We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Anna Grace FitzGerald. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Anna Grace below.

Anna Grace, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. One of the things we most admire about small businesses is their ability to diverge from the corporate/industry standard. Is there something that you or your brand do that differs from the industry standard? We’d love to hear about it as well as any stories you might have that illustrate how or why this difference matters.

One thing that sets my business apart from the others is our sole focus on houseplants. Many garden centers in our area carry both indoor and outdoor plants; however, at Copperline Plant Co. we specialize in indoor plants only. We also have a commitment to education and setting people up for success when it comes to their new plants. At Copperline Plant Co., our main priority will always be making sure that people leave knowing just a little bit more than they did when they walked in. We have a lot of new plant parents that come into our shop, and we regularly hear that no one has taken the time to provide care instructions for them. We have been able to build trust within our community because our customers know that we will always send them home with something that will thrive in their environment.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My name is Anna Grace and I started a houseplant company in Raleigh, NC, called Copperline Plant Co. My love of plants has deep roots – as a child, I would nap in the wheelbarrow as my mom gardened outside. I began collecting plants and caring for them when I was in college and upon graduation, I did what ever 20-something does and went on a euro-tour. I inadvertently took myself on a garden tour in most of the countries I visited and when I returned home, I realized that this was something I needed to investigate further. I ended up working at a local garden center for a few years – there, I learned even more about plants and working with people to create beautiful spaces within their homes. I then went on to complete my Masters in Landscape Architecture, where I continued to work in design for a number of years.

The pandemic hit in 2020 and I was faced with the realization that I was missing something very important in my life. I was early in my career as a Landscape Designer and I was spending every waking moment behind a computer. I missed working with my hands and I longed for the direct connections I once had with people and the soil. The pandemic, although incredibly difficult, allowed me to dream up what my ideal world could look like. I began planning out my business and took the leap of entrepreneurship in 2021. In April of 2022, I opened a brick-and-mortar shop in my hometown of Raleigh.

My trajectory has been anything but traditional, but I am incredibly grateful for all of my experiences that have brought me to the place I am today. I am proud of the community that I am building here in Raleigh and I am genuinely excited to get to work every single day.

We’d love to hear the story of how you turned a side-hustle into a something much bigger.

When I was building my business, I was also working full-time as a Landscape Designer in a very demanding office. For years, I had been propagating plants at home and selling cuttings in “purges” on facebook, but I realized that I wanted to make things more official and began business planning. I knew that in order to have the business that I wanted, I would have to have a brick-and-mortar location – I also knew that there were a lot of steps between where I was and where I wanted to be with the business. I wasn’t financially stable enough to quit everything and do the business full time, so I thought through my plan and broke it into phases. I had a feeling that there was a demand for what I wanted to do, but I needed to figure out some key things about owning and operating a business of my own, like who are my cusotmers and what do they actually want?

I ended up starting Copperline Plant Co. as a e-commerce site and pop-up type concept. During the weekdays, I worked my 9-5, and on the weekends I would bring my plants anywhere that I could. I sold at markets throughout our region, hosted pop-ups in my back yard, and began to build a name for myself, and for my business. I was operating Copperline from my family home and quickly realized that there was, indeed, an apetite for what I was building. I began to get some answers to the unknowns I previously had. Winter came quickly and I was forced to figure out how to keep hundreds of tropical plants alive in a pop-up greenhouse in my parent’s driveway and in the basement. The reality of the situation hit hard and I realized that in order to grow the business and really build it to what I thought it could be, I needed to leave my full-time job and dive in head first.

I took a calculated risk in opening up my shop – partially out of necessity, and partially because I truly believed in what I was building. I am only 6 months in to having the physical shop and every day I am learning something new. In this lighting-fast amount of time, I have surpassed every goal that I initally had for this business, and I am dreaming of ways to grow it even further. I can’t say that I really knew what I was getting myself into when I first dreamt up this business, but I feel really lucky every single day that I get to do something I love and that I get to build something I believe in.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

As soon as I settled on a name for my business, I claimed all of the domain names that I could – from the website domain to all of the social media platforms. I knew that my name accross these platforms needed to be consistent so that my customers could find me everywhere.

My best advice to someone who is starting to build a social media presence is to be yourself and show up with consistency. A lot of people, especially small business owners, tend to get stressed out by social media. When I started posting on my channels, I made a point of using my own voice and trying not to take myself too seriously. One of the reasons that I started my business is because I felt like people needed an approachable place to ask questions and learn about plants. I try to apply this very idea to my social media presence every time I am on there. I speak from experience, share posts with real-life tips and tricks, and try to provide inspiration for others to dip their toes in the waters. I have conversations with my followers and I show up as myself. Sometimes the posts I think people will love completely flop – other times, the silliest thing that I post on a whim absolutely blows up – social media is weird and unpredictable. Have fun with it!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.copperlineplants.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/copperlineplants
• Facebook: facebook.com/copperlineplants
• Other: The photo submitted on the next page is from Delta Juliet Photography

Image Credits
Headshot of myself is from Delta Juliet Photography