Ep 014 - Good Vibrations & Indoor Plants Featuring Dominic Hooghuis from The Plant Runner

In this episode Averill and Bernadette chat with Dominic Hooghuis, Co-Founder of The Plant Runner, Australia's number one indoor plant care brand.  Dominic is a creative, entrepreneur and a proud Dad.  Plant nerds and horticulturalists Dominic and Duncan co-founded The Plant Runner, doing the studies on indoor plants so we don't have to.  Dominic shares some lovely insights into his childhood, the positives of having indoor plants and some tips on how to help them thrive.

For more information on The Plant Runner:
- The Plant Runner - Online Store for the latest Indoor Plant Trends

For more information on NASA's Growing Plants in Space study:
- Growing Plants in Space | NASA

For more information on the effects of indoor plants on productivity:
- Plants in the Workplace: The Effects of Plant Density on Productivity, Attitudes, and Perceptions - Larissa Larsen, Jeffrey Adams, Brian Deal, Byoung Suk Kweon, Elizabeth Tyler, 1998 (sagepub.com)
- How Plants Can Increase Productivity in the Workplace - LABS

For more information on Integrated Listening Systems (iLS):
- Clinical Services - Integrated Listening Australia

Transcript

Before we start today, Seedy Chats would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the Ngunnawal and Ngambri country. Recognising their continued connection to this land, traditional custodians of all our lands, from the water running through our creeks, the air we breathe in our mountains and the stars that shine brightly in the sky. We pay our respects to Elders past, present and emerging. Hello and welcome. Welcome to Seedy Chats. Hello and welcome back. Welcome to Seedy Chats, the podcast where imperfect gardeners Avril, that's me, and Bernadette. Hi, that's me. Chat about our favorite topics, gardening and life. So whether you're new to gardening, a seasoned pro, or somewhere in between, join us on our journey to be mindful in gardening and life in general. Seedy Chums to this, our episode talking to the plant runner, the plant runner who we actually got to meet at the Melbourne Flower Show, which was really nice to meet Dominic in person, but also really nice to chat with him today and share some great tips with all of you. And Avril, you did a bit of research about the plant runner for our Seedy Chums, didn't you? I did indeed, Brenna Dudley. So the plant runner, they are basically two meats. Just like us, several, two chums that started selling plants out of the back of a truck in 2017, a truck called Fern. But not in a seedy way, in a legitimate way. No, completely legit. When they started, it started as a passion between two mates building Australia's first mobile plant shop and it's blossomed and now they're the most visited plant care web store in Australia. Wow. They don't really take Fern out anymore. They are two beautiful people, two horticulturalists. And they... Isn't it nice just to see nice people doing well? Yeah. Very refreshing. They're so down at earth. They are. They are. They're great. They're our type of people, definitely. Our peeps. And so today we get to talk to Dominic Hoeghuis. And yeah, we're gonna talk to him about what the Plant Renew does. and what he does at home with his plants and if he gardens. And obviously a question that's really important to us, your first gardening memory. So we hope you enjoy. Hope you enjoy. And just, you know, a really great reminder in this episode about, you know, mindfulness with gardening and probably something we don't talk about enough, but taking the time to garden can be time for you and time to fill your cup. You know, in a great way to introduce that into your everyday life. So we hope you enjoy it as much as we did. Welcoming Dominique Hoakhouse from the Plant Runner to our Seedy Chats podcast. Thank you so much for joining us and actually your second time meeting us because we were fortunate enough to stalk you at the Melbourne Flower Show. Yeah, it was good to see you guys. Tell us a little bit about yourself, Dominique, and I suppose the Plant Runner and how you met Dunk. How did it all start? So, yeah, so I have had an interesting life so far where I studied Horticulture quite young with my parents at home and then at TAFE and that actually is a year 12 subject and then at TAFE again. So I did multiple courses in Horticulture and then was just involved with Horticulture from a really young age on acres and acres of land in New South Wales. Um, as my parents just kept planting out this huge two acre block of land with all sorts of plants and trees and things like that. Yeah. And then, um, in my teens, I started playing music and playing drums and enjoying the whole bunch of bands. And that sort of took me off around the world for about a year, actually. Sorry, not a year, 10 years. Yeah. So that, that, yeah. So I was sort of poor and, and, you know, and having fun and just sort of sleeping in, you know, on the top of. campervans in Estonia and doing things like that. And that was fun. And then I thought, I met Marla, my wife, while I was on tour with my band in Western Australia. She was traveling from Sweden. And then I thought I'd sort of settle down with her a little bit and decided to start, to fall back on my second option as a career, which was horticulture after attempting music for 10 years. Yeah. And then... So yeah, so my gardening business here in Melbourne, I'm designing and installing and maintaining gardens. And then, then don't come along. He was, he had come down from Sydney. He was working at Garden Life in Sydney. And I was advertising for a horticulturalist and he applied for the position. And ended up being amazing. But then Doug went off to New York city and he saw while he was there, two of a truck, which is this really cool truck in New York City that sells plants and drives around. We just love the concept because it was like this urban concrete jungle and there's this little truck that's just full of green life, you know, driving around and like almost sort of bringing the nature back to people. And he was talking about it at morning tea one day and he said, let's, you know, maybe we should do that in Australia. No one's really doing that. So then we jumped on Gumtree and we started searching for a truck and we found this old was being used for as a pony float for this guy. And he had three daughters and they all loved going to the Mansfield Pony Club. So, Dunk headed out for the three hour drive out to Mansfield and checked it out. And it sort of ran well and it was a lot different to what it is now. We had to spend almost probably a year just gutting it. And, you know, we literally had to pull horse poo out of it and the back of it and everything. It's hard to imagine. Nice, it has fern as a horse float. It's hard to imagine. Yeah, so then we, you know, we ripped the roof off it and, and, you know, put new floor down and, you know, spent a long time. And then we put, you know, laser light, like, perspex, clear perspex on the roof to make it like a mobile greenhouse and get it all up and running. Yeah. And then, and yeah, that the rest is history. So