10-26-2023 Howard - Flipbook - Page 16
HIGHLIGHT
BY KAREN NITKIN For Howard Magazine
Amy Poff, owner of Hallowed Ground, trims plants in an outdoor area. The store sells a variety of plant containers, below. PHOTOS BY
BARBARA HADDOCK TAYLOR
Taking root
Garden-themed store is a natural next step
Hallowed Ground, which opened in a former Oella church in
June, sells plants and planting accessories like pots and trowels;
as well as jewelry, candles and other items with botanical themes.
It has a small nursery and classroom space where owner Amy
Poff plans to offer classes in plant-related topics like making terrariums, seasonal wreaths, or kokodama — growing a decorative
plant in a moss-covered ball of soil.
“It’s important to me to have a space that feels like a community,” said Poff, 47, who lives in Marriottsville. “I always wanted to
have a store that had a teaching space. I just joke with everybody
that it took me until my late 40s to do it.”
Poff grew up in Catonsville, in a “big house with a big garden
and parents who embraced farming,” she said. They grew vegetables and flowers on their acre and a half, and Poff has warm
memories of eating fresh peas, straight from the earth.
Her mother Pegg Poff, an art, theater and special education
teacher, is also a fiber artist who grew goldenrod, pokeberries
and other plants to use as natural dyes. Her father, Bill, is an
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| Fall 2023 | howardmagazine.com