A Journey Through the Joys of Gardening and the Magic of Ground Covers with Gary Lewis : 132

Join us on a botanical journey with Gary Lewis, M.Sc., a plant connoisseur whose rich history with horticulture has blossomed into a nursery boasting over 5,000 plant varieties. Gary's life is a colourful journey, from the hibiscus in his grandmother's garden to the exotic flora of distant lands, marked by a deep-seated passion and knowledge for plants.

Gary is the President of Phoenix Perennials and Specialty Plants Ltd. He has built the nursery into one of the best-known destinations for home gardeners and plant enthusiasts from all over the Lower Mainland in Vancouver, BC, Canada. He also wrote the encyclopedia "The Complete Book of Ground Covers" 4000 Plants That Reduce Maintenance, Control Erosion, and Beautify the Landscape.

This episode is a treasure for plant lovers. We trace Gary's roots from a young botanist to the creator of an indispensable guide on ground covers. His scientific background sheds light on the fascinating intersection of plant ecology and practical gardening, enlightening us on the value of diversity in the plant kingdom. 

As we traverse the lush pathways of Phoenix Perennials, Gary reflects on the recent gardening surge sparked by the global pandemic, reminding us how tending to our gardens can be a source of solace and community strength. His dedication to nurturing plants and the people who care for them resonates deeply. Tune in for a heartfelt conversation that celebrates the perennial joys of gardening and the shared growth we experience through our love for plants.

Vice President | Planta!: The Plantlife ConservationS Society | www.planta.ngo
Perennial and Bulb Selection Committee Member | Great Plant Picks | www.greatplantpicks.org.
Advisory Committee Member | E-Flora BC | www.eflora.bc.ca

Transcript

Daniela SM: 0:04

Hi, I'm Daniela. Welcome to my podcast. Our stories become the language of connections. Let's enjoy it, connect and relate, because everyone has a story. Relate because everyone has a story. Gary is the owner of Phoenix Perennials and Specialty Plants, a go-to spot for plant lovers in BC, Canada.. My guest is Gary Lewis, a true plant wizard with a nursery home to over 5,000 plants variety. He is also the author of the complete book of ground covers, a beautiful book and an essential guide for any gardening enthusiast. In this episode, we are conversing with Gary about his path from young plant lover to a guru in the world of horticulture. His dedication to plants and the people who care for them is truly inspiring. Get ready for a cozy chat that appreciates the pure delight of gardening and the personal growth that comes with the love for plants. Let's enjoy his story. Welcome, Gary, to the show.

Gary Lewis: 1:19

Thank you, Daniela, pleasure to be here.

Daniela SM: 1:22

Yes. So I am very, very happy and excited that you're here, because I went to two of your talks that you were giving at the Richmond Library about gardens. I was so enchanted about your knowledge and what the book that you created, and so I thought I have to have Gary on the show, and so that's the reason why I wanted to share your story, have Gary on the show, and so that's the reason why I wanted to share your story. Thank you for being here.

Gary Lewis: 1:49

And I want to tell me a little bit about you, a little bit about me. Well, I have been into plants for a very long time. They could be genetic or it could be learned. You know they talk about nature or nurture, but you know there is a photograph of me sitting on my grandmother's lap at the age of six months old, and she is showing me a bright red hibiscus flower. She always had tropical hibiscus as houseplants that she'd put in the garden in the summer. I'm sitting on her lap and she's pointing it out to me, but I am reaching out to it as if I don't know, as if I'm enamored or falling in love with it or I don't know. I'm a baby, right. So of course it's colorful, but I was attracted to it.

Gary Lewis: 2:33

Soon after we moved to Germany. I lived basically for the first four years of my life in Germany. My dad was in the forces, and some of my earliest memories are walking around the fields. We stayed in a German village rather than staying on base, so we were in a small village with lots of agricultural fields and kind of fallow fields around our house, and so some of my earliest memories are picking flowers and bringing them home to my mom.

