LESLIE HALLECK BIO
Leslie Halleck is a Certified Professional Horticulturist (ASHS) who has spent her 30-year career hybridizing horticulture science with home gardening consumer needs. Halleck earned a BS in Biology/Botany from the University of North Texas and an MS in Horticulture from Michigan State University. Halleck’s professional experience is well rounded, with time spent in botanical field research, public gardens, landscape design and maintenance, garden writing, garden center retail, and horticulture and green industry consulting. For the last decade Halleck has devoted herself full-time to running her company, Halleck Horticultural, LLC, a horticulture industry consulting and marketing agency. Halleck also coaches horticulture industry business owners, from larger established businesses to brand new Plantrepreneurs. Halleck has developed and teaches courses on indoor plants and botany for UCLA Extension since 2020.
Halleck currently sits on the certification board for ASHS and the Leadership Advisory Committee for Resource Innovation Institute (supporting the CEA and cannabis sectors). She also holds certificates in “The Science and Technology of Medical Cannabis Cultivation” from Utah State and two certificates in “Women in Leadership” from Cornell University.
Halleck’s previous positions include Director of Horticulture Research at the Dallas Arboretum and General Manager for North Haven Gardens, an independent garden center in Dallas, Texas. Halleck is a regular feature on the professional speaking and industry publication circuit and was a columnist at Garden Center Magazine, Greenhouse Management Magazine, and Produce Grower Magazine for almost a decade; but she also continues to offer up common-sense gardening advice and hands-on learning to home gardeners via her Plantgeek Chic blog, public workshops, and consumer publications. During her career, Halleck has written hundreds of articles for local, regional, and national publications, as well as taught countless gardening programs for the home houseplant keeper, indoor grower, flower gardener, edible enthusiast, and backyard farmer.
Halleck is the author of Gardening Under Lights: The Complete Guide for Indoor Growers (2018), Plant Parenting: Easy Ways to Make More Houseplants, Vegetables, and Flowers (2019), and Tiny Plants: Discover the Joys of Growing and Collecting Itty Bitty Houseplants (2021).
Halleck is an avid lifelong plant and gardening “everythingist” who prefers low-input “fluffy” landscapes and gardens as well as dense high-output vegetable gardening (both indoors and out!). She’s obsessed with tiny plants and tiny chihuahuas. Halleck is also an artist who creates botanical and nature-focused work in watercolor, colored pencil, printmaking, as well as digital illustration. You can find her artwork and more at her website Halleck Horticultural.
SHOW NOTES
Leslie’s office Hoya cumingiana growth (which she encouraged me to share a photo of below)
Leslie’s plant passion germinating in Germany from the women around her, her adopted “grandmothers”, and her first plant
Caring for plants in a cemetery in Germany
The language of plants
Returning to the states, attending the University of North Texas for art, and then transferring to botany
Her first job at The Green Fiddler garden center and lessons learned from that experience
An internship in Puerto Rico’s El Yunque National Forest studying how ferns grew after Hurricane Hugo
Pursuing graduate school at Michigan State and studying flowering physiology via environmental controls
An overview of vernalization
Returning to Texas to be Director of Horticulture Research at the Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Garden where she started the plant trials program
Becoming general manager at North Haven Gardens in Dallas
Creating her own horticulture business when she turned 40 and the reasons why
Core concepts she would teach a class on running a horticulture business
Consulting on Plants of Texas, a new garden center in east Texas that she helped design from scratch
Teaching two courses indoor plants and botany for UCLA Extension and lessons learned from this experience
Leslie’s three books Gardening Under Lights: The Complete Guide for Indoor Growers (2018), Plant Parenting: Easy Ways to Make More Houseplants, Vegetables, and Flowers (2019), and Tiny Plants: Discover the Joys of Growing and Collecting Itty Bitty Houseplants (2021)
Leslie’s passion for life and pursuit of so many areas of horticulture and her skills of asking for help, using project management software like Asana and her planner, and setting boundaries by saying no
How perfection is paralyzing
The myth of where oxygen comes from in photosynthesis and misconceptions about light
How to propagate more gardeners through exposure and education
Learn more about Leslie and her work by visiting her website Halleck Horticultural, and her Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn.