can we solve this problem and scale this

sector of the business and then have to put in the effort and the time

to plan for the app, but it worked. I know. Yeah, no, it

feels so— and we've been, you know, just because we just started

using it, that's like just a tiny piece of the story. Like, we've been

talking about this for 10+ years and it's finally

like, oh, we're doing it. This is working. Yeah. And

it's, it's just takes the work out of it. And working with

fundraisers can be really fun too because

they're, they're not like, um, I don't

wanna sound negative about like the retail space, but when you

deliver something to a big box

store, are the people receiving always thrilled to be

receiving plants? No.

Some, a lot of them are, and I, I hope, I hope they're finding

some joy in it, you know, here and there. But with fundraisers,

it's very rare that they're not excited to receive plants.

And spread their plants out to the people they sold them to. Yeah. Like that's,

it's a very positive part of the business. It's a lot like,

it's a lot like having a garden center, right? I mean, most people walk in

your garden center and they're just excited to be there. Yeah. So

yeah, interacting with people that are

joyful or excited to see you

is a lot of fun. Yeah. Oh, for sure. In your guys' garden center,

are there Are there? I'm just curious because, you know,

I've always thought it'd be great to have like a greenhouse,

you know, somewhere downtown in the city where it was all year round

and you could buy your plants, but also it was like a coffee shop and

you could like spend time in there. Do you guys have any of that in

your— You are preaching to the choir. I have been

wanting a coffee shop in our garden center forever. I met my

wife at a coffee shop. She was a barista, so. Aw. We

always talk about it and it's like, man, it's everybody walks in here

holding a coffee or a drink of some kind. Yeah. And then they

walk around and they hang out in the garden center and, you know, hopefully they

buy something too. But it is a nice environment just to,

to be in there. So why wouldn't you offer them,

you know, a few, few drinks here and there anyways?

But we don't have that. There was a really nice one down

in Woodinville. It was called Mulback's. That was a pretty

popular place and they had a really cool cafe down there in,

in the middle of like a jungle basically. So they had all their

houseplants around it. It was really cool. And was it popular? Like, was it a

popular place for people to go to? Yeah, it was the

premier garden center in Washington State. Oh, so, um,

I think The business model is proven. What's that?

The business model is proven. Yeah. Don't fight it. You know,

the land they were on was kind of prime real

estate. So I think they, I don't know what all happened,

but they ended up tearing it down. I think it was last year or the

year before. And yeah, it's no more,

but we remember it. So, and we used to sell to

Mulvax and we loved going there. It was beautiful. They did a really

good job. Okay, one last question about Plantbuy, but I

know you guys created it to solve your own internal issue.

Do you plan on coming up with some sort of subscription model

that other greenhouses can sign up and use

Plantbuy as well, or will it just always stay a Van

Wingarden internal, you know, tool?

Yeah, so we're looking for as many guinea pigs as will come

our way. So, okay. We, the,

the original intent was to create, well, the original

intent was to solve the problems we had with our fundraiser program,

but in doing so, we were like, we know this

is kind of normal. Like most greenhouses are looking for a

solution. Plus we want to be a solution for the

fundraiser groups too. Mm-hmm. So why don't we create a

site where Any greenhouse can join,

or manufacturer for that matter, and we

can actually become a network for the

fundraisers to find opportunities

on there. So what we're hoping to do is continue

to add greenhouses or other organizations to the

PlantBuy website. They can operate

and use our software To, to help

organize their business as well. And then a

fundraiser, when they're looking for something new to sell

or looking for a new opportunity to make money, they can come to us,

find somebody that's nearby so they don't have

to, you know, search just random greenhouse

in, I don't know, Paris, Texas, or whatever,

wherever we are at the moment. But And they can just find whoever's

working in their near vicinity. So then, uh, just kind of

solves some problems for the greenhouse, solves problems for the fundraiser groups,

and become like a nice one-stop shop for

everybody. Okay. Yeah, that's really good to know. I'm

already thinking of a few people that, um, I want to reach out to

about this because I think that they, uh, yeah, run fundraisers

for plant sales very similar to what you, uh, are talking about.

Yeah, we'd love to get more people on there because we really need

feedback to make it so that it works for everybody too. Right

now we know it works for us, so we need to know if it works

for everybody else too. Can you tell a story

about a challenging time, you know, working in Van

Wingerden? So, you know, I know you talked about the challenges

with scaling up the fundraiser sector of your business.