Gary Lewis: 3:02

Of course my mother, like many mothers, loves flowers. She was always happy when I brought her home flowers. So perhaps it was a learned activity as well to be attracted to plants and flowers. But I mean, my earliest memories are botanizing my fields and forests, wherever I lived, and looking for plants and looking for cool plants, often related to picking them and bringing them home to my mom. But then we gardened as a kid so I became interested in plants growing veggies, growing snapdragons, growing houseplants I think the moment maybe it. I mean I was already into them, but my mom showed me how to propagate African violets and spider plants and then I became fascinated with propagating plants.

Daniela SM: 3:43

That sounds amazing, and would you say that your story starts at six months old? Or when do you think that your story starts about this trajectory of you loving plants so much, having your own place, your nursery, and also writing this beautiful book about ground covers?

Gary Lewis: 4:03

It could start with that moment where my, with my grandmother sitting on her lap looking at that hibiscus at six months, could start there. Who knows? But I mean, I'm just a baby at that point, I mean, obviously I didn't know what a flower was, I was just looking at something colorful. But certainly by the age of three or four I have memories of, you know, picking Flanders poppies and bringing them home and putting them in a vase and them sitting on the kitchen table in Germany and I was always disappointed in them, though they were so beautiful. But I was disappointed in them because the petals would usually fall off by that evening. I have a memory one morning getting up in the morning and going into the kitchen and the petals were still on the poppies and I thought maybe I had discovered something special. But I went to touch them and all the petals fell off. So they don't make a very good cut flower. But yeah, I mean, I have memories of collecting plants and looking for flowers back to the age of about three or four.

Daniela SM: 5:00

And then how do you keep the curiosity? You were in Germany for four years, and then what happened?

Gary Lewis: 5:05

We moved to Nova Scotia after that and we lived on a street where across the street, behind those houses, was a forest. It was a place where all us kids went to play. Of course. So, you know, running around the forest, there was a big rock in there that we'd like to climb on. But when other kids weren't around I would go into the forest and look around for wildflowers. I remember, you know, mayflowers and bluebead lilies and there were lady's lipper orchids growing in that forest Canada Mayflower.

Gary Lewis: 5:37

Even then I was botanizing those forests, looking for flowers and looking to discover things, and I wasn't always picking everything, but you know, I was wanting to see what was there, what diversity was there, and learn what those plants were. So, yeah, I mean it just continued there. And then we moved to Ontario and luckily we were on the edge of town, so there were some local forests there where I'd go walking and looking for those kinds of through the deciduous forests of southern Ontario, the understory plants there and the milkweeds in the fields. Then, you know, in grade five there was a plant sale at school and they were selling cactus and other succulents. I guess I must have asked my mom for some money, because I came home with some succulent and then I started collecting houseplants. I filled our house with houseplants.

Daniela SM: 6:24

Wow. And did you notice at your young age that there was different plants or flowers from Germany to Nova Scotia, to Ontario?

Gary Lewis: 6:35

Yeah, certainly, I became aware that I was finding different plants in these different areas, so probably developing an early glimmer of understanding in terms of plant biogeography and plant ecology and that kind of thing. Because, yeah, definitely, the poppies were not in the poppies for the Flanders, poppies from Europe did not grow in Nova Scotia or Ontario, but other plants grew there and plants that grew in Nova Scotia didn't grow in Ontario. So the wild ones, yeah, so I think I was developing a little bit of an understanding of ecology at that point.

Daniela SM: 7:09

And so what happened after grade five, when you bought all the succulents and you had the house full of plants? Did your mom said something? Or what about your siblings?

Gary Lewis: 7:19

I don't think my brother was that interested in the plants. When I moved away in my late teen years I actually paid him to water the plants because I knew my mom was not very good at watering the plant. I moved to Vancouver. I couldn't take all my houseplants with me so for a while I was giving him a kickback to keep the plants watered. I'm not sure how that wasn't perhaps that successful, but my mom was the general manager of a poetry publishing press called Brick Books for many years. Those were the early days when she first became involved in that. But she took a marketing course and she's got all kinds of houseplants and he's growing seeds in the basement under lights. She got me my first job in the industry, so I worked on weekends with Janet Janet Anderson propagating plants and filling pots with soil and that kind of thing.

