When we were in Brazil in May, we had the opportunity to meet a lot of Urban Jungle Bloggers on different occasions, including at several events in São Paulo and Brasília. In a country with such a large diversity of vegetation in the wild, it was wonderful to meet so many like-minded folks that are enthusiastic to live with plants indoors as well. The Brazilian take on houseplants and greenery felt very refreshing to us, and we were delighted to join our friends at São Paulo based plant shop Selvvva and discover their universe with colorful metal plant pots, lush greenery, ceramic and synthetic pots in all sizes, plant stands, accesories and more. The team at Selvvva invited us to host a Noite Verde, a green evening with a talk about our love for houseplants, the story of Urban Jungle Bloggers, our first impressions of plants in Brazil and to mingle with the amazing plant tribe in São Paulo.
When speaking with the team, we realized the parallel between Selvvva and UJB is striking: Denise Yui and Julia Rettmann founded Selvvva not long after we launched Urban Jungle Bloggers (2013), which means they are not newcomers anymore, know what their clients are looking for, and see how the plant world is evolving and continues to grow. Like us, they are passionate about what they do and it shows in the plant shop that they created. You instantly feel good, the team is super friendly and helpful. And the plants look lush and happy too.
Besides a nice selection of small and bigger houseplants, Selvvva proposes a collection of signature Selvvva products: in all the cafés, homes, restaurants in Brazil that we visited we would recognize Selvvva metal planters, hanging baskets, plant stands or cork and wooden supports.
As a treat for the Noite Verde, the local popcorn guy drove into the shop and served warm pipoca to the entire plant tribe.
Plant lovers united:
During our talk in English, we were joined by our friend Lucas who translated every single word we say, with perfection and charm, into Portuguese. Seated next to him are Anderson Santos (biologist and botanist) and Denise (co-founder of Selvvva) who also shared their vision on living with plants. It was an evening filled with laughter, joy and quirky talk about plants with everyone that joined us for the Noite Verde at Selvvva.
The special hashtag for the night was #urbanjunnngle as well as our classic #urbanjunglebloggers :
Thank you so much to everyone that came out to meet us and talk plants and Brazilian life with us. We had a blast! Muito obrigado as well to the team at Selvvva for organising this lovely first Noite Verde. Here’s to more green nights in the future! To this we say “Cheers” with Hoegaarden São Paulo:
Read more about the Noite Verde at Selvvva on their blog.
Visit Selvvva: Av. Angélica, 501, térreo /// São Paulo – SP – 01227-900 /// or online.
Photography Dani Neves at Selvvva & Urban Jungle Bloggers
Ok let’s be frank: New York is always worth a trip! No matter your interests, your likings, your plans. The city that never sleeps offers it all – for everybody. So if you are a plant freak like us, you will enjoy the city to the max too. Just like we did a few weeks ago when we went to New York City for an exciting upcoming plant project (stay tuned). We snapped away with our smartphones and brought back some of our favorite green tips for New York – bookmark these if you plan a visit and love plants. Let’s roll!
Let’s first start with some plant shopping. It’s very easy to find some nice plants in the Big Apple! You can go to the Chelsea Flower Market, or visit one of the cool urban plant shops in town. Our list was long and between meetings & lunches we managed to visit quite a few. Our first stop is at the beautiful Green Fingers Market, by talented Satoshi Kawamoto, the Japanese plant artist and creative director behind Green Fingers also known as Satie San. If you like his signature style of unique vintage treasures and plants, make sure to also check out our post about the Green Fingers plant shop in Milan HERE.
Green Fingers Market – 5 Rivington street – New York, NY 10002
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We received so many DMs from friends & Urban Jungle Bloggers that we HAD to visit Sprout in Brooklyn. One of their stores in Grand Street is all about dressing a beautiful table and kitchen ware, paired with beautiful greenery. And just across the street you can find their XXL shop with anything planty and floral.
Houseplants in every size, shape and color, a repotting station, cooled flowers, airplants, a really nice selection of ceramics, glassware, plant pots, plant hangers, tools, soils, stones & gems, terrariums and more at this XXL shop with exposed bricks and bright yellow, pink and black accents. The design of the shop is spacious, clean and makes the plants stand out really well. We loved it and fell hard for the Etch planters by Capra Designs, but also purchased some nice smaller ceramics and citrine stones!
Sprout Home – 59 Grand Street – Brooklyn, NY 11249
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Coffee and plants are always a good idea! Welcome to Plant Shed where you can sit down for a coffee, treat yourself to a new houseplant, or purchase a freshly picked bouquet for a friend. Or buy one the fun planters, like the Modernica large Mushroom planters:
Plant Shed – 1 Prince St. (at Bowery) – New York, NY 10012
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More plants, coffee and flowers… different style! You can shop for all of it at one of the locations of Homecoming. They also stock some really nice books and magazines, ceramics, candles, watering cans, glassware, plaids. Everything to make coming home even nicer!
