Flourish Plant Market introduces a burst of greenery to Kent's Mill District
Alicia Hall decided she wanted to open a plant store in the midst of a pandemic.
She'd been laid off by her previous job working for a nonprofit right before the pandemic took its first swing.
"When I was in that moment of trying to figure out, okay, what's next, that's when the idea for the plant business came about," said Hall. "It was actually a good thing, because I was able to spend that time to do it. If I was still working anywhere full time, I wouldn't have been able to do it."
Flourish Plant Market, which started out as an online only enterprise in 2020, now has a brick-and-mortar storefront at 113 S. Water St. in downtown Kent. It's open 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday.
In addition to a wide array of plants, Flourish Plant Market carries accessories by Finch and Fern, Cuyahoga Valley woodworks, Hazelmade, Base Camp Ceramics, Evergreen Concrete Co. and For the Love of Foliage.
The business launched in August 2020 with a website that offered deliveries and order pick ups at the Jenks Building in Cuyahoga Falls. Eventually, Flourish got its own space in the Jenks Building, a precursor to the larger Kent storefront.
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Online ordering has been paused for the time being as Hall focuses on getting the storefront running smoothly and integrating the in-store and online systems.
"But we will be opening that back up soon so that people can buy online, they can pick it up in-store, or they could even still probably pick it up at the Jenks building," Hall said.
Flourish opened its doors over Halloween weekend to a more robust response than expected, Hall said. While Saturday was a better day, she saw good traffic on Sunday as well.
Customers milling about the store on that bright Saturday morning expressed excitement about the store's opening.
Tallmadge resident Elizabeth Ernst and her daughter Abigail, an Ohio University student, are both plant owners. Abigail held a peperomia she intended to buy to replace one that didn't survive the move from home to college, a replacement she's excited to make.
Abigail heard about the store from her mother, who said that when she heard about the store's imminent opening she knew she had tell her daughter. Elizabeth said that she's thrilled that a brick-and-mortar plant shop has opened in Kent.
Other businesses in town had been recommending people to her shop in the time leading up to its opening.
Referrals came from Taco Tonto's, Bell Tower Brewing Co. and North Water Brewing, she said. Main Street Kent was helpful in getting the word out as well, as were some of the others who sell their wares in the storefront.
Decision making in a pandemic
Hall said she's always adored plants, both indoors and out. When the idea of working with plants began percolating in her brain, she thought at first the endeavor would be an outdoor vegetable garden, maybe a community-based permaculture concept.
"There were all these ideas around that," said Hall, "but then I realized that as I was getting older, my body wasn't as ready to do something as that as my mind was, as my heart was."
During the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, a friend's business venture gave her the inspiration to start Flourish.
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"It wasn't until during the pandemic, when I was kind of figuring things out, that a friend of mine in Buffalo had announced that she was opening a plant shop," Hall said. Naturally, she was excited for her friend, but at the same yearned to try something similar.
"That was the lightbulb in my head that was like, 'Duh, you love plants, you're obsessed with them, that's what you do in your free time, all the time — you research, and all the things,' " she recalled.
There were difficulties at first, particularly due to Hall's decision to start the venture during the pandemic, but her customers welcomed the no-contact delivery of their online plant orders.
As things began to open up and people were returning to the world, business slowed. Pop-up sales became Flourish's most important source of income and buzz.
"We would do all kinds of really fun events," said Hall. "One of them was called Pints and Plants. We would go to local breweries in the area — we would go to North Water, Bell Tower, HiHo, all those really cool breweries — and we would just set up a local little plant shop pop-up."
People would arrive and do their plant shopping while they grabbed a drink.
"It's like two of my favorite things combined together, plants and beer," Hall said.
Flourish Plant Market has provided plants to North Water, even going so far as to care for them on a weekly basis. Hall said that she's working out a similar deal with Bell Tower, and that in the meantime she's taking care of what they already have.
A doctor's office in Bath is another of her clients.
Being a solo operation, Hall's time is restricted now that her store is open, so she's reluctant to take on any further responsibility caring for a client's flora. But it's not out of the question in the future.
"I'm undecided at the moment until I get some additional help down the road. I would love to do that. I would love to bring back delivery, too," Hall said.
She'd like to hire on some help, but not until she knows she can afford to pay future employees.
"I want to do it right," said Hall. "I don't want to hire a bunch of people and then not be able to keep them on. Because they're counting on me for their livelihood, so I want to make sure I'm a reliable source for them."
The storefront is a dream come true to Hall.
"This was always the vision I had in my head when I first started," she said. "I just knew that I had to take baby steps in order to get there. I had some things I needed to learn along the way."
Hall has managed a few businesses over the years, primarily restaurants. That experience, she said, doesn't translate directly to the logistics of owning a business of one's own. In fact, she's still learning.
"There's not a guide that people just hand you and say, here you go you're going to start a business now," Hall said. "So there was a lot of little ins and outs and tricks that I had to learn."
Mastering social media has been something she's had to work on during her journey. Making the jump from managing a relatively small personal account to drawing in a larger local following for a business is something she's had to learn to do.
Working with a SCORE mentor from the Akron chapter has helped Hall quite a bit as she worked to get her store up and running. SCORE—which stands for Service Core of Retired Executives—is a national non-profit that provides assistance to entrepreneurs along any step of their career by matching them with a local mentor free of charge.
More growth planned for plant business
Opening a physical location isn't the last step in Flourish Plant Market's evolution.
First, Hall wants to find some more local artisans to work with.
"I don't want to have too many non-plant products," she said. "Plants, I want to be the focus, but I do love having locally made goods — giftables, those types of things, things that go with plants when you buy them."
In the future, Hall would like to to turn Flourish into a one stop shop for all of Kent's plant-based needs by offering things like soil and fertilizer.
Workshops in the store on subjects like Plant Parenthood 101 and other educational courses for budding horticulturalists are on Hall's agenda as well, as are free community events like plants swaps and plant trivia nights.
"We have been doing them out at the breweries and different places like that, but January, I think, is when we're going to start," said Hall.
It's important to Hall for people to know that the store is all inclusive.
"I want everyone to feel welcome," she said. "For our events, I want everyone to come and enjoy, and feel like this is an extension of their homes, like this is a fun place where you can learn a little bit about plants and bring some of the outside world into your own."
Contact reporter Derek Kreider at DKreider@Gannett.com
This article originally appeared on Record-Courier: Flourish Plant Market sells flora to Kent residents