Gary Lewis: 8:17

Although you know I just remember too, because I did have lights in the basement, which I got from my grandparents, so that my same grandmother whose lap I was sitting on at six months old. She and my grandfather these are my mother's parents were very much into gardening, of course, saving all their annuals inside in the winter, to you know, because they were. They were frugal, but I did get some grow lights from them to put in my basement to grow seeds under fluorescent tubes at one point. Yeah, you know there's all these things, all these things in a life, I think, for people when they're growing up, that you know, are these little things that happen that guide you on your way perhaps?

Daniela SM: 8:53

But what was that curiosity of you growing seeds in your basement?

Gary Lewis: 8:57

I don't know the possibility, I suppose. I mean there's a certain magic to growing a seed. You take this little brown or black thing in a package and you put it in some soil and you water it and you make sure it's somewhere warm, you have light ready for it if it's going to germinate, and then lo and behold, it germinates and this little green thing comes up, nurture it and you care for it, and then it becomes something magical. It becomes a flower, it becomes a fruit, it becomes a vegetable.

Daniela SM: 9:29

Because we all have that experience in school. We have to bring seeds and make them grow.

Gary Lewis: 9:35

I remember bean seeds in grade four actually, and we had a race. We had a race to see whose bean could get the highest.

Daniela SM: 9:44

When I was little, I remember my mom used to work in a park, so I would go to the pond and collect the little the little tadpoles.

Daniela SM: 9:52

Yes, I will grab them and collect them and then take them home. And then they became frogs, I think I liked the little animals like that. I used to collect dead beetles, yeah. So when you are a child you have all this curiosity, but for you it was a passion and you continue it. So you got your first job and you didn't say, okay, well, this is boring, I don't want to be planting. Oh, you know, you actually enjoyed it. And so what happened?

Gary Lewis: 10:19

I enjoyed it. Yeah, I loved propagating plants, but it was tough work. So, you know, there were some points at the age of I don't know what that was 16, where I was like, wow, this is tough, this is physical, I don't know if I can do this. But here I am. I've been doing it for over 20 years with mixed perennials with my nursery, so at some point it becomes a lifelong calling, I suppose.

Daniela SM: 10:44

And so, at 16, you were working with your friend's mother, and then what happened?

Gary Lewis: 10:49

I worked for a few seasons for her, just on weekends in the winter months, and then I got a job at a garden center for a summer. Then I moved to Vancouver. I went to UBC for a couple degrees in conservation biology and then a master's in botany, plant ecology oh, wow, the wild side of things. So plants out in nature, still very much interested in, still loved propagating plants, partner and I. We bought a house so we had some space and so we were gardening and I was propagating plants, and then I've also had like an entrepreneurial spirit as well. So I love propagating plants, I love marketing plants, I love teaching people about plants and of course, you know you have to make a living. So I love selling plants as well. So I started, uh, kind of during my master. I was propagating plants and selling them to my local nurseries wholesale Thought when I finished my master's that I would strike a balance between doing consulting work for government and industry and then maybe having a small seasonal nursery that would perhaps, you know, only be open on weekends and only be open during the spring and early summer.

Gary Lewis: 12:08

But I got a cryptic email. See, it was the end of my master's. My thesis was in full rough draft, nearly done. I was about two months away and a cryptic email came into my inbox from a friend about some nursery for sale in Richmond. I discounted it, I wasn't going to do anything about it, and then I was convinced by my friend, brian, that I needed to go out and look at it. We went out and I looked at it and two weeks later I owned it. It was just a small place, you know, on leased land, with 20 foot by 24 foot greenhouse, but it was a great springboard. I didn't know exactly what I was starting at that point, but I knew I was going to start something special in its way. Yeah, that was 21 seasons ago.

Daniela SM: 13:00

But what convinced you that you would change your path?

Gary Lewis: 13:03

Well, I mean, it wasn't exactly a change of path, I think it was just a kind of a refocusing. And perhaps in those early days I still thought that I might strike some balance between, you know, because I loved the plant ecology work. I love getting out in, you know, wild places and I love native plants. Wherever I go, I love exploring what the native plants are that grow in different regions of the world, including my own backyard. So probably in those early days I thought, well, I'm still going to strike that balance between doing some consulting work and also having this nursery.

