Our Philosophy

Thanks for checking us out!

Here at Foliate we have a strong belief that the natural beauty of the plant should speak for itself. Therefore, we put our focus on the quality of our plants and try to keep everything else as simple as possible. Sometimes we could all use a little break to just sit and look at some cool plants.

From a place of passion

How it started

When we first met, Nick already had a pretty intense passion for plants, while Brian spent a majority of his time in college studying computational math and computer science. In the span of a year, he ended up completely switching tracks and diving deep into independently studying plant physiology, morphology, phytochemistry, etc.

Brian realized he had finally found something he was passionate about! He felt so blessed in doing so at the ripe young age of 23. So he took the initiative, despite lacking formal education in the industry. Brian was able to work for BWH Plant Co. and then Gabriella Plants with nothing but his intense passion to serve as a placeholder forlack of experience.

Fast forward three years later, he still wishes to continue his pursuit of knowledge, now with a focus on plant cell physiology. However, we quickly realized that we can't afford to keep collecting plants to use for samples, so Nick had the vision to help turn this into more than just a hobby.

Brian wanted to utilize the knowledge from his experience from the industry to mass produce and sell our collection which in turn would fund our ability to get more variety, and to work with other plants. Then, with the new stock, we'd be able bring in some different and exciting plants to other collectors.

Now we're getting somewhere

How it's going

Now, we've opened Foliate! As aforementioned, our vision for the company was to use it as a platform to provide people like you with interesting plants from our collection, while also introducing you to some plants that are currently popular in cultivation. Our premise is simple, we're here to share what we can, and use what we get to pour back into our passion to provide you with more cool stuff!

We want to keep it real, so we don't lose sight of what's important. We're not striving to be some giant plant corporation, we're just here for the people and the plants. As we start our journey, we're definitely open to suggestions or ideas, and we're here to help you as much as we're able. We're here to listen and answer and hopefully spread the excitement along the way.

Setting some high goals

How it should be

After working in the industry, there were some things we wanted to implement to help with plant care that didn't quite make sense to do in a large commercial setting. Luckily, our operation isn't on such a large scale, so we're able to give each plant with specific care on a species-by-species basis.

With this in mind, here's some things we hope to be able to provide in the future:

  • Plants that are significantly more mature than commercially available, without costing an arm and a leg. (Imagine some GIGANTIC 4" Melanochrysum, wow)
  • Plants that have been supplemented with a surplus of specific minor nutrients, or growth regulators to induce vigor. (Things like extra silica can help make those finicky plants a lot less dramatic, and even help strengthen the stems and petioles)
  • Plants bred or engineered to be significantly more resilient to pests and disease. (This is something I wish to pursue more deeply!)
  • Plants for sale without that ridiculous markup because of something that has nothing to do with its growing difficulty.