5 Minutes With … Madeline Stewart
Madeline Stewart is director of marketing and merchandising at the Mustard Seed Market in Blowing Rock, North Carolina.
What do you love about your job?
I love seeing the different varieties of plants we have coming in daily. There’s always something new and beautiful I haven’t seen before. We just started doing an Instagram reel each week featuring our employees’ favorite plants, and that’s been a fun way to see new and unique items that arrived while also interacting with our customers on social media. We also have a second location that is more home décor and cut flower-focused, where I am our main buyer. So being able to jump back and forth between our garden center location and our home décor shop is super fun.
What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?
The best advice I’ve received has been to be grateful every day for the opportunity we have to work at a garden center. There are times when we have six trucks blocking the parking lot, difficult customers or crazy busy days where I can feel overwhelmed, but to remember that we’re surrounded by such beautiful things has been a great way to ground myself. I am so blessed to be able to have the job I do; staying grateful and focused on all the little things that are going right really helped my mindset.
If your career had gone in a different direction, what do you think you would have done?
My career started off in corporate marketing at Sherrill Furniture, actually! When I married my husband Ian in 2021, I asked if I could come join his family’s business, the Mustard Seed in Blowing Rock, North Carolina. I didn’t know a thing about plants! I always had fake plants growing up so this was a huge learning curve for me, but I was excited to get started and bring my background in furniture, marketing and interior design into the horticultural world. My mother-in-law Danielle, who is the co-founder of the garden center, has been a huge help in taking me under her wing and showing me how to grow and care for plants. Ian’s family really took a leap of faith in hiring me, but we all work together really well and are blessed to have a family business where everyone gets along!
What’s something that few people know about you?
I competed in pageants over the past few years. I was Mrs. North Carolina American in 2024 and OSOA’s Mrs. North Carolina in 2026. I had the chance to represent North Carolina at the national Mrs. American pageant and USOA pageant in Las Vegas. I’m a miscarriage survivor and someone who has struggled with infertility for the past four years, so that has been my platform for competing in pageants. It gives me an opportunity to do something for myself that I love while raising awareness for nonprofits and foundations specializing in infertility and pregnancy loss. I’m done competing now, but it was a fun time in my life!
Favorite plant to grow? Why?
My favorite plant is Agastache, or hummingbird mint. I love the colorful little blooms and the minty fragrance the foliage has. I also love hummingbirds — I have a tattoo of one carrying a forget-me-not on my arm in honor of my son I miscarried at 12 weeks, and Agastache is a great pollinator that attracts hummingbirds and other wildlife.
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