Gary Lewis: 13:34

But really the nursery took over completely. It's a lot of fun. Over completely. It's a lot of fun, I mean as much as I find the plant ecology side fulfilling and interesting. You know, having a nursery and growing all kinds of different plants and searching for different plants and importing baby plants and bare root plants from all around the world, you know, speaking about gardening to garden clubs and other groups doing all the marketing, that was just a little bit more exciting, a little bit more fun. So really the nursery business took over completely. I've never done any consulting work.

Daniela SM: 14:04

It's not usual that people that own a nursery have degrees, and a master's, like you.

Gary Lewis: 14:10

No, I think that's pretty unusual. I mean, I've come at it from a different trajectory. I guess People in horticulture would do kind of horticultural diplomas or learn on the job. I mean essentially the whole horticulture side of things. I've just learned on the job, well, and I've been learning that all my life, all those methods, you know.

Gary Lewis: 14:29

There are other people in the industry who are perhaps, you know, more knowledgeable than me and definitely more knowledgeable than me in terms of, you know, fertilizer regimes and you know integrated pest management and all of those kinds of things.

Gary Lewis: 14:44

But I, you know, my plant ecology background really helps with, you know, an understanding of how plants grow and what plants want, what they need in order to survive and to thrive, as well, as we have over 5,000 different plants at the nursery every year at this point, and that you know that selection is very much informed by having a scientific background into the world of plants and kind of understanding plants and botany. The science background certainly very much informs the diversity that we offer and that I grow and yeah, I don't know where the craziness comes though to always be discovering new plants. I mean, of course, I need to sell some plants that are going to be economically viable. But I'm also I love to champion plants where I'm only going to sell five pots a year just because completely non-viable economically. But it's a plant I love and for those five people I sell it to, you know it's going to be something exciting and rare and unusual and inspiring for them.

Daniela SM: 15:49

This is always people that have the expertise, like you.

Gary Lewis: 15:53

Yeah, I mean, of course we have gardeners of all levels that come to the nursery, which is great because we love gardeners at any point along the gardening path. So beginners are great because they're so excited about their possibilities. Intermediate gardeners are great and expert gardeners are great too, I mean. So, although you know it is interesting, some people do a little bit of a leapfrog. I find you know you'd think that normally the you know, the trajectory of a gardener would be to be a beginner gardener and then start with your basics, your basic normal everyday stuff, and then gradually get more sophisticated with time. The only thing is, I don't know if that holds true any longer, especially for some of the more recent well, even the boomers, the Gen Xers, the millennials, because I don't know, I guess it's a. It's a. It's a connected world.

Gary Lewis: 16:44

People do lots of research and you know, even a beginner gardener, they've seen a daffodil before, they've seen a tulip before, you know. They know what basic perennials look like. Um and there, they might even be bored of that even from the beginning, because people are looking for exciting things and inspiring things. So even beginner gardeners, I find, are not taking the normal trajectory all the time. Sometimes they're leapfrogging onto very unusual and esoteric plants and some of those rare plants are difficult to grow. But some aren't very difficult to grow. It's just that they're just you know, they're just uncommon. So some of them are weird. They may be attractive to certain people, depending on their personalities and their aesthetics and you know what they're interested in.

Daniela SM: 17:32

Yeah and Gary, have you met anybody like you with the same passion since they were little? Through all these years that you have been to university, that you are meeting people from different nurseries, have you ever met anybody like you?

Gary Lewis: 17:46

Oh yeah, I mean, there are people like me. I mean horticulture, you have to be passionate about it and you have to love it in order to want to be in it. You know, none of us are going to be rich for a living, but we do it because we love it. So there aren't a lot of people perhaps like me that have come at horticulture first through the science side. So no, there's not a lot, but there's certainly lots of people in horticulture who are very passionate, who have taken their own path. You know amazing people.

Daniela SM: 18:13

Yeah, but I think that there's only one, gary, as we know, and so there and we have you in Richmond. Yeah, you're, you're lucky. Yes, so I know you do talks, and which is amazing. I don't know anything about gardens, I just know they're beautiful, but but I had the time to go to those talks and and you gave me some knowledge that opened my eyes to. Oh, now I notice things that I wouldn't have otherwise. You know, maybe I'm not a gardener yet, but now I am more observant and I notice things. I thank you for that, because I think that it is important and that's why I think it's also good to have stories like this, because people maybe will be noticing and learning about other things.