But did you guys ever have any challenges with

selling, you know, your core products or

securing markets for your core products? Did the pandemic affect you

in any way, shape, or form? Just, uh, yeah, just tell us

something really challenging that popped up in your time.

Yeah, and I touched on this earlier, but the most challenging

time in our business was when we were producing for a

big box store. And they decided to

consolidate all of their plant needs with one grower.

Oh. So it was about, I don't remember how

much of our business was going their way, but it was like 80% of our

wholesale division at the time. That's kind of

just a guess, but it was around there. And so they,

they essentially just emptied our greenhouse for the next spring. And we had to

decide, well, okay, do we try to produce as much as

possible and hope we can find the customers for it? Or do we

just produce what we know we can sell? And

either way was kind of a loss, right? Because

you have all this infrastructure built, you have the employees,

you really need to operate and be, and fill

to capacity to make To have a chance at making money.

So that's what we did. We, we produced as much as we could or as

much as we dared the next spring. And it was

tough times. I mean, we definitely did not sell everything that spring and

it took us years to, to come back. Wow.

It wasn't like an, an easy thing to fix.

So slowly we started adding, you know, it was, it was

hardware store. Before this, but we started adding

grocery at that point because that was the business that we thought

would be less risky. And it's something we really fit

into. And so one thing my dad did at the time

was patent a, his own display

rack. So a shipping rack that also displays, and we're

still using that rack today. And it's, it's shorter and, and

It's shorter than a normal shipping rack and the shelves

tip out into a display for the stores and it

gives the plants more light, more airflow, plus it

gives the customer a better view of the plants. So, we

kind of leaned on that and on the grocery

industry to build our business back.

And, you mentioned the pandemic, that was

obviously a good year for us. I think there was a time

when we all sat down and looked at each other like, do we keep growing

plants or is this like, you know, the

apocalypse? But, um, like,

well, we have a plan in place. Let's execute and,

um, assume that everything will be okay. Oh my gosh. I

would be there saying, we gotta grow our own food.

Abort. Yeah. Yeah. Come on.

It was, I mean, it's weird to think back to that time, right?

Because we, we didn't know it was coming. In hindsight,

we're like, yeah, produce all the plants you can. And, you know, everybody was

trying to grow everything at home and do what

they could to survive, you know, without going on

vacations and things like that. So, uh, but

at the time we looked at it like, well, we have,

like, we had everything ready to go. When did it hit? Like

end of March? Yeah. Something like that.

It was like during like peak production time.

I remember that. And, and we were, we were planting heavily

and it was like the end of a week and we're like, do we just

stop planting? We don't know what's gonna happen. Mm-hmm. And,

um, luckily we did not do that. We, we produced everything we could and

Yeah, that year and the following year were really good for us. So

yeah, you've seen an increase in sales. Yeah,

big time. Yeah, that was probably one of

the best years on record. And, you know, we've, we've fallen

off a little bit from that as far as volume goes.

But if you, if you draw a straight line from, you

know, 2010 to now, that COVID year was

a huge spike in business, but we're definitely still

increasing overall. So it's, it's a net

positive for our business for sure. Um,

what do you see as the vision, like, for growing then Wingardium?

Like, what would be the vision for growth? Yeah, so, uh,

for the future, like, I'm— we've put a lot of eggs in

In one basket, actually. Well, in a particular basket, I'll say.

Uh, we've partnered with an e-commerce company called PlantSome.

Okay. Yeah, you might be familiar with them. They,

they've been in Canada for, I think, almost

6 years now. Okay. And last year

we invested in their company and started fulfilling

in the US. But, you know, to run a

successful e-commerce company, you really need deep pockets and you

need to be able to advertise consistently with Google

and Facebook and things like that. Yeah. Do you guys have like

an Instagram page too? We do. Yes.

I do not run it. So, um,

for good reason. Everyone has issues.

But, uh, they've done a really good job on that end. And

what we've, what we've tried to do in the last, I'd say,

year is create more of a retail brand for them

or with them. And they've done a really good job around that. We're,

we're not in any spaces, uh, in a

big way yet, but we'd really, uh, like to make a push for

that. And we've also got another partner. in that business

called Green Trade, and they're working with some different

companies in Southeast Asia, just finding

specific varieties and getting exclusives on

different foliage plants. So that's gonna be really

interesting because we're able to then kind of

select these, these different varieties that will be

really desirable in retail. Mm-hmm. And say that we're the only ones

that carry this. We know you need this in your stores.

