How a big risk became an award-winning North Carolina garden center called Mustard Seed Market

In 1992, in a little village called Blowing Rock in the mountains of North Carolina, Danielle and Robb Stewart decided to start a new life.

Both were working in busy careers — Robb in sales and Danielle in interior design — when they had their first baby, but they got the gardening bug and wanted to start something they could call their own and grow from the ground up. 

With nothing but a vision of the business they wanted to start, the couple quit their jobs, sold their house and moved into a trailer on the property of their new business with their dogs and 5-year-old son. With no plan or capital funding, they jumped in headfirst. 

“We had a tremendous amount of faith and goals and perseverance and grit — more grit than I realized,” Danielle says. “(We) did not know what we were getting into, but we wanted to make it work.” 

Little did the family know, 33 years later, the business would become a family and community affair, with two thriving stores, Mustard Seed Market and Mustard Seed Home. 

The beginning of the business 

Photo courtesy of Mustard Seed Market

The first decade of running the business was challenging, Danielle says. Everything they made went back into the business, and they lived in the trailer for almost four years, welcoming another baby during that time. 

As Blowing Rock sits at a high elevation about an hour and 45 minutes from Asheville, North Carolina, it experiences warm, wet summers and cold, snowy winters. Opening a garden center in such a harsh weather environment was challenging, she says.  

“At that time, Blowing Rock was very, very seasonal,” Danielle says. “We didn’t have any kind of guidelines to help us … Up in our area, there were a lot of little roadside stands and old little mountain communities, and so we kind of just played off of that, and we just brought in more plants, and each year we’d bring in a little bit more and a little bit more.” 

Most of the village’s population consists of second homeowners, with a population of about 1,400 year-round residents and around 6,000 in the summer, and winters were difficult, Danielle says. There were times when Robb had to go back to work — or work three to four jobs at a time — so the family could have insurance and make ends meet. For a few years, it was just Danielle running the original shop, Mustard Seed Market. 

During these years, her son, Ian Stewart, now director of operations, remembers spending hours playing in a small shed on the property his parents purchased to keep him close. When he was around 10 years old, he started helping around the business, doing small tasks and working with the landscape crew in middle school. 

Danielle says this part of their business was the first of their expansions. 

“We kept going and expanding from small plants and houseplants and perennials and herbs to trees and shrubs and natives and groundcovers, and now we have the whole gamut of any kind of plant you could possibly want,” she says. 

Although Mustard Seed operates with just under 2 acres of retail space, Danielle says they have an extensive plant inventory they rotate and keep full through partnerships with more than 70 growers across the country who grow their specialty plants. Mustard Seed grows the majority of its cut flowers and seasonal crops. 

Becoming a family affair 

Danielle says the evolution of the company happened fast. 

When Ian left for college at North Carolina State University in 2010, he pursued other opportunities but came back home in 2017. He’s been with the business ever since and has worked his way up to his current role, director of operations. 

When he got married in 2021, his wife, Madeline Stewart, joined the business as well and became director of marketing and merchandising. 

“When Ian and I got married, I was driving an hour each way to work and was just getting exhausted,” Madeline says. “I thought, ‘There’s got to be more to life than this constant travel and the 8 to 5.’” 

She says Danielle took her under her wing, and she hasn’t looked back since. With her background in marketing and Danielle’s in floral and interior design, they put their heads together and launched Mustard Seed Home in 2022. 

The focus of their company is biophilic design: interior design that involves houseplants and natural tones to create an organic feel. 

“It’s just been really special, and we’re so blessed to work as a family, too, and to have such a great community up here,” Madeline says. 

Mustard Seed has grown to have 35 employees across its two locations, including seasonal workers. 

Hurricane Helene and helping the community

Photo courtesy of Mustard Seed Market

In late September 2024, Hurricane Helene struck the Blowing Rock community.

Danielle says the area was hit with 30 inches of rain, extreme mudslides and a tornado. There was a buildup of 23 feet of water behind the garden center. Mud slid down the mountains and demolished houses. The bridges that led to property on the other side of creeks were washed out. 

The damage also set back a river restoration project the family had been working on, as stream deterioration was causing them to lose property space. Right before the hurricane, they got private funding and worked with environmental river restoration companies to restore the river to its original location. 

