One Year

Today, 1 October 2026, marks one year since Hubby and I took over Sylvia Pass Nursery, and I have been sitting thinking about how on earth I got here because the funny part of this whole story is that I never grew up dreaming about owning a nursery, I wasn’t the child collecting plants in the garden, I wasn’t the person who could tell you the difference between seventeen varieties of anything and I certainly didn’t spend my life imagining myself surrounded by bags of compost and pallets of pots.

Somehow, though, here we are.

A year ago we took over the nursery and I walked into this completely different world where suddenly I had to understand plants, seasons, suppliers, soil, stock, pricing, customers, deliveries, workshops, pests, diseases, watering, sunlight, shade and a whole language of gardening that I was learning while actually running the business. There was no leisurely learning period where I could sit down with a cup of tea and slowly figure everything out. The nursery was open, customers were coming through the gate and I had to learn as I went.

And I have learnt a hell of a lot.

The first thing I learnt is that owning a nursery is not just about selling plants. There is a whole business behind those plants that nobody sees when they walk in and admire everything looking pretty. There are suppliers to chase, stock to find, prices to work out, margins to protect, deliveries to organise, invoices to send, plants to count and then count again because somehow the numbers don’t match, and there is always something that needs fixing, moving, cleaning, watering or paying for.

I also discovered that plants have absolutely no respect for business plans. You can carefully plan your stock, your space and your season and then the weather decides to do something completely different. Summer brings rain and growth and then suddenly everything needs attention at once. Winter slows things down and you start wondering if anything is ever going to move again. Spring arrives and suddenly everyone in Johannesburg decides they are going to become gardeners and wants everything immediately. Then you discover that the supplier doesn’t have half of what you need.

The weather has definitely been one of our biggest characters this year, along with electricity, Wi-Fi, suppliers and the occasional piece of equipment deciding that its time on earth has come to an end. There have been days where one thing after another has gone wrong and you stand there thinking that perhaps the universe is trying to tell you something. Then you remember that you have customers waiting, plants that need attention and bills that still need paying, so you carry on.

There have been plenty of ups as well, and those are the things I really want to remember when I look back at this first year. We have watched the nursery change and grow. We have brought in stock that I would never have imagined myself choosing a year ago. We have had proteas, herbs, vegetables, indoor plants, trees, shrubs, flowers, rare plants, hanging baskets and all sorts of things that I have had to learn about quickly enough to be able to answer questions about them without looking completely clueless.

And then came the workshops, which have probably been one of the biggest surprises of the year for me. We have had orchid workshops, repotting days, plant swaps, macramé, gardening for beginners, terrariums, mosaic, knitting and crochet and all sorts of other ideas that somehow turned the nursery into much more than somewhere people come to buy a plant.

That is probably the thing I have learnt that I didn’t expect to learn.

The nursery is about people.

It is about the woman who comes in because she has no idea what is wrong with her plant and leaves feeling like she can actually save it. It is about the person buying their first plant and needing someone to explain where to put it. It is about customers who keep coming back until they become familiar faces and then suddenly you realise you know what they are going to ask for before they even say hello.

It is about the workshops where people who didn’t know each other arrive and spend two hours sitting together, making something, laughing and talking, and leave having made new connections. It is about plant swaps and little conversations and people sharing cuttings and advice. It is about creating a place where people actually want to spend some time rather than simply coming in, buying something and leaving.

There have also been some proper business lessons along the way.

I have learnt that not every idea is a good idea just because it sounds exciting at the time. I have learnt that some ideas require considerably more work than they look like they will require. I have learnt that stock that looks absolutely fantastic when you order it doesn’t necessarily fly off the shelves, while something you nearly didn’t order can disappear in two days.

I have learnt that you can spend an embarrassing amount of time doing stocktakes and still somehow end up with plants that were never on the list in the first place.

I have learnt that cash flow matters, margins matter, planning matters and sometimes you have to say no to things even when you really want to say yes. I have learnt that running a business means making decisions without always knowing whether they are going to work and then having to live with the result.

I have also learnt a lot about people.

The good people have been incredible. The customers who support us, the suppliers who help us, the people who recommend us, the people who share our posts, the people who come to the workshops and the people who have simply walked through the gate and become part of our little nursery community have made this year what it has been.

And then, like every business, there are the other experiences that teach you something as well.

You learn that not everyone will understand what you are trying to build. You learn that you cannot make everyone happy. You learn not to take every difficult interaction home with you and you learn that sometimes the best thing you can do is take the lesson, leave the rest and carry on.

There have been days when I have felt completely out of my depth and days when I have looked around the nursery and thought that maybe I actually know what I am doing.

There have been days where I have been exhausted and days where I have been so excited about something new that I couldn’t wait to get started.

There have been expensive lessons, funny lessons, frustrating lessons and lessons that I didn’t realise were lessons until months later.

And somewhere in all of this, I became a nursery owner.

Not because it was something I had planned my whole life.

Not because I had some childhood dream of spending my days surrounded by plants.

It happened because we took a chance on something, and then I decided that if I was going to do it, I was going to learn everything I possibly could and give it a proper go.

A year later, I can walk through the nursery and see how much has changed. I know the stock better. I understand the seasons better. I know what sells, what doesn’t, what customers ask for and what I need to have ready before they ask for it. I understand the business far better than I did twelve months ago, and I am still learning something new every single week.

And Hubby has had his own experience of this first year because apparently when you buy a nursery with your wife, you also become involved in every idea she has, every delivery that needs unloading, every improvement that needs doing and every new project that suddenly appears on the list.

I don’t think either of us could have predicted what this year would actually look like.

We certainly didn’t predict the amount of soil that would become part of our lives.

We didn’t predict the workshops, the events, the customers who would become friends, the endless stock, the problems with electricity and Wi-Fi, the suppliers, the deliveries, the crazy weather or the number of times I would rearrange the nursery because I had decided it needed to look different.

But looking back, I am incredibly proud of what we have built.

Not because it has been easy, because it hasn’t.

Not because everything has gone according to plan, because it definitely hasn’t.

I am proud because we kept going.

We learnt.

We changed things.

We made mistakes.

We tried again.

We celebrated the good days and survived the bad ones.

And slowly, Sylvia Pass Nursery became more than something we bought. It became something we built.

So today, one year later, I am grateful for the people who have been part of this first year and for everything the year has taught me.

I came into this without a lifelong love of gardening and without knowing anywhere near as much about plants as I know now.

I have come out the other side knowing that I still have an enormous amount to learn, but also knowing that I can actually do this.

And that, for me, is probably the biggest achievement of the year.

One year of Sylvia Pass Nursery, and I am still here, still learning, still making plans, still filling the nursery with plants and still wondering where the hell I am going to put the next delivery.

Happy first birthday to Sylvia Pass Nursery.

I think we have earned the cake.

And possibly a week off.

Although knowing me, I’ll probably spend the week ordering plants.

SYLVIA PASS NURSERY
59 Frederick Street, Sylvia Pass, Observatory
061 805 9761
www.sylviapassnursery.co.za
Instagram: @sylviapassnursary

Come grow with us.