Stingray Botanicals has a distinct smell that fills the whole atmosphere. It’s the kind of smell that draws in gardeners, the kind that gives a sense of relief and invites a deep breath, the kind that leaves all worries outside the door.
“It smells like Earth,” says Adrian Mendoza, one of two owners of the small houseplant shop on Willamette Street.
There’s a rainbow sticker on the front window of the shop that says, “You belong here,” and a pride flag hangs from the ceiling inside. The color green is everywhere. Plants of all shapes and sizes fill the aisles, ready for a new home. A variety of colorful pots line the shelves on the back walls.
Over the tall greenery, Mendoza and Luna Snowe, the other owner of the shop, are ready to assist customers with their variety of plant needs as soon as they walk in. The couple has been doing this since their opening day.
On Aug. 15, 2020, Stingray Botanicals opened its doors to the Eugene community. It is the first houseplant boutique to be a registered and certified Benefit Company in the state of Oregon. A Benefit Company is a business that earns a profit while advocating for the greater good. The store donates to and partners with different organizations to show their support for causes — especially LGBTQ+ issues — that are important to them. The owners have worked with organizations like Point of Pride, TransPonder and Trans Lifeline. These three nonprofits provide resources and support for trans and gender-diverse people.
Out of the 30 million businesses in the U.S., only 1.4 million of them — less than 5% — are reported to be queer-owned.
“I think you hear a lot of stories around town, unfortunately, of people who go into businesses and feel uncomfortable,” Snowe says. “Maybe they’re a person of color and they get followed around the store. Maybe they’re a queer person who gets looked at the wrong way or gets told to use a different bathroom that doesn’t identify with their gender idenity. We need more safe spaces for people like us.
Stingray Botanicals, a queer and Latino-owned houseplant shop, set its sights on becoming a safe space for everyone.
“Our job is community driven,” Snowe says. “For us it’s about being here for the queer community 365.”
Since Snowe was a kid, plants have always been a part of their life. Their passion blossomed after watching the Pixar animation film “Wall-E” in their early teen years. Snowe loved the idea of humans coming back to Earth and reembracing their roots.
“You pass by plants everyday, but you see them so often that sometimes it just doesn’t register in your head that this is a living, literally breathing organism that sustains humanity,” Snowe says.
After watching the movie, their passion for vegetable and fruit gardening moved past the movie screens and into something therapeutic for them.
“As a young queer person in the South, growing up around a lot of homophobia, transphobia, it was really kind of an escape from that,” Snowe says.
Before meeting their partner, Snowe was really into palm trees, ferns, mosses and other fruiting plants. Snowe met their partner, Mendoza, at the beginning of their plant journey and introduced them to more tropical varieties — like philodendrons and monsteras — which allowed Snowe to expand their knowledge of botanicals. “We both have expertise in different types,” Snowe says.
When the couple isn’t spending time in the store working on orders or giving tips on how to properly take care of herbs, the two take care of their almost 200 plants at home.
“We take care of plants together here. We go home and take care of our plants at home,” Snowe says. “We have days that we just spend gardening at home together.”
While living in Portland in 2017, Snowe and Mendoza struggled with their respective careers and wanted to start something for themselves. Their apartment had a wall filled head to toe with all sorts of shrubbery. The pair was buying plants and began to propagate some of them, which led to selling them.
For several years, Snowe dreamed of opening up their own business, so they attended Portland State University in preparation to becoming a business owner. Snowe was finishing their Masters in Business Administration when the two thought of opening up a shop of their own. With botanicals playing such a major part in both of their lives, opening a houseplant store outside their apartment walls was the only type of shop that made sense.
“We just set our sights on trying to do something better for ourselves,” Snowe says.
The store name comes from the plant stingray alocasia, an aroid houseplant with two large lobes and a long, pointed tail, which resembles the sea animal. Snowe has a love for anything having to do with the sea, and with Mendoza’s love of aroid plants, the name just made sense.
“We wanted to do something that was unique to us and had meaning to us,” Snowe says. “It’s our plant.”
While Snowe and Mendoza both loved Portland, they felt like the city was oversaturated with plant shops. In finding a home for their own shop, the couple looked all the way from Bellingham, Washington, to Sacramento, California. That’s when they remembered Eugene.
At the time, Eugene didn’t have any houseplant-specific boutiques. Snowe and Mendoza felt that not a lot of small businesses were startingin Eugene and the handful of queer spaces was not nearly enough. They put down the deposit for a space and moved down to open their store.
“We thought we would be a good fit for the culture of Eugene,” Snowe says. “To do something a little bit different, to do something in a more progressive fashion with our business while also bringing the community something beautiful.”
The two had already signed the lease before COVID-19 shut everything down. Opening up Stingray Botanicals during a pandemic had its fair share of struggles. While they weren’t sure what business would be like during a pandemic, Snowe says houseplants became pretty popular.
“I think a lot of people are spending more time at home, building home offices, working from home, and they’re looking for a way to spruce up their space,” Snowe says. “That was kind of a weird thing to experience, that maybe the pandemic was the right time to launch a houseplant business.”
With Stingray Botanicals up and running, the pair began building a store that would make everyone feel accepted.
And Snowe and Mendoza’s customers see firsthand how they are fulfilling that goal. Since its opening day, Mayra Pardo has been a consistent customer who has seen the store change and grow over the years, yet she says their customer service has always been helpful, informative and friendly.
“From day one, they’ve really had the same customer service that they have to this day,” Pardo says.
Customers come in with all sorts of questions, and Snowe and Mendoza are always there to help. Mendoza says a woman once came into the store with the leaf of her plant wrapped in paper towels to show one of the owners. After having the plant for a long time, she was unsure why the plant was suddenly getting sick and felt silly bringing it in, but she asked him what to do. Immediately, Mendoza was able to give her the advice and reassurance she needed.
“I’m always welcomed, immediately, even if they don’t recognize me right away,” Pardo says. “It always just makes you feel like you are walking into a friend’s place.”
From day one, Snowe says, Stingray Botanicals has been a “values business,” which fits in with their work as a Benefit Company. While the pair hope to still make a profit and sell their products, the values Snowe and Mendoza hold are a big part of their decision-making within their business.
Snowe says that while they hope the customer service they provide or fundraisers they run bring in customers, profit isn’t always the first thought on their minds. Their customers and the planet come first.
“We don’t do it because we want to bring in business,” Snowe says. “We do it because it’s the right thing to do.”
Snowe and Mendoza’s business is driven by “social values for queer people, social justice for people of color and for reproductive freedom.” They take these values into consideration when they partner with other companies. The pots they sell are sustainably made, and the wooden stands use reclaimed wood.
“If we have potential vendors who don’t support these values or haven’t thought about what their values are, then we will choose not to work with them,” Snowe says.
Snowe and Mendoza don’t plan on opening up any more locations, but they hope to continue to be of service to the Eugene community. Due to a slower summer and inflation rates, the pair currently run the store by themselves, but hope they can go back to working with a full staff soon.
Even after a slower summer, the pair continue to work hard and provide for their community. Their customers see all that they do and continue to come back and tell others about the store. Stingray Botanicals is Snowe and Mendoza’s dreams becoming a reality.
“This is our home,” Snowe says. “Working here, starting this business together, I think gave both of us a sense of meaning in life.”
Luna Snowe (left) and Adrian Mendoza (right) are passionate about sharing their love for plants with the community because they hope that others find the same joy in plants that they do.
