One To Watch: Todd Holloway of Pot Inc.

Vancouver designer Todd Holloway turned a passion for plants into a career and revolutionized planter design along the way.

It’s no surprise that Todd Holloway’s version of teen rebellion involved a garden takeover. As a food-loving adolescent, he filled his parents’ Vancouver backyard with a bounty of “strange fruits”—kiwis, persimmons and figs. Today, the man behind container garden design firm Pot Inc. has branched out from those first edible forays into beautifying yards and patios for plant lovers across the Lower Mainland. Pot Inc.’s calling card is a line of stylish, thick-gauge aluminum planters, which range from hover dishes in striking shades like iceberg blue and chili red to large-scale customized planters in prism or circular shapes. They’re a response to Holloway’s post-grad frustrations: after a 1994 stint studying landscape horticulture at Capilano College (now Capilano University) opened his eyes to the appeal of plant design, he headed to the School of Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems at the University of California Santa Cruz. By 2001, he’d started his own firm, Toad Landscape Company, only to find himself dismayed by the lack of modern, quality planters available—and thus began the seeds of Pot Inc.“Outdoor elements, such as beautiful containers, can really complement the architecture of your space,” says Holloway. “You can rely on bold plants to add that organic factor to soften the hard lines of a home.” Holloway often uses unusual varietals like tree yuccas and bromeliads to reimagine residential and commercial spaces, and will soon be adding a sleek, low fire bowl to his container line.Holloway’s favourite project to date, an organic rooftop kitchen garden for the Vancouver Club (populated by Pot Inc.’s signature rectilinear boxes, naturally), was once a dilapidated, barely used roof area; now the space provides club members with house-grown mint leaves for their mojitos and delicate, edible flowers for their salads.