2021 in the rearview mirror

2021. What an adventure that was.

The year started out on a difficult footing for Lazy Flora, as it did for many businesses: we had the perfect storm of Covid, Brexit, plant product shortages, and price increases.

As the year went on, we faced challenges as a result of changes to the digital advertising landscape, in particular with Facebook and Apple. As an online business, we had to adapt, and it wasn't easy.

Yet despite all those challenges, we achieved most of the things we had planned:

• We introduced a higher degree of personalisation to our subscriptions: by location, light and shade, and your preferences.
• We improved our sustainability credentials by making our in-house compost peat-free and removing almost all the plastic from our indoor plant deliveries.
• We introduced our first ever range of accessories.
• We increased the size of our indoor plant range and introduced specific collections: cacti and succulents, pet-friendly plants, larger plants and most recently, rare plants.
• A highlights for me personally is the fact that we now stock Variegated Monstera and Philodendron Pink Princess, among other amazing hard-to-find gems. I dreamt of that moment for many years before it happened.
• We gained some amazing team members who have added so much to the version of Lazy Flora that you currently see. They are all very humble and probably don't realise what a big difference they have made to this year (although I will keep telling them).
• We launched our Facebook group Plant Chat, where we’re starting to build an amazing and supportive community of plant enthusiasts. If you haven’t already checked it out, it’s a great place for improving your plant knowledge from group members and resident experts, and for gaining plant inspiration.

The one thing we wanted to achieve before the year ended was the launch of our brand new website. We didn’t manage that, but it’s looming very large on the horizon now (and btw it looks INCREDIBLE and fully embraces our new branding), so it won’t be long before we share that with you.

Here are some things we’re planning to do in 2022:

• FINALLY launching our new website. (I love it and think you will too! We're putting the final touches to it now.)
• Introducing LOTS of GORGEOUS NEW PLANTS 🥰🥰🥰
  • 🌳Outdoor plants: We’ll be introducing perennials, shrubs, some hand picked trees, bedding plants, multipacks, focusing on British growers.
  • 🪴🪴🪴Lots more houseplants. 
  • ✨Hassle-free gift kits for plant lovers.
  • 🎂Gifting kits for special occasions (birthdays, anniversaries).
• We'll be launching some super fun mini-ads for our Facebook and Instagram accounts. It will show you a new side to Lazy Flora.
• You'll get to know our team behind the scenes a bit better. Watch out for our 'Plants with personality' series at the start of the year.
• We’ll be changing the way we operate as a business a bit: finding some more outdoor growing space for us, and developing stronger partnerships with more growers and suppliers across the UK. We’ll be working in a more streamlined and scalable way.
• Developing some fun challenges and chances to win more plant prizes more regularly within our Facebook group Plant Chat and on our social media channels.
• Bringing in some more expertise and educational content to our website.

Those are just some of the headlines. You’ll continue to see some pretty big changes almost as soon as the year begins (we even just brought forward a rare plant launch from January to December because we were so excited about it). And there’s lots more fun stuff on the horizon too that we will share as the year goes on.

2022 is going to be so much more fun than 2021 and 2020.

Claire.
Lazy Flora Founder