we started doing markets and, and events with the truck and no one had seen anything like the truck, like, you know, the plant truck. Did you even think the truck would be as... as impactful as that? Not really, but we, no, we didn't, we always knew it would be something special because I was always taught by my dad, he always said, you know, if you're gonna do something, do it properly. And I think that's why when I take things on, I just sort of go all out of it. And I mean, I can frustrate people like Duncan or my wife and my friends, because I get so focused on a project. And, you know, the same philosophy goes, like, if I say I'm going to do something, I'll do it. I don't, you know. So I always knew it was like, I always wanted it to turn heads and be a really beautiful space for people. So, and then it was like a crazy, you know, when we put it all together, it was this gorgeous sort of gypsy truck with plants overflowing. And it's, it was, it's a positive place where anybody can come and Duncan and I would have conversations for like, you know, an hour with people. just about plants, but then it would go on and we'd talk about life and especially me and philosophy and all these things. So it became a really safe friendly place for people to come and not only buy beautiful plants for their house or whatever and some pots and plants, but just to come and say hi and you know we made a lot of friends with the truck and so but now that you know the trucks are for sale it's you know it's very sad when you think back about all of that but we've got our car around and we know it'll go to a good place. I had one, most of the people that are inquiring are people like florists or, um, you know, um, yeah. So one lady wanted to put it in front of her highway. Um, she had a flower stall on the highway and she wanted to put the truck with flowers and I thought that was quite nice, but, but yeah, so, but then, as you know, we, we moved into products, um, and cause we realized that people didn't know they had to feed their plants. Yeah, well that's right. I was going to say, how did you move? How did you decide let's just, you know, launch your own product you obviously saw the need for it. Yeah so I can't even remember what triggered it. It was me thinking you know what can we add on to a plant for someone to purchase or whatever or and people were asking, that's right, people were asking how to care for their plants and we're like well you know in the spring in the summer and even in the winter you know sometimes you need to feed them. plant food or some sort of fertilizer. And most people said no. So I took it to Dunk and said, hey, Dunk, here's an opportunity here, I reckon, to we might be able to sell some plant food with every second plant. So then- It's kind of the one on one of sales because I've got a massive sales background and you kind of find the need. And once you find the need- It's easy to sell when there's a genuine need. It's easy to sell. So you've genuinely just found that probably organic. Do you have any sales background at all? Not really, but when I studied music, I did study music business management and there was a lot about marketing there. And yeah. Um, and so there's, there's that there. And when I was a teenager, I decided to design my own and create my own drumsticks. And I ended up somehow, even though I was only 14 or 15 years old. managing, managed to get them into multiple stores around Australia. But yeah, yeah. So I think I had that, I've had a bit of an experience in saying that, um, I definitely don't have a business degree, um, which is, which is good and bad. You know, um, sometimes having strict, um, sort of rules or regimen, sort of, um, business styles can make a business stale or whatever, and don't give it any life. And I think, um, one of the biggest things that Duncan and I have is, is, um, for our businesses. being able to be approached and having the personality and actually making sure that our customer is number one and we genuinely care. And I think a lot of people are just in it for the money. And I can tell you right now, we were in it for the money. We would have bailed out a long time ago. No, no, no. And I suppose you've organically, it's just organically happened, which is beautiful. It's perfect. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's great. It's a whole vibe and you do feel that through the business. You do feel that even, I've got a little plant run of pack. I bought you a little plant food and neem oil. Ah, thank you. But even like the packaging, I love the packaging. Oh, it's great. It's great. It arrived super fast if anyone's looking at ordering anything and even I got a little thank you card with a handwritten note, which I thought was really sweet. So there's a whole nice vibe about the business, which I think translates really well. So you've nailed that. Yeah. And even just your branding. I really like, yeah, yeah. Your Instagram, everything, it's all, you know, you know what, you know, it's got your whole stamp all over it. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. So we were lucky going back to the plant food being our first product. And I guess it's like our hero product. We've sold over 300,000 bottles of that now. Um, so we've gone from, you know, bottling it on our back deck and labeling it on our back deck. Um, and we can't keep up obviously now, but, um, it's now it's bottled in Danny Nong. Um, But all of the elements and the parts are bought from other businesses around Melbourne. So the glass supplier for the bottles and the pipettes and the labels are from Campbellfield. So it's from all the elements and all the packaging, the box that you're looking at. You'll be like ASOP in a few years selling for $3.7 billion. Yeah, that's crazy. Yeah. L'Oreal might need a beauty product for the plants. Yeah, we're out for a collaboration. Absolutely. Because you're worth it. Talk to me a little bit about the plant food. I've got the plant food here and we're using it one mil per litre. So a little drip per my little water bucket. That's it. That's a long way. Yeah, gosh. Yeah, so... What we wanted to do was create a product. Does it even smell? No, it doesn't really smell. No, it's a slight seaweed smell. But our sort of demographic were people that lived in small spaces, apartments, or because we were driving around in the truck into urban areas, into garden, which people don't have large gardens. They've got a small balcony garden and a lot of indoor plants. So we're like, let's create. a product that doesn't take up too much space in their cupboard. Yeah. That looks good on the shelf so they can have it out and they don't want to hide it away because it looks ugly and it's all plastic and they have an environment or whatever. So then we set to work on creating a product that was a concentrate but still had amazing growth rates on plants and things like that. So... Yeah, Eddie, our designer who's been my friend for like 15 or 20 years. This is what I mean about, um, we keep it sort of, um, try to keep it as local as possible, even though we're exporting to Asia and Middle East and, uh, you