INTERVIEW Ex-fashion designer's plant hotel inspired by environmental concerns

Kim Kwang-soo, founder of plant care service provider Garden Earth / Courtesy of Kim Kwang-soo

By Yi Whan-woo

For people going away from home for a while, coming home to find their plants dead after having no one to take care of them is certainly a demoralizing experience.

This is how Kim Kwang-soo, 37, founder of the indoor plant care service Plant Hotel, came up with the idea of a special place where plants can receive attentive care and rejuvenation.

Located in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, Plant Hotel is one of four business units ― including a library, an experimental lab and a secondhand market ― that are part of Garden Earth, which was set up in 2020.

The four businesses were inspired by Kim's other project ― interior decoration with plants, operating since 2019 ― through which he became fully aware of the need to save live plants and thereby became committed to the broader goal of carbon neutrality.

Also a former fashion designer, he jumped into the interior design business using plants after working for five years at Korean fashion firm Cheil Industries, because he wanted to combine his expertise in fashion and his hobby of gardening.

“And it was a shock to see the enormous amount of live plants being discarded at shopping malls, hotels and more, when they were no longer needed in marketing,” Kim told The Korea Times in a phone interview last week. “As a plant lover, I found it intolerable and searched for ways to correct such business practices which are against nature.”

Scattered around Seoul and Gyeonggi Province, the business units differ in their main tasks, but they have shared services for customers that are aimed at making plants healthy, such as re-potting plants and selling supplementary nutrients at reasonable prices.

Keys for “plant visitors” can be seen hanging at the Plant Hotel, one of the four business units belonging to plant care service provider Garden Earth. / Courtesy of Garden Earth

Each plant at the Plant Hotel is assigned with a key to ensure security. / Courtesy of Garden Earth

In the case of the Plant Hotel, the services mimic those found at hotels. For instance, customers are requested to have the plants check in by filling out a form, keeping them in a designated, private storage space as if they were in a hotel room and ensuring security as each plant is stored and is accessible with only one key.

Storage costs only a couple of won per day.

With an antique hotel interior feel, the key storage area is made of plush-looking wood. The front of the space is made of glass in order for the plants to receive copious amounts of natural light. Plus, a total of 10 air purifiers and humidifiers are running 24 hours a day to create optimal conditions.

The “hotel staff” check on the plants every day and offer customized services in accordance with each plant's needs.

“I think of growing plants as a process of communication between humans and nature, and in that regard, the plant hotel business is meaningful as it can make that communication last longer,” Kim said.

Kim finds the Plant Hotel and other relevant businesses promising, noting the number of customers in the four business units combined is estimated to be between 2,000 and 3,000 on the weekends.

“This is a big improvement from the early stages when people did not exactly understand what the plant care service business was about,” he said.

Sales increased by more than 20 times to 2.1 billion won ($1.7 million) between 2019 and 2021. This year, it is expected to come close to 4 billion won.

Citing magazines on business trends, Kim also said plant care is emerging as a keyword in 2022 and that the size of the relevant market in Korea is worth 4 trillion won.

Kim said he has plans to share his knowhow and tips for free on the company's website and envisioned app.