Innovative Gardening Business Takes Root in Santa Monica Revival Roots

The startup scene in Los Angeles is running strong - the city is now the third-most established outpost for startups in the country, behind San Francisco and New York.

Lower costs, warm weather, and a relaxed culture give entrepreneurs plenty of reasons to start new businesses in the area. One such business, Revival Roots, aims to transform the way everyday consumers grow and harvest food from their own backyards. 

Revival Roots builds vegetable gardens for homeowners and businesses in the Los Angeles area, taking care of every detail including the grubby work of weeding, shoveling, and irrigating. Each project is handcrafted and customized, depending on the customer's wants and needs, with the mission of making it simple and easy to grow food at home. 

Reed Newman, the founder of the business, is a recent graduate of Cornell University, where he studied environmental science at the School of Agriculture and Life Science.

During his senior year in college, he realized that there's a public desire to grow food but that the associated difficulties of starting a garden prevent people from doing so. 

Newman and his team consult with potential customers and embark on the arduous task of building raised beds to house the plants. The beds are constructed from new-growth California redwood, which contains rot-resistant properties, and the wood is never treated with chemicals. Following the initial consultation, Revival Roots installs the gardens into a desired location and plants the beds with chosen varieties. Newman and his team also install drip irrigation systems on every bed, programmed to manage water usage. 

"While in the past it was a necessity to grow at least a portion of your own food, today we rely on grocery stores and other secondary sources. My goal is to revive the practice of growing your own food to nourish you and your family," he said during an interview. 

Newman launched the company in November of 2016, and currently has one full-time employee and recruits part-time employees on an as-needed basis. In the future, he envisions designing products that make growing vegetables at home easier, thereby broadening his customer base outside of the Los Angeles area. 

Newman, who grew up in Los Angeles, always knew he'd come back to his hometown after college, and takes pride in the fact that all of his products are sourced from local vendors. "I source all seasonal, organic vegetable and herb varieties. I like to plant heirloom and unique cultivars that will thrive in the climate," he said. The plant beds are built in his Santa Monica workshop and his soil mix, too, is locally sourced. "I searched across the state to find the highest-quality organic soil." 

When asked what his favorite part of the experience has been thus far, Newman does not beat around the bush: "the client's first harvest!" That healthy enthusiasm will help cultivate plenty of success for this young startup.