Naperville Magazine
Whether you’re a pro gardener or have never owned a plant baby before, the newly opened Good Roots (492 Crescent Blvd., shopgoodroots.com) has the perfect piece for your home. Glen Ellyn moms Ashley Aikens and Lindsay Palm opened the shop in November, with the aim to create a space where homeowners and designers can complete the look of a room all in one place. Good Roots carries a range of final touch items like house plants, unique textiles, and a variety of vintage goods for styling shelves and coffee tables like brass candlesticks, baskets, bookends, and vessels.
Aikens and Palm’s personal roots were united through a mutual friend. When Palm purchased Aikens’s home and Aiken moved just a block away, they realized how much they had in common. They bonded over motherhood and their mutual love for interior design and plants while pursuing separate careers—Aikens worked in sales and Palm worked as a hairstylist.
Throughout the spring of 2020 they spent a lot of time helping each other with various home projects and were feeling especially grateful for their houseplants during quarantine. In June they came up with an idea to convert the playroom in Aikens’s home into a space where they could sell plants on the weekends while still keeping their full-time jobs. As their Instagram presence grew very quickly and they shared their new hustle with their personal networks, they realized the demand was much larger than they anticipated.
“We thought it would be a little passion project and a few people would come on the weekends,” Aikens says. “It totally exploded and people were coming from all over to shop in a playroom.” They signed a lease on a storefront in September and Palm resigned from her job so the store could be open five days a week.
During a stroll through the store or Good Roots’ Instagram page you’ll notice “hello my name is” stickers throughout the space with human names on the textiles’ tags. “I have a deep obsession with textiles and think they’re true works of art,” Palm says. “It’s an identity of who I think they are.” They give every rug in the store a name based on the connection they feel to it, and leave the plants up to the customers to name.
Aikens and Palm believe that taking care of a plant is very personal, and naming it helps the owner keep it alive and thriving. “It’s first about matching the people with their plant, and then making sure it will look good in their space,” Aikens says. “We help pick out a plant based on their lifestyle and how much care they can give it.”
Photos by Jamie Loren