Today we’d like to introduce you to Alexandra Scholtz.
Alexandra, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I grew up in Upstate, NY learning the in’s and out’s of the brick & mortar flower shop life through my mother’s two shops. I moved to Los Angeles and almost immediately opened WildFlora’s first storefront in Studio City. The vision of WildFlora was a joint effort of my brother, Michael and I. He’s a landscape architect and I’m a florist so together we created a business catering to landscape designs for residential homes to help bring in native drought tolerant plant material and our flower shop that features seasonal flowers and highlights local makers. Over the course of WildFloras six years span, we’ve opened another shop at the Original Farmers Market and grew into a much larger production! We’ve split the company into two: Landscape Design & Construction and Floral Studio, Retail & Events.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
We opened our business when we were 23 & 25. Starting a business at such a young age was difficult. Both my brother and I were exposed to our industries at young ages so our experience was plentiful but our youthfulness proved difficult to gain people’s trust. Most people didn’t think we knew what we were doing.
As a creative person, I’ve always been in tune with the vision of WildFlora. The bumps and struggle have more so been on the business end. My brother and I have always operated with minimal risk so we can make mistakes to learn from them with less liability on the line. As we’ve grown, we’ve been able to bring in more employees with strengths where our weaknesses lie. Bumps for me have always been with managing people. I opened WildFlora when I was 23 so I started with little employee management skills.
So, as you know, we’re impressed with WildFlora – tell our readers more, for example what you’re most proud of and what sets you apart from others.
WildFlora specializes in all things botanical and beautiful. We use seasonal flowers rich in texture arranged in curated color palettes. Our employees are well educated in houseplant care so we’re here to help get the perfect plant into our client’s houses. We’ve created our own line of products including candles, bath salts & soaks. Gifting is a huge part of our business so we curated a line of gift boxes mostly including our own product lines and fresh flowers. I’m proud that we hand make our products in our shops. I want to continue branding WildFlora through our signature designs and unique products.
So, what’s next? Any big plans?
I feel like WildFlora has grown to be bigger than I ever envisioned it to be. However, my dreams have no end in sight. I would love to continue with creating our own products and making everything we do available on nationwide level. I love having shops so people can come into a soothing lush botanical plant jungle so more shops could be a direction I’d like to go. Also, adding in a cafe with botanical-inspired drinks could be really great. We’ve created a great floral design program to teach employees how to design so I’d love to keep giving people to opportunity to learn to be a florist through WildFlora.
Contact Info:
- Address: 12313 Ventura Blvd
- Website: www.wildfloradesign.com
- Phone: 8187451188
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: @wildfloradesign
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wildfloradesign/?ref=bookmarks
Image Credit:
Valeris Knoell, Lara Everly
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