Starting, Running, and Growing Your Own Plant-centric Business

MHG Meetings

Sponsored By: Metro Hort Group

The Business of Horticulture: Starting, Running, and Growing Your Own Plant-centric Business

Curious about starting your own horticulture business? Interested in taking your existing business to a next level? Confused about just how much to “tip” the doorperson so you can bring all that compost to the 23rd floor in the passenger elevator of the coop building? Hear from local owner/operators of plant-based businesses (and a plant savvy accountant!) about their successful and not-so-successful operations and business practices in this panel discussion moderated Tara Douglas. Panelists will share their expertise on everything from taxes to marketing to expanding and diversifying your business. Brooklyn Plant Studio owner

TARA DOUGLASS is a floral and garden designer based in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. A botanical enthusiast by way of Missouri, Tara first fell in love with plants as a child in 4-H. When she showed African violets at her local county fair and went on to win “Best in Show” at the Missouri State Fair, her future in gardening was sealed. Tara followed her passion for plants to the horticulture department at Battery Park City Parks Conservancy where she worked for six years. She has studied horticulture and botany at The New York Botanical Garden’s School of Professional Horticulture, and is an ISA Certified Arborist. After a year buying plants for home and garden store Terrain, Tara set off on her own to open Brooklyn Plant Studio.

YEMI AMU is the co-founder of Oko Farms and the Farm Manager at the Moore Street Farm. She directs all of Oko Farms’ programs including education, design/build projects and community related activities. She has facilitated the creation and maintenance of 20 edible spaces (in NYC) at schools and community organizations including a rooftop farm in Crown Heights and a 1/4 acre farm at the Weeksville Heritage Center that included poultry and bees. In addition to her current work at the Moore St. Farm, Yemi is part of the NEBHDCo’s (Northeast Brooklyn Housing Development) Community Healthy Food Initiative where she manages 2 farms that source the Golden Harvest Food Pantry. She has a Masters Degree in Health and Nutrition Education from Teachers College, Columbia University.

MARK DAVIES began his career in horticulture as a young boy doing yard work, mowing lawns and planting flowers, and he came up with the name for his company when he was eighteen years old. After a number of years in the entertainment business, he started in the landscape industry designing commercial interior plantscapes. He then spent a number of years with high-end tropicals and terrace landscapes before working for the Central Park Conservancy assisting in the care of Strawberry Fields. He then decided it was time to make his boyhood dream come true and started Higher Ground Horticulture.

KATHERINE “KAT” AUL CERVONI is the founder and principal of Staghorn NYC, a woman-owned full service landscape design and build firm based in Brooklyn, NY. Kat’s passion for landscape design began from an early age amidst the daylily beds of her mother’s gardens in Georgia. After completing a horticultural internship at the New York Botanical Garden she went on to earn her master’s degree in Landscape Design from Columbia University in New York. For the last 9 years she has been working in the landscape design/build industry throughout the NYC metro area and beyond. JELINA SALIU is Founder of Accounting Management Inc, a decade old small accounting firm in NYC specializing in all business needs. An entrepreneur herself, Jelina understands today’s challenges, and helps clients solve problems and identify opportunities that will create value. She focuses on the “why, how, and when” so they can refocus on the reasons why they became an entrepreneur in the first place! She is passionate about helping individuals and business owners with more than the traditional compliance and works to provide value added accounting and advisory services.