From a pink greenhouse, this online plant shop brings a touch of Tucson to homes across the country

In the courtyard of a duplex in northwest Tucson sits a small, bright pink greenhouse filled with various cacti, funky plant pots and a neon sign of a saguaro hanging in the window.

The vibrant hand-built greenhouse serves as an extension of Prickled Pink Plants — an online plant shop specializing in pink and purple cacti, succulents and other houseplants that recent Tucson transplant Claire Wilson runs out of her 450-square-foot apartment.

The greenhouse and the cacti that reside in it also serve as a daily reminder of the personal growth that Wilson has made over the last three years.

After experiencing a traumatic event while living in Los Angeles (on top of a raging pandemic in which every day she witnessed bodies being carted out of the senior-living facility across from her house), Wilson, an artist and photographer working in the framing industry, needed an escape from the stress and trauma in LA. She headed east and landed on a friend’s couch here in Tucson.

While in Tucson, she fell in love with desert plants and felt as if the desert was calling to her, she said. 

She decided to make her stay permanent and began selling trimmings from prickly pears and other desert plants to raise money for her move from California.

“Plants were kind of like the stepping stone that I needed to really take a hard look at myself and what I wanted and what I wanted to make grow in my life and it's literally a visual representation of the fruits of your labor,” Wilson said. “If you nurture something, it will grow and turn into so much more. So I kind of apply that concept to my whole business because I really did start my business from just a few plant cuttings and nothing else.”

Wilson officially moved to Tucson in the summer of 2020 and began selling the purple- and pink-hued prickly pear pads to an online plant group that she was part of.

“When I moved to Tucson, I was propagating stuff and my friend's friend heard about it and was like, ‘I need my prickly pear trimmed, can you do anything with these pads?’ And they were the purple ones, which I thought were really cool. The green ones are kind of basic and grow everywhere,” she said.

Within the first 24 hours of selling the pink and purple prickly pear pads online, Wilson made $4,000. During the next sale she hosted, she cleared $6,000.

“I felt like I'd been saved because I was a little bit freaking out about my own (well-being),” she said. “I had nothing. I mean, I was crashing on my friend's couch for a reason because I couldn't afford even an Airbnb or anything. And I was looking for work, I was applying to frame shops in town, which I didn't really want to do, but I was kind of relegating myself to maybe have to do that. And so that just felt like ‘Oh my God, that's my answer.’”

Currently, Prickled Pink Plants sells over 30 types of cacti and succulents and even offers mystery boxes to those feeling a bit more adventurous. 

Since starting Prickled Pink Plants almost three years ago, Wilson says she has sold over 10,000 plants to customers in every state in the U.S.

'I might not be from here originally, but Tucson’s my home. And I plan to keep loving it.'

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Wilson’s fascination with plants started when she was a kid, attempting to start her own vegetable and flower gardens.

“When I was 9 years old, my birthday present was a little patch of dirt in my backyard and they stuck a little sign in it (that said) ‘Claire's garden,’ and I got to pick what flowers (and herbs) went in it,” she said. “I tried to grow all kinds of crazy stuff and failed because I was a kid, you know, but it was a super awesome learning experience.”

As she got older, she found herself interested in edible and medicinal plants but once she arrived in the Sonoran Desert, she was enamored with something new: cacti.

“My first impression (of the saguaro) was that they were like people and that was before I even learned that Indigenous tribes actually saw them as, like, giant beings. When I was out hiking, that was what I felt like, really innately in my soul, was that they were giant beings to be respected,” she said. “They're kind of like the guardians of the desert.”

Because Tucson is located on Indigenous land, Wilson says it's important to give back to the community as much as possible. 

Part of the proceeds from her sales goes directly toward a fund that Wilson donates to the Tohono O’odham Nation each month. Over the last two months, she has donated around $100.

All of the plants that Wilson sells come from trimmings clipped from private properties with permission or from local family-owned nurseries that don’t offer nationwide shipping.

Wilson has no intention of competing with other local nurseries (or “flipping” their plants, she says). Instead, she hopes to bring a touch of Arizona to others across the country who have the same passion for desert plants.

Since Prickled Pink Plants is currently a one-woman operation (with a little help from Wilson’s fiancé Terry) run out of her duplex apartment, she would like to eventually own a ranch in Tucson with bigger greenhouses to help keep up with the demand for her products.

But until that day comes, you’ll find Wilson working from her bright pink greenhouse — which started as just a couple tables and a fold-up tent.

It's a greenhouse that serves as a daily reminder that with a little bit of nurturing, all things can grow into something strong — including your plants, your love for the community and yourself.

“I really care about the plant community in Tucson and about the residents here and about the plant life here and about the desert,” Wilson said. “I might not be from here originally, but Tucson’s my home. And I plan to keep loving it.”