Verdant Coven Plant Co. and Café on Me are growing out of their roots to provide customers with a hub for plant shopping, delicious coffee and critters for sale.

Verdant Coven Plant Co. co-owners Eva Troyer and Kelsey Kuecker met by chance, when Troyer purchased plants from Kuecker on Facebook Marketplace. 

They connected over their experience as mothers, and mutual interests in plants, design and more, to build a close friendship and work together.

After getting their start selling plants at pop-up events and from within their homes they are preparing to transition to a brick-and-mortar space . Until then, they use the Palmstreet app to run auctions as a main revenue source until the location opens.

“That’s how we’ve been making most of our sales right now until we’re open. We get on and sell the plants online and people are bidding,” Troyer said. “We’ve got a 30 second countdown, and we’re putting up really fancy plants or really common plants, and people go crazy.”

The shop will be going through multiple phases as it goes through the opening process. Currently, the shop is located at 115 S. Minneapolis is open while they put the finishing touches on the space, but they are operating at a more limited capacity.

Once the space is complete, there will be a grand opening  from May 15-17 with vendors and food trucks for people to enjoy.

In spring of next year, the shop will move to 1811 E. Douglas, which is called The Spot. The new location will offer everything the original location does, as well as integrate Koueckers Yoga studio.

Once the location on Douglas opens, the original Minneapolis shop will be converted into a gallery and workshop space, as well as the headquarters for Verdant’s Plant a Prairie project. 

Plant a Prairie is a community project focused on providing education on native plant life to Kansas and efforts that can be made to restore many species.

Troyer said the gallery space will be similar to stores like Ikea. They want to create space where they can stage plants and other items in designed settings so people can see them in various contexts.

Workshops currently include learning the Japanese art of creating moss balls, called kokedama. Troyer said they’re planning workshops so people at any level can come and learn something new.

The Douglas location is being renovated to allow easy access to the plant store, coffee shop and Kuecker’s Broadleaf Yoga Studio, which is currently upstairs. Troyer said they are currently expecting that location to open in late spring.

Troyer and Kuecker originally planned to handle the coffee shop part of their location themselves, but chance struck again when they met Samantha Gutierrez, the owner of Café on Me.

“We originally wanted to have this place be just a plant store, and we always wanted a coffee shop,” Troyer said. “We met Sam at a pop-up event, so I reached out and was like, ‘Would you like to maybe open up a shop here?’ And so them being open before us, like a month or so, has been nuts.”

Troyer said the partnership with Gutierrez aligned with their values of helping other small businesses grow. That mindset translates to how they want to relate to other plant shops in the area.

“There’s enough for everything to go around, and we’re not trying to compete with other plant bars or plant nurseries or anything like that,” Troyer said. “We love all of them, and we support all of them.”

Troyer said she is friends with the general manager of Grow Plant Bar, and Grow’s work inspires her to find new ideas they can bring to the community.

One unique aspect of Verdant compared to other plants shops is they will be selling micro geckos, snakes and jumping spiders. As with the other parts of their business, the idea came from the common interests of Troyer and Kuecker.

“Kelsey also breeds geckos, and she’s done it for a long time, and I had reptiles as a kid, so I feel like we’re both as adults getting to do all our childhood things together, which is kind of what has been so fun about all,” Troyer said. 

All the different parts of their business reflects Troyer and Kuecker’s love of trying new things and bringing people together. Troyer said her experience performing music, and Kuecker’s work in yoga, has shown them the value of spaces where individuals can express themselves.

Their vision is not to just open another plant store, but to provide experiences for people to be a part of.

“We just want to bring people together, whether it’s through the music, the yoga, (or) the reptiles,” Troyer said. “We just want to kind of be the people that people know that they have a place here.”

Troyer said she is constantly thinking of how they can bring anyone in, regardless of their past experience with plants or otherwise.

““I want everyone to feel welcome and not be intimidated, because plants can be intimidating,” Troyer said. “We want to be able to have a wide variety of ages. We want to be able to have different price points.”

Their business is constantly deciding what comes next and trying to keep people excited. Troyer said they are hoping to franchise the current concept to other cities, but kept other plans to herself.

“We just want to see okay, but we definitely have some sort of plan of our sleeves,” she said. “I can’t say too much, but there are some other things in the works.”