Goldleaf Hydroponics

Goldleaf! We would love to see your garden or houseplant collection, and you’ll learn even more about what makes our company unique. Goldleaf Hydroponics is an active part of the local community. We work with schools and install hydro systems in classrooms from elementary to high school, volunteer at afterschool programs, volunteer and donate to local non-profits, and we even have a staff sponsored group called Goldleaf Hydroponics at IU which is based out of Indiana University’s Food Institute on campus. We have hosted field trips for college classes as well as elementary and middle school science groups. We have sold at local Farmers’ Markets every summer we’ve been in business, and we attend many garden fairs and give presentations to groups across Indiana. Goldleaf Hydroponics ships all over the world. We ship regularly to Europe, Africa, Canada, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Marshall Islands, and more. We have worked with customers to design complete grow rooms which we ship via pallet internationally. We also have partnered with a small farm in Ghana, West Africa, who supplies us with their herbal farm products for US distribution. We sell products like dried leaves, seeds, and even natural soaps and ointments to customers who have primarily come to the US and are seeking a source of their traditional cooking ingredients. In turn, we also supply our friends in Ghana with propagation supplies as they begin production of the first African kratom farm. Owners Kyle and Mónica Billman met in a large college lecture hall while attending Indiana University and were later married on campus. Kyle majored in Spanish and Linguistics while Mónica majored in French and Political Science. They still live in Bloomington, Indiana, where they are growing the business, raising a family and building a small farm and orchard. Mónica is originally from Mexico, and she and Kyle have a bilingual household speaking primarily Spanish at home and with their son. At the shop they also keep nearly 40 reptiles and amphibians that live in all-natural bioactive enclosures or terrariums. Outside the shop, Kyle and Mónica like to travel and see live music. Kyle performs frequently around Bloomington and plays guitar, bass, drums, and percussion. At Goldleaf, you can expect to hear a lot of reggae, funk, salsa, and world music. Mónica has previously lived in Belgium and France while Kyle spent a year abroad in Peru. Kyle has grown indoors under grow lights since he was 15 years old. He began with a fascination of bonsai and now grows many trees, tropicals, ethnobotanicals, houseplants, cacti and caudiciform succulents. As a small family company, to us customer service is not a department but a philosophy. Every order, call, email and voicemail comes straight to and from the owners. Kyle and Mónica personally handle and oversee everything at Goldleaf (with the help of their 2-year old son of course). Whether you have a general question about gardening and want a real person to chat with, or if you have an issue with your order that needs quick attention, you can count on Kyle and Mónica to be at your service around the clock, even afterhours. Kyle and Mónica Billman opened Goldleaf Hydroponics in November 2016, but our history goes back much farther than that. Before opening Goldleaf, Kyle worked for a company called Worm’s Way which was the first hydroponic and indoor garden supplier outside of California, Oregon, and Washington since 1985. Based right here in Bloomington, Indiana, Worm’s Way eventually grew to 6 retail locations and printed the first national mail order catalog in the hydroponics industry which reached nearly 45,000 growers. In 1995, their wholesale arm BWGS (Bloomington Wholesale Garden Supply) opened and began distributing to other hydro shops across the country, at one time having 7 wholesale distribution centers from coast to coast. Kyle went to work at Worm’s Way shortly after graduating from Indiana University in 2014. By that time, Worm’s Way had built a gigantic and beautiful flagship campus and national headquarters in Bloomington (including a greenhouse where Kyle greatly expanded his horticultural knowledge), was one of three big distributors that made up the industry, had created Sunleaves Garden Products and 17 house brands (including Sunleaves Guano), and had become a household name within the industry. Kyle went to work for the Worm’s Way Indiana retail store and national mail order department in July 2014. Based out of the national headquarters, he gained an intimate knowledge of the industry on retail, e-commerce, wholesale, and manufacturing levels. With access to their expansive greenhouse, he was able to grow and test all the plants and products he could get his hands on. Within one week of working at Worm’s Way, Kyle made the decision to pursue a career in the hydroponics industry. He and his partner Mónica never imagined that in 2016, as the hydro industry grown by small family companies gave way to corporate giants, Worm’s Way and BWGS would be purchased by a huge corporation and liquidated within a year. This created a giant void not only locally but in the online and mail order markets. So, using the knowledge he gained about the industry and running an employee-owned company, Kyle and Mónica opened Goldleaf Hydroponics in Bloomington just two months after Worm’s Way permanently closed. Worm’s Way Indiana’s last day open to the public was September 30, 2016, and we opened Goldleaf Hydroponics on November 28, 2016. In December 2019, coinciding with our celebration of three years in business at Goldleaf Hydroponics, we moved locations from 5081 Production Drive to our current location 6520 South Empire Road in Bloomington. We moved the whole store without closing a single day. While the move was only two miles down the road, it allowed us to procure our own building with no neighbors, private parking, and easier accessibility. While we always had private parking and convenient highway access, our new location now sits at the corner of a major highway stop light with greater traffic and visibility. We now have a 4,000 square foot building with sales floor and show room, soil room with two garage bay doors, and upstairs offices, a break room, a professional grow room, and a mail order warehouse with two bays and our shipping department. Goldleaf customers travelling from all over Indiana and beyond can easily arrive via State Road 37 or Interstate 69. Kyle and Mónica Billman opened Goldleaf Hydroponics with the mission of bringing innovative and sustainable cultivation products and practices to hobby and commercial gardeners locally and across the country. Today, we continue growing in new ways as we reach new growers. Our long-term goal is to establish hydroponic farms on Caribbean Islands and in Africa where we have friends and family and where we know the local produce is needed. Here at home in Bloomington, we will continue to be a local, minority and female owned small family business who welcomes customers of all races, religions, genders, disabilities, and ages. We hope to leave our city with more rooftop gardens, more sidewalk and median gardens, and more microgreens growing on kitchen counter tops to feed our kids nutrition for a green future. Thanks for visiting Goldleaf Hydroponics, and welcome to our family.