know, all over the place, New Zealand and India, we still try and keep it very local Melbourne, um, and support all the businesses around us, um, as much as we can. So, um, but we set Eddie to work. Um, him and I work together. Yeah, so Duncan had some beard oil bottles actually. He's like, he said to me... Oh yeah, that's what it looks like a bit. Yeah, Duncan's sort of famous for his red beard and he's like, I've got this beard oil and Eddie had some beard oil or something and then sort of based it roughly off of that. So yeah, and it's, I mean, from another good perspective is it's easy to ship, it's smaller and you know... Thank you, Bob. That's right. Because we do have a bit of an international following. And that was one of my questions is where is your product available in the world? So it's interesting to know that you do ship to other countries. Yeah. Yep. So we're working on that a lot at the moment. So Asia, India, Middle Eastern, it's going to Kuwait and then being distributed out to United Arab Emirates and around there. around Saudi Arabia, I think it got into. And yeah, so, and then Macau, Hong Kong, and yeah, so. What about UK? Yeah. UK? Not in the UK yet because we're struggling with, you know, there's a lot of, with fertilizers, you know, you have to, there's so many, and there's so many loopholes, I'm sorry. Registrations. Yeah, registration. Yeah. Yeah, so we're struggling with that. And we don't, we can't afford to, you know, drop the big bucks on that, so. Yeah, but we're working, we're certainly working on that. I think it's a great little duo. I lived in Melbourne for seven years in a 49 square metre apartment in South Yarra. So I'm probably your initial target market, right? And I think it's a great product. Like the plants fantastically have just a really on trend at the moment. Everyone wants them. But I think about a lot of my friends are like, I just don't know how to do it. Or I'm not a green thumb or I can't look after them. But really, if you just have the neem oil spray, that's, you know, you spray your leaves, you wipe them off, you keep them photosynthesizing, let them have the sun, and give them that plant food with your water, that's really it. Yeah, that's it. Yeah, that's, I mean, essentially that's all you need to keep your plants healthy and growing well, and that's why they're called the essential kit. Yes. But yeah, that's, it's not, I mean, people think it's, people freak out and go, oh, but I'm not a horticulturist or, you know, I've got no, you know. Don't have to be. haven't got a green thumb, but you don't have to be. It's all very straightforward and easy. And it all sort of, especially with the plant food, it becomes part of your watering regime anyway. So if you're watering every week, you just put it in your watering can every second week. And then it's a bit of a gateway drug, isn't it? Because when you can keep one alive, then you kind of start growing your collection. As we know. Yeah, it's a healthy addiction, but isn't it, I guess? Oh, absolutely. Yeah, it is. We thought we'd take full advantage of having a horticulturist on the line, and we do have some photos of our own plants that we thought we could share with you to get your opinion. So how many houseplants have you got, Avril? So I just counted my... Oh, God. I just counted my living room area, and in there I've got 29 at the moment. Wow, that's amazing. Yeah, look, it's an A-frame roof and it can warrant, like... It's not a bit of Avril's response to COVID. She had a freak out with air purification and just filled the house with plants. Well, no, it went actually before COVID. It was when we had our bushfires. So before COVID hit Australia, we had very serious bushfires around the South Coast and around us here in Canberra. And so that was what 2018? Was that 2018? Oh God, where's those years gone? 2019. Was it 2019? Yeah. And so... I couldn't buy, you couldn't buy an air purifier. And again, when you put into the interwebs purifying air, plants come up. So that's when I started to introduce. I always had plants. I was always brought up like at home in Ireland. There was always conservatories. They're quite popular and people would always have like an indoor kind of garden. And so... Yeah, so off I went to start my plant collection and looking at those ones that really purify the air, like snake plants and because some do better than others and then my husband was like, no more plants. And I'm like, OK. But then he'd come home and he'd be like, where did that come from? And I'm like, I propagate now. I don't need to. I don't need to buy. Technically, it's not a new plant. It's just a part of another plant. That's right. Yeah. So, so yeah, then you realize you can propagate and some of them really easy to propagate. If you've got a little pet and it's doing great. Yeah, it's propagating. You've got a bit of and you propagate. You get another plant, a baby brother plant. It's the whole thing. Oh, brilliant dad, you're crazy. You've been embarrassed with someone else. Let me share. Okay. So let me share a few photos and we'll just see. These are sort of, I don't know, I think common. Common household plant issues. Did you take some of your photographs or are they all, are they mine? I've got one of mine at the end. Okay, this is your peace lily? This is a, I'm not very good at keeping peace lilies alive, but this guy has thrown out about five or six flowers, like in the last few months. So he's obviously happy, but he just has that little bit of yellow. It could be maybe a leaf starting to just die off. Do they just die off? Potentially. What would you do there? Yes, generally. Are you it looks as though it could be potentially underwater. Oh god, really? Yeah, right You just see how you know how peace lilies eight Also, it's I can see the window it's quite close to the window. Yeah, is it getting too much light maybe? That window does lead out to an area that's completely covered. So it's not it's it's like it is light, but it is protected. So I wouldn't have thought so. But my one's got very dark leaves. Oh, yeah. Leaves just look lighter. I don't know if that's you know what I mean? Like that could be a photosynthesis. Is that like depending on the amount of light they get? Because I have two other peace lilies, which you might I don't know. Oh, yeah. The next one is that's it there. Oh, yeah. That's looking better. Yeah, same one. So that's the big leaf straight up. You can see the little tip of yellow just down in the carpet there. Yeah, so overall it looks okay. Yeah, okay. Yeah, right. It could just be a leaf that's coming out. Oh, that's it there. Yeah, this is that is definitely getting too much light, I would think. But how do I recover that? I mean, well, is that planted into peat moss? It looks like it has. because you can really struggle when, I mean, a lot of the growers, they use peat moss. And it's, I mean, in a controlled environment, like in greenhouses where everything's automated, including the fertilizer output and watering and humidity and light. Yeah. Everything's programmed. I don't think it's I don't think it's peat moss. I think it's just compost. And I think there's like a little ring around. You know what that ring is? This is a funny story, actually. That ring around it is sand from my child's daycare, like his shoes. Did you have fungus? Ah, okay, not fungus, not the stopping fungus. No, well, no, I didn't have fungus dance on this one. It is in my kitchen window, which gets a lot of light. So maybe it's just been sunburned, I'm thinking. But yeah, no, the sand is just where I tipped the sand out of his shoes into the plant. