Exposed Magazine speaks to Jwan Butimar, the 26-year-old plant enthusiast behind Eccy Road’s plant pop-up shop.
Blossoming from a university obsession with plants, 26-year-old Jwan Butimar has set up shop at 285 Ecclesall Road until the end of November.
Her pop-up plant nursery, ‘Plant Parenthood’, is positively overflowing with a wide variety of succulents.
From rainforest plants to desert cactuses, Juan’s unique collection displays the weird and wonderful, enticing customers into her mini Ecclesall jungle.
Jwan said: “I sell anything from Calatheas to cactuses to succulents. I sell Spanish Moss which is very difficult to find and a lot of other plant shops do not stock it.”
“I don’t sell any fake plants, but a lot of people ask me if the plants are real because they look so unusual and perfect.”
During the pandemic, Jwan started selling plants from her house in Sheffield on Facebook Marketplace.
She found a high demand for her products and started to run pop-up shops across the city when lockdown eased.
In September, Jwan ran a stall at Béton House student accommodation in Park Hill. Here, she saw a future in selling plants and set up ‘Plant Parenthood’ – the idea that everyone can become a parent to a plant.
At present, Jwan runs the business on her own, which she thoroughly enjoys, but says it can be quite exhausting.
The 26-year-old said: “I really want to get the business to a place where it’s doing so well I can have someone else to help me, but at the moment I just can’t afford to do that.”
In the future, she wants to find permanent residency for her plant shop and has thought of, one day, converting a double-decker bus into a mobile plant and coffee shop, so she can sell plants to people across the city.
Alongside providing customers with exotic plants, Jwan offers advice about how to look after them. Her plant knowledge is extensive after spending years reading and watching videos on how to cut, re-plant and care for all types of greenery.
Jwan offers any new ‘plant parent’ access to her ‘plant hospital’, looking after customers’ plants when they are sick and nursing them back to health.
She said: “I take pride in offering customers access to my plant hospital, because they know if anything goes wrong with their plant, I will be able to help them.”
“It’s really nice to help bring things back to life that were once really thriving.”
Plant Parenthood will be open on Eccy road until the end of November, and Jwan is currently searching for her next pop-up shop location.
For more information, visit @PlantparenthoodUK on Instagram or head down to the shop at 285 Ecclesall Road to speak to the plant enthusiast herself.
