Entrepreneur Jade Adams turns gift of solace into a thriving local business
Those who fancy themselves arbiters of fine pop culture taste tend to look down their noses at films on Lifetime and the Hallmark Channel, but there are reasons those movies resonate with so many viewers.
Their tilt toward sentimentality seems to fly in the face of real-world cynicism, and their happily-ever-after endings are often conveniently packaged storytelling devices that bear no resemblance to reality.
But the setup? The narratives designed to make viewers fall in love with the heroine, to invest themselves emotionally in her journey of transformation and self-discovery? Those, believe it or not, have true-to-life parallels in this corporeal plane of existence. Take Jade Adams, for example.
On a recent October weekend, during which the Tennessee Volunteers were thrashed by the Kentucky Wildcats, she celebrated the grand opening of Oglewood Avenue, a tropical houseplants boutique located on Knoxville’s North Broadway (slightly south of Lost and Found Records, for you music aficionados and directly beside Fisher Tire for everyone else). It was a time of joy, excitement and potential, the culmination of a whirlwind journey that grew out of tragedy, became a reality thanks to COVID-19 and now positions Adams as one of the few young Black female business owners in the city.
“There aren’t a lot of us in Knoxville, and it’s been very nice to be part of that representation, and to be there for other people who are minorities who want to start businesses,” she told BLANK Newspaper. “I’ve had a ton of people just message and tell me that I have helped spark their business, or their entrepreneurship, and I’m just thankful to be in this space and able to do this, especially in Knoxville.
“I love having my perspective out there, as a Black woman, and the fact that so many people have been willing to let me listen and learn. That’s led to some great conversations and learning experiences from other people who are not minorities or Black [business owners], and I feel like everyone has been cheering me on. I’ve had people drop off pots, or just leave coffee at the door, and they all leave little notes: ‘I saw you working at 2 a.m., so have a coffee on us!’ Or, ‘Here’s a jade [pothos plant] for a Jade!’ They support me super hard, and I’m so very, very grateful.”
Her biggest supporter, however, may be the young man whose death led Jade down the path that now runs through Oglewood Avenue: Pierce Corcoran, the 22-year-old son of Knoxville Fire Department Capt. D.J. Corcoran. On Dec. 29, 2018, Corcoran and Adams were driving south on Chapman Highway when a Chevy Silverado crossed the center line and struck them head on. While the case drew media attention because of the Silverado driver’s immigration status, little of it focused on Adams, who suffered a fractured nose, a punctured lung, three lumbar fractures and loosened front teeth.
After her boyfriend’s funeral, someone gave her Epipremnum aureum – commonly known as a jade pothos, sometimes referred to as “devil’s ivy” because of its hardiness and for the fact that it stays green, even if kept in the dark. Native to the Pacific islands of Polynesia, it’s a popular houseplant, but Adams knew nothing about it at the time.
“I just started caring for it a lot and watching it grow, and I realized the plant was going to grow on its own time,” she said. “It just needed care and patience, and I needed that, as well, because of what I was going through.”
In those weeks and months that followed, finding something to nurture and care for gave Adams a sense of purpose, even as the tragedy continued to take. A native of Middle Tennessee, she originally intended to pursue a medical degree after obtaining her bachelor’s, but after graduating in the spring of 2019, she started work in the emergency room at the University of Tennessee Medical Center – the very same facility at which her boyfriend had been pronounced dead.
“I realized I just couldn’t be happy in that environment,” she said. “I wanted to be a doctor, but I realized I just couldn’t after that happened. I had taken up photography as a hobby, and when we were dating, Pierce would always tell me to go and try to do something more with it, but I always said, ‘No, I want to be a doctor!’ But whenever I had the opportunity after graduation to do photography, I just dove deep, and it took off for the next two years.”
As her photography business grew, so, too, did her houseplant collection. It wasn’t long before that original jade pothos had a companion. And then another. And then another.
“Just like everyone who gets into this, my addiction grew from there, and I started traveling out of state to get plants and trading them, and then I found a huge community based off of plants,” she said. “It became a real hobby of mine.”
So much of one that when she moved from West Knoxville to North Knoxville last May, she had roughly 300 of them to take with her. Her new residence, she said, was more compact than her previous place, and once she got settled, the tendrils and vines, leaves and petals, blooms and blossoms, turned home into a jungle – one more oppressive than even the most ardent of plant lovers might like.
