IT analyst’s lucrative side hustle: Selling houseplants online [Video]

This story is part of CNBC Make It’s Six-Figure Side Hustle series, where people with lucrative side hustles break down the routines and habits they’ve used to make money on top of their full-time jobs. Got a story to tell? Let us know! Email us at AskMakeIt@cnbc.com.

When Leena Pettigrew tells friends she earns over $100,000 per year selling plants online, they usually think she means cannabis.

In reality, the full-time IT analyst spends 20 hours per week sourcing, growing, packaging and selling houseplants from variegated micans and Anthurium luxurians to Philodendron Ring of Fires in her Houston garage.

With almost no prior gardening experience, Pettigrew started buying plants to redecorate her house in 2022, she says. When her office, bedroom and living room became “overrun” with eight-foot-tall Monstera plants, she looked for ways to sell them.

Her search led her to Palmstreet, an online marketplace for plants, crystals and home …