“Turn black thumbs into green thumbs” is the philosophy of West End’s new boutique nursery, All the Green Things. The vision behind All The Green Things began with local mums Andrea Davine and Belinda Rigg, who met online and bonded over a shared love of all things botanical. “We just met through Instagram last year. Belinda says Instagram is like Tinder for plant people, and I agree,” Andrea reminisced. “There’s just so many plant people out there. From backyard home people posting photos of their plants, to nurseries and plant shops all over the world.”

After following each other on Instagram, Andrea and Belinda met through the shared Brisbane plant network and began a friendship. “It was only on the third or fourth visit, I just half jokingly said, ‘hey let’s start a shop’, and then I left, and it grew from there, a bit of an off-hand ‘why don’t we do it’.” That is how the pair’s ‘lovechild’, as they call it, came to be. You will find All the Green Things beside Sol Breads on Vulture Street, the location perfectly tied in Andrea and Belinda’s initial vision of their store. “Well, we were going to incorporate coffee into our shop. But we’re not baristas and we didn’t really want to run that side of a business. We wanted to concentrate on plants. So, when that location came up, that’s in between two fantastic coffee shops, it was just an easy choice.”

Through All the Green Things, Andrea and Belinda hope “to inspire people; to educate people on caring for their plants”. They plan to host workshops, guiding wannabe planters through caring for house plants, and matching customers’ lighting requirements with appropriate plants. All The Green Things also aims to stay at the forefront of botanical trends within the plant community. The store’s use of additional indoor lighting to promote plant health was inspired by Andrea’s recent trip to Japan. They will also stock on-trend plants like the Swiss cheese plant, which Andrea says can be difficult to find elsewhere at an affordable price and in smaller sizes. The store’s shared courtyard space with Sol Breads also will be used as a kid friendly vege garden, after seeing how a vege patch at her daughter’s primary school has helped the students engage with healthy eating and environmental science.

Andrea and Belinda are in no way short of ideas for their store. Inside, you can find a succulent tower they designed themselves, and they plan to venture into plant fittings for restaurants, and stocking circular vertical gardens. They are adamant about sticking local, stocking ceramicists like Nic Freeman Ceramics, ceramics by Myan (@Myanmade), planters by Rocket and Rose Homewares (@rocketandrosehomewares), and plants from growers within their network. “We’re just two mums, swapping the corporate world for the plant world. We’re following a dream that we’ve always wanted to do …” That dream has led to the blossoming of a brand new and welcome addition to the 4101, as well as a friendship.

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