The Palm Room

I stumbled upon this shop when I was out looking for prints — wasn’t even in the plant buying mood. The atmosphere immediately drew me in, the front door and the (i’m assuming) garage door was wide open, I couldn’t help but peak in! Immediately I wanted everything, but I’ve had my eye on a hanging plant to match the others in our apartment. I went up to the gentleman working, who I later found out is Somerset, and basically told him i wanted a hanging plant; not too big, not too small, kind of hangy, maybe not too much? I basically gave him no idea of what I wanted but he took the time to walk around with me and point out all the different kinds of hanging items they had. I left with such a bad ass hanging plant, now I just want all of them.
Amazing shop, great customer service and definitely recommend for all your plant needs.

The succulent, air plant, cactus, and potting selection is divine… And very reasonably priced! The staff is very helpful and knowledgable, and give great tips on how to care for your exotic plants. The Palm Room is a must stop shop when your in Ballard or if you are a plant lover/​hoarder :)

I’ve been through this shop a couple times since it’s very visually appealing. Unfortunately, like many other reviewers, I’ve found the staff pretty rude when I look to them for advice or expertise. I’m going to stop going here and will instead go to other shops where there’s similar selection, but less drama.

It’s a cute little place for a plant shop if you’re in the Ballard area. Since it is small though, there isn’t a huge selection of plants. if you are looking for smaller desk plants, cacti, and different succulents I would check this place out. Though when it is busy (a few people in there) and you are browsing around, you don’t really get any help and the workers didn’t even greet my friends and I. They seemed to be very knowledgeable though from what I could tell from their conversations to another customer.

The Palm Room is the cutest little plant shop in Seattle! I went here recently to purchase my first air plant on the recommendation of a friend. I’m fairly new to the PNW (almost five years), and coming from the desert, I was terrified to buy any plants due to the light and weather differences. The shop staff is very helpful and informative. They are great with helping you make the right selection based on your needs. All of the encouragement that I needed to take that step and leave for home with a new plant baby.
I will definitely be back. :)

The Palm Room is my favorite plant shop in the area. To a person, the staff is wonderful — friendly, patient, and knowledgable. They’re always willing to chat about how best to care for a plant. The plants themselves are healthy and beautiful, and it seems they are constantly rotating their stock so there’s always something new to see. Great selection of pots, too, and they put together some really cool arrangements. Go!

The Palm Room is the best place to buy plants in Seattle. The atmosphere is incredibly pleasant and the plants are beautiful and healthy. I haven’t found a store that has a more attractive selection of pots and planters and every time I visit I’m so impressed by the knowledge, patience and thoughtfulness of the staff.

This is the happiest place in Ballard.
I don’t think the staff know how amazingly fresh it feels to walk in and in-​hale that sweet sweet plant oxygen. I digress…
I went to Swanson’s and West Elm looking for BIG, HEALTHY, and reasonably priced air plants for my wedding centerpieces (DIY, am I right?)
I had called ahead to The Palm Room to try and place a bulk order, they took down my number, and called again later to apologize that they wouldn’t be able to. So kind.
I wandered in a few days before the wedding to see what they had.
The owner, bless his heart, was there that day and had me in fits of laughter as he snarked on big box store florals, threw together a box of centerpieces, and tossed in some bonus grape wood branches and tiny tillandsias as «a wedding present»
Happiest vendor experience. Ever.
They always have the most darling displays and reasonable, exotic flora. The staff is friendly, knowledgable, and are good for laugh.
Thanks for making my wedding day look killer.

Very thoroughly disappointed. I just moved to the area a month ago and was very excited to visit this place. I wanted to get some air plants for our new apartment but they were always closed when I happened to walk by. A friend and I were a the farmers market and saw it was open and decided to pop in. I had my DSLR on me and decided to take a few pictures because the shop was so beautiful. I was near the back, trying to get a picture of the whole store, and a man working (not sure if he was the owner) who was currently helping a customer, stops his conversation and asks, «were you taking a picture of me?» in an accusatory tone. I said, «I was just trying to get a shot of the shop, it’s beautiful.» He then replied in a very condescending tone, «you need to delete that, that’s just rude.»
If you don’t want pictures taken in the shop, put up signs. Or try coming up and asking instead of embarrassing a potential customer in front of another employee and other customers. I was hoping this shop would be great to get gifts for friends but I will never, ever be coming in again and neither will the friend I was with. We couldn’t believe the way we were treated.

If I wasn’t visiting, I would have loaded up on indoor plants. They have lots of common indoor plants and some exotic. All levels covered! Even if you don’t buy anything, it’s a cool place to check out

I walked by the Palm Room while wandering Ballard and went in looking for a birthday present for my mom. What an awesome shop! There was a variety of cacti, air plants, succulents, and palms in all shapes and sizes. as well as pots, jars, and containers. It was hard to choose just one plant, because there was such a neat selection, and prices were reasonable too. I ended up buying two succulents, and my mom loved both of them.
The staff is friendly and will be able to answer any question you have! I’ll definitely be back for more succulents when I start creating my own terrarium, but will remember to practice self-​control because it could be so easy to spend a fortune here!

Wonderful little shop in the heart of Ballard. I wish my house looked like the inside of the Palm room! They make me want to experiment with terrariums.