Plants and coffee are nice, but what about really good vintage designs and plants? The spacious shop of Other Times in Brooklyn has a fantastic selection of vintage furniture (like Danish Design sideboards), lamps, mirrors, planters and books, paired with tall Sansevieira, cereus cacti, Stromanthe triostar, fiddle figs, palms and more… Oh and make sure to check out their cool selection of vintage books as well. The titles are hilarious!
Other Times Vintage– 48 Bogart St – Brooklyn, NY 11206
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If there is one shop that doesn’t need an introduction, it’s The Sill. They are the best in online marketing and make ordering plants online so easy! They propose the most easy going common houseplants, delivered in their own The Sill ceramics. We visited both locations, on in the Upper Westside, the other one in Chinatown. They just opened a shop in Los Angeles as well. Welcome to The Sill jungle!
The Sill – 84 Hester Street – New York, NY 10002 & 448 Amsterdam Ave – New York, NY 10024 (new location in LA: 8125 W 3rd Street)
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Also in China town: this not very fancy, but oh-so-interesting Plant shop called Dahing Plants where our friend Brian took us one night before a just-as-fancy meal (Mac & Cheese spring rolls anyone?!). At Dahing Plants they have a surprising selection of bigger plants, like the XL blooming Jade plants you see in the picture below, for hard-to-beat prices. Definitely worth a visit when you’re looking for something big and affordable in New York:
Plant shopping makes you hungry! Time for a break and indulge in a green café, like at Stonefruit Espresso in Brooklyn. Yummy food and drinks that you can enjoy at the large communal table in the back where you can create your own bouquet of dried flowers, buy a new houseplant, find nice planty accessories, like the pins and keyrings by our friend Samantha from Hemleva.
In the back of the Williamsburg location of Juice Generation you’ll find a huge glass window that gives you a peek into a large urban jungle with real tropical plants. A good idea they put all plants behind glass, because you could get tempted to snap a cutting of one of these 😉
The best freshly roasted coffee, with a large vertical garden with as a backdrop? Go to Devoción Coffee. They roast their own coffee blends, their vertical garden features 150 Colombian native coffee plants and their granola bar is to die for!
Devocíon – 69 Grand St. (at Wythe) – Brooklyn, NY 11249
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At Little Park restaurant, in the heart of TriBeCa, they serve seasonal food that highlights local farmers, anglers, vintners, ranchers and foragers. From farm to table, in a nice setting with lush Golden Pothos that create a green curtain in front of the windows:
If you are looking for a fun place to stay in Brooklyn, consider renting a room in The Funky Loft. We met with owner Marcella in her spacious loft in the heart of Bushwick, Brooklyn that looks like a quirky and funky home where you can feel at home, play some funky tunes on the piano, admire the many thriving plants, hang out with other guests, pin your hometown on the custom map, or just relax in your own private room. Funky and good vibes guaranteed!
When you think of visiting your dentist, you probably don’t think of cool plants, stylish design, a home-y feel or staff that makes you feel like friends, Yet, it is exactly what you’ll get when your dentist is called Dr Jennifer Plotnick. Her state-of-the-art practice on Grand Street (neighboring Sprout Plant Shop), called Grand Street Dental makes you want to hang out at your dentist every day. Their selection of plants by the famous Putnam Flowers, are just gorgeous.
And one thing that is on our list wherever we go: to visit the local botanical garden. The NYC Botanical Garden requires some time to get there, but a visit to the Brooklyn Botanical Garden was easier to fit into our schedule. The park outside was in full hibernation mode, but inside the greenhouses it was green and lush, humid and dry. Very inspiring and very Instagrammable too!
– The High Line – An elevated freight rail line transformed into a public park on Manhattan’s West Side. It wasn’t very green when we visited this February, but we were told it’s really nice in Spring and Summer.
– Rooted – 81 Quay St – Brooklyn, NY 11222, USA – The guys that deliver a curated collection of pre-potted plants delivered straight to your door, now also have a brick & mortar shop!
– Greenery NYC – 91 West Street – Brooklyn, NY 11222 – Freshly opened, just days after we left NYC: the world’s first biophilic design store in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.
Photography by Urban Jungle Bloggers This blogpost was not sponsored, we genuinely enjoyed all these green spots!
In these last weeks before the holidays, most of us have been shopping a little bit, to find some special gifts to surprise our loved ones. If you are lucky (or love shopping for yourself!) you may have been plant shopping as well! We did so too! Actually we don’t need any excuse to adopt a new plant, or that one special plant that has been on top of our wishlist for months, but we also love to visit new plant shops when we’re traveling. We do this twice a week “virtually” on our @urbanjungleblog Instagram account where we share the most amazing plant shops from around the world. And today we’re taking you to a new (to us) plant shop in Ghent, Belgium here on the blog.
We stumbled upon this cute and green shop called “Little Green Stories ” in the heart of Ghent by accident: our eyes caught a green shop window with lots of houseplants… and one book: our own Urban Jungle book! Owner Nele recognized us immediately when we entered the shop and showed us around her green universe. And while you don’t see many people in these photos, it was buzzing with plant lovers coming in to buy new plants and ask for plant care tips for their plants at home. That’s what we love most about the plant community: sharing knowledge, nerding about plants: basically having a good time with like minded folks!
