Fresh out of Melbourne University, Nigel and Neal Edwin didn’t skip a beat. Instead of easing into post-grad life, they dove headfirst into Rent-A-Pot, the family business their father, Edwin Kumar, built from the soil up. Returning to Malaysia with fresh eyes and bold ideas, the twins set out to revive and reimagine a 36-year-old legacy, turning tradition into a thriving, green-forward future.
“Our father asked if we were interested in taking over Rent-A-Pot and if we were, he said he’d buy it back,” Neal recalls. “We started almost immediately after graduating, just two weeks out of university. Back then, the business was growing slowly, but ten years later, we’ve gone from a team of seven to 75.”
The roots of Rent-A-Pot
Rent-A-Pot began in 1982, when the twins’ father, Edwin Kumar, started out selling roses outside nightclubs. “He wanted to buy his dream car and was looking for ways to save money, so he began selling roses,” Nigel shares. “Along the way, people started asking if he had plants for offices, and that’s how it all began.”
What started as a small hustle soon blossomed into a full-fledged business, with their father gaining a reputation for designing landscapes for both offices and homes. At the time, Malaysia was rapidly developing under then Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, with new buildings rising across the city. “Our dad saw an opportunity and rode the wave, and a lot of new offices began renting plants from him,” Nigel explains. “That’s how the plant rental landscape in Malaysia was born.”
Despite having no background in botany – both Nigel and Neal majored in marketing – the twins went into the plant rental and landscaping business almost immediately. “We learned on the job,” says Nigel. “Originally, we planned to go into advertising, public relations, or a typical marketing role, but life clearly had other plans.” They’ve since brought their marketing chops into the business, using social media and digital platforms to fuel Rent-A-Pot’s growth and visibility.
Rent-A-Pot leases plants to offices and restaurants and services events, often going beyond just greenery to build custom woodwork, gazebos, and decorative structures that elevate the space. Some of their standout clients include Good Vibes Festival and RIUH.
“Actually, what makes us different is our focus on plant rentals for events,” Neal explains. “Most people only offer florals for weddings, but we do full-on plant setups, and there aren’t many companies doing that. That’s our unique selling point.”
The brothers also target high-profile car events. “We’ve worked with Porsche and Lamborghini too. And when we’re at these luxury events, we make sure to capture everything on social media as we’re branding ourselves as the sexy plant company,” Nigel says. “People often see landscaping as traditional or unglamorous,” Neal adds, “but we’re out to change that narrative with what we’re building at Rent-A-Pot.”
Turning struggles into success
Today, their company boasts an impressive client list, including the organisers of F1, Good Vibes Festival, and the SEA Games, as they continue working to shift public perception about what plants can be.
Still, the business comes with its fair share of challenges. “Plants are living things, so sometimes they come with bugs,” Neal explains. “Customers don’t always understand that and they think the plants are unhealthy, but it’s just part of nature.”
Labour is another hurdle. Landscaping is manpower-intensive, and weather plays a big role. “Depending on the conditions, a project can take weeks or even months if it keeps raining,” he adds. “That delays our work but no matter what, we always deliver.”
While most people think of plants as just decor, Rent-A-Pot is expanding beyond the traditional, offering personalised pots and plant gifts, and exploring new territory that blends function with creativity.
“We also do carpentry work, but everything is custom, and we don’t do retail,” says Nigel. “Our team has all these creative skill sets, so we thought, why not bring that into the work?” For large-scale events, they’ve built standout features like a floating sampan centrepiece for a pool. “We’ve done wooden decks, metal structures, neon-lit backdrops, and even painting and plaster ceiling works,” Neal adds.
Thorns in the business
“During COVID-19, our business came to a standstill. Events were cancelled, and we couldn’t even maintain the plants we had rented out. It was extremely challenging,” Neal shares. “We had a team of 75 people, but we couldn’t carry out any landscaping work as everything was on pause.”
Because Rent-A-Pot owns all the plants it rents out, the shutdown hit them hard. “Out of the 2,500 plant types we had, around 3,000 individual plants died during that period,” says Nigel. “As the pandemic came to an end, we had to replace nearly all of them, and it might’ve been close to 300,000 plants in total.”
Adding to the burden, clients stopped paying rental fees because servicing was on hold, even though the plants still belonged to Rent-A-Pot. “It was a double hit,” Neal explains. “We weren’t generating revenue from rentals, and at the same time, we had to absorb the cost of replacing dead plants. It really strained our cash flow.”
Thankfully, long-standing relationships with their suppliers helped them stay afloat. “We were lucky as some of our suppliers agreed to give us plants on credit and let us pay them back over two years,” says Nigel. “That really helped us recover.”
In the meantime, the team pivoted. They introduced more consumer-friendly products at their retail nursery such as gardening tools, DIY kits for kids, and easy-to-maintain plants. “That’s when we really started focusing on the home improvement side,” says Neal. “Everyone was spending more time at home and wanted to fix up their spaces. So, we offered painting, plumbing, electrical work, even minor renovations.”
Making spaces greener, one (or ten) at a time
The Edwin brothers also have a deep passion for fashion and music, having dabbled in both from a young age, even signing a record deal with renowned local artist Reshmonu in 2011.
“When we do setups for music events, it feels like we’re part of the scene, like we’re the cool guys getting invited to the cool gigs,” says Nigel with a smile. “People see what we’ve done like the decorations and the vibe, and they get curious. That’s how the word spreads and we end up getting more jobs.”
What started as work has become something that blends naturally with their lifestyle. “We’ve turned our everyday life into something creative and fulfilling,” Neal adds. “It doesn’t even feel like a job sometimes.”
The brothers have also had the chance to be part of major events, including Formula 1 back when the races were still held in Malaysia. “From the first race to the last, we supplied plants to the paddocks to enhance the look and feel of the venue,” Neal explains. “The best part is that we got to attend and watch the races up close, and that was a pretty amazing experience.”
Another milestone? The 2017 SEA Games, where they supplied plants to over 60 venues in just two weeks. “It was intense,” Neal recalls. “But moments like that show how far we’ve come and what our team is capable of.”
From nightclubs and racetracks to national sporting events and global festivals, Rent-A-Pot continues to prove that plants and passion can truly transform any space.
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Photography: Imran Sulaiman