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm gonna have a full sandpit, but anyway, yeah. So this one, if we look at your photo here, and I've got the same plant, a monstera at the end. Just see, like this obviously needs a little spray of your neem oil. But see the little ends of the tips, how they're just dying back? Yeah, I would say lack of water again. Oh yeah, right. Especially throughout the warmer months. Even we have a large fiddly fig in our house. We've just had to increase the water a little bit. I mean, my wife is, Marlon is concerned about the, cause it's a polished floorboard, so we don't want to ruin the floorboard. So we sort of, she tries to water just the perfect amount. So it doesn't drip through it. Cause it does have a hole in the bottom of the pot. But so it doesn't drip through onto the floor. So, but the problem is I think that perfect amount for not dripping onto the floor isn't enough water for the fiddle-leaf fig. And it's such a love spot. Maybe you should have gone from the bottom, sorry. Is it like... Yeah, no, but in this situation, the pot's probably a metre by a metre. Same, that's what I've got. I've established it in a very heavy pot, so it's just not practical. Yeah. Yeah, that's sort of why we developed our products like the Soil and Microbooster, where it's really hard to repot the plant. Like our fiddle-y fig is attached to the ceiling, so it doesn't... I know, sorry, I got really excited when you mentioned there the first time your fiddle-y fig, because I saw that publication in At Home magazine. Yeah, I've been showing everyone. Did you see it? I haven't seen it. We haven't spent a lot of time together, I suppose. But it does it goes across the whole ceiling. It's spectacular. Mine's a field leaf stick. Yeah. This is this is like the thing what dreams are made of. It's it's spectacular. How old is it? If you are, it would be probably at least five, let's say at least five years since we planted it. And it would have been about a meter tall. Oh, yeah. Right. OK. But I mean, if you look closely, all indoor plants are going to have imperfections. Yeah. And when people come by a plant from a nursery or from a small plant store, and they come back and say, oh, my plant's dying or burning or whatever, it's got nothing to do with the people that own the nursery. It's just the natural living organic things that, you know, they get, it's like humans, we get bruises, we get scuffs. We are flawed. Yeah, that's it. If you want to, if you, and I wouldn't recommend this to anyone because I really despise fake plastic plants. Um, but the only way you're ever going to get a perfect plan is if you buy one of those disgusting plastic ones. So in this instance where it is a little bit damaged on the tips, just for it to look perfect because I like that sort of thing. That's brain a dead fruit. Could I cut the tips off or am I hurting them? No, you could, you could, you might find you get a little bit of dieback where you make the cut, but I think that that usually takes, you know, a few months for it to take effect, but you can carefully just cut that little section out and you'll find that you'll get less dieback than you have now. So it'll be, you know, less, you know, less. Yeah. And we had one here, Avril, I missed one of yours here. Oh yeah, that's my, you can see the way the leaves are going a little bit yellow. That could be quartering. This is my bath. I've got, so on top of my plants, I've got other ones in my bathroom. I've got 12 in my bathroom. Wow, that's amazing. Because I've got shower caddies, you know, hanging on the opposite side of my shower screen. Oh, I see. Yeah, love it. I think a common mistake, like I know I'm guilty of this. I water on a Saturday. Yeah, okay. Whether the plants are thirsty or not. And then I forget on the Saturday. So then I'll water like. whenever I get to it or whenever my peace lily looks so dramatic that I'm like, God, I can't walk past that again without watering. But really we should be checking each of our plants, right? And sticking our finger in the dirt and actually checking if they need water. Not just. That's right. Because you like, here's an example. Like we have the big fiddly fig that needs to be watered on a weekly basis. But then I've got like a chain of hearts, which is actually a succulent. And, you know, if you water that weekly, it might, you might end up in my, that Yeah, my then update. So it's sort of like, it's good to have a pattern like every Saturday or every Sunday. And it's good for your mental, you know, mental health. It's, you know, for mindfulness going around and put her in a room and connecting with nature, even if it is indoors. Yeah, but Yeah, some plants don't want to be so you maybe you can get plant journals where you go, okay, well, oh, oh, every Sunday or every Saturday is my my plant care day and for one hour in the morning. And that's your also part of your mindfulness for the week. But in the journal you go, okay, well, the fiddly needs, you know, 1.5 liters every Sunday during the summer. And then I'll back it off in the winter. But so every week you water that, but every other Sunday you're watering the, you know, the plants that don't need as much water. So like any succulents or cacti or chain of hearts, things like that string of pearls, which are notorious for getting root rot and just dropping dead. So then yeah, still have that pattern, but. And then on the days where you don't have as much watering, you can clean the leaves or do other maintenance. We don't. That's right. I am. They're like I've seen a few plant ups out there that they will tell you. They'll remind you as well. Have you seen any of those or have any anything stood out? Are you are you making a plant up? Not when not at this stage. But you know what? We with our social media team one day just as a as a. funny, I think it was even something for TikTok maybe. The skip was like to download a plant app and trial it to see if it works. And I like really tried, I mean, I'm not the most tech savvy person, but I'm not bad either. I'm probably average or just below average. Yeah, same. Same. Happy, yes. I'm worse than Brunajad. Brunajad, sorry. The fact that we've got this podcasting set up is a sheer miracle. Yeah. Yeah. times to download an app and to get it to work. And it just, I could not even get the app on my phone to start with. And then, you know, one of the, one of the apps, I wouldn't like a hundred dollars a month or something like, and it's just, you know, how much can a computer like a, what let's say it's a mini computer, right? You're telling how much can a computer scanning a plan? How much information can it really tell you? I don't know. I don't, I think you've really just got to get to know your plants. Yeah. And not be afraid to stick your finger in the soil and turn the leaves over and look at it and get to know it. And yeah, instead of sort of I think you've got a step of disconnection when you're doing it through the app, which is a shame in my opinion. