Rose Jackson is the president of Anything with Plants & Flowers. She has been in business for 24 years.
WHAT DOES THE
COMPANY DO?
Interiorscape, floral arrangements, wholesale and holiday decorating plus sales, rentals and maintenance of plants and flowers.
WHAT MAKES UP THE BULK OF YOUR BUSINESS?
“The floral part is only 15-20 percent of the overall business. The rest is combined with live plant rentals — the terminology is interiorscaping — where we install and maintain them. We also have replica plants, holiday decor and short-term rentals.”
WHAT DOes she DO
AS PRESIDENT?
Planning, organizing, motivating, selling, marketing, managing, arranging flowers and designing lobbies.
HOW DID YOUR
CAREER BLOSSOM?
“It started as a hobby. I’m a social worker by training. It was therapy for me after coming home from work. I would play with my plants and relax after hearing about people’s troubles. We had a plant sale for a charity. A friend and I did well with it so we opened a plant party business. My customers from that business asked if I would put plants in their husband’s offices and one thing led to another. It started with a $50 investment begun in my house. The plant business led to the floral business.” Jackson now owns the shop independently.
EDUCATION
Jackson has a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Boston University and a master’s degree from Columbia University in social work. “When I graduated college in the late 1960s women were not as respected professionally in the business world. I worked for an insurance company and they had me stuck in a typing pool.”
HOW DID YOU USE
YOUR DEGREE?
“I was a social worker at the Massachusetts Commission for the Blind. In New York I was a case worker. In San Antonio, I worked for the county hospital counseling unwed mothers and I taught medical students about the social needs of young women. Here, I was executive director for Independent Living for the Adult Blind.”
HOMETOWN
Annapolis, Md.
DO YOU NATURALLY HAVE A GREEN THUMB?
“When I first started the hobby I lived in Boston, which is cold and gray. My husband’s aunt had a greenhouse. She took a liking to me and started bringing me plants from her greenhouse. I killed every one of them. I’m a nurturing person so I took that as a personal challenge. I was intent on having them live. After about a year, they started living, growing and looking beautiful. That was very satisfying.” The Jacksons later moved to New York, and then Texas. “When we moved here, we had a U-Haul trailer full of plants.”
HOW DO COME UP WITH CREATIVE DESIGNS?
“It just comes to you through brainstorming. I’m a very visual person — I see colors. The older you get, the more you have a storehouse of ideas for the creative process. It’s not the scientific method.”
WHAT DO YOU LOOK FOR IN A FLORIST?
“I want someone who is a people person because the end result is making people happy. I’m looking for a certain look. When I hire a horticulture technician, I look for somebody who loves plants. We want somebody with the right feel. You have to have a sense of aesthetics as well as the scientific part in order to make the plant or floral arrangement work in the environment it is going into.”
HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR STYLE?
“I can look at an arrangement and tell whose flower shop they came from. Each company has their own stamp. We view our work as highly creative and high quality. We do a lot of tropical arrangements and European styles: unusual forms, textures and colors.”
FAMILY
Jackson and her husband, Ron, reside in Mandarin. They have two children, Aaron and Hillary.
HOBBIES
Gardening, scuba diving and traveling are Jackson’s favorite distractions. She enjoys vacationing in Cape Cod and collecting art, antiques and Depression glass. She also dabbles in painting.
AFFILIATIONS
Jackson is on a committee for the Auxiliary of the City Rescue Mission and on the board of the Grove House. She is also a member of the Northeast Florida Floral Association, Building Owners and Managers Association and Associated Landscape Contractors of America.
— by Monica Chamness