Meet The Owner – Plant Envy

Editor’s note: MyEverettNews.com is working to introduce our readers to more independent business owners here in Everett, Washington. We want to highlight their businesses, tell their stories and invite you to shop locally and help move Everett forward. If you know of a business we should feature, send us a suggestion via email: news@myeverettnews.com. Leland Dart – Publisher
 

“We started off at our house and had over 100 orchids and decided we wanted our dining room back,” Don Valdez said with a laugh.

He’s the owner of Plant Envy at 4610 Evergreen Way in Everett, Washington.

Valdez, who is a former project manager, tells me that this is the third space for the business which began at his home in 2019.

“After we reclaimed our dining room we found a suite in an office building a couple blocks south of here,” he explained.

They expanded to a second suite across the hall, but when Covid hit it was problematic to get people in and out of that building.

Two years ago they moved to a small strip mall just north of 47th and Evergreen Way.

Speaking of Covid, when the Pandemic hit Don says a lot of people discovered gardening and house plants. “We were part of a small community who like rare plants,” said Don. “Our business literally blossomed out of Covid.”

While he began selling rare plants on websites like Offer Up, having a retail store has been a way to share the passion he developed for plants.

“Lots of boutiques and even big retail garden centers had prices that were just too high,” Don told me during our visit. “Plants make a house a home and we wanted to make plant buying affordable.”

Don says before he got into plants he lived in a mid-century modern environment that was pretty sterile and he found he preferred being surrounded by plants.

You can take them outside depending on the weather, but the plants offered at Plant Envy are sold as indoor house plants and while the store offers gift cards, Don tells me eighty percent of the sales at the store are people buying for themselves.

I asked him what the biggest challenge was for people with their plants?

“Over-loving them,” he said. “Give it the light it needs, just the amount of water it needs and then just kind of ignore it, enjoy it.”

Plant Envy is closed on Tuesdays. They’re open other weekdays from 10am – 6pm and weekends 10am – 5pm. You can find them online on Instagram or Facebook. The phone number is (206) 931-4700 and here’s a link to their website. Again the address is 4610 Evergreen Way in Everett, Washington.