From rainy days, Patsie Rose grows her love for gardening into flourishing flower business
Published:Saturday | October 1, 2022 | 12:07 AMKrysta Anderson/Staff Reporter
When Patsie Rose discovered her love for gardening, she decided to grow it into a flourishing flower business.
Rose’s extensive catalogue of plants include bunny ears, also known as cactus, elephant ears, big red or redheads, crown-of-thorns, euphorbia milii, rose moss or 10 o’clock, different types of ferns and rose plants, ginger plants, different types of hibiscus, silver bay, snake plants, spider plants, espicia or African violet, aloe vera, different types of palms and her list goes on. Her favourite plants are the rose plants, the hibiscus, and crown-of-thorns.
“I love to see them bloom. Sometimes, I would go out and sit on the veranda and just admire them. When they start to bloom, they look so beautiful. Any plant that blooms, I dub those my favourites,” she told Saturday Living.
A LOVE WITHIN ME
Rose was surrounded by plants from her early years. Spending her first six years in the country, she moved to Kingston, only to be greeted by the familiar environs of a flower and vegetable garden. “From then, the love has been within me. I always had plants at home. It was there from an early stage and it hasn’t left,” she explained.
When she got married to her husband, Delroy, her mother-in-law gave her a couple of indoor plants. And that’s where she witnessed the beautiful cycle of green life. “The plants would grow until they sent up young ones, suckers. I would propagate them and put them into different pots,” she explained.
Nurturing her green thumb was just an activity she enjoyed at leisure. She would take the time out to give away plants, as well, to those who shared a similar love and would give them the care they needed.
It wasn’t until she experienced two long months of rain in October and November of 2020 that she became a plant entrepreneur.
“Something just said to me, ‘Start setting your plants.’ So I began cutting all the plants that I had and set them in pots. Each day I got up, I would set every species of plant. They grew and I would propagate more and more,” she said.
Her daughter, Aneisha, saw the magic unfolding and took the good news to social media.
Once the word got out, one of her daughter’s coworkers expressed how much he loved the plants he was seeing in the pictures. That love propelled him to go to Rose’s house and purchase three of her pots. There, she made her very first sale. Soon after, she branched out into growing and grooming plants.
She would plant anything. As long as she puts them into the earth, they catch. From one sucker to another, she was transferring plants to pots. Rose took things a step further; she began educating herself, and visiting plant stores to get a greater understanding of the different types. She also highlighted that YouTube has been an amazing platform for providing necessary information on the names, their origins, and how to care for them.
“Each time Aneisha put pictures on social media, people would see it and be interested. And that’s how the business began. It has been great: It has been an incredible journey and I am proud of where I am today,” the member of the Jamaica Horticulture Society said.
A retired Rose opened Patsie’s Petals a year ago and the reception has been good. People have been wanting to know what she uses on her plants to make them look so beautiful and amazing. Her secret, rainwater. Whenever showers of blessings pour down from the sky, Rose already has her catchments nearby, ready to store the heavenly goodness to nourish her indoor and outdoor garden.
The plant lover also explains that it helps if you show them the love they so rightfully deserve. “You have to love them. They are like babies, so you have to talk to your plants. Each species of plant has its different needs, just like children. You have 10 different plants, that’s 10 different children, 10 different minds, and 10 different operations. No two persons are alike; everyone is different in nature. They require different treatment.”
She hopes that her company, much like her plants, will continue to grow. And she would love for her family, her daughters, Aneisha and Taneisha, to keep the business going. “It’s a good thing. It’s something that will not die. As long as you decide to keep it alive, it cannot die. If one plant dies, you can always get another. Plants will always be there, they will always bounce back,” she added.
For more information, follow @patsie_petals on Instagram.