Her garage side hustle generates $12,400 monthly, surpassing her husband's income.

In 2017, Leena Pettigrew received her first houseplant, a golden Pothos, which is known for being easy to care for, but she ended up killing it.

Five years after her initial attempt, she and her husband Marquise were redecorating their home in Houston. They needed to fill the empty corners, so she drove to Lowes and bought a couple of succulents.

She started selling her extra houseplants online after her home became "overrun" with 8-feet-tall Monsteras. She found a home décor marketplace website called Palmstreet and started auctioning off her plants on livestreams there last June.

Pettigrew generated nearly $148,600 in revenue from July 2023 to July 2024, which amounts to an average of $12,380 per month, according to CNBC Make It. She keeps up to 1,000 plants in her garage, she claims.

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Pettigrew, 44, works 20 hours per week sourcing, selling, and shipping plants while also holding a full-time I.T. job that pays approximately $90,000 annually. Additionally, she serves as a paid consultant for Palmstreet, where she assists in training new sellers.

The couple now runs the profitable side hustle from their garage-turned-greenhouse, replacing Marquise's former full-time income.

Here's how Pettigrew built and maintains her lucrative side hustle:

Growing a houseplant side hustle

Pettigrew spent a lot of time on YouTube, watching plant-care videos, while her husband laid in bed on his phone, watching bass-fishing videos.

The process of selling her houseplants turned out to be more administrative than she anticipated. While she found local buyers on Facebook, she discovered that managing an actual business, including sourcing inventory and keeping track of sales, required significant time and effort.

Pettigrew spent countless hours meticulously recording every purchase and expense in spreadsheets.

At PlantCon Houston, she encountered another vendor who persuaded her to try Palmstreet, which was then known as PlantStory. The platform aimed to relieve much of Pettigrew's administrative burden and provided two options: an online store and a live-streamed auction system where she could sell plants on camera in real time.

Pettigrew posted a few plants on her online store, but taking photos and writing descriptions for each one was time-consuming. She experimented with the livestream feature, but her on-screen demeanor felt uncomfortable and unnatural — until Marquise, who was arranging plants beside Pettigrew, began making humorous remarks.

The couple claims that he made Pettigrew laugh, making her appear more comfortable to the 55 viewers of the livestream. The auction, which lasted for four hours, sold 53 plants, as stated by a Palmstreet spokesperson.

After two months of successful livestreams, the couple decided to create a more detailed business plan, according to Pettigrew.

Reorienting life around a side gig

Pettigrew's livestream sales of houseplants have increased to about 100 per session, allowing her to charge higher prices, starting at $30 per plant, compared to her previous starting price of $5. She sells larger plants, such as Monsteras, for upwards of $115 each.

Marquise, who now occasionally hosts his own livestreams, can mostly step away from his full-time job of running an auto repair shop co-owned by the couple. He still works about six hours per week there, largely for friends and family who "coax" him to take their appointments, says Pettigrew.

Marquise says that running the auto shop full-time was stressful because employees and customers were often unhappy with their car, bill, or wait time.

Pettigrew's side hustle is less stressful to manage contract workers, as they only require part-time work and the business' success is not as critical. The job is less labor-intensive, and the customers are generally easier to work with, she says.

The couple has five sources of income: Pettigrew's I.T. job, Palmstreet's selling and consulting, the auto shop, and a virtual mechanic gig Marquise picked up in his free time.

When you both work from home and have a side hustle in your garage, it can be challenging to disconnect.

Pettigrew plans to sell her auto shop and move to Florida if her side hustle becomes more profitable than her full-time job. She hopes to open a greenhouse and hire staff to allow for part-time work for both herself and Marquise. This could happen within the next year or two, she predicts.

Pettigrew adds that they would devote their remaining time to other pursuits, such as volunteer preaching work.

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