About Us

Plants Unlimited, Inc. was started 50+ years ago by Nancy Goldstein and John Goldstein in Moraga, CA.  A few years later, they moved the business to San Lorenzo, Ca. and were there until the early 2000's. Currently, the company is located in Castro Valley, Ca. and continues to sell Exotic or Rare wholesale plants, as well as design and service interior and exterior landscapes throughout the Bay Area. Many of the plants that they grow will thrive outdoors in the temperate areas of the Bay Area.  While they do not do "mow and blow," they have gone back to helping homeowners take care of their yard maintenance.  They grew tired of hearing and seeing the arbitrary cuts of an arborist or the hacking of a 'gardener'. Growers, like ourselves, trim to make plants grow better, each year, and know what maintenance is needed to keep plants healthy and happy.  They are very happy to show you how to take care of your garden better than you ever thought by applying pesticide or fungicide chemicals whether they are 'organic' or not.  John and his team have been using chemicals for pests or bug control since the 1960s.  This allows him to tell you what he would do with a lot of background and safety for us humans and the environment.


If you want the plants in your yard or office facility to look like they are fresh from a nursery, you should hire growers to take care of your plants!

Read the speech John gave when accepting Nancy's  Hall of Fame award,  posthumously,  on his mom's behalf, Read here.

Nancy Goldstein vowed that getting into the horticulture business was the last thing she intended to do. "I was a doctor's wife, raising orchids and what I thought were rare plants as a hobby. Now, we have a multi-million dollar company and all the responsibility that goes with it." as expressed in The Nurserymen's magazine.

When Nancy and her son John moved Plants Unlimited to San Lorenzo, CA. in 1977, it wasn't your standard greenhouse business. Nancy had been dabbling in interiorscaping since 1970 and John  was growing plants for her use. John was fixing neighbors landscaping and producing plants while he was in night school.  At 16, John took on the cut flower industry and moved their part of that industry to tropical and subtropical plants and away from a dying industry.

Then, almost overnight, the interiorscape industry took off and demand for the Goldsteins' acclimated Ficus and exotics for interiors put them in the wholesale business in a big way.  The 100,000 square feet of greenhouses thrived in the 1980's and 90's with an array of exotic plants that the interiorscapers loved. Since the interiorscapers had great success with the acclimated foliage, retail nurseries began to covet the products as well.  

Nancy lost her battle with Diabetes in 1997, but her heart and soul live on in her business. The San Lorenzo facility closed in the early 2000's, but the business still continues to grow for you in Castro Valley, CA. 

            

John R. Goldstein

President of the Corporation

Roberto Alvarado Rodriguez

Vice President of the Corporation

Some of the recognition for what Nancy had started in the early 1970's when woman were rarely in the workforce, much less owning a business.

Nancy in the early 1980's admiring a 13-14' Ficus benjamina, a tiny piece of the nursery (some called a jungle) in San Lorenzo.  The interiorscape landscape boom in the 1980s pushed Nancy and John Goldstein into a multi-million dollar business.


Our entry into the San Mateo County fair made the cover of the phone book in 1983. John and his team installed this when he was 22. Bromeliads became one of the most used interior plants a few years after this show.   


The Atrium at Skywalker designed and installed by John and his team for the Interiorscape company that does the maintenance  at the Ranch in Novato, CA...