Carry the PlantSome brand because we, you know, we're plant

people and we love it and you're gonna love it and it is gonna go

well. So now a piece of the PlantSome brand is the PlantSome

app. So they have a plant care app that we're— Is it called Plant

Care? Uh, it's called PlantSome. Oh no. Okay. Sorry. It's the

Plant Care app. Yeah, it's just called PlantSome. Oh, it's still in PlantSome.

Okay. Okay. Yeah, everything's PlantSome. Okay.

That's all. That's the only word you need to know. And plant

by. Yeah, yeah, that's right. Inspired by PlantSome.

So with PlantSome, how we're really trying

to position ourselves in retail is to say,

we can go home with you to take care of your plants

so that you don't kill them. You're buying the right plants to be around your

pets or children. Oh. You know, you're putting it

in the right place. It's not too bright or too dark for this

plant. You're fertilizing it at the right times.

So it's, it's kind of helping with buyer

apprehension in a way. Mm-hmm. To say, hey,

it's okay. Like, you can buy this, you know, this Monstera

and bring it home and we'll help you take care of it. You don't— you're

not in this alone. And I'm not really scared of bringing

plants home because I have an unlimited supply. Right. So it doesn't really

matter. I can kill them as fast as I can supply them.

But for most people, they don't have the luxury of having a wholesale greenhouse in

their backyard. So when they buy a plant and then they, you know,

it could be a $100 plant, set it in the corner, and then it

dies 3 weeks later. They're like, well, I'm not doing that again. That was—

Yeah. a waste of money. So what we're trying to do is

help them be successful with their plants at home, no

matter what plant it is. Yeah.

Yeah, go ahead. No, I was just gonna say this is a good idea.

Thanks. It's not my idea, but I'll take some of the credit.

Yeah, no, it's a, it's a really cool team. Kevin, one of

the founders, he moved back to Holland right now, but his

background is in e-com, and he's a super

creative guy, and he's got a couple other creatives in that,

uh, in his company as well that have been doing a phenomenal job. So

if you see the PlantSome tags, they'll have like little, little sayings.

I don't have any handy right here, but just cute little sayings on the

tags that are more for fun, right? It's not just

informational, it's, it's kind of having fun with it

rather than Uh, just giving you the name of the plant

and IDing the plant is important to us. So we do have

ID, like identification of the plant on every pot,

but it's kind of done in a fun way. Just outta

curiosity, for the plant care

side of things, like how does that work? Do people,

you know, they buy the plant on PlantSum, And

then is it just like a manual,

like a downloadable PDF that is supplied

with the plant that's like a care guide? Or is there like some

type of function where like people can actually take a picture of their space

and then the plant care app will be like, oh, place

the plant here because this is the amount of sunlight you're getting in this

spot? Like how detailed is the care

side of things. Yeah, can I show you? I have it on my phone

right here. So, um, let's see. So it's telling me

welcome back, and I haven't watered or fertilized any of my plants, so it's telling

me I need to do that right here. Okay. And then I can go see

my plants, and— oh, that's not coming through very well.

Can you see that? I can see a couple of plants. Yeah. Anyways,

so it lays them out. So I have I have 4 plants in

my mudroom, it says, and I'll click on it

and it says, oh, this one's a Phlebotium aureum. So it's a blue

star fern. I named him Blue because I'm

that creative. And the care,

so it gives me a watering schedule, says to water it

every, uh, once a week and 9.3 fluid

ounces and fertilize every 60 days. Okay.

So, and then it gives me the history as well. Did I— so it says

I fertilized on September 30th, watered on September

19th, and then it, you know, I don't need to read all those out to

you, but, and then it has a notes section where I can leave notes and

it has an info section where I can

find all the information on it. You know, how much light it's getting, the

pot size it's in, the room it's in, how much water it should be getting.

Yeah. And then I can add new plants anytime in any room.

So that's pretty cool. And then there's a calendar view too. So

then you can just see, you know, your work list for the next month.

