A Botany "Software Update"

A few days ago, I shared some reflections on this year’s Plant Pride. Through that process I realized something else: I haven’t shared any Botany stories with you in quite a while. For a time, I had the space and the energy to share updates like this with our community more often - and frankly, it’s one of the things I love the most about my role within Botany today. I’ve always had a passion for storytelling, and I’ve loved hearing your feedback after previous notes. It’s encouraging to know our community is paying attention to what we’re doing here. More and more it’s becoming a metric for how I think about measuring our success as a business. If you’re paying attention, it means we’re doing something worth paying attention to, right? (I hope so…) 

To help set the stage, I feel it’s worth mentioning at the start that in addition to being a gardener and CEO, I’m also a gamer. I play a lot of logistics, production, resource management and city-builder games. (No surprise?) Those have always been my comfort zone and my happy place, especially in winter when I can’t spend time in the garden.  

Lately I’ve been playing a lot of games that are still very actively and transparently in development. Yes, they’ve created a playable, accessible product, but they also aren’t done building it yet. Whenever they release a new version of the game, they invite the community to interact with it for a while, and then the developers ask for and listen to feedback, and then design new features to make the game better than ever. 

This co-creative process takes time. I’ve been with some games for more than five years and they’re still in development. I fell in love with the basic premise of each game at the start, and with every new update, the developers somehow make me fall in love over, and over, and over again. And now, I’m realizing, it’s because of moments like this. 

Through most of 2024, Botany has been undergoing a “software update,” mostly behind the scenes. And, that’s sort of how I’m approaching my update today. I’m about to share some new features, introduce new services, and announce some big changes - things you might have seen or felt or heard as a Botany neighbor or customer, but never knew quite for sure. This moment feels like the beginning of Botany 2.0…

Alright, here we go! Get comfy. Grab a coffee, tea, cocktail, whatever. Settle in, because we have a lot of ground to cover (pun sort of intended). 

First up, let’s talk about space, and this is a big one. 

Space has been a constant consideration for us over the past three years since we first opened our doors at 909 Portage Ave. We quickly fell in love with our home in the Near Northwest Neighborhood, and began dreaming about how we could grow everything we hoped for Botany within this space. We called that first vision (software version 1.1) “The Botany Block,” and we first shared it in July of 2022, just before the first-ever Plant Pride. Later that year, I delivered a Studebaker talk, full of anxiety, because this was the first time I was going to share our story and plant an idea for the future of Botany. 

It was around this time some very interesting energy entered our universe: opportunities that would define the future of who we are, what we do, how we do it, and where. The choices we made would define who we are, forever. (No pressure…) 

They led us to consider, deeply and thoroughly, the role we should and could play in our community going forward. How will people remember Botany in 20 years? 50? 100? Where and how and with whom are we meant to do our work? These are big questions, and discovering the answers has been empowering. It almost feels like we’ve been back in school the past few years, and somehow making the decision about space and place was the final exam, only we didn’t know it at the time. Pop quiz!

Botany is and always has been so much more than just a plant shop. It’s an idea, a mindset, a way of moving forward and engaging with the world around us. Through many conversations and sleepless nights, we were able to clarify, once and for all: the space we’re in right now, and the neighborhood we’ve called home from the start, in the heart of the Near Northwest, is where we’re meant to put down permanent roots. 

This is where we’re meant to deploy our mission of empowering more people to grow more plants in more places. We value creating a big impact in a small footprint, and we love the challenge and opportunity of creating a public garden for everyone that is uniquely of, by, and for our community, right here. I can now count eight distinct garden areas, public and private, on Portage Ave and within two blocks of Shop, in which Botany was somehow involved. I love this, and it’s another way I’m beginning to measure our success as a community-orientated company. 

All this to say: the time has finally come. We’re finally beginning to move seriously and earnestly toward purchasing our current home at 909 Portage Avenue, including a few adjacent lots for future expansion, and I’ll talk more about that in a moment. In order for us to make improvements in the way we envision and grow in a way that makes sense, owning the properties is the next logical step in our journey. Committing to this space and place, fully and out loud, feels really good. 

In the end, it turns out the first idea, The Botany Block, was the right idea, and now it’s time to get to work. 

What’s next? So glad you asked.

Let’s talk expansion, since I mentioned the additional properties up above. 

