Into the Mystic Succulents is a Shawnee-based succulent plant harvesting company owned by Scott and Natalie Stackhouse. Natalie is the succulent cultivator and Scott is the support staff.

While working at a restaurant during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Natalie’s manager asked her to get some potted plants from a nursery to reopen the restaurant’s patio area. She accepted the mission with little knowledge of flowering plants or how to care for them. Natalie grabbed several potted arrangements, and two of them happened to be succulent arrangements.

Once she started to care for them, the succulent pots soon became her surrogate children. At the end of the summer, Natalie asked her manager if she could take home the succulents to rescue them from the trash that they were headed for. At her house, the plants really began to explode.

Natalie began to dig in and learned everything she could about succulents. One thing led to another, and soon she had outfitted two rooms in her house with grow lights for succulent propagation. Scott realized this obsession was here to stay.

This year, Natalie made all the plant arrangements for her restaurant’s patio. A friend at work recognized her passion and asked her to create a succulent arrangement gift for Mother’s Day. Natalie took a picture of that arrangement and posted it on Facebook. Before long, Natalie was flooded with people asking her for succulent arrangements. She started designing arrangements for friends and family and realized she loved the succulents and was on to something. 

Natalie has a performance background in music and theater, but she did not previously have an outlet for this artistic interest. Growing succulents has given her the freedom to connect to that part of her again which allows her to create, present and interact with people.

Scott has been a cheerleader in support of Natalie’s dream. Succulents aren’t his thing, but he likes elements of setting up the business. Eventually, the Stackhouses would like to retire to Lawrence and go to concerts and succulent shows.

Into the Mystic Succulents joined the Lenexa Farmers Market in summer 2021. They offer large and small starter plants, hand-made and painted terra cotta pots, succulent soil mix and custom arrangements. Visit their vendor booth on Tuesdays and Saturdays.