Yeah, it's fun. Yeah, that's, that's really cool. So when it

comes to like tracking watering and fertilizer, like you, the user

just puts that in as they're doing it, right? Like I would guess.

Yeah, you just confirm. So it's like checking something off a

list. So it tells you this, I need

water, so go water me. And then you water it and you,

you hit that you did it, right? And if you don't do it, it'll tell

you the next day you forgot to water me. Water me, please.

And so it's got fun

little things in there like that, like little sayings and stuff too. So.

It's not just boring water fertilizer.

I like that you can name the plants. I think that's, I think that's something

that people would really have fun with. You know what I'm really

pushing for is actually a plant graveyard because I feel

like it'd be nice to know how many plants

I've killed over time. And I

feel like that's a little bit of fun too, but That's what I'm—

I've asked for that. I don't think it's high on the priority list, but

I'm hoping in the near future. Yeah, I

think, um, you know, anytime that I talk about houseplants with people, they either

have them or they don't. And the reason usually being

because they kill them. So I think the graveyard would

probably resonate well with, uh, most people who

don't have houseplants, which would be more incentive

for them to try again. Be like, okay, you know, at least if

I kill this plant, I'll be able to remember that I've always— yeah,

what I did. Maybe if you had a graveyard and it

started getting too big, maybe the app could tell you which plants you should

be buying because what you're doing isn't working.

Right. Like, it was a speculation. Yeah, that's

right. Snake plants only. For this

PlantSum app, like if people, how does the business model

work for that? Like what if you bought a plant not through

PlantSum, can you register that plant on the PlantSum

app? And is there a fee for the PlantSum app if you

aren't buying plants from the PlantSum app? How does that all work? Yeah,

good question. So you can put any plant on there.

It's not, it doesn't have to be bought from PlantSum. And we,

we still like that because we're learning. On my end, I'm

learning what people are putting on the app and what they have in

their houses, that that's what I should be growing. So, you

know, Mm-hmm. 90% of the market is,

um, snake plants, then obviously I have to grow more snake

plants. So kind of seeing a better picture of

what the consumer market looks like, I think is important to us as a grower.

And that's a big reason why I got involved in PlantSunn to begin

with, is we were kind of just throwing darts at a board

as far as what we needed to be producing. Mm-hmm. So what we

wanted to see is, okay, what's the consumer saying? Because we

know what we are saying, we know what our customers are saying

at, at retail, but what's the consumer saying? And I think

if we can find ways of getting more information from the consumer,

It can drive us to be, to make better

decisions in the greenhouse as far as what our product mix looks like.

Yeah, these, uh, that makes a lot of sense and

a really, yeah, and a really good idea, um, as well.

So then I guess like your vision of growth is

you hope to scale up sales, like you hope that

PlantSome grows and then you guys grow with PlantSome.

And I guess like that would help because PlantSum will tell you in which direction

you should grow, like which plants you should, um,

grow as much. Like, I guess what I'm asking is, do you think like this

is your primary driver for growth

moving forward? No, but it's, it's

where I'm— I feel like we're putting a lot of effort behind

PlantSum right now because I see the most— say, I see a lot of

potential with it. Like, this is a brand that could easily

translate into any store across North America.

And I think it's fun enough that any

store could put it, put it in their stores and enjoy

like the presence of PlantSomeday. And same with their customers.

So maybe it wouldn't fit in like a,

I'm, I don't know, a random, like

stores that are really boutique. Yeah. I don't think it would fit in there.

But it's a, it's like a fun and bright brand. So

like in big box or in grocery, it's

kind of an exciting kind of splashy look. Mm-hmm. And

it would fit pretty much anywhere. And I, I really want more growers

involved too. So yes, I wanna supply

anybody in the Pacific Northwest that wants to buy Plant Some

branded product, but we'd, we'd much prefer

have a bigger network throughout North America. Because

it needs to be fresher. Like you always see, I,

I'm pretty far from Florida. I'm about as far from Florida as you can get

in the US. And they still, they're still shipping plants

from Florida into Washington State. Uh-huh.

And it just, it shows, right? It's like, we can do, we can do

better as like the, the green industry. We can

supply plants from local suppliers. Anywhere. Yeah.

Do you have any, uh, can you— I guess, are you the only

grower on PlantSome right now?

