We've left it all in the title really. Rescue plants and handmade plant pots. We love plants as much as we love books and can't see a reason why the two couldn't coincide. We have collected some neglected and stressed out plants over some time and nurtured them back to health, ready for a new home.
As much as we love plant shopping, the plant industry is becoming less and less sustainable the trendier it gets to have plants. Pretty much every shop is a hybrid plant shop now a days and I can't remember every place having a the discount shelves with plants ranging from clinically dead to at the verge of a breakdown like we do now.
But it's not just the the fact that the shops aren't looking after the plants well enough to keep them alive themselves, how many plants have you bought that was looking lush in the shop and then suddenly looked like it would die a minute after they got through your door? Today most plants are raised in unnatural environments to make them grow faster and bigger. This produces a very stressed plant that gets a shock when there is no UV light 24/7, the room is below a constant 25 degrees and humid for all the wrong reasons, and there is no water system force feeding it water.
So our plan with Plants by ASB is to nurture an interest that brings us and many others so much joy and helps reduce the amount of plants being thrown in the bin. This of course means that we do not have regular stock of the same plants forever, and the plants are available when they are ready to find a new home. With plants there are of course never any guarantees and they certainly don't live forever. But if we can keep a few plants out of the bin we're happy with that for now!
But what about the hand made pots?
Of course! We couldn't sell plants without some accompanying pots, right?!
If you have followed us for a while this might start to become a bit repetitive to read, but we're gonna say it again. We care about sustainability. So of course, our pots are sustainably made.
We have found that scrap textiles actually makes great pots, and are almost always available from 2nd hand shops. The textiles are colourful and, because they don't have a hard cut edge appearance, they blend in quite nicely with most other styles. And although it may not be everyone's cup of tea, we love the rough edges and imperfections! We've got quite a variety available so keep an eye out in the web shop for when we are adding more on. As each item is individually made, once they are gone they are gone.
You can browse the whole collection on the link here!