About Us
Hi, I am Janis, the owner of Pananom here in Australia. I will just share a brief background about how we started.
I grew up with a Mom and an Aunt who love plants and our house always had indoor and outdoor plants. Having developed a love for plants at an early age, I took some crotons, zigzag plants, and other cuttings from the bushy plants of the neighborhood and set up a small garden at the front of the house. That was the first time I learned propagation. I took some moss and some small plants and created some sort of mini garden on old dead wood, just like how a terrarium is usually designed. You got it right, I originally came from Asia, specifically Philippines where most of the indoor plants here are just grown on the side of the road, hence the name of this venture is “Pananom”, which means plants in our Bicolano dialect.
Later on, I went to college/university (UPLB) where I took business and agriculture courses, then got into corporate financial services jobs, and then migrated to Australia, still in financial services. Life had been busy and I forgot about my childhood hobby. Then, I met Josh, my husband and got married. Coming from a family of gardeners, Josh has innate fondness and skills in growing plants. It just came naturally that we do a lot of gardening, growing our food, growing native plants for the birds, growing and collecting indoor plants for the most affordable prices I can find. Some time in 2017, I started selling a few potted peace lilies and snake plants in Facebook Marketplace to earn money so I can buy more indoor plants. I had some good and bad experiences in keeping different types of plants, which had been costly, but at least I have some real-life experiences to share to buyers.
We were certain that the indoor plants business is the way to go. Getting our place at Ferntree Gully in 2019 made us discover a local community market, The Gully Market, where the support and camaraderie of the stallholders is so overwhelming that made us decide to call it our home market.
This is the story of Pananom. We do what we do, because we really love plants. We aim to provide great and reasonably priced ones for you, so you can do what you love too.