Closing Canton & What's Next!

As a lot of changes are upon us, I want to take a moment (ok maybe a few moments) to update you on what’s going on with B.Willow & Florigen. I also want to shed some light on my own thought processes, realizations, and how I’ve come to terms with difficulties that were presented to me this year. I think it’s important to be candid and honest with my community, as your support is what allows B.Willow to exist in the first place. Almost exactly this time last year, we were excitedly getting everything in place at our Canton location. Here we are a year later, and I’m writing to explain next steps, and what I’ve learned after a year of rapid expansion. This post comes from a place of deep introspection, appreciation, and excitement for what lies ahead. If you hadn’t yet heard, we will be closing our Canton location to the public at the end of 2019.

When I came up with my business idea in 2014, I had no idea that I’d be opening up my own brick & mortar 3 years later. To be honest, I didn’t even have a business plan or any formal business education. My experience has been 100% learning by doing. Back in 2014, all I knew was that I wanted to help people engage with nature in a routine, daily way.  That mission has driven everything that has subsequently resulted in B.Willow as we know it now. Educationally, I always thought I’d work for a non-profit… not for a moment did I anticipate being a small business owner. It honestly just fell into place, in a way that’s directly allowing me to pursue my original mission. It feels quite surreal. All I can say is… if you follow your passions, it can take you somewhere great!

With everything going incredibly well in Remington from the start, I felt motivated and confident to try my luck with a second shop. Though I don’t regret doing so, it was not the wisest business decision, and ended up spreading myself and my staff way too thin. I did not afford myself the same length of time to really prepare for it. I knew that Remington was happening for about a year before we opened. I found the Canton location in October of 2018, and we opened in February of 2019. It felt simple… I was just repeating processes pre-established by Remington. Same suppliers, same repurposed wooden shelves, same informational care cards, workshop offerings, etc. In theory that all checks out, and it makes sense that we could open another store with less prep time. What didn’t check out were some key differences, and unforeseen challenges. I was confident that opening a shop in a densely residential neighborhood would be a perfect fit. I imagined people stopping by while they walked the dog, or after brunch with friends on weekends. I assumed that our pre-existing awareness within the city would guarantee us an initial audience, and would help us grow our brand recognition and spread the word that we exist. These things did happen, but they didn’t happen at a rate that made the shop sustainable. Foot traffic was minimal during the week- weekends were better, but not enough to make it financially viable.

I thought that having a shop just off the square in Canton would be close enough to an already-trafficked area to guarantee that people would stop by. Though we had signage out front, the location didn’t stand out like Remington does. If you weren’t aware of us, you would likely walk by thinking we were just someone’s home.  I didn’t fully appreciate or recognize the immense power of our location in Remington until I attempted to do the same in Canton. It seems so obvious to me now, but at the time that wasn’t a factor that I realized carried so much weight. Because we didn’t have such a prominent/eye catching location in Canton, I should have poured way more money into advertising. Since people weren’t really aware that we were there, we needed to advertise heavily to people specifically in the neighborhood. Unfortunately, the budget for that wasn’t really there, and it began to feel like we were in a sinking ship. Our road was also closed very regularly by BGE, so most days you couldn’t even drive down the street. If you’re trying to buy a houseplant, you probably won’t bother if you can’t find a parking spot nearby.

Around September we closed the upstairs of the shop to the public, moved out of our studio space in Woodberry, moved Florigen out of Broadway Market, and consolidated everything into Canton. We figured that by giving the space a dual purpose (studio + retail), the space would become multi-functional, and less financially dependent on the retail to sustain the entire space. This was a necessary step, and allowed us to not only save money but bring staff into one space- to work more effectively together, rather than being spread out. Though this felt like it would work out fine initially, it quickly became apparent that we did not have enough room to support a plant studio, a floral studio, and a retail space. Without a large or consistent inventory of plants and pots, the retail portion began to feel like a seriously lesser-than Remington. We’d regularly ask people who came in if they’d been to our main Remington location, and if they hadn’t we’d feel like they weren’t getting the best impression of what we do.  I believe deeply in listening to your gut, and my gut was telling me that this was not working.

In May of 2019 we also launched a separate floral design company, Florigen. I’m happy to report that Florigen is doing great- we’re booking weddings left and right, taking special orders, making regular deliveries, and launching a lot of exciting things in 2020. Keep an eye out for workshops & events, expanded floral merchandise for sale in Remington, and more. If you are looking for a florist for your wedding, please reach out to us! — hello@florigenbaltimore.com

In January we will no longer be open to the public in Canton, as we will use the entire space for studio purposes. In March we will be moving into a brighter, bigger, and more durable warehouse space in Woodberry. This space will be immensely useful for us, as Remington lacks any real “behind the scenes” space. We’ll use it for meetings, desk space, floral design, cultivating rarer plants for sale, creating our own plant merchandise, storing rental plants, and eventually housing the workings of an online store. We will also finally have a space for us to effectively photograph and catalog our work, so we can better market what we do! We also hope to host private events and workshops there too. 

Running your own business is incredibly rewarding, but it can also be incredibly difficult to prioritize yourself when your to-do list is a million pages long. I’m very grateful to generally have a lot of energy, and a serious drive to do more and more, but I am going to be slowing down in 2020. I want to continue to make Remington as amazing as it can be, but I also want to make time for other things in life that make me happy. I used to write and perform music (which I haven’t done since 2017), so I hope to make more time for that, among other things!

Stay tuned for more unique plants (we’ve got some great new suppliers lined up!) and more educational programming. I can’t tell you how excited I am for these changes, to be more present in Remington, and to be running around a whole lot less. 

Thank you so much for reading- I have trouble keeping things short and sweet. You’re the best, Baltimore! Happy New Year!!