Prick
What is it: London’s first store dedicated entirely to cacti and succulents on Dalston’s Kingsland Road.
Why you’ll love it: With their geometric forms and unusual presentations, the plant life here read as nature’s aesthetic conjurings. Nominated for High Street Shop of 2020, the store feels more like a boutique than a garden center, with white walls, sculptural plinths, shelves of ceramics — “prick pots” – many of which have been commissioned by local artists and books on the subject rounding out the interior landscape. Even the wood here is sourced from the Natural History Museum’s Reading Rooms.
What you need to know: Prick was founded by Gynelle Leon, who at the age of 30 on a quest for a different story of happiness than the one she’d been sold retrained as a florist. Her love of plants had started to edge out an early career in finance and fraud prevention (her degree was in Forensic Science). A 2011 visit to Yves Saint Laurent’s Jardin Majorelle in Marrakesh led her to fall for cacti’s diverse forms and set her on a global search to become an expert taking in the epic desert plant-life of the United States. Leon now sources unusual specimens (the shop stocks over 150 types) throughout the UK and Europe, forging relationships with auctions, nurseries, and collectors to curate the store’s collection of cacti and succulents.
In the summer, Prick expanded from just the plant shop to a new space which according to Gynelle “is not a shop but our event space for workshops, talks, panel discussions lectures, book clubs, coffee mornings… I love community and have always dreamt of a space where we can celebrate and enjoy plant culture.” Due to shifting COVID rules, we suggest checking social media for updates on this new stage of Prick.
Why we think it matters: As we spend more time at home – and we can all feel differently about that – those little pops of green around us start to matter. Plants have a direct impact on our wellbeing: seeing them reduces stress, caring for them gets us out of our heads, and even the air we breathe improves. Gynelle has been open about her own experiences of depression, stress, and anxiety and how “being around nature and especially caring for my houseplants provides me with moments of calm and allows me to be in flow.”
And yet, who has access to green spaces and those green pots, indeed who can cultivate them, hasn’t been historically equal. On researching and developing Prick, Gynelle found that she was one of the few people of color in horticulture, a field dominated by middle-class white men. She has since made it part of her mission to bring plants to everyone. That’s part of the appeal of houseplants – they can be for all — there’s no need for outdoor spaces, or vast amounts of experience, or expensive tools. Hardy, needing very little attention, cacti and succulents are the perfect companions for busy city dwellers and everyone who wants to tend to them. As Leon says: “We all should have the right to a connection with nature and the ability to make a career out of it. The representation in gardening media and the large horticultural bodies must change to inspire those of all walks of life and race.”
In their own words: “Prick sees cacti and succulents as living sculptures that take years to fully develop…A succulent plant has the potential to live for many years, sometimes even outliving its owners. Investing in plants is like gaining new flatmates or family members; a break away from our modern disposable culture.”
Gift edit: The shop is now in book form, Prick, but we’re also coveting this one and this one.
Something to do: Participate in Black Pound Day, started by Swiss of So Solid Crew, and now backed by Google, which takes place on the first Saturday of the month to encourage people to support black-owned businesses.
