A Rosy Future

Jennifer Polanz

Recently, an industry friend put me in touch with Chad Massura, founder of Rosy Soil, a new line of indoor potting mixes (and now plant food) for garden retailers and plant shops. We chatted this summer about how the company came about, what their focus is and what’s coming down the pike.

“I grew up gardening, but I got kind of obsessed with biochar specifically. The kind of rabbit hole that I went down in the biochar world, I think, kind of reconnected me to my background in gardening,” he said. “I just got totally obsessed with the idea of trying to create a higher
performance soil with a much lower environmental footprint.”

He brought in lead researcher Justin “Jules” Guiliano, who has a background in vermicompost and natural and organic farming, to explore formulations that would have a reduced carbon footprint.

“We just continue to sort of optimize towards those two metrics: how do we make the plant performance as high as possible and how do we make the footprint as low as humanly possible?” Chad said. “And so that has meant replacing peat with biochar, replacing synthetic fertilizers with compost and worm castings, replacing perlite with pine bark fines, replacing virgin plastics with PCR plastics and plastic neutral packaging.

“It’s trying to make decisions all the way up and down the supply chain.”

The biochar is essentially the base of the mixes offered, and it creates a unique soil structure and texture. They’ve had the most success with high-temperature wood char, but they’re also exploring other types, like crop residue chars that are made from the crop leftovers.

Along with its unique internal components, Rosy Soil also has a trendy, high-end look to the packaging that lets it stand out. The company, while selling to independents, also recently landed a seasonal deal with Target for 250 stores, which will help them scale up the operation. It’s a win for Target, too, who gets to tout the product’s lower carbon footprint as part of its sustainability initiative.

Currently, Rosy Soil has three blends: the Houseplant Mix, Cactus & Succulent Mix, and Seedling Mix. This summer the company launched its brand new Plant Food, too, which can be used as a topdressing on the soil and includes biochar, kelp meal, worm castings, compost and mycorrhizae, as well as bokashi, a fermented compost. Find out more at rosysoil.com. GP