Gary Lewis: 18:53

It's funny that you mentioned that because we talk about something within the industry called plant blindness, just this idea that society in general is kind of blind to the plants around them. You know, we move through the world, our cities, our suburban areas and the countryside are filled with plants and we depend on plants completely for our survival. But a very large portion of our citizens go about their days being completely unaware of plants. They don't see them, they don't think about them and it's kind of sad in a way. They don't appreciate the beauty all around them. I mean, you're driving down a street and you're trying to get to work or you're trying to do your errands, but the street is lined with the most beautiful trees. I mean sometimes you know when the cherries are blooming, that will grab someone. I mean that'll grab people out of their blindness, at least for a few days or for a moment yes or an autumn with fall color, where somebody you know notices something for the first time.

Gary Lewis: 20:00

So many people in society go around not noticing that beauty that's near them all the time. There's this quote from Darwin, and it said A traveler should be a botanist because in all views, plants form the chief embellishment.

Daniela SM: 20:17

Yes.

Gary Lewis: 20:17

So I mean that's wherever we are. Plants are the chief embellishment of our world, so I'm happy to hear that you know, coming to that talk as somebody who describes themselves as a non-gardener. Would you know, become aware of the plants and beauty and perhaps what they can do for you and how they could fit into your life?

Daniela SM: 20:37

And you're right, not only plants. I think people don't even notice other people. We're too busy with whatever is happening. We don't see people, we don't see plants. Yeah, so what you do is beautiful. And then let's talk about your book, which is amazing. It has the most beautiful pictures. I am very fortunate, too, that I was at the talk and then you can explain that, because it was not just having the book, but I think it has to come with the talk. How long did it take you to write the book and what made you write the book?

Gary Lewis: 21:07

So the book is called the Complete Book of Ground Covers. It's an encyclopedia of ground covers designed for the temperate gardening world. It means basically most of North America, most of Europe, new Zealand, to an extent parts of Australia, japan. So it includes 4,000 different ground covers. Also includes plants that we wouldn't think of as traditional ground covers but that can be used as ground covers a little bit non-conventional ways, such as vines and clumping plants and clumping shrubs. It has 650 photos, of which I took most of them. It took nine years of my life to write. I wrote the book basically in my spare time, but it took nine years to find all of that time and also it took nine years to get all the photographs as well, to try to have a photograph of almost every ground cover in the book.

Daniela SM: 21:53

Why a book like an encyclopedia? Nowadays, everything is online, so what make you put that together and think that it will be helpful?

Gary Lewis: 22:02

Well, it was published by Timber Press, which is probably the largest publisher of garden books and plant books in North America. I had started a conversation with Tom Fisher, who was the acquiring editor at the time. We were discussing topics, different topics that I could write on. We went back and forth a little bit and then he presented this idea to me because they had published book on ground covers in the mid 90s. But these things go out of date in terms of plants. The garden industry moves on and lots of new plants are introduced all the time, so the palette changes and lots of new plants are introduced all the time, so the palette changes. And so they had been looking for somebody for a long time to write a new version of this book, essentially start from scratch. But they wanted to have an encyclopedia of ground covers would be important to have as a reference in the industry and for gardeners. So they said they wanted an encyclopedia and I guess they didn't know exactly what they were asking for. We said you know, I think you'd be crazy enough to take this project on. And they didn't know exactly who they were asking.

Gary Lewis: 23:15

Because I love encyclopedic things. I mean I would carry every plant available in horticulture if I could. But then we'd have 10 or 15,000 plants at the nursery and that would be unreasonable. But if you say encyclopedia, then I say, all right, this needs to be an encyclopedia. This needs to be complete, this needs to be relevant and it also needs to be exciting and it needs to be beautiful and inspiring. I feel like I did it right. It made them nervous. It was supposed to take two years or three years that it took. Oh my God. They were very patient. I thank them very much. So they believed in it. They stuck with me.

Daniela SM: 23:53

Now we have this huge book yes, incredible and it's beautiful. And, yes, I bought the book. I'm still not a gardener, but now I went to see a friend of mine in Victoria and I was enjoying it and appreciating every other garden that they were there. I was like, oh look, this is ground covers, this is ground covers. And it was just funny how now I have a little bit of knowledge of something that is now my topic. I appreciate it. So thank you for all the years that you work on it, for sure.