Maybe my new favorite place in THE WHOLE WORLD???
The owner is so nice, and hilarious. My husband, a friend and I went here to browse, stayed for way too long, and left with a fiddle leaf fig tree, which I love.

They have a good selection of plants, and I was about to buy one — i was picking out the container — when I stepped in dog poop! The woman said «Oh he’s a senior citizen», indicating a dog lying down nearby. i asked if there was somewhere I could clean my shoes, and she said «There’s a sink back there.:» She did not offer any cleaning supplies or towels or any other help — she seemed completely unconcerned. After I washed off my shoes she was going to ring up the plant, and when I told her I didn’t really want it anymore, she practically slammed the door behind me as i was walking out.
I can understand if she needs to care for an elderly pet, but she should keep it in the back — don’t let it poop all over the floor inside the store! The plants seemed quite nice, but watch your step.

I always compare this to Pistils Nursery in Portland and love the Palm Room so much more. It’s actually really cheap in comparison and has a great selection of low maintenance plants as well as pots, glass jars, or containers for them. They only charge $ 1 for soil and $ 1 for rocks if you want them to be planted. They’ve given me discounts multiple times just for living in Seattle and buying a bunch of plants.
They also have classes. I took a terrarium building class and it was great for $ 50. I got to make two self sustaining terrariums about 5 months ago and they’re still doing great, as well as the two I had them make up for me in my own jars.
Staff is amazing and its a great city living kind of store to decorate your apartment with indoor plants. Highly recommend.

This is a great place to come to if you are interested in building your own terrarium. They have tons of different plants and rocks and were very helpful. I love my terrarium! :D

Just for reference, I’m a long time Unilocal user but this is my first ever post. I usually keep my opinions to myself and don’t get bothered much by the little things.
That said, my experience with the staff (specifically the owner) at this shop today was easily the worst I’ve ever had at a business of any kind in Seattle. I’m posting in an effort to help others avoid a disheartening situation in the future.
Over the last six months I’ve spent a fair amount of money at The Palm Room and had a generally good experience. One of the plants I bought wasn’t looking so good so we (my GF and I) took the plant in to get their opinion (was there disease?, what can we do to take care of it better?, etc.). We were just looking for help (never asked for a return). I thought this was a normal thing to do and that the staff would be friendly and helpful. I was wrong.
The owner of the shop named Brandon was flat out condescending and mean-​spirited. We left after about 5 minutes when it was apparent that they really didn’t want to listen or help. Exact quote, «what answer can I give you to make you happy?». At that point, I chalked it up to him having a bad day.
What happened next was even worse… I went to get the car while my GF waited with the plant outside the store. He came OUTSIDE the store and berated her about asking repetitive questions and not knowing enough about the plant. Outside? Really? How can having customers come in and ask employees of a plant store about plants which were purchased in said plant store lead to this? I accept that bad customer service exists in this world, but actually being purposefully mean to your customers? Way over the line for me, hence my post, hence I advise everyone to avoid this store. There are other plant shops out there…

My first visit to The Palm Room was last week and I walked away with a snake plant. I enjoyed this place so much I know I’ll be returning. I love the selection of plants they offer and I feel like the prices are reasonable. The guys that were in the shop at the time were very nice and helpful. They talked, without hovering too much or being overly pushy about sales, and answered any questions I had about the plants.
Probably the only downside for me is that I have to drive from Tacoma to pick up any future new plants but with how much I enjoyed my first visit I don’t really mind the drive.

Love this place! I know very little about plants but the staff there is super knowledgable, especially with educating us on how not to kill the plant we were buying. I dropped in to buy a plant for my grandparents-​in-​law who recently moved into an apartment after living in a house with a garden. We figured they’d love some greenery in their new home. I have no idea what kind of plant we got but i think it’s cactus related thought we almost got many of their succulents (I know they’re related and are possibly the same thing but it makes sense in my head. Ours is prickly, the succulents we were looking at were not, though I do believe a cactus is a succulent? I digress). ANYWAY. We definitely plan on returning to get some for our own new apartment here in Ballard. Green thumbs up to the Palm Room! P. S. They have terrarium classes here!

Just fantastic! I bought a few pre-​set terrariums a year or so ago from another spot in town and after not taking great care of them they died. I’m a bad plant owner, I know! I blame part of it on my cat and moving around the city.
Having been in here a number of times to shop and just look around, I thought it’d be the perfect spot to bring my now dead and empty terrariums for a facelift and a new life. I wasn’t quite sure how things worked, though. I was sort of hoping we could bring stuff in, pick out plants and come back to pick up the finished product later. Not the case! But as it turns out, I’m so glad it didn’t work like that.
Jim and I picked out plants, got lots of friendly suggestions and got tons of help from the gal working there. Since we had brought in the terrariums it made it easy for us to decide what would fit and what would be appropriate based on our needs. Then we bought rocks and other small accessories and had them pack the plants up. We got home and spent the last few hours (on a Friday night!) creating our own beautiful terrariums. It was a gloriously domestic and fun project. Paired with some wine and TV in the background, we had a really great time doing this project together.
In fact, we had so much fun we want to do it again. Which hopefully doesn’t mean our plants will die. And now we’ve got 3 gorgeous terrariums to show off!