This week we’re joined by Amanda Thomsen, owner of Aster Gardens, a bespoke, sensory, and haunted plant shop in the small, Midwestern town of Lemont, IL. Amanda is on a dual mission: to create a place for adventure seekers who also happen to love plants and to invite more people to discover and participate in their own cute, small towns by fostering community and a sense of place.
Amanda has been working as a professional horticulturist, landscape designer, and project manager for the last 20+ years. Her focus is bringing rule-breaking fun, a little kitsch, and a lot of humor into an industry that is often thought of as stodgy and full of rules. Amanda speaks and gives classes at all-sized events throughout the United States. Many of you will remember Cultivating Place's previous conversation with Amanda Thomsen back in the spring of 2019 about her latest book, “Backyard Adventure: Get Messy, Get Wet, Build Cool things and Have Tons of Fun.”
In 2022, she opened a plant shop in the small, midwestern town and Chicago suburb of Lemont, IL. Today, Amanda is back to share with us her journey to becoming a business owner, building community, and growing more than just plants. Their motto:
"Practical, fun, imperfect gardens for everyone!"
It’s a fun, funny, heartbreaking, uplifting, and very candid conversation about the business of Cultivating Place, and how small plant businesses can be integral to Cultivating Place well and in the community.
ADDITIONALLY, this is the first CP episode featuring one of our two new guest hosts: Ben Futa of Botany, a growing plant-based endeavor in South Bend, Indiana.
You can follow Amanda & Aster Gardens online:
And on Instagram:
Photos courtesy of Aster Gardens, Amanda Thomsen, all rights reserved.
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JOIN US again next week, when Jennifer will be back AND we will be airing the first of our CP LIVE episodes, this one filmed and recorded live with Golden State Linen in Chico, CA back in May of this year! Join us. That's right here, next week.
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Thinking out loud this week...
Hey, it's Ben—
As we continue our conversation with Amanda, I hope you’ll notice how she
continues to speak about a love for her place, Lemont IL. So much of her business is quite literally grounded in the history, character, and possibility of her town, and she has a strong desire to leave the spaces and people around her better than they were before Aster Gardens. She wants to give her neighbors one more reason to be proud to call this place home.
This call to action of neighborhood and community building is also deeply
embedded in our own company, Botany, here in South Bend, Indiana. As I was
preparing to join Cultivating Place as a guest host, I knew this was something I
wanted to explore and share and work to better understand myself.
As business owners who also love plants and gardening, I’ve found we tend to
prioritize fostering community and collaboration within our communities. In many ways, I can’t help but wonder if this isn’t more than a little bit inspired by our observations and interactions with the plant communities in our own gardens.
I’m so grateful to Amanda for sharing her candid experience of owning and
managing a local, independent, brick-and-mortar space. Every business owner I
know is doing what we can to invite people in, to create a space we’re proud to
share, and to leave the space we’re in better than we found it.
There’s a lot of joy and accomplishment in this journey, and that’s balanced by
plenty of stress, anxiety, uncertainty, and loneliness, too. As with so many things in life, balance is both the aspiration and a requirement for
success.
I promise our conversation ends on a high note, and I hope you’ll stay tuned for the heartwarming final segment. In the meantime, if anything we’ve covered today resonates with you or feels familiar to you – maybe you own a local, plant-based, independent business yourself or know someone who does – I’d really love to hear from you.
I’ll continue to be part of Cultivating Place through (at least) 2025, and I’d love to consider learning more about your work and sharing your stories. You can reach me at benjamin@botanyorbust.com , or @botanyorbustceo on Instagram.
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Cultivating Place is a co-production of North State Public Radio, a service of Cap Radio, licensed to Chico State Enterprises. Cultivating place is made possible in part listeners just like you through the support button at the top right-hand corner of every page at Cultivating Place.com.
The CP team includes producer and engineer Matt Fidler, with weekly tech and web support from Angel Huracha, and this summer we're joined by communications intern Sheila Stern. We’re based on the traditional and present homelands of the Mechoopda Indian Tribe of the Chico Rancheria. Original theme music is by Ma Muse, accompanied by Joe Craven and Sam Bevan.
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