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's how I've learned is I've just I didn't have them. I didn't have 29 all at once. I started off with, you know, that devil's ivy that that you can't kill like you can't really kill them. Like and I propagate them. And then. I become at one and I know what they want and then I just move on and then it gets out of control. So I reckon like plant care apps are almost similar to like plastic plants, you know what I mean? You're not losing touch. The whole point is to be in touch with nature, right? That's the whole point of having plants. Well, one of the reasons apart from it being aesthetically pleasing and making the space look great, but part of the benefits. part of the benefit is being in touch with nature and getting that, you know, it's, you know, mindfulness in and by using those apps and things like that, I think that takes away a little bit from that. But in saying that, Google now have a thing where you take a photo and I've had it for a while, I think, and you can go click on info and then it'll say look up plant and it's free. It's just, I mean, I'm not. I've never done it. Well, you have it on your iPhone. There's a plant app. on your iPhone. I use a plan app, but I've never done it through Google. And then what is it tells you all about the plant does it? Yeah, and it's not even through Google. So you take a photo on your, this is on my iPhone. Yeah. Take a photo of a foliage and get a nice clear shot. And then you hit info, you know. Yeah, the eye, the little eye down the bottom. Yeah, hit the eye. Yeah. That pops up in about two or three seconds after that, it'll go plant ID. That's right, yeah. Yeah, wow, that's great. It's not an app, it's just part of your phone. That's right. I got rid of my Plant ID app because I had a Plant ID app and any local gardening group that would be like, does anyone know what this is? I just run it through the scanner and go, oh, this is what it says. Like, it's not me, it's just my scanner says this and I used to love doing that. I don't have much time to do that anymore. But yeah, it's very handy to have, Bernadette. Yeah, I can't wait to check it out. I didn't know that existed. One of the questions that we always like to ask all of our guests on the show is either your favourite or your earliest gardening memory. Is there a memory for gardening that's quite special to you? Yeah, in the 80s, when I was a little boy, on that large property that my parents owned, dad built this beautiful house. It took 11 years to build. you know, come home from work and work on the house and the garden. And in the meantime, while he was building this massive sort of mansion before we could sort of move into it, he always wanted to build a castle. And so he literally built a castle on this on this land. They got known as the Repton Castle. And I was on the front of the real estate magazine or something somewhere. But while he was building this beautiful, big, like three level castle, had a turret and everything was stunning. And I remember I've got vivid memories, memories of him with a rope tied around his waist. climbed up onto the third level and it would have been about 15 meters from the ground. Up on the turret he had this pitched multi-angled roof, exactly like a castle in Switzerland or Ireland or anywhere like that. And he was trying to get this, you know how they had those wind, to show which way the wind was blowing? Wind sock. Wind sock, that's it. Yeah, but no sock, it's like this old brass chicken. It was like a... Oh yes! Yeah what do they call it? That's terrible. Yeah yeah yeah but it has like a like a north and south. Yeah exactly so he's 15 minutes yeah and an arrow let's see he's 15 minutes from the ground tied managed to tie himself off to the building somewhere and tied the rope around his waist and I'm watching my dad go up and he puts slate on the roof so it looked like that original slated roof and it's slippery as hell steep as hell and he's climbed up and put this chicken this rooster, whatever it was, one of those wind dials, I guess you could call it, up on the roof and successfully did it and got back down without falling 15 meters. But on that property, we lived in this little flat that dad had built. And we ended up renting it out later to my soccer coach, actually, which is not me. But we lived in that little flat and my sister and I share the room. And in the living room, my mom had, probably mom, had planted this heart leaf philodendron. And it had grown up the wall and around the wall, like where it hit the ceiling, but it had grown around the ceiling. And it would have been like at least 10 meters long. I couldn't believe that this one plant could be wrapped around the entire room. And this is up in New South Wales where it's a bit warmer than down here in Melbourne in Canberra. But I just, yeah, that's stunning. And then something sort of uncanny, I came into my thoughts the other day. I was laying in the bedroom with Zeppelin, my little boy reading him a book. and I'd put one on his desk, a heart leaf philodendron, and it's growing up the wall and it's hit the ceiling now and it's attached itself to the wall. And it's funny how, you know, history always has this way of repeating itself. Repeating itself, I always say that. Yeah. Yep, yeah, so. So it's come full circle. Yep, yeah, so. Oh, that's fantastic. I might just look at that and see what happens. Do you think, do you have any photos of that old plant? Or is it all in your memory? Yeah, I reckon. I reckon I could ask mom, she'd probably be able to dig something up out of one of the old photo albums. Yeah. Oh, you know what? If I find it, I'll ask mom and if I can find it I'll post it on Instagram. That'd be amazing. Yeah, post it up. What a beautiful memory. Yeah. Yeah. And then, I mean, it was just this continuous gardening and there was monstera deliciosa that was fruiting in the garden. And one day mum cut the fruit off and she's like, try this. And I remember it tasting like bubble gum or something. Oh my gosh. I didn't even know they fruited. Yeah, they have a fruit like a banana, but it's very rare. It's not like a banana has like a billion bananas on one big bunch. It's like you get one, I mean, overseas, maybe you do where they grow naturally. But in Koss Harbour where I was, they weren't, you know, they were just splitting out a few. Whenever I visit my husband's family in Queensland, I always see all these plants that they have outside. I'm like, oh, that's my indoor plant. That's an indoor plant for me. That's an indoor plant for me. Although, when when we went down to the Melbourne. Garden and Flower Show, my sister, I helped her do some gardening. So she's in a suburb in Melbourne and she wanted things