Where Business is Blooming
PHOTOS BY JORDAN RANDALL
Inside the Green House garden Shop
Whether you have a home filled with greenery or you can’t seem to keep a cactus alive for longer than a day, you’re certain to learn something new (or at least see something you’ve never seen before) by stepping into a charming, beautifully curated plant shop located just off of South Florida Ave.
The Green House was founded by Lakeland native Jarman Peacock more than 20 years ago, and Julie Johnson was the near idyllic person to become its next owner when he stepped out of the business in 2021. Julie was a friend of Jarman’s and a longtime loyal customer of the store.
For her, plants were a hobby and made excellent birthday or anniversary gifts for friends, so she often stopped into the store on her way to Publix. Julie, who originally hails from “up north”—Pennsylvania to be exact—appreciates the year-round plants that Florida has to offer, and she loves finding just the right mix of plants and distinctive pots or planters to match the aesthetic a home or business owner or party planner is going for.
Her approach to potted plants is to make sure they are both healthy and aesthetically pleasing. “We care about everything that walks out of the store, and we’re gonna make sure that it looks as perfect as we can get it,” she says.
The Green House specializes in plants that thrive in the shade of a porch or a lanai, or indoors. Julie’s store also carries a small selection of landscaping plants that work well in the yard as well as fresh flowers that arrive each Friday, thanks to a partnership with Permacreek Farms. Julie manages orders, customer interactions, and special events, but it is up to Whitney McKnight, Julie’s “plant manager” to ensure that each plant is “watered and trimmed and healthy” before customers take them home.
Many of The Green House’s customers have been coming to the shop since it opened more than 20 years ago. It is still the same store that people love, but, after taking over, Julie has made several significant changes.
Julie loves emphasizing the decorative nature of plants by selling beautiful pots to display them in as well as an assortment of home decoration items that pair well with plants as housewarming or congratulatory gifts.
She offers everything from cute little $10 pots to more expensive ornate vases, like the Sicilian Moro heads you can currently find on shelves. The traditional ceramic vases from Italy depict the face of a man or woman, and were recently popularized on a more global level thanks to their inclusion in the hit HBO show The White Lotus.
Julie also enjoys hosting a monthly market for the Easton Drive neighborhood that includes music, local vendors and refreshments. Her goal for these markets is to foster a sense of community and to highlight and support local artists.
Julie also offers various workshops to help people learn more about their plants and meet fellow plant enthusiasts.
Although Julie works with many clients who have been coming to her store longer than she has owned it, she loves welcoming new faces. The workshops the store offers are a great way for beginners to learn the basics of Bonsai care and trimming or for little ones to practice their art skills by crafting a hand painted flower pot.
“We care about everything that walks out of the store, and we’re gonna make sure that it looks as perfect as we can get it”
The Green House’s orchid potting classes are getting more popular every time Julie hosts one. Customers enjoy spending the evening together chatting and sharing their orchid woes. Julie acknowledges that many people in the plant community have a love-hate relationship with the beautiful but high maintenance flower. Learning how to take care of an orchid is a challenge, but a rewarding one, especially if the plant lives long enough to rebloom.
In order for a smaller business to survive in today’s marketplace, Julie says owners have to challenge the “Amazon mentality” that dominates so many people’s views of shopping. If one of her customers needs a specific plant, Julie will do her best to get it for them, but it might take several days instead of the 24 hours that a large, online store promises. If she can’t get what a customer wants from a trusted vendor that she has actually physically been to, she won’t hesitate to help them find another local garden store that can, like Austin’s Backyard Garden, Florida Natives Nursery or Peterson Nursery and Garden Center.
“If I don’t have it, I tell them, call Peterson’s. Karen and Howie will take care of you,” she says.
Another benefit of visiting a local business like The Green House is the special care that Julie puts into her clients’ experiences. Long-time customers often text Julie at all hours with questions about how to care for their plants or requests for certain plant species to compliment their interior and exterior home aesthetics.
In fact, Julie has one customer who will leave her container on the floor of the shop and drive away, because she is confident that Julie will figure out exactly what she wants. And indeed, Julie will. She knows exactly where the planter will go in her client’s house and the perfect plant to use to ensure that the customer is satisfied when she comes back to pick it up.
There are many reasons that The Green House stands out from big box stores, like the garden sections of Walmart or Lowe’s. In addition to Julie’s special attention to customer service, she gives a lot of thought to which plants are sold in her store. Each plant in the showroom is handpicked by Julie who sources them directly from each vendor on a weekly basis. If it doesn’t look healthy, she won’t sell it.
Speaking of selling, the owner of the property on Easton Dr. recently put the land and building up for sale. Julie has a lease that runs through the end of the year, and she is hopeful that Green House’s legacy has much to still be written, but anything could happen.
The culture of a local garden store like this one is certainly something you won’t find in a corporate setting. Julie jokingly describes The Green House as “the ‘Cheers’ of plant stores.” Customers will stop in, not just to look at new stock, but to socialize and catch up with friends. Some of them even act like they run the place but Julie doesn’t mind. She is happy to embrace the joy that comes with owning a shop filled with beautiful, living greenery.
“It’s really hard not to have a good day,” Julie muses. “We’re sitting in a garden. It’s beautiful. The flowers are beautiful. That’s not me, that’s Mother Nature.”