First, let’s explore our new outdoor retail space, The Lot Next Door, coming online in the vacant lot next door to the Shop this holiday season. I’d encourage you to think of The Lot as we are: a sibling to the Botany Shop, certainly, with its own identity, attitude, language and fashions. You’ll see some family resemblance, and meet a new personality. Your support at our monthly plant sales has been tremendous, and we’re ready to make this “pop-up” permanent, just as we did with The Botany Shop in the very beginning.

This is more than just a retail space: it doubles as a teaching and demonstration garden, too. We’ve already begun adding some of our favorite plants, and more will be arriving this year. The goal is to provide a mature specimen of just about everything we sell, so you know exactly what to expect as new plants mature. Our hope is that by combining knowledge and learning with access to affordable, quality plants, we can accelerate the positive changes we desperately need to make in our shared environment.

The native plants we’ve come to love so much will be available on the regular, and - most exciting - many if not most as plugs. Plugs are an easy and affordable way to quickly add more plants to your landscape and are far more economical and successful than gallon-size plants (which are often grown to look good in a pot in the garden center, rather than in the ground in your garden). Plugs help set everyone up for success.

The Lot will debut in part later this year when for the first time, Botany will be selling fresh-cut Christmas trees. You can expect our usual fanfare to accompany them - fire pits, twinkle lights, hot chocolate, music… I can feel the magic already. Stay tuned for a holiday-specific update soon - it’s coming!

Finally, I’m thrilled to share a save the date for a grand, Season Opener weekend, April 26-27, 2025, celebrating the debut of The Lot Next Door. I’m also ecstatic to share that we'll be joined that weekend by my dear friend and fellow life-long gardener, Kelly Norris. Kelly is an award-winning plantsman and author based at Three Oaks Garden in Des Moines, Iowa. In his practice, he explores the intersections of people, plants, and place through ecological, site-specific design and art. Kelly’s garden work has been featured in The New York Times, Better Homes and Gardens, Martha Stewart Living, Fine Gardening, Garden Design, and in numerous television, radio, and digital media appearances. His forthcoming book Your Natural Garden launches December 3 from Cool Springs Press, and we’ll be celebrating all of this during his visit in South Bend. We’re so excited to welcome you all to The Lot Next Door and we can’t wait for you to meet Kelly! 

Botany & Field

The Lot Next Door isn’t the only space nearby you’ll begin to see transform over the next several months, because we’re also in the process of adopting the urban farm directly behind the Shop on Cottage Grove Ave. This field was previously managed by farmer, neighbor, and friend, Susan Greutman and her crew with Sunchoke Farms, who live just a few blocks away. 

This is major. Over the past few years, we’ve identified both a need and desire to grow more of our own fresh, high-quality ingredients to support offerings like our popular Wine and Wreaths private holiday parties, dried and pressed floral pieces and workshops, and unique cut flowers that will be available seasonally inside the Botany Shop. We’re so grateful for the opportunity to continue cultivating and preserving this green space in the heart of a neighborhood, and to continue to grow beautiful things with the intention of sharing them. 

The Field will also become home to a few permanent plant collections. These special groups of plants represent things we love to grow ourselves in our personal garden. They’re plants we’re eager and excited to share because we believe they deserve to be grown in more gardens and celebrated by more gardeners. They’re plants with character, personality, durability, and the potential for a “super-bloom moment” - a time of the year when everything seems to be flowering at once. These plants won’t be available for at least another year, and we await their debut with excitement and anticipation. 

While the Field won’t always be open to the public, we do envision opening at special moments of the year to share it with you. My sincere hope is we’ll be ready to welcome you in time for Plant Pride next year. (Save the date for July 19, 2025, by the way). 

Plant Pride Planning Team

Speaking of Plant Pride, this is a great moment to share an invitation to join the brand new Plant Pride Planning Team! Plant Pride is a signature event on our calendar, and a big lift - one we look forward to and are happy to make each year. That said, in order for the event to grow as we dream it can, we need your help to make it happen. We’re now recruiting planning team members, and you can find the full details here. We’re expecting to host the first kick-off meeting for 2025 in September, so if you’re interested, please reach out ASAP. 

Lawn Conversion + New Stewardship Services

This division of Botany has been growing rapidly over the past year as more and more neighbors make the choice to replace their lawn with a vibrant landscape. As a young business and a small team, we’ve focused our efforts on the installation portion of lawn conversion, doing our best to develop an efficient, effective, and successful process. 