As you can see Little Green Stories is a very green shop, with a large choice of aroids, wax plants, cacti, succulents, air plants, as well as many plant pots and baskets to match your green purchases. The selection of plants is completely different from the local garden centers in the area and come with care tips from Nele. She will help you find the plant that matches your lifestyle and living conditions or she can take care of finding you that special plant that you absolutely need to have. Plants that come from growers are usually quite perfect: they grow in perfect warm and bright conditions with plant food and water that is perfectly adapted to their needs. Once they arrive at home, the conditions are different, which changes the growth of a plant. It gives them character, a new shape and a new little green story to tell 😉
Part of the selection of plant accessories stocked at Little Green Stories are from local Belgian designers and artisans, like the Dodecahedron 3D printed pots or the wooden plant stands & furniture from Studio Zaag. We also spotted these nice House Raccoon pots in the shop! Made from a waste product of marble production, they are super soft high quality concrete. For every House Raccoon pot you buy, they plant a tree!
Every plant shop has its own personality, just like their many different shop owners! Some like to propose oversized plants, others prefer cactus & succulents, some have a preference for aroids or subtropical plants or focus on beautiful plant accessories. But one of the things we had never seen before are these posters with easy plant care tips for a large variety of houseplants. Instead of looking up the plants that you bought online or in a plant encyclopedia or book, you can simply snap a picture of the plant you just purchasedat Little Green Stories and you’ll have the first basic care tips. Clever, right?
Calathea lancifolia and Calathea ornata:
Pots and baskets for life!
Thank you Nele for welcoming us in your shop! And to everyone else: if you’re ever in Ghent, don’t miss this cute plant shop!
Little Green Stories
Sint-Jacobsnieuwstraat 82
900 Ghent, Belgium
Open Tuesday to Saturday from 10am to 6pm
Believe it or not – it is roughly four weeks to Christmas (for those celebrating) and we have to admit we like the festive season! A mug of mulled wine, spicy ginger bread, and friends and family gathering. And if you have plant loving people among your family and friends, it is such a pleasure to hunt for green gifts. Just to be clear: Don’t forget to spoil yourself too, plant friend! After all we all deserve a little green treat every now and then. Like last year we compiled a Green Gift Guide for you that is totally Urban Jungle Bloggers approved! Cool new plant pots, a stylish watering can, botanical bedlinen or even ‘planty’ chocolate – we have a few ideas if you are on the hunt for some green presents.
Of course we just had to include the Urban Jungle Book in the gift guide too – after all we believe it is a fantastic addition to any plant loving home. And it’s available in ten languages now (English, German, French, Dutch, Czech, Swedish, Norwegian, Russian, Korean and Chinese), There is no excuse to not start your green gift hunt! Here is a fantastic list of 20 green gifts for plant lovers at your service! Happy gift shopping!
1 —Water resistant paper pot covers by Papier Tigre 2 —Stromanthe sanguinea ‘Triostar’ keychain by Hemleva 3 —Hanging planter HALO (100% emission-free!) by Wildernis Amsterdam 4 —Our Urban Jungle Book, available in English – Deutsch – Français – Nederlands – Český – Russian – Swedish – Norwegian – Korean – Chinese 5 —Deep milk chocolate bar by Compartes x Beverly Hills Hotel
6 — Fig tree scented candle by Diptyque 7 —Palm Beach eco-friendly water bottle by Swell 8 —Sandstone Plant Pots by Angus and Celeste 9 —Indoor table top Grow House Trystan by MADE.com 10 —Natural linen Leaf play mat by Omoloko on Etsy 11 —Barbican Conservatory print by Jacqueline Colley 12 —Copper watering can by Haws 13 —TriPot set of 3 artisanal terracotta pots by Livingthings 14 —Plant Stand Tondo by Bujnie 15 —Rattlesnake Calathea in Dolores planter by The Sill 16 —Hanging planters duvet cover set by Urban Outfitters 17 —Leaflike decorative metal leaves by Lucie Kaas 18 — Deluxe Sprout Gift Set by Sprout 19 —Handmade Sansevieria rug by GUR 20 —Glowing Roots shelves with light by Spruitje
We love plants and styling with plants. One key factor in plant styling is the choice of a plant pot. It is essential to think of the plant-pot combination from a practical as well as visual point of view. The practical side thinks of factors such as material and drainage hole and the need of the plant. The visual point is more about the harmony of plant and pot. Which plant pot accentuates the beauty of a plant, which design matches your interior style, what kind of styling vignette do you want to create? We know there is a sheer boundless number of plant pots available. To help you make a good choice, we have shortlisted some of our favorite plant pots.
Whether you love terracotta, or prefer something more boho, creative, or quirky, we gathered some of the coolest plant pots on the market, that make excellent containers for your green friends. Tell us, which one is on your wishlist?