Gary Lewis: 24:22

You're welcome. I mean ground covers they're not something that people think of as the really exciting thing. You know people, when they're gardening they think, well, I want to grow clematis vines, or I want to grow a beautiful flowering tree, or I want to grow perennials. So ground covers are not that the first go to group of plants that people get excited about usually, but you know they're so important in gardening they can be really important for making gardens easier to care for and, you know, saving people time and money in gardens if you use them strategically.

Gary Lewis: 24:55

We've become so aware of how our gardens can have an impact on the environment around us, both negative and positive. So ground covers can be so useful for decreasing the amount of lawn we have, reducing the urban heat island effect and helping to conserve water in our gardens. Using ground covers for aesthetic purposes can really just bring a whole garden to the next level by finishing things off and adding bits and pieces and little tchotchkes to the garden that really accentuate things and really raise a garden to the next level. So I think it's one of the most important groups of plants. Of course I'm a little bit biased.

Daniela SM: 25:33

Yeah, and please tell us because I know you were mentioning that how bad it is to have grass. Tell us more about how ground covers can take over the grass, and then nobody has to spend time mowing the grass and spend more time with the family.

Gary Lewis: 25:47

We don't have to feel bad about having grass or lawns, because they're useful. We need a place for children and grandchildren to play. We need a place to hang out in our yards to have a barbecue. But we can question. You know, how much lawn do we really need? If you look at statistics from the United States and we're going to be very similar in Canada Americans spend $30 billion a year on lawn care and 2% of all of the continental United States is covered in turf grass a lot of area. I think there's more turf grass than there is, like corn and wheat I'd have to check that but there's a lot of. There's a lot of grass. We need some for these different purposes and we need them for playing fields, but we don't need all of it.

Gary Lewis: 26:34

Looking at options to replace turf grass, there's a certain carbon footprint to maintaining a lawn. Lawns need a lot of fertilizer. People apply a lot of pesticides to them, so they can be a little bit detrimental to the environment. Additionally, lawns don't provide any nectar or habitat for beneficial insects, for hummingbirds, for birds and for all those little critters that we love to have visiting our gardens, which you know delight us, but also you know we miss the opportunity to support the wider world of nature around us when we have, you know, essentially a green desert of just grass in our gardens.

Gary Lewis: 27:11

When we have, essentially a green desert of just grass in our gardens, thousands of different ground covers available to us. We can look at how to either reduce the size of our lawns just down to the size that we want, that we need, or, if we don't need any lawn, we can replace our lawns altogether with different ground covers, and they can be ground covers that provide nectar, habitat or berries for wildlife. They can be ground covers that provide food for us, they can be ground covers that provide fragrance for us and, of course, you know, we can have a lot of fun with them, because they can also create a lot of beauty. In terms of environmental sustainability, certainly, ground covers are really valuable when it comes to looking at how we can replace or reduce lawns.

Daniela SM: 27:53

And I remember you saying on your talk that it is not easy. Like we have a neighbor who changed the lawn for that and it looks like she's never working on the garden, but I spoke to her and she's like there is a lot of work. Also, you have to have the vision of where to put the plants exactly to take over. So you need a bit of knowledge. So your book can give ideas, but what else do you suggest that people can do if they want to change the lawn to the ground covers?

Gary Lewis: 28:22

Yeah, you have to decide how much lawn you really want. And then, yeah, then there's just like designing any garden. You're going to have to design it and think about what you want. You're going to have to design it and think about what you want. You're going to have to decide you know where the where the beds will go going to have to look at the conditions in your garden to decide what kind of palette of ground covers will grow well for you, and then also what kinds of ground covers are going to meet your goals.

Gary Lewis: 28:48

You may just want something that is completely low maintenance and there are ground covers you can plant and once they fill in, you'll never have to do anything to them, never have to water them. You'll well, I mean maybe once or twice in the summer if we're having a real drought, but you know you'll hardly ever have to fertilize them. Uh, you know they can be really low maintenance and but there can be other plantings. You could get creative and you could plant a whole mix of different ground covers and various patterns, and those you know, if you have patterns, then you're going to want to maintain those a little bit. You want to keep certain wafts of ground covers from growing too much into others, or maybe you just want to plant a big mix of ground covers and, just like any garden, no matter what you're doing, it's all about, you know, looking at your space, deciding what you can do and deciding what your aesthetic is and your goals and then going from there.

