Hey, folks! I’m taking some days to explore the beauty of Vermont (suggestions for where to stop?), so my dear friend and Euro retail consultant Stacy Sirk is filling in for me this week. The entire issue has ideas for spectacularly merchandised houseplants. Just in time to gear up for National Indoor Plant Week (NIPW) during the third week of September! I highly suggest you do as she advises—Stacy knows where it’s at!

Take it away, Stacy!

Now that the end of summer is approaching, I wanted to share some images I created here in Amsterdam. These photos are all in a home setting, but there are ideas here for retail visual merchandising and ways to get your customers thinking differently about how to display their houseplants.

Of course, best of all is if customers buy the plants, and the containers to house them, in your own stores. But sometimes the container is something you can have fun with and increase sales at the same time.

Houseplants are so very versatile and there are so many ways to create some personality around them. At retail or on your website or social accounts are the perfect places to demonstrate new ways to show them off. Or create enhanced products for your customers to buy, or have these as inspiration for your customers to create their own. Here are my takes on some novel ways to present them!

Paper cuffs or tubes make a super sleeve to drop over any houseplant in its pot. If you get the diameter right, it will also cover the saucer for the plant. Here I made them from a pastel sketch, found in a thrift shop, that was damaged, folded in the center. I cut it on the horizontal, into two halves, to make two sleeves for this pair of hare’s foot fern.

For retail, try seasonal paper, old posters, any old card stock with interesting graphics, maybe even old paper signage from your store. With any old Christmas or holiday cards, you can create a sleeve of several cards. Interesting point of sale stuff, highlighting gift giving, which is a natural for houseplants.

An old metal fixture—its original purpose was to hold shoe polish tins—is a great form for any succulents that need little to no soil, just clusters of moss to keep them moist. For retail, card racks, spinners and seed racking can all be pressed into service as an eye-catching display.

A couple of old artist mannequins come to life, comparing their grafted cacti! For retail, this would be great for small plants that might be lost in the mix.

Any two books, opened and joined at the edges is a great way to show off plants on a shelf. If you use books that are related to the plant, even more fun. The heart-shaped leaves of this Peperomia polybotrya worked great with two vintage books I had from an old photo shoot. For retail, you can use vintage gardening books, or even current books on houseplants you are featuring. The pot and saucer fit inside—larger books for larger plants—and you can pull them away for watering.

Kokedama—we have all seen them. Moss-wrapped and bound root balls. Hang them, set a group on a platter or tray—there are lots of way to use them. In the kitchen I add a couple of wire plant pot holders, combined for these two plants, Pilea peperomioides and Peperomia. Combined with tillandsia in the rim of a basket, it makes a great grouping. For retail, there are lots of opportunities to show kokedama and possibly use some additional product to show ways to use them in a kitchen, hall or bathroom.

From the sublime to the ridiculous! But so fun to create pots out of the most humble of items. This shot I really took for my mother. She is still a perm girl, so I gave her this plant (perhaps a juncus), its curly ends reminded me of her, so I wired together a pot of plastic perm rollers. It was so fun, I included in my shoot! And it made her smile. Isn’t that the fun of the retail setting, a bit of wit and humor for your customers?

A mix of old glass or even glass product that is down to the last few pieces can be great for cuttings. For retail, it is great for customers to learn how to increase their plant stock, and those that can root in water make a statement.

I like giving plants as gifts, but normally I have a gift for someone and then the plant is the bow on top! Old wine buckets and wine bottle holders look great planted up. I always pick up any old wine or Champagne buckets I see, the perfect gift for a celebration, a birthday or the holidays. For retail, there are other great containers around the year. Mixing bowls, enamel or gala buckets, Easter baskets, plastic sand buckets in summer and any kind of old decorative tins are a ready-made gift if the customer can buy the complete item.

Summer hats, lined with plastic or a plastic or glass container that fits inside is fantastic for summer displays. Hats look best with plants that really fill to the brim or have trailing vines that can be piled up on top, like Rosary Vine (Ceropegia woodii). Something that reads like cut grass or a meadow looks great, too, and can be planted out later (but makes a great houseplant for a season).

I have a collection of children’s beach pails. Hung in the bathroom, I drilled the bottom to hang and added moss on a wire ball. They love the moisture. Not for every environment but in humid areas it works well and looks really dramatic.

Small wire lampshades with the fabric removed here, are a perfect environment for my air plants. For retail, chains or lampshades like these can house air plants, larger shapes can hold larger kokedama. The structure of the shape and even the light bulb clip make this a perfect combination to show off new ways of presenting them. Wire baskets can do the same job as can old wire plant pot holders, window box holders and old wire hanging baskets.

By now you know I like cuttings around the house. Candlesticks with glass tubes are a favorite. I have them in all sizes.

For years I have had to source and develop plant cuffs or sleeves for retail stores. This was an early product for Smith & Hawken I designed back in the day. I still get them produced. Any local scrap metal merchant in your area should be able to help. For display you just need the metal and you can make your own. As a product you need a bit more help.

There is a lot of old metal sheeting scraps around. Rusted, painted, corrugated. You can have these cut to any size you need, then depending on your metal merchant, have them make a small fold at each end, so the ends will lock together, just a half inch or less should do. If you want, you can have them made to cover a large indoor houseplant, the folding “lock” will need to be wider. Make one out of paper first using a long rectangle, fold the ends so one catches into the other. That is the pattern. Here is a group of my own, from a time I made hundreds of them, all different, for a job in the UK.

Planted birdcage: a mix of dieffenbachia, parlor palm and pothos happily live in this birdhouse; just a misting regularly keeps them green and growing.

So many old things, and so many opportunities! I hope this story has inspired you to look around at what you may have in store, or may have in stock, and to get creative!

I’m back to say a few words about my Euro trend spotter friend, who did all the above styling. Such beautiful work! Stacy is a professional stylist, retail specialist and buyer. With deep lifestyle roots and decades of international experience, Stacy is renowned for her uncommon creativity, found-object expertise and ability to translate progressive ideas into memorable expressions. She consults for global brands on store concepts and visual merchandising. And I love her business name—Sirk at Work.

I’ll give a big shout out to Stacy’s photographer friend Rolinda Windhorst, too. A superb collab! And a big thanks to Bossman Beytes and his lovely wife Laurie for helping to identify some of these featured plants.

I’ll be back next week, refreshed and in a Green Mountain state of mind.