Moncton woman’s passion for plants grows into budding business

A New Brunswick woman has turned her passion for plants into a budding business that has quite literally taken over her house.

“It is all for plants; there is pretty much no décor, just plants,” said Leelynn Bardsley of Moncton who owns more than 200 plants.

Like a doting mother, she pep-talks her plant babies every day.

“Can you live? Have some spirit. Grow with me. I try to hang them up and give them support with poles and morale,” she said.

Her obsession for oxygenators was sparked as a young girl and grew into adulthood, she said.

“No one left my house without a plant or a cutting of a plant,” said Bardsley.

Her passion grew slightly out of control during the pandemic when her business as a wedding photographer shut down.

But instead of wilting under the stress, she sprouted a new business from her hobby of making macramé holders, for her plants, of course.

“A lot of my friends said, ‘Why aren’t you selling those, they are really nice’, and I said, ‘I don’t know, I thought it was just a for me thing,'” said Bradsley, who decided to launch her own online business called Rustic Pots and Knots.

That “for me” hobby has turned into a thriving business. She now also sells do-it-yourself macramé kits she ships around the globe.

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Her husband, like a solid trellis, has been her biggest supporter, she said.

“I never expected it to become this big. I will tell you that I am impressed every day,” said Stephane Maillet who is no longer surprised when his wife brings home yet another plant.

Without a seed of doubt, he encouraged Bardsley when she took over part of the basement. Under the purple glow of her grow tents, she now nurses her clippings to life which she no longer just gives away but sells online.

She said that her plant pep talks work for some, but not all.

“In two weeks’ time I come back and if is still alive it is for me,” she joked. “I think it is therapeutic.”

Therapeutic perhaps, but certainly healthy, as there’s plenty of oxygen to go around.