12. Jared Hughes on Groovy Plants Ranch

JARED HUGHES BIO

Groovy Plants Ranch traces its roots back to humble beginnings where determination, ingenuity, and passion helped grow into something unexpected.

In 2007 at 19 years old, Jared Hughes started to realize the spark of a dream. While taking classes at Columbus State Community College and working at Foertmeyer and Sons Greenhouse, he fell more and more in love with plants. The desire to grow as many plants as possible, paired with a natural entrepreneurial spirit led Jared to begin propagating succulents in his limited free time. Their low care and ease of propagation made them a perfect starter crop.

From there, the business naturally grew and he started building a small facility at his parents farm in Cardington, Ohio. As the business grew, so did Jared’s collection of different unusual plants from around the world.

In 2015 Jared and his now wife Liz were married, and together they worked diligently on growing the business. Unexpectedly, they found themselves with the opportunity to purchase an amazing greenhouse property in Fargo, Ohio, previously known as Fargo Herbs.

Jared and Liz went full force into their new venture, Groovy Plants Ranch, where they now work with their two young girls, and an amazing staff of plant professionals allows them to grow far more unique and interesting plants than they ever dreamed. In addition to the diversity of plants, Jared and Liz enjoy making the ranch a family friendly, whimsical oasis of escape for customers from all over the country.

Groovy Plants Ranch has been featured in a number of magazines like Better Homes and Gardens, and Midwest Living named them the best garden shop of 2022.

You can learn more by visiting groovyplantsranch.com and by following them on Facebook, Instagram, and Tiktok.

SHOW NOTES

• Jared’s germinating interest in plants from his grandfather and mother and a love of nature

• Experiences in learning at Columbus State Community College and having Debra Knapke as a teacher

• His changing perception of working at a nursery

• Learning about the horticulture industry from working at Foertmeyer and Sons Greenhouse

• Mark Foertmeyer and Sid Raisch teaching Jared to build value around plants

• Jared’s involvement in AmericanHort and networking opportunities

• The use of biological organisms for pest control in the greenhouse and the learning curve of their use

• AmericanHort’s shift initiative

• Stump house plant store

• Lessons learned from the SHIFT initiative like breaking the ice with plants and engaging people with plants

• How Groovy Plants Ranch started with the succulent boom and grew from there

• Buying property with a schoolhouse and some infrastructure

• Incredible customer experiences at Groovy Plants Ranch

• Jared’s innate creative spirit and making a playground out of an airplane

• How Jared builds worlds at his garden center so that there is something for everyone

• Jared’s formula for Groovy Plants Ranch — drip with creativity for the joy of the visit and use incredible plants in unique ways

• Keeping his creative spirit alive because he genuinely loves his work

• How Jared forces himself to finish projects by keeping the return in mind

• Why Groovy Plants Ranch is unique in its approach to creativity

• The importance of idea generation and a supportive network

• Jared’s other hobbies like cars

• Gardening books that inspire Jared like Bizarre Botanicals and Cacti and Succulents for Cold Climates

• The interest in tropicals like Musa basjoo (Japanese hardy banana)

• Exciting projects including building new greenhouses, propagating cool stock plants, and new approaches to marketing

• Jared’s recent interest in perennials and peonies

• How all gardeners could benefit from drip irrigation and using water to control pests on houseplants

• Jared’s advice for social media including do good content that isn’t false and take good photos

• The myth of a hot pepper crossing with a sweet pepper makes the sweet pepper hot and the misunderstanding about GMO’s

• Jared’s quote in Greenhouse Management

• Propagating more horticulturists by 1. us getting more excited about plants and letting it show and 2. remembering that what we do is an inherently good thing and that plants enrich life

• Learn more about Groovy Plants Ranch on Facebook, Instagram, and Tiktok.

11. Abra Lee on Conquer the Soil

ABRA LEE BIO

Abra Lee is a storyteller, horticulturist, and author of the forthcoming book Conquer The Soil: Black America and the Untold Stories of Our Country’s Gardeners, Farmers, and Growers. She has spent a whole lotta time in the dirt as a municipal arborist and airport landscape manager. Her work has been featured in publications including The New York Times, Fine Gardening, and Veranda Magazine. Lee is a graduate of Auburn University College of Agriculture and an alumna of the Longwood Gardens Society of Fellows, a global network of public horticulture professionals. You can learn more about Abra at her website Conquer the Soil, on Instagram @conquerthesoil, and on Twitter @conquerthesoil.

