Cactus & Tropicals
Address: 2735 South 2000 East (see map)
7696 South Main Street
Telephone: 801-485-2542
385-253-4790
Website: cactusandtropicals.com
District: Sugar House (see map)
Midvale
“Every day we are creating a beautiful space while always trying to do our very best for our customers and our employees." That spirit runs through Cactus & Tropicals, the beloved Salt Lake business owned by Karin and Scott Pynes and guided day to day by Kath Harbin, the general manager who has helped shape the company for decades. Step through the doors and it is easy to get lost in the beauty: lush foliage, blooming plants, and thoughtfully layered displays that make the greenhouse feel more like an escape than a store. But behind that sense of calm is a much longer story, one that stretches from the mountains outside Munich, Germany, to the streets of St. Louis, to a bold young woman named Lorraine Miller whose dream first took root here in 1975.
Karin’s story begins outside Munich where she grew up in what Scott describes as “probably the most beautiful spot in the country.” Her childhood was steeped in the natural world. “I had the perfect childhood: picking strawberries, wild berries, and mushrooms in the forest, swimming in the lakes, hiking, and skiing.” Karin earned a business degree and went to work in the ski industry, a natural fit for someone raised among snow and mountains. The company she worked for, Marker Ski Binding, was originally German before being bought by an American company with headquarters in Utah. That connection would change her life in more ways than one.
Scott, who grew up in St. Louis after being born in Los Angeles, came to Utah for school, and earned a master’s degree in accounting. His path, at least on paper, looked far more numerical than botanical. He worked for Arthur Andersen, then started his own software and consulting business, Assist Cornerstone Technologies. One of the companies his firm consulted for was Marker Ski Binding, and that work took him to Germany. That is where he met Karin.
Scott had been there as a consultant, and, as Karin laughingly put it, “somebody had to spice up his experience in Germany.” They met while sightseeing in 1988, dated for several years, and in 1991 Karin transferred to the United States, just before turning thirty. The move brought her to Salt Lake City, to Scott, and to a very different landscape from the one she had known growing up. Yet there was something familiar in it too - mountains, open air, and a way of life that still left room for nature.
By then, Scott’s career was thriving. He grew Assist, sold the company in 2000, and he and Karin took a year off to travel and enjoy life with their two young children. Then a friend introduced Scott to the owner of a business that was for sale. He and Karin had already been customers at Cactus & Tropicals and were drawn to it in exactly the same way so many customers still are.
“We liked everything about the store, the way it made you feel as you walked through the doors,” Scott said. It was not just the plants. It was the nursery, the fountains, the atmosphere, the sense that this was “so different than everything else.” Karin, who also had a business background, saw something more in it too. Scott may have come from accounting and consulting, but Karin had an eye for design, beauty, and the emotional side of how a place feels. Scott laughed that he was the numbers guy, yet he also admitted there had always been another side to him, one interested in graphics, presentation, and creativity. Owning Cactus & Tropicals gave both of them a place to bring those instincts together. They bought the business in 2002.
Still, the roots of Cactus & Tropicals go back much further, to Lorraine Miller, the remarkable founder whose vision still shapes the company today. Kath tells that story with deep affection. In 1975, Lorraine was a young single woman with a degree in history who was, in Scott’s words, someone who “didn’t like her bosses telling her what to do.” She thought plants were cool, found a little shop, and opened the business in July of that year. She lived upstairs. She had spent time in Haight-Ashbury, served as a VISTA volunteer in the South during the 1960s, and carried with her what Kath described as a bulldog determination.
In those days, being a woman in business came with real obstacles. Lorraine could not get a loan from a bank. She could not buy a delivery vehicle without a husband’s signature. She did not have a husband, so she sat in the lobby until somebody finally agreed to give her a loan and a credit card. In 1978, the city took over the property where her shop was located through eminent domain and gave Lorraine some money for forcing her out of her lease. With that money, and with help from her brother, she found the current Salt Lake property and began building what would become Cactus & Tropicals as people know it today.
“She and her buddy built the first greenhouse from the ground up,” Kath recalled. It was winter. They used charcoal briquettes to thaw the ground so they could dig post holes. Lorraine’s first love was cactus. That was all she thought she would sell. She would drive overnight to California in her Volkswagen, buy some cactus, drive back, and open the store in the morning. “She would say if she could do $20 a day, she would make it.”