As these landscapes begin to mature, and as more people everywhere begin to plant and grow native gardens of their own, we know it’s time for us to also offer a more robust portfolio of landscape stewardship and management services to help more people access the extra hands and expert knowledge that we all sometimes need. We expect to debut these services over the next 3-12 months - stay tuned!

We’re also now welcoming new reservations for lawn conversions, after a brief summer pause. Our calendar tends to fill quickly, and I would encourage you to reach out soon if this is something you’re interested in learning more about. 

Improved Ticketing & New Workshops

This is another big one. Botany has been hosting hands-on workshops and programs from the start, and we’ve loved creating with so many of you over the past few years. As these programs have grown in popularity, breadth, and depth, our ticketing platform, Eventbrite, didn’t feel like the best fit anymore. We’ve now transitioned to utilizing Square for our on-site classes and workshops, and this also brings a few significant improvements for all of you, including:

  • No more processing and ticketing fees! Eventbrite included fees with every registration, and those are now gone. Bye! 

  • You can now earn and use rewards points whenever you purchase a workshop ticket. You’ll need to sign in with your phone number in order to access your points, just as you do in the Shop.

  • Any Botany gift card can now be used toward a class or workshop registration. You’ll be able to enter your gift card number at checkout. 

  • You can now easily gift a class or workshop to someone else. Simply enter their name, phone number, and email when signing up - just be aware they’ll receive a notification of your purchase. 

  • Our August and September classes are now live and you can see the full line up or sign up here. Our workshops tend to fill quickly, so if you see something you’re interested in, be sure to sign up ASAP. 

It’s important to note we’ll still use Eventbrite for some of our larger, off-site collaborations from time to time, however we’ll do our best to utilize Square and all its benefits above whenever we can going forward. 

Bunches + Brunch at Craft One Half

Speaking of the calendar, we’re excited to share our next collab with Craft One Half! If you’ve missed any of our previous events like wreath making, kokedama, or terrariums, you can check out the highlights by following the links. 

Squeeze some fun out of the final days of summer and join The Botany Shop and Craft One Half for another deliciously botanical event. The Craft One Half team will be laying out a spread of brunch and lunch favorites with a twist, and no brunch is complete without a Mimosa Bar. Botany will bring bunches of gorgeous, fresh, local, and seasonal flowers to help you create a one-of-a-kind bouquet created by you. Join us as we celebrate and delight in the bounty of summer as we ease into Fall. 

Tickets are now available: 11am or 2pm.

Online Shopping & Shipping Coming Soon!

Botany has dabbled in e-commerce from the start, and we’ve realized it needs dedicated support in order to be successful. We’re in the process of building that internal capacity, and will be re-launching a more robust online shopping experience by November 1, just in time for the holidays. We also plan to introduce shipping for the first time, which means if you’re not in the South Bend area, you can still gift or receive some Botany magic! 

In the meantime, we’re also gearing up for our next Native Tree & Shrub Presale. This will be our third presale, and as usual, 10% of proceeds go to support the work of South Bend Wild Ones. Stay tuned for details hitting your inbox in early September. We’re introducing some new (for us) plants this round, and we’re excited to share them with you. 

August Gift Card Sale: 20% off!

To help us celebrate the launch of all of these initiatives, we’re also excited to offer a gift card sale throughout the month of August, with 20% off any gift card purchase starting at $50. (Great for classes and workshops, the fall native tree and shrub presale, holiday shopping, or The Lot Next Door next spring. Gift cards never expire, after all…) 

This sale means you can snag a $50 gift card for only $40, or a $100 gift card for $80. Sale is valid both online (e-gift cards) or in the Shop if you’d prefer a physical gift card. 

Private Events & Workshops

If you didn’t know you could reserve the Shop for your next small event or gathering - now you do! You can choose an activity from our most popular workshop offerings, and your group will enjoy 10% off any purchases made in the Shop that day. Learn more or start scheduling your next event here. 

You’ll also be hearing from us soon regarding this year’s Wine & Wreaths private events. If your group joined us last year, you’ll get first dibs on this year’s dates, because we hope this is something that will become a tradition in your holiday calendar. That said, we’re also offering additional time slots this year, and there are plenty of opportunities for new friends to join us.

New Customer Appreciation Initiatives

We’ll soon be rolling out several new and improved initiatives including Customers of the Month, Bonus Rewards Points Drawings, and Customer Appreciation Weekend returns November 15-17 with three days of door prizes and discounts. 

