About Us

 Welcome to VerdantVille!

We’re a bunch of plant enthusiasts who believe thriving gardens belong in every life, every space, and every story. We’re here to make indoor gardening easy, fun, and accessible for everyone—from a first succulent on a windowsill to a full‑on living‑room jungle.

We’re for decorative gardeners who care how things look, kitchen gardeners who want their herbs to make it to the plate, wellness gardeners who need plants to lower their stress—not raise it—and social gardeners whose best plant memories include other people.

 

How It Started

We didn’t set out to start an indoor gardening brand. We just kept bringing plants home.

It really began in our tiny studio in San Francisco. With more enthusiasm than square footage, the plants multiplied. They arrived as gift baskets, adoptions, propagations, and grocery store impulse buys. The windowsills, shelves, and countertops ran out first. Then came a small kitten who thought every leaf was a snack. Keeping everyone alive and our space looking intentional became… a situation.

That situation followed us: renters in San Francisco, renters in Seattle, homeowners in Seattle, and now homeowners in the Tri‑Cities (WA). The plants kept coming. Time, space, and budget didn’t. As our “plant family” grew, maintenance routines for cherished plants started to feel less like fun and more like a source of anxiety.

So we did what plant people do: whatever it takes.

We learned that plants could survive a week in baths, sinks, and bowls before we left town. We rigged fruit baskets on simple hoists to safely lift the 15‑lb ferns toward the light and away from the (now much larger) cat. We suspended affordable ¼" glass shelves from a certain Swedish furniture store in our windows to give philodendrons a home. We discovered lath and plaster can hold more than you’d think, that tiny nails are surprisingly good stud finders—and that actually using a stud finder saves a lot of patching later.

Despite all the DIY hacks, speculative investments in unsightly “plant tech,” and gradually improving skills, the same tension remained: a strong desire to bring nature indoors and limited time and space to care for it.

That’s where VerdantVille comes in.

Finding Our People

We believe thriving gardens belong in every life, every space, and every story—and it turns out we weren’t alone in needing our homes to look good with much less work and stress.

Over the years, we’ve met plenty of folks who found themselves with (or wanting) “a few too many” plants. Now that VerdantVille is above ground, more of them are finding us. It’s nice not to be the only ones.

We know our people when we hear a slightly understated “Yeah, we have a few plants…” or a slightly embarrassed “Well, we used to have plants…” Then the real conversation starts. Stories of plants loved and lost are shared: kids devastated when plants had to be left behind in a move, well‑meaning roommates who over‑watered prized plants to death, adults rekindling connections with estranged family members over plant care tips.

These human stories are why VerdantVille is designed as an inclusive, welcoming little world. If you care about plants—whether you’re just starting with a succulent or curating a jungle—you’re welcome to hang out with us. We know it’s all about the plants. And at the same time, it’s not only about the plants.

So if you’ve ever put plants in the bathtub before a trip, lost a basil plant (or three), or just want your home to feel a bit more alive without needing a botany degree, you’re in the right place.

What We Believe

VerdantVille is a hybrid.

• Our design philosophy is function first, then form. We make décor that makes it easy to turn plants into persistent art.
• We love crazy‑beautiful succulent sculptures and rare orchids and respect the people who have the skills to make them shine. We focus on the basics—water, light, and room to grow—while looking sharp and staying sane.
• We value nature and do our best to minimize our environmental footprint through our production systems and approach to waste.
• We value human expertise and creativity. We use a mix of craft, advanced manufacturing, and digital tools to develop and produce ideas that help plant families thrive.
• All our designs are unique, and we keep the lights on by making our products in‑house in our production facility. We support the 3D printing community, and we absolutely appreciate a silky dragon with a flawless first layer sold at a maker’s market. When we can, we share what we’ve learned.

Who’s Behind VerdantVille

Chris is the Founder and President of VerdantVille. His background is its own hybrid.

His design education began in the UK in the Bauhaus tradition, and he holds an MBA from the University of Washington. His fabrication skills are largely manual and craft‑based, and he’s been using advanced manufacturing tools (CNC and 3D printing) for over 20 years.

Before VerdantVille, Chris spent 20+ years designing medical devices and healthcare products. Some of the things he helped invent still support premature babies’ breathing and help people maintain independence through mobility. Plants aren’t people, but many medical‑device concepts and design processes translate surprisingly well to VerdantVille’s solutions.

We see a future where your plants can politely tap you on the shoulder.

VerdantVille (originally called SmartyPlants) really took shape as a business after Chris and a long‑time friend and collaborator had the idea to repurpose the monitoring approaches used in their medical devices during the COVID pandemic and apply them to plants. The goal: help plants “tell” us what was going on with them. Those experiments became the first prototypes of VerdantVille's Narrator™, our plant‑voice concept. 

Start where you are, with what you’ve got.

Post-COVID, life and careers shifted and Narrator was put on the shelf to grow stronger. But the vision of helping plants survive and “talk" to their humans never left.  

New collaborations moved new ideas forward, and while Chris didn’t have all the electrical and IoT skills to finish Narrator, he did have life sciences experience, advanced manufacturing knowledge, and access to 3D printers. That’s how PotPerch™ and SipStation™ were born.

PotPerch was created to turn bare walls into stable, square, level, plumb plant real estate—no guessing and no wobbly brackets. Plants can get the light they need and stay out of reach of curious pets and small hands. Because we know color choices are deeply personal, PotPerch is fully modular, so its appearance can change as often as you do.

SipStation is PotPerch’s companion and was designed to reduce the anxiety of staring at a cherished plant and wondering, “Do you need water?” It’s not a full Narrator, but it’s a start. The current design works with or without PotPerch, makes watering easier, and smooths out busy weeks so plants don’t pay the price for busy schedules. We’ve been using SipStations at home for over two years, and they’ve been a game changer.

We don’t pretend to be experts on every rare plant. But we are very good at building reliable, approachable plant gear that helps you nail the basics, so more of your plants get to thriving instead of quietly giving up on a shelf.

What's Next

Looking ahead, our roadmap is simple but ambitious: keep translating time‑saving ideas into thoughtful objects. Over time, we still want to give plants more of a true “voice”. PotPerch and SipStation already have the physical structures needed, and we continue to experiment with future versions of Narrator. There’s a future where your plants can tell you what’s going on in a friendly, helpful way—and VerdantVille wants to help build that world.

We're constantly growing and making and we'd love for you to be part of it. Whether you're rescuing your first pothos or curating a wall of rare aroids, PotPerch and SipStation were made for you.