No. So, um, myself, there's West Coast

Floral in Surrey, British Columbia. Okay, so you

have a Canadian? Yep, yep. Actually, PlantSome started up there,

so— Oh really? Okay. They're fulfillment for PlantSome,

for PlantSome Canada. And then who else is involved?

Let's see. There's another grower

in Ontario actually. Oh, what's his name again? His

name's John. I know his name. His business name is slipping my

mind though. I'll have to apologize to him about this because—

Sorry, John. Sorry, John.

It's my bad. Okay. Uh, yeah, very interesting.

I, uh, how are you guys approaching, how are you getting new

greenhouse growers? on the PlantSome

network right now? Like, what's your method to reach out

to greenhouse growers, grow your network? Yeah, so

I guess the, the dream would be to get a large

customer onboarded so that they can say, hey,

all of my growers, you're now supposed to use the PlantSome

brand and ship all this brand new product to our stores. That way it's kind

of a, a pull-through method where the, the

customer's telling the grower what to grow and what brand to use.

But we are also just networking with growers, you know, going to

trade shows. Mm-hmm. We'll be at, um, TPIE in

January, so we'll have a booth there with PlantSome.

And yeah, anybody that wants to grow PlantSome

product can, we're not gonna limit. Mm-hmm. who this is

available to. So that won't be really a barrier at all.

Okay, we're coming up on the end of the hour.

So I want to, you know, of course,

your experience with greenhouses started with you as a

kid, which isn't, you know, necessarily everyone's, you

know, history with the greenhouses. But I'm wondering, you know,

Since you have so much experience being in the greenhouse

industry, what advice would you give to anyone looking

to start up, you know, a greenhouse of their own or start

growing or start being a grower, uh,

themselves? Yeah, I think it has to start with a

love for plants. Like, I don't think anybody gets into this

industry because they want to make money.

Right. It's, it's more about

loving to grow plants and loving to be around plants. And

then if they make money doing that, that's a great,

I mean, that's the lifestyle we're looking for, right? Mm-hmm. Doing something we

love while making money. So that's kind

of the first thing I'd look at is just make sure you enjoy

growing plants and being around plants because That's gonna be your life.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I think that's, uh, I think that's very practical.

Um, and last question, last question that we always end

off with, but what is your proudest moment as a grower?

Proudest moment as a grower.

Oh, it's a great question. This isn't as

like being a grower grower, but it's more on the sales side.

But we used to grow and sell to a

company called Rite Aid. It's a pharmacy company that recently went bankrupt,

which is unfortunate but happens. And,

we worked with them before,

probably in the '90s. We

definitely worked with them in the '90s and then we moved away from

them for maybe 10 to 15 years. And

after, after the incident I talked to you about earlier, where we

lost the big box store, we approached them to say, hey, you know, we've got

a lot of space available. We'd love to grow for you again. And they really

felt like we had walked away from them and

it didn't feel good, right? To them, it didn't feel good and it didn't feel

good to us because really the relationship

was damaged. Okay. Over the next 5 years or so,

my colleagues and I kept in contact with them and really

tried to build back the trust and the

relationship with them. And we did end up working with them again. And

that, that day when we, when we actually walked out of

their office with that booking, it was, that was a

good feeling. So, and that was with my dad actually. So we

walked out together and High-fived in the parking lot, and it was, it was

pretty awesome. Yeah. Oh, that's, that's a good moment. I think,

um, I, I think too, it really like highlights like, yes, this is a,

you know, podcast on Greenhouse success stories, but

really, you know, Greenhouse as a business, business is

always about people, uh, and the relationships you have. Oh yeah,

yeah, 100%. I was just talking to somebody about that. It's like

You know, plants are great and all, but you really need to know people

and you need to enjoy being around people. And that's the,

that's those 2 things. It's like plants and people. You need to love them

both to be in this industry. Plants and people equals profit.

It's that simple. Yeah. Okay. Well, thank you very much

for your time and for doing the show, Tom. We appreciate it. Absolutely.

Thanks for having me on, Trina. Appreciate it. I

hope you enjoyed this episode of Greenhouse Success Stories hosted by Trina Semenchuk.

Thanks to our guests who make this all possible. Special thanks to our title

sponsor, Arnois Greenhouse. To read the full show notes for each episode, which

includes an episode summary, key takeaways, and guest

resources mentioned, please visit greenhousesuccess.com.

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