Problem with Buying Plants Online

With online shopping becoming more and more popular, the ability to buy anything online is now possible. Even some products that you would think would be impossible to ship to your front door are now available to be shipped. One product that is now able to be shipped to you are live plants. I haven’t purchased a plant online yet but I have been looking and plan to buy one in the near future. However, there are some problems that I am coming across when looking for plants to buy online.

The main problem that I am coming across is when looking for plants to buy online is the prices of some plants that I want to purchase. For example, I found a plant on The Sill’s website that I think is too much for the plant. The I am talking about is a house plant that is called a ZZ plant that comes in a small grant planter. The plant is only 4.25 inches tall and only 5 inches wide. The price of this plant is forty dollars before taxes and shipping. Depending on where you live shipping can vary. For me, living in the Midwest, shipping was twelve dollars. In total, for buying one plant, it costed fifty-four dollars because of taxes. Fifty-four dollars for one small plant that I can buy from the store for much cheaper doesn’t make me want to buy the ZZ plant online. It might just be this website but I can’t see myself buying plants online if they are going to be insanely priced. Let me know in the comments if you’re coming across this problem too.

Tylor Rodgers, From Plants Online to Retail Store

Tylor Rodgers has a very successful company that sells plants online. He first started his business, “Arium Botanicals” back in November of 2017 out of his studio home in Indiana. At the beginning he was only selling house plants and terrariums cross country. As business started to grow, Tylor decided to move the business to the west coast in July of 2018. Portland, Oregon is now the new home for Arium Botanicals. Since the business started to become profitable, he decided to open up Arium’s first retail store that also works as a shipping location. He first started the company with the intention of supporting artists and curating a space and community for plant collectors and new plant hobbyist. Not to mention that the business is LGBTQ+ and vegan owned. Arium Botanicals happily welcomes all sexual orientations, gender identities, religions and races.

On Arium’s website, there are a lot of different things that you will be able to purchase. They have ceramics for you to plant your plants in, a good variety of household plants that are easy to take care of and terrariums. Arium is still a small business but for their size they have a great selection to choose from.

To keep up with Tylor and his everyday life, you can follow him on Instagram at @urlocalplantboy. He currently has 50.9k followers and growing. On his Instagram he post pictures of the business and all of the plants inside. On his Instagram stories, you can get a little taste of his everyday life when he post little videos of what he is currently up to. Tylor is a great person in the plant community and I would recommend anyone to follow him and maybe consider even doing business with him in the near future.

Buying Plants Online

With online shopping becoming the normal place to buy any product you need, it might be surprising to find out that you can even buy plants online. Some websites that are popular for mail order plants are Peony’s Envy, Avant Gardens, and Van Engelen to name a few. Here are some steps to help you with your purchase of plants via the internet.

1.     Step one is to know what plant you are looking to buy. You don’t need to know what specific plant you want, but have an understanding of what type of plant you want; annual, perennial, tropical, etc. You will be able to buy a lot of different plants from around the world but you need to make sure it will survive in your location. If you live in the northern states, tropical and exotic plants won’t survive the winter if you plan to plant them outside, but if you move them inside before the first frost, then they will be fine. Knowing little facts like this will help you decide on what plant is right for you.

2.     Step two is to figure out what website provides the plant you want. Not every website is going to have what you want. For example, Peony’s Envy only sells peonies. Also, if you want the plant to be already grown, make sure they will be sold that way. Van Engelen only sells plants in their bulb form. The main thing is to find a company that meets all your needs.

3.     The third and final step is to checkout. Make sure that they will ship to your area and that you meet all their criteria before checking out. For example, a website called Avant Gardens has a minimum of $25 per order before taxes. After you check out, all you have to do is wait for your plants to arrive.

Hopefully these steps will help guide you in your search for plants via the internet. Here are more websites that sell plants to help your search even more.

·      Cricket Hill Garden

·      Broken Arrow Nursey

·      Forest Farm

·      RareFind Nursery

·      Logees