When Helene hit, the nearly two dozen feet of water reversed all their efforts. 

After years of working solely on growing their business, the family had to shift their focus to rebuilding. 

October is one of the biggest tourism months for the area, and sales were almost nothing due to the hurricane, Danielle says. Their business struggled, but they were able to hang on, get loans and make it work. 

Madeline says had they not restored the river the first time, they may not have had a business standing after the hurricane hit. Since then, the river has been restored once again. 

She says their business was not hit as hard as others in the area. Two garden centers, including their greenhouses, near them were completely flattened.

“We always thought, ‘We are a garden center; we sell plants. That’s what we do,’” Danielle says. “With Hurricane Helene, … we sat down and realized we’re in this for way more than just selling plants.” 

They were able to repair the damage the hurricane caused, and Ian says they felt the need to help their community do the same.

The day after the hurricane, he and Robb went out and started clearing damage to other garden centers in the area. They started a GoFundMe to assist people who didn’t have the means to repair damage. They served hot meals, delivered water and did everything they could to help those around them. 

All of this led to them founding the fundraising arm of Mustard Seed, Community Roots, to aid those who couldn’t get help any other way. 

“That was a chance for our community to come together because everyone was just out there serving and helping however they best could fit,” Ian says. “Since Helene, I feel like our community’s become even closer, and everyone’s just kind of watching out for each other.” 

Expanding the business 

Now that Mustard Seed has recovered from the hurricane, the family is more eager than ever to expand. 

Danielle and Robb’s other two children, Connor Stewart and Hannah Sauder, have also joined the family business. Connor, who is still a teenager, is working at the shops over the summers. Hannah, the greenhouse manager, and her husband, Charlie Sauder, have started a farm to grow specialty cut flowers and supply products to Mustard Seed. 

“One of our passions the last five, six years has become floral design,” Danielle says. “We do a lot of specialty flowers, and we do our local country club weekly, which is really fun.” 

The company also started an e-commerce platform in 2024 to promote its hard goods, sell gift cards and gear, and, ultimately, help cash flow. Madeline says people are making purchases of seeds, merchandise and décor collections, including ones for the kitchen and springtime. The business has received nearly 300 online orders since launching the e-commerce platform. 

“Shipping stuff all over the United States has been really special, so it just gives us an opportunity to reach a different demographic and to continue spreading our story,” Madeline says. 

For the in-person stores, Madeline says she has been working hard to cultivate them into relaxing spaces for customers. She hopes the products they take home can bring that calmness to their own space. 

“There’s a sense of peace when you walk into those stores … For us to be able to curate that through fresh flowers, through houseplants, through gardening and then through home décor, my goal is just to continue to bring that spirit into the business. I think that’s been something that you don’t see when you work in corporate. You don’t get to see the heart and soul that goes into it and the community and the impact.” 

Future of the business 

Danielle says they have big plans now that the spring season is behind them. 

“We’re potentially picking a few families or a few folks that were decimated in Helene and surprising them with a little bit of a landscape makeover to some degree,” Ian says. 

They are also working on ways to connect with other businesses in the community, including a Christmas-time artisan market, with local artists selling their products at the garden center. Last year, the market had 50 vendors. 

Throughout their time in Blowing Rock, the Stewart family and their business have won multiple awards. In 2023, they received the Business of the Year award from the Blowing Rock Chamber of Commerce. In 2024, Ian was named Young Professional of the Year by the Blowing Rock Chamber of Commerce. They were a finalist for the Home Accents award for the East/Atlantic region at the 2024 ARTS Awards, and Mustard Seed Home was also recognized this year as the Best Home Décor Store by Home Accents Today at the Retailer Excellence Awards. 

Danielle says she feels grateful to have come such a long way — not only with the family's business, but with the community connections they've made.

“All our customers — they’re like our friends,” she says. “They’ve grown up with my kids, and they know they got married, they know that we’re going to be grandparents soon … Having such a long-standing family business, they’ve seen our struggles. They’ve supported us since the very beginning. They love to see where we’ve come and to have the second generation in the business, which we didn’t plan on at all, is huge and such a blessing.”

Lauren Cohen was an editorial intern for the GIE Media Horticulture Group in summer 2025.