Brain-like cactus? A cactus that only blooms for one night? Slime mold? Hair ice!? Zebra succulents? How cool are these plants!?? Cactus CEO Meg Meyer from Propagate Positivity fills us in on all of the amazing plants in their collection and that they encounter in the wild!
We first chat about Meg's habitat restoration work where they spend a lot of time outdoors removing invasive species and replacing them with native plants, the importance of homeowners knowing about invasive species (it turns out a lot of us home gardeners grow invasives in our gardens without even knowing it!), and some of the natives species that they are planting in their garden.
Then we get into cacti - including species native to the Pacific Northwest (who knew!), the new cactus garden Meg built, how to propagate and grow cacti, and some of Meg's plant recommendations and faves in their collection.
Last, I do a quick rundown of some of the amazing plants, fungi, and hard-to-categorize species Meg posts about on Instagram, and we get the scoop on carnivorous plants, Meg's backyard bog project, native orchids, slime mold, hair ice, and more! I'm fascinated.
In the intro, I give updates from the week including attending the book launch for Flower Gardening for Beginners (congratulations to author Amy Barene from Capital Blooms!!!) and getting to meet many fellow flower growers, designing for two events in the heat, selecting and testing flowers that will be out of water, processing flowers and foliage (takes so much time! Hi baptisia), and all the time, thought, and prep that goes into what you buy from a florist. I've also been thinking a lot about what type of work is fulfilling and how to attract clients who place importance on local flowers and trust my aesthetic, rather than clients who micromanage and want to specify every flower type.
The Flower Friends Flower Fact this week is about orchids, so listen in to learn something new! And in the outro I give a little roadmap of what's coming up for the podcast, and get back to embarrassing myself singing you out with the song of the week. If you like the song recs, you can listen to all of them on our new Spotify Flower Friends Song of the Week playlist.
Subscribe to the Flower Friends pod wherever you get your podcasts, and follow along on Instagram at @flowerfriendspodcast, and with Sarah at @growgirlseattle. Thanks flower friends!