SHOW NOTES

• The National Museum of African American Music, Cheekwood, and the Parthenon in Nashville

• Abra being in a transition period in her life and moving back into her childhood home

• Her interest in plants germinating from spending time with her dad who worked for the Atlanta parks department and weekends on the family farm

• The practice of swept yards

• Seeing horticulture students at Auburn University and learning about horticulture as a major

• Experiencing failure and learning from it

• Changes she would have made to her college education

• Experiences managing horticulture as the landscape manager at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport and George Bush Intercontinental Airport and connecting with and teaching her employees

• Advice from Ryan Gainey

• Abra’s participation in Longwood Gardens Society of Fellows and lessons she learned about relationships

• The principle of 80% thinking and 20% execution

• Collaborating with Postal Petals to host Music and Flowers

• Around the Table exhibition at New York Botanical Garden

• Teaching a class to landscape architects at Auburn University and their award-winning design based on Effie Lee Newsome at the Philadelphia Flower Show

• Abra’s upcoming book Conquer the Soil: Black America and the Untold Stories of Our Country's Gardeners, Farmers, and Growers and how the book came to be

• The origin of Conquer the Soil (from the writing of W.E.B. Du Bois)

• Abra’s business Conquer the Soil

• Her participation in the Auburn University agriculture mentorship program

• Practices to keep herself centered including naps, resting her mind, and having good conversations

• Books Abra returns to frequently including Wrapped in Rainbows: The Life of Zora Neale Hurston by Valerie Boyd and Gladiola Garden by Effie Lee Newsome

• Helping increase diversity in horticulture by sharing stories and finding commonality

• Seeing George Washington Carver’s desk and a Christmas card he wrote in the Tuskegee University archives

• The spiritual connection with plants

• Love for heirlooms and old-fashioned plants

• Gardening better by learning from our elders

• Propagating more horticulturists by being open with languages and being true to our vocabulary

• Finding Abra online at her website Conquer the Soil, Instagram @conquerthesoil, and Twitter @conquerthesoil.

10. Andrew Bunting on Life in Public Horticulture

Andrew Bunting is Vice President of Horticulture at the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society (PHS) and leads the utilization of planting and design to promote environmentally sound gardening practices at PHS. Andrew has elevated each of the departments he oversees and has increased the brand and visibility of PHS through their respective work.

Andrew received his B.S. in Plant and Soil Science from Southern Illinois University. Prior to arriving at PHS, Andrew worked at Chicago Botanic Garden, Chanticleer Garden, and the Scott Arboretum for a tenure of 27 years. He has received the American Public Gardens Association’s Professional Citation, Chanticleer Scholarship in Professional Development, and the Certificate of Merit from PHS. He also serves on the Board of Magnolia Society International. Andrew published his first book in 2015 The Plant Lover’s Guide to Magnolias. Andrew enjoys bird watching, travel and, of course, gardening. You can learn more about Andrew by visiting PHS’s website and his Instagram page @abunting64.

ANDREW BUNTING BIO

• Early horticulture experiences growing up in northern California

• Learning about horticulture career opportunities in high school

• The importance of internships for his early horticulture career

• Andrew’s internships at The Morton Arboretum, Chicago Botanic Garden, Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden, and the year-long curatorial internship at The Scott Arboretum of Swarthmore College

• Learning about plant curation from Ray Schulenberg and his approach to documenting every hardy plant that could be grown at the arboretum

• Floyd Swink’s practice of keying out plants

• Traveling to England to work for Penelope Hobhouse, making friends, and visiting over 100 gardens

• Core lessons learned from England including mixed border practices; attention to color and incredible color combinations with Pam Lewis at the Sticky Wicket and her approach to cutting out plants in magazines and mixing them on the floor for inspiration; and gardens have to be gardened including twiddling clematis and staging practices

• Gardening for three months in New Zealand with Gordon Collier at Titoki Point

• Transforming people’s lives with PHS

• Partnering with community gardens for the PHS Harvest program for improving food insecurity (and growing 270,000 vegetable seedlings!)