Gary Lewis: 29:36

Well, I have some. I have some good news relative to the book. It's actually been translated this April, so we're looking at April 2024. It is coming out in Japan.

Daniela SM: 29:48

Oh wow, Well, that's awesome.

Gary Lewis: 29:51

Yeah, that was almost better than getting a book deal in the first place to have a another country in a completely different language want to translate your book. That's exciting, yes.

Daniela SM: 30:01

Talk a little bit about your tour. So you, when do you decided to do these tours? What give you that idea?

Gary Lewis: 30:06

It's funny how life, just certain things happen in life and it's all about connections and people you know and just I don't know, being out there in the world doing your thing, and then things come along. I did both of my degrees at UBC. Ubc has an alumni travel program. I did know somebody who worked at alumni UBC and they were looking for a guide to lead a tour to Holland and Belgium to see the tulips blooming in April one year. He said well, I know this guy, he's got a nursery in Richmond, he's an expert on plants and he happens to be an alumni of UBC. So all of these tours are led by either professors of the university or alumni of the university for the most part. And so that started it off and it went really well. We started planning more tours after that.

Gary Lewis: 30:57

I've taken tours to South Africa, to New Zealand twice, to Western Australia, france, ireland, basically just doing about one a year. I'll just keep traveling the world and it's great. I just have to think of my bucket list garden destination or botanizing destination. So some of them are botanizing and ecology focused. So, like Western Australia and South Africa, we're all wild plants for the most part. So I just dream up my bucket list gardening destination. I put together a rough tour and then I work with the travel agency. Worldwide Quest has contracted with Alumni UBC. They take it from there and they work on the logistics and I find some travelers and they find some travelers and because the tours are for Alumni UBC but they're also open to the wider public, so anybody can come, because it's the mandate of UBC to also have outreach into the community, and then off we go to on fabulous botanizing trips or garden trips, or New Zealand was two weeks of gardening and then one week of nature.

Daniela SM: 32:08

And so how is a day to day for Gary? How is that somebody who has a nursery? What is it that you have to do every day?

Gary Lewis: 32:16

Oh, every day Some people get the impression that we're a really large nursery with a huge staff, and we do get up to about 25 staff during the gardening season. But you know, we're really a small nurseries.

Daniela SM: 32:27

But very well known, very well.

Gary Lewis: 32:29

Yeah, I do the social media. I'm getting have a little bit of help with some of the marketing with one of my staff. You know every day is different. I'm lucky to have amazing staff. I've always had amazing staff.

Gary Lewis: 32:39

I call them the Phoenicians. You know a lot of them were customers first and then became employees. But I think all of them realize what a special place Phoenix Perennials is A place where people are really passionate about plants. Passionate perennials is a place where people are really passionate about plants, passionate about always finding new plants, either cutting edge plants or rare plants, or very welcoming place for gardeners of all levels. They appreciate that the Phoenicians are very dedicated and so they do make it. You know. They make it easy in many ways, you know, because they love what they do and they believe in Phoenix perennials and they believe in this kind of mission. And they say that I created, but I've created it, but with their help, over the last 20 years.

Gary Lewis: 33:22

So a day for me is running all aspects of the business In the winter and spring. I'm sitting in front of spreadsheets all day long for eight or 10 or 12 hours, because 5000 different plants don't arrive at the nursery every year on their own. So I'm ordering plants from all over the world and organizing imports and, of course, I'm meeting with my staff all the time. Unfortunately, the business has become big enough that I don't get to do anything anymore In terms of I don't know not much. I started this whole thing because I love propagating plants and now I don't have any time to propagate plants. I just have to live vicariously through my staff, who are the ones who get to be with the plants. I mean, I do a little bit, I'm there, but I love a day when I can stand for a few hours at a bench and divide some plants and repot some plants.

Daniela SM: 34:09

But that way you keep it as a hobby instead of a job, if you just get to propagate from time to time instead of every day.

