- What if I told you that
house plants don't exist? There is no such thing as a house plant. Every plant I'm about to
show you in this video, hundreds and hundreds of house plants, never evolved in a home. In fact, they only became house plants when homes started to get built. So in this video, behind these doors, are some incredibly rare plants, some incredibly common plants
with interesting stories, and then some plants that, quite frankly, I think you've probably never seen before. So let's take a look. (soft upbeat music) We're here at the San
Diego Botanic Garden, which is my hometown botanic garden, at the World of House Plants Exhibit. I've gotta meet a guy named John, who knows everything about
everything in this room. So let's take a look. This place is crazy,
and there he is, John! - Hey, Kevin. - How are you doing? - I'm good, how you doing? - Nice to see you.
- I'm doing very well. - Welcome to the conservatory.
- You, as well. - Thank you so much. I've been to the place before, but I've never been in this room, - Okay.
- and I have to say, I've never seen this many
house plants in one place. - [John] Oh, there's a lot of plants. - [Kevin] There's a lot of plants. - [John] There is a lot. - [Kevin] They're in the
sky, they're on the ground. (John chuckles) So John, who are you at the
San Diego Botanic Garden? - So I'm Director of Gardens
at San Diego Botanic Garden. And so if it involves a plant,
it's under my oversight, so--
- So everything, basically.
- Everything. Yeah.
- Everything, yeah. Everything, there's a lot
of other departments here, but if it's about plants,
putting plants in, keeping plants alive.
- [Kevin] Yeah. - [John] Installing plants,
doing the irrigation, that's all me. Well, not all me.
- [Kevin] I've heard you been cultivating
them for a hundred years. - Yeah, at least a
hundred years, yeah, yep. It's been a long time.
- He has the special sauce on longevity, not only in
plants, but in human life. Okay, it's almost hard to
figure out where to begin, but right to my right is something that I've personally never seen in person. Very excited about this. This is the corpse plant
or the corpse flower. And I understand that this actually bloomed this past Halloween. - [John] It did.
- [Kevin] Yeah. - [John] We had two that
bloomed about three weeks apart. And this is one of the coolest
plants in all of nature, in my opinion.
- [Kevin] I mean, it is. - [John] Just look at the skin. - [Kevin] Yeah.
- [John] I mean, it looks like this is
reptilian and I expect this to ribbit, ribbit here in just a second. - Well, it's that John, And it's also the fact
that a plant of this size, this is- you were telling me just a leaf, technically, botanically.
- Yes. This is a leaf, not a stem with leaves and branches and all that.
- Yeah. - And that it's grown in
a pot that quite frankly, I grow tomatoes sometimes
in a pot that big. - [John] Yeah.
- [Kevin] So it's crazy that it can live this way. So what do we need to
know about this thing? - [John] Well, it's rare. So they're from Sumatra. There are about a
thousand left in the wild. - [Kevin] Oh wow.
- [John] And you can find them now in cultivation, they're becoming more and more common. - [Kevin] Yeah.
- [John] But one of the crazy things about these
is that this is a plant that only makes a flower
every three to five years. And then every three to five years, it's in bloom for three days. - [Kevin] Mhm. - [John] The first night
it opens as a female. - Okay.
- The next night, it opens all the flowers open as a male. So the issue is,
- Okay. - who do you have nearby
when you're a female flower? - You can't do just one.
- You just can't have one. - Yeah, yeah.
- So you've got to have another one nearby. And so as they diminish in nature, where does this poor plant find a mate? And so that's one of the issues
in terms of preservation- - Sure. - of just open space is
that there are few plants. - [Kevin] So this one opened and then there's this huge one over here, which I really wanna take a peek at, because this is sort of
the precursor to this, which is much, much larger. The color, it really does to me look like someone like drew a
cartoon of an alien plant, and this is what they came up with. - [John] Yeah.
- [Kevin] Because of the size of it and then the fact
that you would say, like you were saying, this
is a stem with one leaf. - Yeah.
- Botanically speaking, but it does not look that way. It looks like there's
hundreds of, of leaves on it. - Yeah.
- It's just a crazy plant. And so when it opens,
what, how did it work? I mean, it heats up. - It heats up and the spadix, which is this big middle
portion, it looks like a tower. - Yeah.
- That thing gets hot. - [Kevin] Yeah.
- [John] And it goes to up to 107 degrees
and when it would get, so this is a chemical reaction
that is making it stink. - [Kevin] Sure.
- [John] And so as the chemical reaction
would start to happen, we could actually see it vaporize. And we have footage on our website where you could actually see it, like smoke coming off of this plant. - Wow.
- And when it would begin to fire off all of
that chemical reaction, then you could see the
smoke start to happen. And then you would get hit with
the wafting stink, you know. - I was about to ask.
- It literally, it would just like roll off in waves. - Is it accurately named
that it does smell like a, I've never smelled a corpse, guys, so I don't know if that smells like but I have a sense that
it doesn't smell good. - It doesn't smell good. It smells like dirty diapers, dead, rotten fish, really rotten onions. And it sort of changes the
profile as the days goes on, but that if you wanna
smell one in full stink, it has to happen the first night. - [Kevin] Okay. All right. So I see that we have plants on the ground and we also have plants sort
of hoisted up into the sky. - Yeah.
- What's the story on some of these guys,
like this guy right here? - That's an anthurium
and it's just gorgeous. It's finally found its happy spot. - [Kevin] Yeah.
- [John] So one of the things that I would say to people
about house plants is, if you have it in a spot
where it's not happy, try a different spot.
