March the 11th, 2022 - Ana Hrgovcic is creating a real little jungle in the very heart of the City of Zagreb, and her urban jungle idea will surely appeal to all plant lovers.
As Poslovni Dnevnik/Marta Duic writes, the Croatian brand Biljke.Plants, which deals with the design of plant terraces, started its business back in 2020, at the height of the coronavirus pandemic, when the owner Ana Hrgovcic came up with the idea of making plant decorations for interior styling. The idea quickly developed into a business venture thanks to, as Ana Hrgovcic herself says, perseverance and product quality.
Domestic production
"For two years, we operated as a trade in which one person did everything from the legal and accounting side to dealing with creative issues. We currently have two employees and several student assistants. Back in 2021, we faced some big challenges and even bigger questions, the main one was whether we'd keep our business online and sell exclusively through our webshop or whether we'd dare to take the next step and open up a physical branch. In the middle of the year, a decision was made - we were going to open a physical plant store. On the last day of February, we opened the doors of the Biljke.Plants shop at Ilica 74,'' explained Ana Hrgovcic.
What they're known for and what the most sought after item they have is, is a self-sustaining plant terrarium that belongs to the perennial houseplant and is an original decoration for the interior, whether it is a residential or business space. The terrariums are made in a studio of about 30 square metres, from which this story started, and they take special care of the quality preparation of all of the used materials so that everything in the terrariums is healthy and lives for a long time.
''We're proud that we specialise and improve things in the production of terrariums and cockades and that we can say that we've become experts in this field, and we are constantly collaborating with other Croatian brands and designers,'' Hrgovcic added.
The materials and raw materials used in the production of the range come from other EU countries, and of course the Netherlands stands out, which is well known to all as the land of flowers.
"I started working with plants and terrariums after returning from Amsterdam. We haven't been able to cooperate with Croatian family farms and nurseries so far, but we would like to. We adore and try to support domestic production as much as possible and we tried to cooperate with several glass manufacturing trades in Croatia, but unfortunately the sizes and shapes we require couldn't be produced. We noticed that our customers like large pieces of terrarium in which everything happens and that will fill the gaps in a space, so in our offer in addition to XS, S and M sizes can be found, as can extremely large terrariums, size L +.'' concluded Hrgovcic.
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