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Garden Seventeen Could Use Your Help

How You Can Help:

Hey all!

First, I want to say happy new year, and thank you for all of your continued support!

As most of you know, we opened our doors to the public in June of 2020, peak pandemic, and we are so happy we did! We have felt so welcomed by the neighborhood, and the support from the community has been incredible! We’ve met so many amazing people we are happy to call our regulars, and see their lovely faces every week. 

Being a new business is always scary and tough, are you doing the right things? Is the community going to love your vision as a business owner? Are we carrying the right products? Did we choose the right location? But having your feedback has helped us feel secure in our decisions more than you’ll ever know. But we need your help.

As we all know, the pandemic was a tough time for all of us. Even established businesses saw stressors like never before – insane shipping delays, insane pricing increases, insane freight surcharges, etc.

During our first year of business we saw a historic winter – where we had piles of ice and snow for over a week! During the 2021 freeze, because Texas chose to do the rolling black outs, the cutting of the power was seen as a “voluntary” act, our insurance did not cover the almost $65,000 in loss. This was a MAJOR hit for us only 7 months after opening. Because we have an amazing team, and an amazing community around us, we were able to slightly recover, but we still feel the weight of that damage to this day.

Unfortunately, over the last week, Garden Seventeen was burglarized twice. Thankfully due to swift response times, they were not able to get away with much. However, that did not stop them from doing damage around the store. Unfortunately, this just continues to be a strain financially for business, and a mental strain on our team.

I created Garden Seventeen to create a safe space for our team members and the public alike. I wanted to create a destination style garden center closer into town that allowed people to be people while sharing their love for plants.

Life really sucked when the pandemic hit, and a lot of us turned to Mother Nature for comfort – plants bring a calming, serene sense to life that not much else has the ability to – and I wanted to share that with all of you.

I wanted Garden Seventeen to feel like a community space if nothing else – we’ve worked hard to ensure we are creating a community by offering our local creator markets free to our vendors, working with local schools for free educational field trips, gifting Christmas trees to those in need, and have committed to a strong donation budget to local community based non-profits and schools each year for their fund-raising events.

And now we’re asking for your help – you as the community is what keeps us in business, it is what keeps us moving day to day, and keeps our drive going forward.

Every young business faces challenges that is no secret. If you’ve never heard of it, there is a 5 year rule with new businesses – if you can make it past 5 years, you will make it 50. However, in our 3 years of being open – we’ve had some major hiccups that just make that normal “new business stress” that much harder. And now more than ever we need your help to remain a beneficial part of that community.

There are a number of ways you can help.

One way is to simply help us share our name and brand. Do you have a plant friend? Or have someone in your life that enjoys your plant collection or landscape – remind them they can come see us.

Another super simple way is by sharing our posts online. By sharing our posts and content you’re helping us reach an audience and are helping us get our name out to the public.

Another helpful tool would be to always sharing with us what you’re looking for. We can’t be your number one shop without having the product you need! So please share!

You can share with us on socials, you can share via email [email protected],
you can share on the website on our contact page product request form, and you can also share every time you get a receipt.

Your feedback is insanely important to us as a young business.

Monetarily, you can help us by buying gift cards – for you to use later in life since they never expire, for a friend, a family member, etc. gift cards are an immediate way to help support a local business.

Needing space for a private event? Or a team building work shop? Book a private event or class or celebrate your next milestone with Garden Seventeen.

Another way would be purchasing our merch – we suggest the merch if you don’t have immediate plant needs because merch is a double whammy in helping support our local business – you rock the awesome shirts and hoodies we have showcasing our name, but also when wearing your Garden Seventeen merch while shopping you also get a 5% discount on top of your purchase no matter what you’re buying!

For those of you out of town, we have made shipping available on all of our merch to ship nation wide!

And if you feel so inclined, there is a donation option under our Merch category on our online store at GardenSeventeen.com/Shop

So Austin, we’re asking for your help to support a local business that has received so much love in its journey so far. We are at 2 and a half years now, and we are looking forward to so many more!

We’ve shared with you today how you can help support us in our journey, so let us know how we can support you in yours.

If you have any feedback you’d like to share directly with me, my inbox is ALWAYS open – [email protected]

And we will listen with ears wide open because we have so much love for all of you and your support you are providing so far.

From the bottom of my heart, and the entire team, thank you for making this dream possible!

Rodney Stoutenger
Owner, Garden Seventeen