Maackia 036: The next step

I’m Nathan Langley and this is Maackia, a monthly newsletter on the year to come.

I am still in the book wave of my hibernation. I should be working more on website updates, as they are numerous, but I am pushing it off for now. Going with the flow, as they say, with where my energy and the weather seems to be when I open my eyes in the morning.

Despite this break from formal work hours, my back brain is still working. I know it is, anyway. I can trust that it is doing something even if there haven’t been any signals in a long while. I just have to keep feeding it — keep it stimulated while my body is resting.

One of the books I have been working through slowly is the delightful Shopkeeping by Peter Millar. While it isn’t 100% applicable to my work (yet), I have still found it nourishing.

'How is your day going so far?'
Who started this? How long ago? Has it been a few years or much more than that? This business of asking your customer contrived questions, as if that were cunning, or fair, or even decent.
I sat the staff down and said, no more, we are not asking anyone anymore, 'Would you like a bag?' Enough of these questions, they are a tic, and a poke, and a poker, and all they signal is that you did not look and think at all, you just jabbered away.
Look at the customer, at what they brought, and what they think, and the weather and the date and their hands and their friends and their attitude. It will take but a moment. If they need more, or less, then help. But asking, that is not helping.
'Would you like a single or a double' — 'For here or to go' — it is the machinery of commerce but not of humanity. It is a misuse of language. And makes the interaction a token. The task of a shop is to make the street and the time come alive, not fall into a metronome of smiley-faced hellos.

I have tried to avoid analyzing the successes and failures of 2025. I love a good spreadsheet, but I can get bogged down in details that can paint an incomplete picture. The good news is that I am still here, and will continue on with my experiment I call a business in 2026. I don’t have an interest in doing anything else.

But one particular aspect of the last year has stuck out to me: mentorship. Customers saw what I was doing at home with my gardens and my perennial trials, and were eager to talk and apply what they learned to their own gardening problems.

They could see the struggle in real time. We would discuss what I was currently working on, and inspect how earlier projects were establishing. They could see the plants develop and change each time they visited. And we could look at the perennials I had in stock that might help them with their own issues.

The point wasn’t to make a sale (although I am aware that I am trying to run a business). The point was the discussion. The connection. Bouncing ideas around.

I don’t like the idea of salesmanship. I don’t like when a random person in a store approaches me asking if they can “help”. To me, if they could it meant that I hadn’t done my research. The only reason to go to a shop was to interact with whatever I was looking at online to make sure I didn’t miss anything.

But funny enough, I was told in my one sales job at the Azilda Greenhouses that I was good at helping people. Thinking back on it, I’m sure I laughed the compliment away at the time because I did not enjoy selling things. But I clearly missed the meaning behind the message. Connecting with people, understanding their problems, and offering potential solutions is not salesmanship.

So what do I do with this new insight? While I don’t have a traditional shop, I am inviting people to my home to pick up their perennial orders. So in that sense, I still need to be aware of a lot of the topics Peter Millar discusses in his book. It kind of makes me feel like I am back at the UBC Botanical Garden tending to the front entrance garden beds (first impressions are crucial, after all). But more importantly, it makes me want to expand on what mentorship means.

Currently, the slow burn side of this problem is the perennial plant library that is part of my membership program. While I created the framework for the library last year, it didn’t feel quite right. I am working on remaking this part of the website right now. I need something that I can grow with, where I can easily update entries with the observations I make from my trial gardens. But making something of value is going to take time.

The quick burn side, however, is something new: trial garden walks. I don’t want to charge for this as so many positive things can come out of meeting with people. But the memory of working at Azilda during the busy season is still very fresh. I am extremely protective of my time and the commitments I make. Leaving things open to the public to define is a disaster waiting to happen. So I will add the cost of my yearly membership as a filter to the outside world.

Then I can focus my attention on those who are looking for something more than getting some “change back from their $50”.