CELEBRATING WHM: MEET QUIANAH UPTON

This year for Women's History Month, we want to shine a light on Women of all styles that are currently making history within the creative community in Atlanta.

We're kicking off this W.I.S.H. (Women In Sneakers Highlight) with Quianah Upton, Founder of black-woman-owned greenhouse cafe Nourish Botanica. Based out of Atlanta, Nourish Botanica's intentions are to provide healing through art, flowers, and plants grown on their land, with food as medicine and herbal blends. Nourish Botanica also provides a physical space for engagement and education around food equity and economic justice. 

Get to know Quianah

My name is Quianah Upton & I’m the founder of Nourish Botanica. I’m a fun, Caribbean girl who likes plants, flowers, and dinner parties in gardens. I’ve always loved plants and particularly flowers, but I became deeply interested in the energetics of flowers and plant spirits in 2020.

I’ve been working with flowers as an event planner for the past 10 years arranging them for dinners and I just noticed that they began to be very healing for me. Taking care of plants and creating art around flowers is my current favorite medium and self expression.

Nourish Botanica was founded in 2020, but I’ve been doing event planning, and some variation of gathering folks over food and drink for the past 10 years under other aliases and monikers. It’s been a long, winding process. I always knew I wanted a store, but I never knew that 10 years later it would finally all come together and be more.

Over the past 10 years the center of my mission has been about advocating for food sovereignty for black communities. Making sure that we have healthy food access and ownership of that process as well as creating an art around gathering over food and drinks has been my business. Along the way that led me to plants and flowers because food is agriculture. I opened my flower and plant shop in 2022, I soft opened the café and backyard in March 2023 and I will have the full build out done by 2024.

I empower Women by continuing to be bold, take chances, never backing down, being kind and encouraging others to have a plan. By speaking truth to life, being ethical and having the utmost integrity. These are the things that I live by and it’s a language within me that never changes. I’m a total open book. I’ve had tons of women come by and ask me 1 million questions about how I started the business and outside of proprietary information, I try to be as open as possible about that process. But honestly just by existing, I feel like I am empowering. Existing as a black woman within this retail space is major. As a child to see someone in this position, I would’ve been super inspired and I hope I’m doing the same for others.

SHOP QUIANAH'S LOOK

Be sure to follow us on Instagram at @wishatl as we continue to shine a light on Women of all different styles that are empowering the future throughout the month.