• PHS Tree Tenders, advocates for planting and caring for street trees in areas of the city where there are equity issues

• PHS Land Care, a program from PHS to plant and tend vacant lots in the city of Philadelphia

• Research from Dr. Eugenia South showing the benefits of these greening programs from PHS

• PHS Gardens along the Benjamin Franklin Parkway

• The concept of instead of PHS being a single destination garden it is woven throughout the community

• Funding sources for these PHS projects

• Core values of public garden management—get involved and integrate the public, have a personal life with gardening, and be generous

• Andrew’s passion and drive for life

• Surprises from converting his front yard into a gravel garden

• The myth of cutting things back in the garden in autumn

• One of Andrew’s favorite books, Michael Dirr’s Manual of Woody Landscape Plants Their Identification

• Staying current by visiting gardens and subscribing to The English Garden, Gardens Illustrated, RHS’s The Garden, The American Gardener; Grow by PHS; journals; reading blogs; and listening to podcasts

• The importance of writing to stay current on topics

• Andrew’s belief in composting everything

• Propagating horticulturists by starting garden societies in towns that then tend pocket gardens, host garden tours, have educational sessions, do kid-focused workshops, and be involved in community events like parades

• Learning more about PHS through phsonline.org and on his Instagram @abunting64

9. Peggy Anne Montgomery on Stories and Stinzen Gardens

Peggy Anne Montgomery Bio

Peggy Anne Montgomery is a people-oriented horticultural professional with more than 35 years of U.S. and international experience in trade- and consumer-focused garden marketing and communications, public relations and outreach, landscape design, and public horticulture. She studied horticulture and apprenticed in the Netherlands where she raised a family and owned a landscape design firm for 15 years. Her business specialized in sustainable, eco-friendly landscapes continuing her life-long interest in nature and the importance of balanced ecosystems. She has an extensive background in public relations and was part of the creative team that launched the Endless Summer® Hydrangea brand. Peggy Anne went on to study native plants at Mt. Cuba Center in Delaware and Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania. She is currently an account executive for the Garden Media Group, the premier horticulture marketing firm where she represents Royal Anthos, a consortium of Dutch bulbs growers and exporters. She is a long-standing member and Fellow of GardenComm and has written for numerous trade and popular publications. Her home garden has been featured in magazines, books, and television. Today she lives and gardens with her husband and fellow horticulturist Dan Benarcik in northern Delaware.

You can learn more about Peggy Anne on Garden Media Group, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.

Show Notes

• Peggy Anne’s interest in horticulture germinating from her grandfather and mom and early gardening memories

• Being told at a young age that she shouldn’t pursue horticulture because women don’t do that (and how we can change that type of thinking!)

• 18 million new gardeners from the COVID pandemic

• Studying early childhood nutrition at University of Minnesota and then studying horticulture in the Netherlands

• Peggy Anne’s learning practical horticulture by working in the Netherlands

• Differences between horticulture education and practices in the Netherlands and the US

• Returning to the US to work with Bailey Nurseries and helping with the Endless Summer® Hydrangea brand, the biggest woody plant brand launch in America

• For plant marketing, the importance of truth and checking accuracy of information being shared, the role of stories, and building relationships with clients

• Using an auger to plant bulbs

• The role of stories in connecting plants with people

• The story behind Stinzen gardens

• Naturalized bulbs at Winterthur

• The benefits of bulbs

• Flock Finger Lakes

• Planting over 70,000 bulbs for the first stinzen garden in the US

• Pith & Vigor’s stinzen garden

• The Dutch Bulb Planter

• How Peggy Anne stays current in marketing and horticulture

• The practice of an evening walk to enjoy the garden and reflect on tasks

• Her husband Dan Benarcik and his work at Chanticleer (and his motto dig, divide, repeat)

• Creating trends reports with Katie Dubow and the Garden Media Group Team

• Sprout social to see what people are talking about on social media

• Using groundcovers more in the landscape to help manage weeds

• Peggy Anne and Dan’s garden including gravel garden, pocket meadow, trees, and moss garden