Little by little, Lorraine expanded. She bought neighboring properties over time, often paying cash. She tackled a former gas station on the corner that came with all kinds of complications underground. She kept pushing. By 1994, Lorraine had been named the National Small Business Person of the Year by the SBA, becoming the first person from Utah and only the third woman to receive the honor. The photograph of her with Bill Clinton is still hanging in the office.
Kath believes Lorraine eventually sold because the business had grown beyond what could remain only her baby. “She was the visionary, really,” Scott said. “The concept of having a customer experience where you walk in the door and you say, wow, that was her.” Karin and Scott are the first to say they built on that vision rather than replacing it.
No one understands that evolution better than Kath. Born in Illinois and brought to Utah in 1978 by her parents, Kath grew up outdoorsy - a swimmer, a water polo player, a skier. She is wonderfully candid about the years that followed high school. “I floundered around and tried to figure out how to be a person.” Her first nursery job came almost by accident in Bountiful in the early 1980s, planting seeds at Wuthrich’s Nursery after she walked by one day and simply went in. She did landscaping for an apartment complex in Midvale, washed windows in the winter, got fired from one job because, as she puts it, “I was still a punk, figuring out how to be a person,” and kept going. At Glover Nursery she began learning more seriously about plants, wholesale accounts, and the business itself.
Then in 1989, Kath came to Cactus & Tropicals as a plant technician, going out to maintain interior plant accounts. At the time, the company had just six employees.
Over the years, Kath grew with the business, and the business grew with her. She learned every corner of the operation, eventually taking on broader leadership, and by the time Lorraine sold the company, Kath was already functioning as its general manager. Today, she oversees an extraordinary range of moving parts, from retail spaces to commercial accounts, to the people who keep it all running.
When Karin and Scott took over in 2002, Kath admitted she was understandably nervous. Change in ownership can bring uncertainty. Instead, she found partners who respected what she knew and allowed her to do what she does best. She describes them as “brilliant and generous and kind,” and says they have been “the perfect people for that position since the beginning.”
Scott tells a funny version of that early dynamic from his side. Coming from a world of systems, consultants, and formal business credentials, he initially looked at Kath through a very corporate lens. On paper, he was not sure what to make of her. But paper tells only part of the story. Over time, he realized what mattered most. “Kath is a natural leader,” he said. "That is not always being perfect friends with everybody, but it is also holding people accountable, while also being fair and generous and caring.” Their different backgrounds ended up becoming one of the company’s strengths.
That partnership helped carry Cactus & Tropicals into its next chapter. There were huge projects from the start: barcoding inventory, building a website, creating online sales, launching a frequent shopper program. Four years after buying the company, Karin and Scott opened a store in Draper. Then in January 2025, they opened Midvale, their third retail location. The Midvale location, set in a century-old building on Main Street, reflects their desire to preserve history while contributing to the evolving neighborhood around it.
Along the way, the commercial plant service division exploded from about fifteen accounts to roughly 1,100. A small operation became a complex, evolving business without ever losing its original heart.
Today, Cactus & Tropicals is many things at once. It is a place for indoor plants, orchids, bonsai, cactus, blooming plants, garden goods, containers, fountains, statuary, books, linens, tabletop pieces, and a plethora of beautifully curated gift items. But more than anything, it is a place where people come for inspiration. As Karin explained, customers are often looking not simply for a plant, but for ideas, for ways to bring beauty into their homes, patios, and workplaces.
One of the things that sets Cactus & Tropicals apart is the way the spaces are arranged. Kath explained that the goal is never to feel like a warehouse of plants. Each corner is designed so that wherever you look, something beautiful catches your eye. “The rows are straight, the plants are clean, there are no dead leaves, the gravel is raked,” she said. “Everywhere you look, we want it to be perfect.”
That attention to detail extends beyond the greenhouse doors. The company designs and installs plant displays for homes and businesses throughout the valley and maintains them through a large service team. They also create custom arrangements, holiday décor, and seasonal installations that bring plants and flowers into everyday spaces.
Despite the growth that Cactus & Tropicals has experienced over the years, the heart of the business remains as it was when Lorraine first opened her small shop in 1975. Karin, Scott, and Kath all return to the same idea again and again - that plants bring people joy and creating a space where people can experience that joy is worth the effort. And every day, that is exactly what they set out to do. “As the people responsible for all of this, the most important thing to me are the people on our team,” Kath said. “Everybody who works here has a dedication and a passion for creating a beautiful space. We want to make it easy for our customers to enjoy what we enjoy. It is hard work, but that is what we strive to do every day.”
