Final chapter of Pasarplant
Hey Plant Folks!
For those who have followed us, we did a secret market stall back in October last year named Pasarplant. We even made an Instagram for it! It was situated in Jalan Batu market. It was a vibrant and quaint market space. The neighbours were so loving and kind.
We decided to do it open it quietly and only associated with Littlebotany later on. We wanted it to start organically and find its own footing without Littlebotany's influence.
The market stall was made for a purpose. One was to bridge the older folks into the hobby and second, was to make gardening more inclusive by selling everything under $15. We realised at that time, indoor plants was reaching a high and not everyone could afford it. So we decided to propagate our rare and uncommon plants and sell it cheap through the market stall. This could only work as we had an extra plot space in Punggol to drive big numbers of propagations.
The stall was a success and many of our propagations sold out on the first day. We had queues in the morning even before we opened shop. We even started to pair our plants with the food market below in our Instagram posts to drive business to the food sellers in the hawker below. It was such a pure and wholesome idea. It brought us happiness and also a good income for the business. The stall was run by Yvonne and Fara at that time and they were the best.
Everything was going well and we had moderate success for quite a while until we lost our Punggol space. Everything happened at the same time. We were just fresh off building Littlebotany West and Punggol had to suddenly go. We tried to keep Pasarplant open but with the big move and losing the propagation space, we could no longer provide the plants for Pasarplant. It was a tough time for me, Yvonne and Fara. We felt that Pasarplant was finally catching on but it had to end too.
My biggest takeaway from this experience is, if you feel so strongly about something, just do it. We did it with Pasarplant. We had fun, it added colour to our lives. Even though it was not as long as I wish it could be, we learned so much from it. We created memories and even became stronger as friends.
It took me a while to write this as I was still processing my feelings with all the big adjustments that happened to Littlebotany recently. I was also writing this whilst sitting in a van with furniture from Pasarplant as we find a new home for them at Littlebotany West. Pasarplant was an amazing era for Littlebotany and I have a hunch that it might be coming back soon.
