Renata's Garden

She brings plants to the people.

Story and Photos by Bill Spigel

Every visitor to Renata Goossen's place of business has a cue that invites a personalized greeting.

There's the girl with the bright orange Halloween socks, or the frazzled mother with pretty earrings. Renata takes note and shares a kind word that immediately brightens their day.

She shares this gift in her "Plant Bus,"—a 24-foot renovated school bus she found on Facebook Marketplace, bought, renovated and painted, and that serves as the mobile marketplace for a business that revolves around her love for horticulture.

An early start. Goossen has always known that she wanted to have a career in plants.

Beginning at age 13, she began selling tomato plant starts she grew in her parents' greenhouse to earn spending money.

In the back of her mind, she has her grandfather Olin Claassen as her inspiration. He was a servant leader in the local Mennonite church and throughout the community, showing genuine interest in others and always striving to help.

Young Renata was at his side constantly and learned how to engage people from him.

From her parents, Carl and Kristine Goossen, she learned to love plants, helping them tend their family garden. She joined the North Butler 4-H Club in Butler County, Kansas, (grandfather Olin was a charter member) and her long-term goal was to make it to the National 4-H Horticulture Contest, something she accomplished her freshman year at Kansas State University.

In college, Goossen threw herself into internships and activities that helped shape her horticulture science degree and fostered a career that brings joy to others.

She graduated college in 2021, knowing she wanted to start her own business. The vision for taking plants to the people was inspired by an internship in the Netherlands, where vendors offered plants, bulbs, and cut flowers for sale along canals. As for the bus, she remembered how a renovated school bus was used to help feed kids over the summer in a nearby town.

That's when she decided to strike out on her own, enlisting the help of her parents to turn the retired school bus into a unique experience.

Goossen did much of the plant bus renovations herself, building shelves, adding lights, and installing fans to circulate air on warm days. Carefully planned and tastefully appointed, she transformed a school bus into a beautiful mobile nursery.

"I designed the bus interior around that sink," she explains, showing off a cast-off kitchen sink from her brother's house that she fixed up and installed in a counter. "I want to have hands-on sessions with kids in here."

Above. A renovated school bus deemed the "Plant Bus" holds an array of fresh plants and decor, procured near her Potwin, Kansas, home. Trained in horticulture, Goossen also designs her own marketing materials, including shirts, tote bags, and more. Goossen holds "pop-up" events each week within a 60-mile radius of Potwin, Kansas. Locally crafted pottery are designed specifically for Goossen's plants. Dried wildflowers come from native prairie near her home.

Plants to the people. She loves people, and that's why she takes the Plant Bus to small businesses within a 60-mile radius of her Potwin, Kansas, home.

"I really thrive in person-to-person interaction," she says.

Whether or not a visitor to the Plant Bus buys something, the positive vibe Renata gives off is apparent. Adults relax a bit. Children pause, look around and are in awe of something—perhaps the fairy gardens she has created, t-shirts and tote bags she designed, or handcrafted ceramics from her friend Brooklyn White of White Ranch Pottery in nearby El Dorado, Kansas. The whole display, which must be unpacked and arranged at each pop-up stop, is carefully arranged.

"I just love the Plant Bus," says Miaka Rivera, a Derby, Kansas, visitor who stopped in during one of Goossen's pop-up stops. "It is just so beautiful."

Some weeks her calendar is filled; others she spends just a day or two hosting pop-ups. But she is always busy, with two greenhouses at home filled with plants that need constant care. Inventory changes with the seasons. Houseplants are offered year round, but in the spring she sells garden plants, while late summer she switches to dried flowers, gathered from the Flint Hills pasture owned by her family.

Prairie keepsakes. In the fall of 2022 she began to create and sell prairie ornaments featuring those same dried flowers, giving shoppers a bit of prairie whimsy to hang on their trees.

But live plants are her passion, and she wants her followers to enjoy success nurturing them, too. The sale of each plant contains a QR code linked to her website's plant guide, and Goossen's social presence is impressive. Under Renata's Garden, her Facebook and Instagram pages offer a mix of entertainment and gardening advice, whereas her Substack and YouTube platforms offer educational content.

Long term, she hopes to hire employees to help her manage the load. In the meantime, however, spreading happiness is worth all the effort she puts into her business.

"I hope that my creations spark joy in everyone who comes in contact with my business," she says. "That gives me purpose." ‡

Agriculture, Rural Living March 01, 2026

Renata's Garden

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