Ms Lubano has applied her designing skills on her choice of flower pots which she has pinned on the outer side of her compound’s perimeter wall.
At Teresa Lubano’s backyard, she has given the hardy succulent plants a new glow. And with technology, the art director has transformed her gardening.
Sitting at the corner of her well-trimmed front yard in Nairobi’s Ngumo Estate are succulents that have taken more than a year to mature. These include the thimble cactus, zebra cactus and the Christmas cactus which blooms twice a year.
Dandling from pots in the yard are other plants and the jade plant that produces small pink and white flowers.
Ms Lubano has applied her designing skills on her choice of flower pots which she has pinned on the outer side of her compound’s perimeter wall.
On either side of a star-shaped wooden box are flower pots reminiscent of a shellfish.
Precious jewels
They are quite architectural, some round, some look like little precious jewels from afar and others as spiky as starfish.
Succulents are far from your traditional floral blooms. They are low-maintenance, fleshy, fatty plants that come in shades of green and lavender depending on exposure to sunlight.
Some think that they are desert plants due to their ability to store water for a long time. They can thrive with virtually no fertiliser and very little water in the thinnest of soils and can take the beating sun.
The beauty with such plants, Ms Lubano says, is that they can live up to a decade and still look as good as new.
And these are the plants that Ms Lubano has found success in. The 35-year-old is keen on making city dwellers embrace the growing of succulents and gift them for birthdays, anniversaries, Valentines, hospital visits and house warming parties.
Perfect gift
‘‘They make the perfect living gifts. Further, these plants are unique, practical and fun,” says Mrs Lubano.
What started as a hobby a year ago has now taken a commercial twist as Mrs Lubano supplies the succulents to customers spread across the country.
Her last wholesale delivery was to a customer located in Mombasa who ordered 30 pieces of succulents. She sells the succulents from Sh500 to Sh3,000 a piece, depending on the type and size of pot used to package them.
She sells them through her shopnanjala online shop. It is the online plants shop that has earned her a slot in the list of 25 inspirational women entrepreneurs who are helping to put Kenya on the global business map.
Her business, shopnanjala.com, is primed on a desire to offer city dwellers plants they can grow in their homes which can last a long time without withering.
“About 80 per cent of Nairobi dwellers have no backyards or gardens. They have a balcony at the very least and are trapped on growing orchids some of which die after barely a month,” she says.
Online sales
Her target customers are the tech-savvy and this explains why 90 per cent of her sales have been done online.
Errand service provider sendy.co.ke helps her deliver the purchased succulents to the doorstep of the customers. Most of the succulents are propagated through budding, cutting and division.
The buds are placed into plastic nursery trays installed with pumice —crushed lava rock— because this soil type absorbs excess moisture so roots will not rot. These blister trays sit at the bottom shelf of the plant rack, followed by a layer with semi matured ones and subsequent ones with fully grown succulents.
In her backyard, she has also grown the string of pearls, the Mexican rose, the baby necklace and the air plant.
The string of pearls plant has adorable little leaves that resemble peas linked up together to form chains.
It grows relatively slowly but when the chains start overflowing from the brims of the hanging flower pot, it is a sight to behold.
Rare and pricey
The Mexican rose has a short stem or none at all with numerous leaves crowded together and arranged like a rosette.
Characteristically, the leaves are dusty and crumbly. The showstopper at her backyard is the air plant which sells at Sh1,000 a piece. This is a slow growing and rare plant that can grow and thrive without soil. In fact it can thrive despite neglect.
“The more slow-growing the plant, the more rarer and pricey it becomes,” says Mrs Lubano, whose passion for succulents has seen her master both their popular and botanical names.
Others at her backyard include the donkey tail plants, both whose names are descriptive of their appearance.
Her desire to support local works of art has seen her initiate partnerships Kenyan artisans, allowing them to use her online shop to showcase and market their products.
Among these are fashion designers, potters, designers of hand-made baby stuff as well as makers of glazed ceramic wear.
The online shop derives its name from her maiden name nanjala that means hunger in Luhya.