Gary Lewis: 34:22

Yeah, I mean they say, as an owner of a business, you need to work on the business. You're not supposed to work in the business. Certainly, some of the specialized propagation and production and organizing and playing and propagating the rare plants is certainly something that's fun to do, which I try to do every once in a while, but mostly I'm just directing my staff, discussing with my staff, going over what we need to do and then letting them take it from there. So luckily, they're amazing and they do a great job.

Daniela SM: 34:48

That's wonderful. So is there a special skill that you need to have to be a good propagator?

Gary Lewis: 34:54

You know, and there's an art and a science to all of that. Well, I mean, we're often trying to do weird and unusual things and those can often be a little bit more difficult to grow than your everyday plants. We develop our skills over time. We're not perfect at it all and there's always new things that we're trying to figure out how to propagate. So, for instance, you know, years ago we got seed from South Africa of a whole bunch of protea. Have you seen those crazy flowers in florist shops? They almost look like an alien. It's really weird. It's kind of like cylindrical and they're fuzzy. They look like an alien came down on Earth and grew into a plant.

Daniela SM: 35:34

I think you also mentioned that in the talk and I think you had a picture, yeah.

Gary Lewis: 35:36

So I mean, we got seed from those a number of years ago from South Africa, but you have to give them a smoke treatment for them to germinate, because in their natural habitat it's fire that creates the chemicals. The soot and ash have chemicals in it which then break the dormancy of the seeds and cause the seeds to germinate. So when you get the seeds you need to get a little smoke kind of paper that's infused with smoke, so you soak those in water and then you put the seeds in there and that gets the seeds to germinate. But it took one, two, three years for the seeds to germinate.

Gary Lewis: 36:09

And now we've been growing the plants and it's so difficult to grow them from seed that we thought, well, we're going to try them from cuttings. But we can't find any information on growing protea from cuttings. You know, once we get our plants big enough and they're starting to get there, we're going to start playing with them and try to start growing them from cuttings. So who knows? So there's certainly stuff it's really easy to propagate and we're really good at it. And then there's new things that we're working on our methods to try to figure out how to propagate them.

Daniela SM: 36:36

Wow, fascinating. That sounds very interesting. Anything else coming for Gary in the future? Any plans? More tours, for sure, and another book maybe.

Gary Lewis: 36:48

Well, I don't know if Timber Press is ever going to want me to write another book for them, seeing how it took nine years to write this one. Covid was a very interesting time for the nursery industry because everybody discovered gardening. It was actually wonderful in a way, because so many people who had never discovered gardening before, all of a sudden they were at home, they were bored and they were wondering what they were going to do. So they were already watching Netflix. They were already baking sourdough bread and they needed something else Netflix. They were already baking sourdough bread and they needed something else, so they started gardening. That's really expanded the industry and certainly we've grown a lot since the pre-COVID years. So now that the book's out the book's been out for a little over a year now I'm looking at getting used to the new paradigm of having a bigger business, because those customers who started gardening are still gardening, breathing a little little bit perhaps and, you know, just just coasting along and going to keep doing what we do.

Gary Lewis: 37:38

Well, at Phoenix Perennials Maybe have a little bit of work-life balance. I've never really understood work-life balance because I'm a I'm very much a workaholic. Easy to do. Easy to be a workaholic when you love what you do, because I mean, most of what I do as a job is like fun. Shopping for plants all around the world is my favorite thing to do, so I love sitting for eight or 10 or 12 hours in front of my spreadsheets. The next little while just kind of more of the same, but my life is filled with all kinds of great things, from a business perspective as well as a personal perspective. So yeah, living life and enjoying all of the wonderful things that horticulture and plants bring to life.

Daniela SM: 38:21

Yeah, well, that sounds wonderful. It's true. You work with nature, you are growing and helping flowers, so it is a beautiful job what you do. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for sharing your story from being here and for what you do. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for sharing your story from being here and for what you do, because, it's true, you're making people happy with all the flowers that you keep growing and all the things that you're teaching to everyone.

Gary Lewis: 38:42

Well, thank you. Pleasure to chat with you today. Thank you, Gary.

Daniela SM: 38:46

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