Welcome To Purple Hippo Botanicals!

Purple Hippo Botanicals is a small, locally owned farm providing perennial flowers for bees, birds and butterflies and herbs, fruits and vegetables for humans that are grown using organic methods.

Located in Boulder and Louisville, Colorado, Purple Hippo Botanicals started business in 2007 at the Boulder County Farmers Market. Owners Tracy Kessner and Heather Burtness have almost 50 years of combined experience in agriculture and a passion for plants.

All of our plants are raised from seeds or cuttings, organically, in Boulder County.

Tracy and Heather at the Market

How It All Began

It was a grey and cloudy day. Our heroines were dropping their respective four year olds off at the local Rec Center pre-school when Heather mentioned what a yucky day it was. Tracy agreed and casually mentioned that she was about to go home and make some chai, for surely this was chai drinking weather. Heather's eyes lit up at the word chai and in that instant, a friendship was born.

Many cups of chai later, in the spring, Heather was admiring Tracy's front yard which was filled with xeric plants growing on a ridiculous slope (It used to be lawn.). Being crazy about plants, Tracy talked Heather's ear off and mentioned that she'd grown over 600 (641 in 2006, to be precise and some other equally large number in 2005, to be imprecise.) of them for the front yard from seed. Astonished at this clear sign of insanity Herculean gardening feat, Heather suggested Tracy could sell them at the local Farmer's Market. "No way!" was Tracy's studied response. "Surely no one would be interested in my plants!" "Absolutely." Heather returned, armed with her years of experience as the Director of the Longmont Market. Suddenly, it occurred to them both that between them they had the makings of a fantastic growing team and in that instant, the idea for Purple Hippo Botanicals was born.

Purple Hippo?!

Once past the Could We Do It? and Should We Do It? stages, we had to settle on a name for our joint venture. Since anything with our first or last names coupled with the word Farm didn't seem memorable enough, we kept on searching. Tracy's husband suggested Purple Hippo Botanicals and it struck a chord.

Purple just happens to be Heather's favorite color, while the hippo is one of Tracy's favorite animals. Botanicals means "connected with the study or cultivation of plants" and immediately lets you know that plants are our business. It would work!

Funny, odd and most of all memorable.

And that, as they say, was that.