14 Feb Turn Your Apartment Into a Houseplant Haven — With Some Help From The Sill
With another wild nor’easter upon us, there’s been lots of talk of hunkering down. Well, thanks to The Sill, New Yorkers can now hunker down with houseplants.
ISO a glossy indoor jungle? Desperately seeking succulents? Want to recreate your Victorian fern fantasies all over your desktop? The Sill offers easy-to-care-for plants in a range of sizes, including Monstera deliciosa, philodendron, dracaena, zamioculcas (aka ZZ) and pothos, plus assorted species of ferns, succulents and cacti. There are indoor trees like fiddle leaf figs. Pottery is cheerful, and the first artist collaboration for 2014 is this bosomy group by Isaac Nichols, which we’re sweating big time. Plants are delivered gratis to most of Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn. Newbies will dig the copious care tips.
Happy Valentine’s Day! NYC plant service The Sill also offers potted heart-shaped hoyas. (All plants come with care instructions.)
The Sill founder Eliza Blank.
“We inspire people to bring the outdoors in — into their homes, of course, but also in a broader sense — into their lives,” founder Eliza Blank tells us by email. Eliza launched The Sill in 2012, but the idea germinated years before that, when she was in college. “I was an intern, spending my days in the creative cradle of brand agency Wolff Olins. I had just moved into my very first studio apartment. And all I wanted to make my 250 square feet feel like home was a houseplant. I soon found myself frustrated with the experience of purchasing plants in New York.”
Eliza was raised in Western Massachusetts, where “I literally passed cow pastures on my way to school each day. My mother had a sprawling garden, and indoor houseplants older than me!” she says. “Being surrounded by nature was something I took for granted until I landed in New York City — where, as most know well, grass, trees and general greenery are hard to come by. Here in the city, where life is divided between the subway and the 10th floor of a high-rise, it’s easy to develop a relationship with indoor plants.”
The Sill brought in ’80s-themed plants and hand-painted terra cotta for Warby Parker’s employee party.
The Sill also offers residential and commercial design services. Projects have included offices and weddings, and clients have included eyeglass company (and Ryan Benoit obsession) Warby Parker. The latter commissioned The Sill for an employees’ party; a 1980s beach theme was brought to life by hand-painted neon terra cotta and “Material Girl”-era flora. Next up? Eliza hints that outdoorsy services might be on the horizon for spring.
Whether or not you’re in NYC, the studio’s Plant Hunter blog provides bushels of dreamy plant-spiration. We’re even smitten with the Meet the Team page, which matches each staffer to a “plant persona.”
Eliza’s inner genus? Philodendron. “It’s constantly unfurling new leaves,” she explains. “It’s a reminder that every day is an opportunity for growth.”
No matter what the weather may bring.
—TH
Succulents for sale include Crassula perforata (necklace vine), aeonium, Faucaria tigrina (tiger jaw), and Crassula ovata (jade plant).
Above, a Crassula portulacea (spoon jade) pops out of a stoneware clay planter.