cleared out. And there was elephant deers that she said, oh, they'll die back now for winter. And I was like, no. So I'm cutting it off and I'm putting it in a vase and bringing it inside with me. And I was like, you need more indoor plants. And she was like, really? And I was like, this will root. And she sent me a photograph the other day because her mom's a potter. So we just put it in one of her beautiful vases. And so she couldn't see the roots until the other day she pulled it out and she was like, look, it's starting to root. And I was like, oh my God. Oh, so the elephant ears were starting to root, was it? Yeah, yeah. So we cut them off outside and they were starting to root in the pot. Allocasia, yeah. Is that, I think that's- Well, it might not even have been an elephant ear. I just know that it looked like a plant. I was like, I'm sure. I'll have to check that out actually now. But yeah, I'm sure it was. We'll run it through Google. We'll run it through Google and press the R. I did take a photograph of her, but it's starting to root. So because she kind of didn't really want them where they were and she goes, they're going to die back anyway in winter. And she had about like four of them. And I was like, let's just cut them, put them in water. And yeah, then you can pot it up and bring it inside or put it out, keep it on your balcony area. Yeah, yeah, cool. But yeah, yeah, it's yeah, good memories too. to have. And I mean, health, the health benefits of plants are very important to me. Like, so do you know much about the health, like what they do to our air, what they give back to us, like obviously mental health, but... Yeah, yeah. So there has been studies about, you know, how many plants you need in a room and I think, you know, to clean the air and I think you've definitely done that with 30 plants or whatever. I don't know whether I have that. Don't be saying that. I'm pretty sure if you Google NASA and Sansevieria, NASA were putting Sansevieria on their space station. I don't know. I'm pretty sure I read that somewhere. Is that mother-in-law's tongue? No? Yeah. Yeah, I do think. Yeah. Snake plant. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So they, I think they're one of the only plants that produce oxygen in the, is it the nighttime or the one or the other? It's been a while since I cleared it. Yeah, yeah. I've read about it, but have a look at it anyway. It's freely available, isn't it? Like the information out there. Yeah. Have a look around on the internet. But, but I do know that, um, plants in your workspace and whether you're studying or working, um, you know, um, it can increase productivity by up to 15%. So, um, I've had clients that are like, okay, we want to take out their offices here, they had like 30 staff in an office. Um, and so we just, we had all these. So I said, oh, you know, permission to, um, for creative control. And she said, go for it. Um, so I created all these and they were a shipping company. So I'm like, I always try to theme things or get a bit creative. And I think that, oh, that's a cool idea. Yeah. So I'm like, okay, well, let's try and get some plants from all around the world. And we'll hang these, um, plants, these baskets up that from the bottom, they look like globes and we'll have plants growing out of them and, um, you know, and then put some big, cool idea. Yeah. So my day job, we're in, we sort of do air conditioning and fire and I've got like visions, we get these old fire extinguishers that are made out of copper. And I'm just imagining like that being a planter and stuff like that in the office would be so cool. That would be cool. Yeah, it's themed, isn't it? It's, you know, and I think then the staff can connect with them as well. You know, they look for those plants for inspiration potentially, but I mean, you think about the return on that from a business's perspective, 15% increase in productivity. you know, if you, you know, you put that across 30 staff working in an office and even if it's only 10% or 5%, it's, you know, your return on investment is probably pretty good after a year or whatever. Get that in a coffee machine and you're set. Yeah. That's right. Do you have many plants in the office? I have three plants in the office. Yeah, right. And I had to pick them carefully because when I went on maternity leave, male dominated workplace. So I had to get the boys to look after it for me. And They've done a really good job, but they take it very seriously. And we've got the, I think you were calling them a philodendron. Is that sort of the heart shaped, what are they called? Spade shaped? Oh, they are. Yeah, they are spade shaped. Yeah. So I've got a philodendron called D'Atham, which is a heart-leaf philodendron, I think. So that they're going very well, but I've got a peace lily that's never liked it there. And I think it's getting too much sun. I think they're a bit fussy. Oh, they are, yeah. See, I've got one here at home. I think that's like... The piece is probably like more feminine attention as well. Yeah, maybe. But thankfully, I mean, plants, everything with plants is about vibrations, really. So I read this book called What a Plant Knows, and it pretty much says that the plant has almost all the senses that we have, or pretty much all the senses that humans have. But from what I gathered, it was that all of those senses were converted into vibrations. So, you know, if a plant is traveling towards, sending roots out towards a water pipe, it's because that water, it's sending vibrations out as it flows and trickles. And everything has a frequency. And I think that's why there's so many studies about certain frequencies of healing for humans. It's the same with plants and things like that. I think that Earth has a constant hum somewhere, somehow. And that is why our good vibes can influence. plants in a positive way. You know, they did studies. I feel a bit guilty now, like my piece has been reaching for me and I'm, I'm going to go. Why didn't you bring it home with you? I'll have to, I'll have to give it some TLC. Just touch the leaves. So like, I know it sounds really fast-pitched and like I'm pretty out there, but. Not at all, no. Touch the leaves and say some positive things and be genuine about it. Cause I reckon they can, you know, cause the vibrations won't be there if you're not genuine. When I visit my grandfather at the nursing home. All he wants is to hold your hand, is connection, is human contact. And it reminds me of the same thing, I guess, in a way, if they're just sitting up there on the shelf collecting dust, that's a bit of a lonely existence. Here's an example. You know, when you walk into a space and someone's obviously just had an argument or they've just got angry at their kids or whatever, and even though you weren't there when that happened, you can feel the tension. Yes. That's because the vibrations have changed. It's like... Um, I've been listening to all these podcasts about, um, ancient history and, and like the pyramid and things like that and how they've been built, um, on top of, you know, stone. So the vibrations from the earth and that's like, apparently