Curated containers

Whether it’s offering kits to residential customers looking for a little help designing their planters or handling seasonal change-outs for big commercial clients, Potted Charm has found its niche offering design options. The small, boutique garden center in Teutopolis, Illinois, has been creating DIY and pre-made options for container combinations since 2020, and in just a few short years, owner Meagan Zerrusen has built a loyal client base.

“We try to keep things fairly niche and very high quality,” she says. “So we don’t sell the same things you’re going to find at a big-box store or the same things you’re going to find at your large greenhouses,” she says.

Potted Charm almost exclusively carries Proven Winners annuals, mostly from Four Star Greenhouses in Michigan, with some tropicals coming in from Florida. And this year, for the first time, Zerrusen is expanding by partnering with a local Amish grower to offer woven cone baskets.

While Potted Charm’s prices are a little higher than some of the surrounding plant retailers, Zerrusen says customers come back for the quality of plants they sell. “We just try to find really high-quality products for our customers because we do have some greenhouses in the area, and we want to set ourselves apart. Because if we sell the same thing, I’m not sure we could compete with them,” she says.

While planters are the bulk of the business at Potted Charm, the company also has a seasonal brick-and-mortar store that operates Thursday through Saturday from spring to fall. But customers can always reach Zerrusen through her website where she takes requests for custom order consultations.

Options for all

Potted Charm tries to meet customers at varying levels of gardening experience from full-service design and planting services to DIY kits they can plant on their own at home. “Those customers don’t necessarily want me to come do it for them,” Zerrusen says. “They still enjoy planting themselves, but if they go to a big greenhouse they think, ‘I don’t even know what to look for. I don’t know anything about flowers. I just want someone to tell me what goes together.’”

Customers can choose from four- or six-packs that all include the traditional thriller, filler and spiller. When creating the kits, Zerrusen makes sure to consider how fast each plant grows, sun requirements and colors to make sure the containers will continue to look good as they grow and mature.

“It really gives our customers a lot to choose from,” Zerrusen says, noting that the kits are one of Potted Charm’s biggest sellers.

When Zerrusen sells containers, she goes over each plant with the customer and talks about what to look for to keep the plants healthy. But she’s also selling a lot of self-watering planters to help gardeners be successful. If anything goes wrong, they can always call or text her, and in the event that something does end up dying, Potted Charm will replace it free of charge.

“We take ownership of what we sell, so if anything goes bad, we always replace it for free. For us, right now, it’s worth it. And we don’t get very many people that ask for it,” she says, noting that only a couple of customers have inquired about the warranty since she started the business. “At this point it’s not a huge deal but as we grow, I could see that becoming an issue.”

Growing commercial clients

Potted Charm offers container combos to both residential and commercial customers, with options for any season. With about 60 customers so far, Zerrusen says she’ll soon need to hire some staff to assist her as the business grows.

The company currently has a stronger residential client list than commercial, but Potted Charm is focusing on evening that out, signing on law offices, banks and more. For example, the company is working with a local hospital to install all-new containers as part of its renovations.

“Right now, we would really like to focus on commercial because you’re almost guaranteed to get that three-season subscription of summer flowers, switch out for fall and then again in the winter,” Zerrusen says, noting that about 50% of her residential clients only want summer flowers.

To cut down on man-hours, Zerrusen has started offering a planter with a 30-gallon reservoir, so clients only need to water once every two weeks. And starting this year, she plans to offer a maintenance package, including weekly fertilization and pruning services.

Because the area around Potted Charm is loyal to local businesses, Zerrusen says word of mouth has been the most effective way to gain new customers. But she is also trying a direct mail campaign to a hundred or so potential commercial clients as well as social media. Right now, she’s using Facebook ads to target different areas and demographics to see what hits.

Container design

The thriller, filler, spiller rule has long been the gold standard of container design, but at Potted Charm, Zerrusen plays with those rules on different levels. “I like to do one big thriller and then I might have a little bit smaller of a thriller and then I’ll work in a couple of different textures in my fillers. And then the spiller is pretty standard,” she says.

And while customers might still want the traditional combinations, they’re looking for a wow factor that they haven’t seen before. “I think anything that’s different, any new colors, any new varieties — that’s what people are always after,” she says.

Extend the season

While it might be easy to conjure up ideas for spring and summer planters, container combinations can be harder to put together when the weather turns colder. Here are some ideas from Zerrusen to extend the season:

Go beyond mums in the fall

While Potted Charm sells out of mums every year, some customers are looking for something a little different. “There are a lot of people that aren’t fans of mums or they just want a different look for the fall,” Zerrusen says.

So Potted Charm offers wine barrel planters from Four Star Greenhouses with sunflowers, crotons and grasses. Sometimes they’ll also include crotons in summer containers to help transition since the plant works well in both seasons.

“Then all we have to do is switch the summer flowers out and add some fall pansies or something like that. So it’s easier for the customer to turn over from one season to the next,” Zerrusen says. Last year, she combined a Kimberly queen fern with a croton, some coleus and a few summer flowers. With an easy swap of just a few pansies, the container was ready for the fall.

Try a theme for winter containers

Zerrusen is noticing more and more customers decorating their containers for the winter since she started the business just three years ago. Last year, for example, Potted Charm hosted a holiday open house with pre-made containers and sold out in just three hours. “It was a little shocking,” she says, adding that she’ll definitely be making more containers for this year’s event.

For the holiday season, Potted Charm also offers container combo kits with mixes of winter greens, noble firs and cedars, along with a choice of accents — gold, silver, red or neutral. Those go up for pre-sale in early November for pick up later that month or early December.

“That’s really the only thing I sell online,” Zerrusen says. “Other than that, I use the website more for customers to come on and sign up for custom creations.”