Floraltology: Sibling-run shop with a money bouquet and more

PHILADELPHIA-You can easily spot Floraltology on 63rd Street by the colorful floral mural that wraps around the entire building. Inside Ngoc Lam-Mathis and her brother Thi do arrangements for weddings, funerals and all kinds of special occasions. Ngoc is the head florist; brother Thi is the business manager and they own the business together.

The siblings emigrated from Vietnam a quarter century ago as children, among the last families accepted into the American resettlement program after the Vietnam War.

Their father had worked for the South Vietnam government and after the fall of Saigon, Ngoc says, he was sent by the North to prison, "a re-education camp," for 6-7 years.

As devout Catholics, the family attended Saint Francis De Sales In West Philadelphia and Ngoc's father volunteered her to do floral arrangements for the church. She hated it but then came to accept it and eventually love it. She got her masters in criminal justice and worked over a decade as a probation officer but came her floral designing as a side hustle the entire time. When a longtime flower shop in her neighborhood went up for sale, she decided to leave criminal justice and take the entrepreneurial plunge, and her brother, Thi, agreed to go in on the business with her.

They try to be a one-stop shop with fresh floral arrangements plus silk flower keepsakes, plants and attention grabbing gifts like a giant foam flower teddy bear they've dubbed Gary.

And because flowers die but cash is always king, they invented what they call 'the money bouquet, ' with $1, $10 and $20 bills wrapped around each flower in the arrangement. Gnoc says it's proven to be pretty popular, "It's good for a birthday or something like that."

Floraltology, LLC| Website | Facebook | Instagram

2601 S. 63rd Street, Philadelphia, Pa. 19142

(215) 724-0670 | floraltology@gmail.com