“With 300 plants, it felt kind of claustrophobic, so I decided to sell some on Facebook,” she said. “The plants were in pots, and they were presented well because the photographer side of me wanted them to look pretty. And they all sold in five minutes. So I put five more up, and those sold instantly. People started messaging me more and more, and then I started putting them on Instagram, and the interests kept growing and growing and growing.”
And because of COVID-19, she had plenty of time to devote to all things plant-related. While Jade Adams Photography was a fulfilling vocation, the coronavirus effectively cleared her calendar for 2020, she said. Weddings, engagements and all of the usual events that took up her time and provided her with income were pushed back months, sometimes as much as a year, and starting in the spring, she had nothing on her hands but time. When digital friends and acquaintances began inquiring about plants – buying them from Adams and picking her brain about them, as well – she was happy to oblige.
It wasn’t long before a representative of Central Collective, the entrepreneur/maker space in the Downtown North neighborhood, reached out to Adams about doing a plant pop-up – a short run of business that served as a trial run for Oglewood Avenue. She got her business licenses, took the rest of the plants she intended to sell online down to Central and now, five months later, she’s opening the door to her own shop.
“The business pop-up literally just took off amazingly,” she said. “I didn’t plan any of this, actually! There wasn’t really many huge thoughts going on behind it. It wasn’t like I thought, ‘During COVID, I’m going to start a plant business and see how it goes!’”
It is, in a sense, serendipitous – quite literally. Just as her journey began with her boyfriend’s death, his presence has lingered along the way. It’s something she feels, of course, but even to casual observers, there are too many moments of providence that add credence to the idea that maybe, just maybe, life is like the movies sometimes.
“My new house is on the same street – Oglewood Avenue – as the mortuary where his funeral was held,” she said. “He used to work out at Frankie’s Body Shop, which is right across the street from my plant shop. There are all of these little hints that he’s still with me, especially when small things like those fall into place.”
Oglewood Avenue may be the street where Adams lays her head, but these days, Oglewood Avenue shop has been where she spends most of her time. She first spied it during the initial planning stages for the shop, and it was exactly what she wanted: 10 windows she pictured filled with plants, all of which would receive copious amounts of southern-facing light … on a street in a distinguished Knoxville neighborhood with plenty of traffic.
“I knew when I saw it: This was supposed to be my store,” she said. “It looks like it was made to be a plant shop.”
When the for-rent sign went up, she leapt at the opportunity. Once she signed the lease, she had to then find the merchandise to fill it.
“At the first pop-up, we sold out of everything,” she said. “I brought maybe 500 plants, some of which I drove to Nashville, to Asheville, to Atlanta to get, and to see all of them clear out that quickly, I was just in shock. After that was my, ‘Oh, crap, this is about to get insane!’ moment. I think I just sat on the floor for a second because I was just so floored by the turnout that day.”
But the pop-up’s success meant that she had to shift into high gear to replenish her collections in order to stock Oglewood Avenue.
I’ve always loved plants, and I love finding plants and especially finding rare plants, and I want to sell all of the cool plants that I love,” she said. “Even now, with the plant shop, the plants I have are harder to find or a little more rare than what you would find at a box store.”
Her specialty, of course, is indoor tropical houseplants, but on display will be her most prized piece of greenery – a Thai constellation monstera, 5 feet tall with a leaf width that’s 24 inches long. It’s her personal plant – not for sale – but admirers are welcome to stop by and see it or simply pick Adams’ ear for plant care tips. It’s a modest operation, put together in a short frame of time on a limited amount of experience, and Adams is grateful that so many business owners in her new orbit have been kind enough to share their experience, strength and hope.
“They’ve just been a fount of knowledge for me, helping me out with things they wish they had done or done better,” she said. “It’s been a learning curve for me, for sure, especially with me not knowing anything about the business world.”
She’s still learning, but she’s happy. She’s fulfilled. Her life, at one time derailed by tribulation so profound that it changed everything, has purpose. And to think that such beauty, filigreed in shimmering shades of leafy green, stemmed from such acute loss is … well, it’s a story that would make for a heartwarming film.
“It’s a weird, full-circle moment because, without that happening, I probably wouldn’t necessarily have plants or be opening a plant shop,” she said. “I remember right after it happened, if I was having a bad day or a hard time, I would go to a nursery or a greenhouse, and it would cheer me up for a little while.
“Because of that, I wanted to add that same element at this plant shop as well. I’m going to set up a corner – ‘Pierce’s Corner,’ I’m going to call it – and put some plants in there that call to me more than others. It’s going to be a place where if someone needs a pick-me-up plant, or a funeral plant, or a get-well plant, they can go in and pick it out from there.”