you can't like stay in some of these chambers for too long because the vibrations are so powerful, they're good for you. And they say they're healing or whatever. Um, but yeah, you got to be, but I think it's everything's You know, it's all frequencies and vibrations. Well, funny you should say that. This is going a little bit off topic here. So my daughter is doing a little bit of music therapy to unlock. So she's had a little bit of she's seven and she's going through the whole reading process. And she's at a stage where she's learning and she's progressing, but just not at the same rate as her class, which is probably ridiculous because we all learn differently, right? Exactly. So I am, I, at her school we're like, you know, maybe we'll pop to the doctor and get a paediatrician. She's such a clever little girl. And I'm thinking, I don't know whether I really want to do that, like, because there's nothing wrong with her. Like this is very strange. But anyway, we're doing some ILS therapy, which is all to do with music. And she wears these headphones just like this, but they have to touch your head. And it's all about the vibrations. Yeah. And then she gets beautiful music played into her ears. And it's beautiful. It's all classical music. And the frequency changes. And to do with the vibrations and the frequency change, she has gone up like three and four levels in her reading. Wow. It is unbelievable. Now, I probably should know a lot more about the science behind it. But it was my friend who's a teacher. And she, um, doesn't teach anymore. She has a family and she kind of wanted to work her lifestyle. So she went away to do this training in this ILS therapy. And so I just jumped on the bandwagon with her and I said, I can do that with Ava, definitely. And we've had so many. So just going back to vibrations and what you were subjected to, it definitely makes a big difference. Yeah, yeah, 100 percent. Yeah. Huge, huge difference. A lot of food for thought. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I've noticed with plants as well, you can see little drips of water coming off their leaves. Do you see that every so often? Are they tears? Is that what you're gonna tell me? Are they crying? Are they crying? Like it's just to do with, I would think, humidity, condensation, yeah, okay. I reckon, yeah, collecting condensation, but I could be wrong, but just, yeah, that's my... first thought. Yeah. They think they could be crying. Oh my Lord. How many, so I know that you have your fiddle leaf fig, but what other plants do you have? Do you have a lot of plants? Often, yeah, because I mean what we'll do is the plant runner will do a photo shoot and if there's something I like I'll grab it and swap it out. One for you, one for me. It's got to be some perks, right? It's been in our bedroom for a long time and it just... thrives in the lower light. What was that, sireo mist? Sanzaviria. And would that be your, if you had a fire and you could only grab one plant, would that be it? Yeah, that was a fiddle, but the fiddle would be hard to- Hard to get out. You may not survive. You might have to cut it. Probably, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And then actually, Zepi has a fair few plants in his room. Oh, lovely. He'll probably have about five or six, a few little cacti and- and a little umbrella plant on a rock that he just got from Growcento. They were lovely. He went and popped in there and they gave him one of those. Oh, beautiful. And that's a nice part, you know, that mindfulness practice that you were talking about too. I also love, I water now, you know, what used to be a chore, but now my daughter, she's two. She loves doing the watering. And so it's a really great thing for the kids to do with you as well. And they love doing it. Yeah, yeah, it's great to teach them those things. And it puts them, I mean, especially if you're living in sort of urban environment and they don't have... by a mountain. Then just bring nature indoors and let them sort of be involved more there as well. That's right and do you do you grow a lot outside? Like do you grow like much food or do you have time? Yeah so my neighbor has far more space than me so I took up a deal with her. I said if I build the veggie patches and fill them with soil and and supply all the seedlings and seeds and and do all the labor can we go halves in there? You supply the space. we go halves in the project. So we did that. So next door and you know it's perfect because my two little boys are really close friends with her girls and we're hanging out there a lot. Yeah so then we've got the veggie patch there and it's there's still thousands of tomatoes like this year from the crop and and the trial a lot of the plant right there's products there that's all in micro twister and but yeah just continual tomatoes there's still tomatoes on there now and we're coming into I know I'm fighting off the frost we were meant to get one here on Monday. And we just missed it. But it's gone down. Was it two degrees this morning? I traveled back up from the South Coast this morning to podcast. So has it been very cold here? It's been cold, but I've still got my tomatoes. Some of them I've noticed the splitting, but I'm still leaving them out there as long as I can just to get those last crops. Yeah, yeah. And use them for seeds or whatever. But yeah, so we've got heaps of that. And it was a big prick wall about 10 minutes long. And I ran a heap of cables along it to grow like cucumbers up it and. and things like that. And then we put some corn in, but we put, I did a bit of companion planting without doing research and I put sunflower in, sunflower, sunflowers in there as well. And the sunflowers just went boom and took off and then they like completely blocked the corn and so the corn didn't make it through. I should have created a separate bed for the sunflowers, but now I know not to plant sunflowers. Still probably better than my corn, I got one. So of course it did get pollinated. Maybe it wasn't the corn. I've given up a corn. I've given up a corn. But yeah, that's exciting. And what the plant runners actually sort of moving a little bit into grow your own urban gardening, as in like growing your own herbs and vegetables and things like that in small spaces. Which makes sense to me. I mean, it's not that long ago that lettuces were $14 and anyone can grow lettuce, right? Yeah. How easy is it? Yeah. And we had a really good crop potatoes and they became very expensive. Didn't they? Yeah. Between us, we'd something like 60 kilos of potatoes or something. We've got vodka and we've got chips and metal coverings. From Sweden. So she loves potatoes. Every time I go to Sweden, I swear every second meal is potatoes. we always say that the potatoes in Europe are very different to the potatoes in Australia. It's definitely the soil. It's got to be. I've got the last meal of potatoes in there and we did our first one in November so worked out yesterday. We got five months of potatoes for our family. We grew five months worth. Yeah and that's I'm in a pretty small setup here. I've got maybe I say small I've probably