• Her cheat of just weeding the first foot into the bed

• Andrew Bunting’s and Jeff Epping’s gravel gardens

• Peggy Anne and Dan’s gravel garden construction and trialing and error

• The most impactful thing Peggy Anne has done in her marketing career

• Her favorite books including edible flowers, pruning espaliers, A Guide to the Great Gardens of the Philadelphia Region, and American Roots

• Peggy Anne encouraging people to not be afraid to prune plants

• Her current interest in tropical plants and integrating tropicals into the garden in creative ways

• Propagating horticulturists by sharing the passion of plants and cultivating relationships with people

• Finding Peggy Anne Montgomery on Garden Media Group, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and Flower Bulbs

• Garden Media Group trends reports

8. Ethan Kauffman on the Magic of Stoneleigh

ETHAN KAUFFMAN BIO

Ethan Kauffman developed his love of the natural world exploring the hills in southeastern Pennsylvania. He cultivated his horticultural perspective over two decades of gardening in the deep south, including working at Riverbanks Zoo and Garden and then as director of Moore Farms Botanical Garden, where he led the transition from a private pleasure garden to a public botanical garden. Drawing on influences from both regions, he currently serves as the first director of Stoneleigh: a natural garden, a 42-acre former estate located in Villanova, PA, which opened to the public in 2018. At Stoneleigh, he enjoys creating a garden experience that inspires others to garden for beauty, biodiversity, and the health of our planet.

SHOW NOTES

• Ethan’s introduction to plants, gardening, and the natural world at a young age from his parents

• His collector gene starting at a young age with snakes

• Early jobs including DEKALB summer work and nursery seed propagation

• Graduating from Clemson and pursuing a career as a zoo keeper at Riverbanks Zoo and Garden

• Ethan’s shift to Moore Farms Botanical Garden with Jenks Farmer and being bitten by the plant bug

• Impacts on low versus high public garden density in the surrounding area

• Lessons learned at Riverbanks Zoo and Garden and the value of making mistakes

• Ethan becoming director of Stoneleigh

• Issues with a local school and opening Stoneleigh to the public

• Stoneleigh’s focus on native plants with Natural Lands and Ethan’s oversight

• Elevating the design of a native plant garden through cultivar selection and design

• The role of collections to better understand the diversity of a genus and the approach to mixing plant collections together for a polyculture

• Highlights at Stoneleigh including the 200 foot long wildlife hedge, Catalpa court with the state champion southern catalpa, and the pool house and circular bog gardens

• Working with staff and volunteers at Stoneleigh, the joys of getting to know everyone, and supporting the team the best he can

• Moving projects forward through making good observations with tape recorders and phone cameras

• Cultivating his skills by going to conferences and visiting gardens

• A segue into Jared’s visit to see Nigel Dunnett’s superbloom

• Superbloom music composer Erland Cooper’s Music for Growing Flowers

• Ethan’s approach to editing the landscape at Stoneleigh

• Inspiration from homeowners who aren’t bound by rules and from the wild places where plants grow where the books say they won’t

• Breaking the colonial link to gardening from rethinking common names to acknowledging the diversity in people in horticulture

• Ethan’s thoughts on seeing the Monarch butterfly migration in Mexico and the International Union for Conservation of Nature adding the Monarch to the Red List of Threatened Species

• Early experiences with Monarch larvae on Asclepias syriaca with his dad

• Busting the myth of the focus on crape murder

• Propagating horticulturists by engaging kids with plants

• An invite to visit Stoneleigh

6. Thomas Rainer on Planting in a Post-wild World

Thomas Rainer’s Biography

Thomas Rainer is a registered landscape architect, teacher, and author that lives in Arlington, Virginia. He is a leading voice in ecological landscape design and has designed landscapes for the U.S. Capitol grounds, the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial, and The New York Botanical Garden, as well as over 100 gardens from Maine to Florida. He is a celebrated public speaker who has garnered acclaim for his passionate presentations to audiences across the U.S. and in Europe. Thomas serves as a Principal for the landscape architectural and consulting firm Phyto Studio in Washington, D.C.

