At Seed Atlanta, the plants are almost beside the point
On any given Sunday at Seed Atlanta, the plants aren’t just sitting there.
They’re being examined — turned over, held up to the light, debated — the way you might size up an adoptable puppy or a limited-edition tee you didn’t know you needed until it was in your hands.
The espresso martinis are flowing.
A DJ is setting the temperature. Local vendors — ceramicists, jewelry designers, and more — line the edges of the room. And somewhere in the mix, a woman is quietly checking the bar stock and the seedling reserves before the next shopper wave comes in.
That’s Campbell Washington, 29. She has a martini to pour and a line of people who don’t know each other yet.
Washington, a Spelman College graduate and SCAD-trained photographer, spends most Sundays engineering other people’s good time. Somewhere between the espresso martinis, the Monstera and the come-one-come-all vibe, she’s built something that’s about more than selling plants: a reason for strangers to stay.
From Instagram to the Interlock
As an artsy student, Washington had always loved still-life photography, with plants among her favorite subjects.
But Campbell — who always has a lash on, at the very least — saw them as personalities too. Something to debate, choose, take home and introduce to your space like a new friend.
She started selling plants out of her apartment via Instagram stories in January 2021, during the pandemic.
People needed something to tend to. They weren’t quite ready to be outside again.
Washington saw an opportunity — not just to sell plants, but to build a platform around them. She had the photography background. She knew how to tell a story.
“Let’s see if we can put plants on a platform,” she thought. And then she noticed something else: there was an espresso martini craze happening at the same time.
“I love espresso martinis. I know people love something free,” she said. “Why not have a drink and a plant shop in this one space?”
Pop-ups came first — festivals and markets where she started to clock something. People weren’t just coming for the plants. They were coming for the experience, the gathering, each other.
“Even if no one comes into my shop and they only do this once a month, it’s just something else different to do,” she said.
That instinct became Plantini.
Buckhead became home to her first brick-and-mortar, a larger space. An unexpected move eventually pushed her to the Interlock, a smaller footprint she’s still growing into, with events spilling into neighboring Holiday Bar when she needs more room.
Through every pivot, her attitude has remained the same.
“That was not in my bingo card,” she said of the plant shop life. “But I think bingo cards are officially wild cards now.”
Atlanta’s most social plant shop
At Plantini, her monthly ticketed plant-and-cocktail pop-up, the line to get in stretches out the door. Nobody seems to mind. By the time some people make it in, they’ve exchanged numbers and handles with someone they’d been standing next to.
Washington designs it that way: scavenger hunts that force you to talk to someone you didn’t come with, plant-loving friends and volunteers peppered around to answer questions.
The space is arranged so your eyes bounce from the deep burgundy of a Calathea to Technicolor Crotons to an interesting-looking stranger.
And if Plantini is the higher-energy entry point, Washington’s second signature format, Sip+Soil, is its quieter cousin: a cocktail-and-repotting class where guests choose their own syrups, liquors, and garnishes alongside their plants.
“If you can have all these choices within planting, then you should also be able to have all those choices in the cocktail making as well,” she said.
Different speed and volume.
Both intentional.
“I also think that the word community is a little overdone,” she said. “So I’m like, well, let’s remind people what that actually looks like.”
Zoe Dare, a regular, describes walking into the shop like showing up at a friend’s place.
“Even when you’re in the store, it doesn’t feel like a store,” she said. “It feels like you’re going to your girlfriend’s house to hang out. She’s going to ask you all the questions. She’s going to be super sweet. She’s going to be honest.”
Walk into Seed Atlanta uncertain — about plants, about the scene, about whether any of this is for you — and Washington won’t push you toward anything.
“Walk around,” she tells first-timers. “See what comes to you.”
People leave with a plant they picked themselves and a free espresso martini.
Rasheed Williams, who’s sold his Toni’s Spicy Mama Hot Sauce at Seed Atlanta events for years, likens the whole operation to an ecosystem.
“Every element and everyone is feeding everything else,” he said, describing Washington in the same language she uses for her plants. “Campbell feels like Mother Nature. She has this root system network magic going.”
Each invited vendor brings their own following into the event. They cross-promote, cover booths when someone needs a break, recommend one another for other opportunities.
“So now instead of just the people that know you, 500 new people can see what you have to share,” Washington said.
Effervescent host, always-on analyst
Washington will tell you she stays inspired because it’s fun. But watch her long enough and you’ll notice something else running underneath the fun — a mind that is constantly clocking, calculating, and recalibrating.
Between events she’s watering plants, filming promo content for drink sponsors, and running the numbers on cost-per-pour and repotting freebies. She checks her viewer location data to figure out where to pop up next — Texas has been on her radar.
It took her a while to trust that combination.
“I used to always say I’m not going to do video, I only want to do photography,” she said. “And now I’m like, girl, just simplify it. Don’t overthink it.”
There have been hard days. Moves that weren’t in the cards. Mornings after a post landed flat, or a follower count didn’t tick up after a key partnership debut.
“Some of my friends tell me, ‘Remember Campbell, when you were crying about how you didn’t see follower growth or RSVPs after putting in so much work?’” she said. “But the hard times, you just push through.”
Her approach when something doesn’t work: don’t dwell on the why.
“Just notice that it didn’t, and then try to change it up and keep moving forward.”
The success hasn’t made her complacent.
“An event series can go extremely viral for so long, and then all of a sudden it’s dead in the water,” she said. “So try to make sure that you keep the consistency, and learn how to pivot.”
She said a good day at the shop is when people come in, learn something, meet someone, and leave differently than they arrived, whether they bought a plant or not.
Walk around, see what comes to you
Dare puts it more personally.
Before Seed Atlanta, she’d written plants off entirely. She traveled constantly for work and figured she was never home long enough to keep anything alive.
Washington’s approach changed that. She didn’t push Dare toward anything. She let her wander until something called to her.
Now Dare talks to her plants daily.
“If I can wake up every morning and tell a plant I love them,” she says, “I can wake up and tell me I love me every morning.”
Washington has the same advice for anyone unsure whether plants — or the scene she’s built around them — are for them.
“Walk around,” she said. “See what comes to you.”
@seedatlanta | theseedatlanta.com
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