got you know 15 square meters of you know raised beds but it's amazing what you can. And we do all of it, even all of our garlic. Gavrelle and I just ran the garlic last week. We've just done our garlic, yeah. Probably 200 cloves or more between us. Yeah, so do you plant garlic? Like, will you put a winter crop of garlic in? No, but I'm really excited to try it because you're the second person the last couple of months that said you've totally got to do grow garlic. How long does it take to- We put ours in last week and we'll do it- bring it up just before Christmas. Just before Christmas, yeah. Oh wow, so not. So some people work with the solstice, I mean the longest day of the year, like you plant it on the shortest day of the year and harvest it on the longest day of the year. Yeah, but you've gotta do some garlic, it's so good. But it's so good. I'm gonna do it, yeah. So are you, when you guys are planting the garlic, are you planting like the cloves, you're planting cloves, yeah? Or how are you doing it? Yes, we have put ours in already, which some people, I know like my sister in Melbourne, she was like, no, no, you do it on the... shortest day of the year and then harvested on the longest day of the year. But I was like, no, we've put art because we're in a bit of a different climate like a cooler climate and we're a little bit more up. And ours has gone in already. Ours has gone and we did two varieties, an elephant garlic and a purple stripe variety. We soak it in a solution. The one we used is called Food to soil. Food to soil, which has like got an inoculant in it, but you could just soak in any of your seaweed or any of your products like that. Soak it overnight. And then when you're in a cooler climate, the trick is not to plant them as, you know, too deep. So maybe about five centimetres and then literally neglect them. Drainage, good drainage. Cover it over with mulch. Sun, yep. You know what? I'm going to listen to this podcast so I can learn. I'll listen back to it. So I can learn how to do it. Yeah, exactly. And it is it's a really it's a good one, because then you can plait your garlic like your your wife will love it. You plait it, you can hang it up and then you just put it up. You can gift it like it's a great one that people love to get. Now, where you get it is like I know you can buy some online, like you get it from the diggers or you do seed the seed collection. Yeah. And but if if you know, so if you get some local garlic from a market, Like you'll be able to plant that. Actually, I spoke to a podcast I was listening to, a really big producer of garlic in the US. He said it takes three or four years for him to get the seed garlic to adapt to his area. So if you don't have a great crop first year, save all your biggest cloves, do it again. They get used to your climate. That's right, yeah. So ideally you wanna find someone that grows locally. But if not, I mean, yeah, from any of those, the diggers, any of those online, the seed collection, they're a fantastic, great service. Because it's so good for you too, garlic. I mean, every time, I haven't been sick in a long time, maybe that's because I've been eating lots of garlic. Bernie did do a great thing with garlic as well. A fermented honey, so just the cloves in honey and ferment, you know, for as long as you want, but up to and over a year, but it's got, you know, a lot of strong medicinal properties, that raw garlic. Amazing, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So garlic, like it's got so many anti isn't it? Anti-perial or you know, yeah, so it gets rid of the bad bacteria I reckon and probably gives you all the good bacteria. I mean, I'm not a doctor but- And gets rid of the vampires. And the vampires. Yeah, exactly. You win, hey? That's right. So a couple of weeks before you harvest it, just back the water completely off. That's the only last thing you have to say. Oh yeah, so you don't water it as much? I don't water it at all in the last couple weeks. Why is that? It actually helps the flavour intensify. Oh, I... You know, when they grow and they're tops, you know, they're ready, they're scapes, they're called scapes at the top, and they bend over and you can cut them off and you can cook. They're amazing to cook with. Pesto, pickles. Yeah, and at Christmas, my sister-in-law was up from Melbourne and I done like a pumpkin soup. you know, my own pumpkin that I was so proud of myself that I grow. And I had nothing else in the fridge to put into it. And I just had scapes. So I done a pumpkin and scape soup. Oh, my Lord. It was so basic, but so yummy. Yeah. So yeah, they're a great crop. Well, you'll have to keep us posted on how the garlic growing goes. Yeah, 100% going to do it probably this weekend, I reckon. Yeah, awesome. Perfect timing. And we'll be very excited to see what the PlantRunner brings out next as well. And we're Fern, yeah. We'll have to try and follow Fern. If people, so you're really active on Instagram, you've got a beautiful website. So people head to the PlantRunner, is it.com.au or just.com? That's it, just.com, so theplantrunner.com. Yeah, perfect. It's a great blog on there too, by the way. That's mainly compiled by Duncan, my co-founder and also amazing horticulturalist. Go and check that out as well. Well, thanks for your time. We really appreciate it. You're so lovely. It's so nice to meet you. And I'll let you know how my plants go with those little trim tips. Yeah, awesome. Awesome. Thanks so much for having me. Yeah, we both love it. That's great Dominic, thank you. Thank you guys. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you guys. Thank you. How good was Dominic? Oh, just our people, right? Absolutely. And I've learned a lot. I mean, I thought I knew a lot about indoor plants because I've got so bloody many. But, you know, going back to when I started, I think the secret was that you just get one and if you keep it alive, great. And if not, you just replace it. Like it doesn't matter if you kill a plant. It's no biggie. So just thinking too about where you put plants. So if you do want to put a plant in your house. and you don't have much room, think about where you're going to put it and then keep that place in mind when you go to the gardening store. Is it shady? Does it get full sun? Does it get partial sun? All of these things will be on the label of the plant, so pick the plant that will do well in the spots that you've got. Guess what, alert, it doesn't have to stay there. You can move a plant around. Yes, they are portable. But they are portable, like if you, if it's not thriving, it doesn't matter. And like I've put plants in my bathroom, I've put plants in my hall, they're really, really dark places and they've completely thrived. I've put plants in my bathroom and they've completely literally died back to me. Yeah. Or anemic and white and Andrew's gone throw them out and then I've moved it onto a sunny window sill and they've come back to life. Yeah, so I don't think there's no hard and fast rules because even- But I love rules, have rules. Yeah. Let it go, Brennan dad, let it go. Do you wanna have a break? I can have a break.