Thomas received his Masters Degree from the University of Georgia. Thomas has worked for the firms Oehme, van Sweden and Associates, and was most recently a Principal at the landscape architectural and planning firm, Rhodeside & Harwell. He has a broad range of experience in project types ranging from intimate residential gardens to expansive estates, rooftop gardens, botanical gardens, large-scale green infrastructure design & implementation, and national memorials. His work has been featured in numerous publications, including The New York Times, Landscape Architecture Magazine, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, and Architectural Digest.

While passionate about design and focusing on details, Thomas is a specialist in applying innovative planting concepts to create ecologically-functional designed landscapes. His recent work focuses on the artful interpretation of wild plant communities into designed plantings that thrive in the context of towns and cities.  He also continues to love working on residential gardens, enjoying the intimate collaboration with clients and creating spaces. 

Thomas teaches planting design for the George Washington University Landscape Design program. His recently published book co-authored with Claudia West, Planting in a Post-Wild World, was released in fall 2015 from Timber Press and was selected by the American Horticultural Society as one of the 2016 books of the year.

You can learn more about Thomas on his website thomasrainer.com, his firm Phyto at phytostudio.com, and on Instagram where his handle is @thomasrainerdc.

SHOW NOTES

• Thomas’s childhood experiences with plants and wilderness

• Our recent trip to see Amsonia in Arkansas (Searching for Amsonia in Arkansas Part 1 and Searching for Amsonia in Arkansas Part 2)

• The shift from being a lawyer to becoming a landscape architect and advice for students interested in switching careers

• Traveling with Darrel Morrison on graduate school student trips studying the landscapes of the south

• Creating a language around plant communities to communicate with others

• How gardeners can learn to read plant body language (aka plant form) to layer diversity

• How to cover the ground with plants to reduce work and searching for plants that will grow well as ground covers

• Warm-season versus cool-season plants

• Planting in a Post-wild World by Thomas Rainer and Claudia West

• The five principles of designed plant communities and how they distilled the principles down

• Richard Hansen and Friedrich Stahl and their book Perennials and Their Garden Habitats

• The Knowledge Project podcast

• Embracing stress in plantings

• James Golden’s garden Federal Twist

• Flickr as a resource to see plant growth in the wild

• Limiting factors for naturalistic planting in home gardens including plant height similarity, scale, and tidiness

• Native plants need to be approached with artistry like the creativity of how plants are used at Chanticleer or Great Dixter

• Failures in green infrastructure and pollinator plantings and why

• Jim Collins Good to Great doom loop

• Roy Diblik’s The Know Maintenance Perennial Garden

• The importance of doing one outstanding naturalistic planting example that becomes a model (and Jim Collins Good to Great bullets before cannonballs)

• How Thomas hones his skills with the challenges of site design and finding inspiration from plant people

• Thomas technique of using his mental library during the design process of thinking back to photos or places he’s seen before

• Thomas’s recent attention to style and how to give plantings an edge with attention to color

• The myth that soil fertility is always good

• Sowing Beauty by James Hitchmough, the book Thomas returns to frequently

• What Thomas would have changed about Planting in a Post-wild World including more diverse habitats, more examples of the principles he and Claudia developed, and land management strategies

• How we can propagate horticulturists by sharing passion

3. Kim Shearer on Breeding Woodies for the 21st Century

Kim Shearer’s Biography

Kim Shearer is a tree and shrub breeder at the Morton Arboretum where she manages their New Plant Development Program and serves as the Chicagoland Grows® woody plant liaison. Kim advances the arboretum’s mission to make the world a greener, healthier, and more beautiful place by introducing plant selections with broad adaptability, disease resistance, and pest resistance. Kim acquired her bachelor’s of science from NC State University working under the mentorship of Dr. Tom Ranney, and from there she continued her studies at Oregon State University. She is very active in the horticulture industry with the American Society of Horticultural Science and the eastern region of the International Plant Propagators society. In this episode we talk about a wide range of topics from the plants she’s worked on over the years, her passion for quilting, and her love of Maybelle Jones, her beautiful dog. You can find out more about Kim online through her profile page on The Morton Arboretum’s website and her Instagram handle @kimintransit.

