A niche flower shop with exotic plants and flowers from New Zealand, Holland, South Africa, Mexico, and worldwide opened its doors in Downtown Skokie in December.
Botanik Culture has maintained an online presence since 2016, but the new brick-and-mortar store location on Lincoln Avenue is meant to cater to the business’s clientele who are looking for niche and novelty items, according to Botanik’s co-owner Dominic Esquibel, who runs the brand with his wife Amy Esquibel. The location is also rolling out its new subscription service, to allow clients who wish to have their plants taken care of by the Esquibels to maintain plants and flowers bought at the store.
“They bring a lot of happiness (and) vitality. It’s something to care for, it’s brought a lot of joy in my life,” Dominic Esquibel said of working with plants and flowers. “It’s given me direction. I can’t think of anything else that I’d rather be doing.”
“They’re my paint,” said Amy Esquibel, while putting together an arrangement of flowers from different regions of the world. “They mirror life. They have a beginning, a middle, and an end.”
Dominic Esquibel, a native of Santa Barbara, California, said his first job was in agriculture where he would pick oranges and lemons. Today, a lot of Botanik’s plants are also native to California, and Southern Florida as well, he said, which would make them exotic to Illinois. The plants go through an acclimation process to allow for them to be suited for an indoor environment, which is also a niche, compared to big box retailers who might sell the same plant but don’t have the same qualities as plants sold at Botanik.
“We don’t want people to feel intimidated by the product,” Dominic Esquibel said. “Everybody loves plants, but they don’t know how to grow plants. So we want to provide easy plants, and that’s why we also offer the (maintenance) service to take care of them,” he said.
Dominic Esquibel said Botanik provides a subscription service to help clients keep their plants healthy. Clients enrolled in the service will need to bring in their plants weekly, or sometimes biweekly, depending on the plant.
He dispelled a few myths plant owners might believe without the proper education.
Plant myth-busting
“There’s always a generic rule where people say, ‘Just water your plant once a week.’ I feel like that’s not really a good rule,” Dominic Esquibel said. He said overwatering plants can lead to rot out, mushroom growth, and attracting flies. He suggests people check the moistness of the plant’s soil to see if the plant needs water or not, which can be longer than a week.
“Put your finger in there (the soil). How does it feel? Is it moist? Is it cool? Is it bone-dry?” he said.
Another misconception is that people might believe the best way to water their orchids is to put ice cubes on them, to allow for the orchids to be watered slowly as the ice melts.
Orchids sold at Botanik, however, are native to warmer climates and are not going to respond well to the cold. “It could freeze the root and it could damage the leaf,” Dominic Esquibel said.
For orchids native to Mexico and Central America, he said a fine mist works well, and replicates how the orchids grow in nature.
Not every plant is watered the same way either, Dominic Esquibel said. For example, the Bromeliaceae plant doesn’t need to have wet soil but needs to have water placed on its leaves, which directs water to its roots.
Flower shops for the next generation
Before the Esquibels opened up their shop, another flower shop in Downtown Skokie, Marge’s Flowers, had closed its doors in May 2020, in part because of the dramatic drop in flower sales.
Dominic Esquibel, who managed the Marge’s Flowers account as a wholesaler, said that the shop’s co-owner, Gloria Kalmes, was well-known in the area.
“The neighborhood was kind of devastated when she left. Everybody was like, ‘We lost our flower shop. We lost Marge’s. We lost Gloria,’” Dominic Esquibel said.
“We take a lot of pride in the community,” he said. “And I would love it if I can tell Gloria like we want to be your successor … We want to carry on your legacy.”
Dominic Esquibel said while he wants to honor the legacy, Botanik is meant for a different generation and shoppers. Botanik doesn’t sell greeting cards or teddy bears that perhaps previous generations would have come to expect from a flower shop.
“She (Kalmes) had a very traditional flower shop … generations change … But our heavy focus is events. We’re event florists. We supply for weddings, parties, corporate events, you know, everyday flowers.”
Along with the shop’s retail services, Dominic Esquibel said the shop is also available to be rented for private events, such as lunches and small parties; a move that other flower shops typically don’t do.
Botanik Culture is located at 8112 Lincoln Avenue, Skokie. The store is closed on Mondays, open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.Tuesday through Saturday, and open from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Sundays.