New Shop Leadership

I’m thrilled to officially share the good news that the Shop is now in the creative and capable hands of a new leadership team. Melodie, who started as our plant stylist and instructor, has been promoted to General Manager, and Arianna, our Plant Care Specialist, is now the Assistant Manager & Plant Curator. Mel and Ari are responsible for all aspects of The Botany Shop and its many classes, workshops, programs, and curation. They’ve each stepped in and stepped up over the past 18 months or so, and we’re so excited for all the great energy and new ideas they continue to bring to this special space. 

Season Pass Upgrades

While we had initially considered offering a Season Pass Summer Sale, we’ve opted instead to continue listening, tweaking, and building better systems for the long-term. The Season Pass is something Botany is committed to develop and champion, and we see serious potential for it to reshape our community for the better over the long term. When we kicked off the Season Pass earlier this year, we knew it would be a year with a lot of listening and analysis. We’re seeing 2024 as a sort of test-balloon/trial year for the program. I’ve heard from and spoken with a few of you over the past few months, and some Season Pass holders as well.

A consistent point of feedback from everyone has been a desire for a more accessible, easy-to-use, digital experience. How great would it be if you could have your Season Pass in your Apple wallet, and simply tap a link on your home screen to take you to the latest Season Pass info or check in when you support local businesses as a way to earn rewards or perks or enter to win prizes – more ways for us to reward and incentivize people to shop locally.

We’re planning to debut a special Season Pass holiday package in a few months, too, allowing you to not only purchase or renew a Season Pass for yourself in 2025, you’ll also be able to gift it to someone you love. 

If you’re a current Season Pass holder, consider this your friendly reminder to get out and love on our partner businesses in particular right now. And while you’re at it, share some treasure with any local business you love. Period. Each of us is working to build a community we’re proud to live in with you, together, and we feel your love so much more than Amazon ever could. Thanks for continuing to love on this community. 

Cultivating Place

Cultivating Place: Conversations on Natural History and the Human Impulse to Garden is a weekly NPR program and podcast hosted by award-winning author and life-long gardener, Jennifer Jewell. It is a co-production of North State Public Radio in Chico, California, a service of Capital Public Radio in Sacramento, California. Cultivating Place has been on the air for a decade, and you can catch up and explore more than 400 episodes on the CP website. 

I’ll be joining Jennifer as a guest host later this year, interviewing plant lovers and gardeners across the country who also believe in the power and importance of plant-driven spaces, as we do. This is something we hope to continue in 2025 and beyond. I’m also humbled to share that Botany will be profiled in a new video documentary, Cultivating Place Live: Dialogues to Grow By, coming soon. You can learn more about the program and watch the trailer for the Cultivating Place Live (featuring Botany!) right now. What’s more, we get to collaborate with another hometown local business and creative powerhouse, EM EN.

Myriam Nicodemus and Khoa Huynh, both immigrants sharing the pursuit of dreams and building bridges through their work, collaborate at EM EN, a vibrant production house in South Bend. Myriam, a filmmaker and photographer from Guatemala, founded EM EN as a haven for local artists, driven by her belief in the transformative power of storytelling and empathy. Khoa, a passionate entrepreneur from Vietnam, joined forces with Myriam, bringing his expertise and dedication to helping others achieve their goals.

Together, Myriam and Khoa champion the idea that unity strengthens creativity and that by working together, we can all reach greater heights.

Cultivating Place represents an evolution and next step in our media and storytelling work, after we wrapped the fourth and final season of our web series, Let’s Grow Stuff, with PBS Wisconsin at the end of 2023. 

How You Can Support Us

Everything, and I mean everything, is possible because of you and your support of Botany over the past three years. I hope after reading through this update today that you’re as excited as we are for what the future holds and the many beautiful moments, experiences, treasures, and, of course, plants, you can expect to find on your next visit. 

I mentioned at the start that 2024 has been a big lift, and that goes for everyone on our amazing team. We keep doing what we’re doing because we see and feel your love and support, and right now, we need all of you to help us make these dreams come true. Here are just a few ways you can help us out right now:

No matter how you show up for us, we see you, we appreciate you, and we’re grateful. I’ve said from the beginning that it takes a village, and we remain grateful you’re ours. 

Thank you, plant lovers. For everything. Now, let’s dig in.

With Gratitude,

Ben | Founder & CEO