Show Notes

• Kim’s introduction to plants (and watering and weeding skills) with her mom

• Kim’s early practice of forest bathing

• NC State CALS news article featuring Kim Shearer

• Bryce Lane’s inspirational class

• Dr. Denny Werner’s Cercis canadensis breeding program

• The lack of awareness of careers in horticulture

• Seed Your Future

• Google’s Ngram viewer

• The role plants and green spaces play for human health

• The importance of internships for Kim in helping her find her career

• Diane Mays and the Marye Anne Fox Science Teaching Laboratory Conservatory

• The internship at the Mountain Crop Improvement Lab with Dr. Tom Ranney

• Kim’s (and my) expedition to Gregory Bald

• Dr. Ryan Contreras’s plant breeding lab

• Kim Shearer’s thesis

• Ethyl methanesulfonate’s mode of action for inducing mutations

• Staying current through memberships in the American Society for Horticultural Science and International Plant Propagator’s Society eastern region

• Attending the Iowa State University Shade Tree Short Course, Minnesota Shade Tree Short Course, and Farwest Show as the woody plant liaison for Chicagoland Grows

• Reading Arnoldia, Digger, and HortScience

• Daily practices including refilling the humidifier for plants and early morning walks with Maybelle Jones

• The importance of weekly meetings, reading books to discuss trees, and talking about a plant group together

• Kim and her passion for quilting with her grandmother

• Legacy Ulmus (elm) breeding program following Dr. George Ware’s work

• The possibilities with lingering ashes (Fraxinus) in areas hit with emerald ash borer in the US

• Black walnut and the effects of juglone on plants

• Helping to propagate gardeners by helping and being kind to gardeners of all backgrounds and contact with people who can change policy

2. Caleb Melchior on Being a Landscape Architect

Caleb Melchior’s Biography

Caleb Melchior is a landscape architect and planting designer with Coastal Vista Design, and he teaches Professional Practice, Theory of Landscape Architecture, and Ecological Planting Design at Florida International University. His practice centers on planting design and materiality, with a focus on wild plant communities of the Gulf Coast and Caribbean. He has experience designing fine gardens, estates, and public spaces throughout the southeast United States including P. Allen Smith and Associates in Little Rock, Arkansas and ASA Engineering in Chattanooga, Tennessee. He collaborates with other designers, horticulture experts, and landscape management teams to make sure that design ideas are realized throughout installation and the ongoing life of projects. Caleb is heavily involved with design communication. He presents frequently at landscape and horticulture-related conferences. His work is regularly published in national and international publications such as The American Gardener, Horticulture, and Land8.

You can find him at his website www.calebmelchior.com and on Instagram at @the_curious_gardener.

SHOW NOTES

• How Caleb got interested in plants

• Lessons learned at Sugar Creek Gardens in Kirkwood, MO 

• The pursuit of landscape architecture at Kansas State University

• Embracing Bauhaus principles in design

• The impact of Konza Prairie

• Caleb’ research on experiential learning and legibility in plant communities in public gardens with his thesis, “Knowledge gardens: designing public gardens for transformative experience of dynamic vegetation”

• Caleb’s research sites at Champan Botanical Garden and The Meadow at Kansas State University

• The importance of working at different places and lessons Caleb learned at Confluence, RS Walsh, P. Allen Smith and Associates, ASA Engineering, and Coastal Vista Design

• The importance of practice in learning, reading, and watching videos like Garden Masterclass and Caleb’s curated list on Land8

• What a typical day looks like for Caleb and the design process at a site

• Designing and planting with regulations

• Growing In Mind, a podcast by Caleb Melchior and Preston Montague

• Oculus Rift technology in the landscape design process

• How the green industry and smaller studios can adopt models and strategies for solving problems

• The importance of communicating with clients and how to improve communication with clients

• Recognizing patterns of thinking in the design process

• How to Make Art at the End of the World by Natalie Loveless

• Understanding what clients want and blending their priorities with the principles of design

• The importance of spaces to sit in the landscape

• Excitement for umbellifers (Apiaceae)

• Cutting herbaceous plants back to improve growth

• The effort to connect horticulture with others by being present in the public

1. Welcome to the Plantastic Podcast!

Listen along to learn why I’m creating The Plantastic Podcast!