- Sure. - So in a greenhouse like this, if we move the plant over
here on this chandelier, it might thrive and do really well. But on that little zone
over there, it's too dark. - Okay. - Or not enough air
circulation. So if at first, you don't succeed.
- Something that particular. - It can be very particular.
- Yeah. And you may find the same plant
if you just moved it 10 feet that it's like a whole
different world for it. - [Kevin] Yeah. - [John] And so, you know, don't give up, if you you're having struggles, just find another happy spot. - Well, it's interesting that you say World of House Plants, right? As the exhibit, because it's almost like the World of Plants that some people decide to put in a house. - [John] Yeah.
- [Kevin] Right, because it's not really that any of these should
technically be in home, of course they can.
- [John] Sure. - [Kevin] But if you
wanna care for it well, at least what we've always said is, okay, figure out where it evolved, figure out how and what conditions, and then just do your best to get close to that in your home. - [John] The plants preexisted houses. So you know, they were fat
and happy out in nature, and then we decide we
want them to live with us. - Yeah.
- So we bring 'em in and then we just-
- And we get mad that they're not doing what we want. - You're not happy here, honey. You know? So what we need to do is figure out how were you living in nature? Were you happy out there? Did you like more light, less light? Maybe am I keeping you too dry? - Sure.
- Maybe too wet. - Yeah.
- I should open a window. I hate a stuffy room. My windows in my house are
open every day of the year. - I've either got some AC going or a breeze going, one of the two. - Yeah. I've gotta have air.
- Yeah. - And so if you put a
plant in a stuffy room and you think "be happy"
and it says "I hate this." - Yeah.
- Open a window, change it up. - Change it up, change it up. It kind of brings us to this right here, which I was walking around,
seeing a little earlier. And it just kind of shows you, same exact species,
same age and everything. Grown in complete darkness, so you see what, like some etiolation where it's sort of
stretching for the light. You see this is a low
light one that's been basically I think a light
source from one angle only. - Right. Yes. - And so that's why you see it kind of climbing out or growing out this way. And then of course you see just what this plant wanted you to do to it, which is just put it in full sun and treat it like the place that it evolved. And so it's a really
cool example actually, of care and impact, right? And then I guess right here
too with over, under-watering. And then too much light, which I think for most house plant owners is probably not their problem, but- - Usually not. - It can be. I guess it can be if you put a really sensitive plant
in a high light area, but you get that burning on those leaves - And typically plants will adapt. So if you move them slowly from
a spot maybe with low light and you wanna put it in
a brighter light area, just don't move it all at once. So, you know, move it
a few feet every week and then eventually it
won't burn typically. - Yeah. - But if you go straight from less light to boom, a sunny window, you'll just burn the leaves. - Yeah. Okay. Let's take a look at what's
going on on this huge wall. I heard you saying something about these pitcher plants up here. - [John] Yeah. Those are really cool. And that's really a
more popular house plant than they've been ever before. - I think so. - So they're easy to grow.
- Yeah. - They're very cool because they'll catch all the little gnats and flies in the house for you
and they're beautiful. But this particular wall, this is a green wall that we put together. It's got Rockwell in
there, water flows through. But a lot of the plants
that are on that wall came to us because of
the federal government. - Yeah. - And they were being
smuggled into the country and they became evidence. And so we are literally a veritable evidence locker for the feds. And so we have a-
- That's crazy. - We have a lot of plants here where it's been entrusted to us
as literally legal evidence. We can't propagate them.
We can't sell them. We can't give them away. They literally are preserved as evidence. - It's if they're under lock and key at an evidence locker or maybe like a more illicit
substance that's hidden at the police precinct or something. It's the same thing here. - Exactly. - Have you ever had, I mean, 'cause that's a big, issue, right? Especially when you're dealing with the rarity levels of
different house plants. And we all know, guys, how crazy some of these houseplant people can be. I was just at a conference and it was an aroid greenhouse I saw and everything from them
is on the up and up. But what they were saying is like the poaching and the
stealing and all this. And so have you ever had someone say, "Hey, we need that pitcher plant or this for a piece of evidence" or- - No, we've never actually
had them come back from the feds yet and actually
ask for the evidence back. - Yeah. - Usually things get dismissed
or they get, you know, plea bargained out and whatever. But we have whole areas in the garden where we have plants that, and every plant in our garden has a tag. We know where it came
from, the date it came in. - Wow. - How it was planted,
by whom it was planted. - Yeah. - And then they have
other information for us. Like that has an R on it. It's restricted. So we know that we can't even
give that away to our friends. You know, this is literally
an evidence piece. - How much on this wall
is an evidence locker? - That, probably maybe 20%- - Wow.
- Of stuff on that wall. - That's crazy. I would never
thought that was a real thing. - They're cool. - Okay, let's take a look at some of the stuff that's hanging up here. Maybe starting with this, I
mean, Spanish moss. Right? - Yeah. Yes. - Which is, I think a lot of people, when you go to a store, especially if you're
not really into plants, you're like, oh, it's just a decor item. It's not alive. It's dead. But what do people need to know about it? - It's sure easy to grow.
- Yeah. - I mean, it's a Tillandsia.
- Yeah. - [John] You know, in the bromeliad family and here's really kind of cool. You can see a growth point.
- [Kevin] Yeah. - [John] And this thing
will flower for us. - [Kevin] Yeah. - And it, it really grows pretty well. And so it's a great plant if you wanna have that really
kind of exotic jungle look, if you've got a lot of tropicals, this is very, very easy to grow. We just hit it with the
hose once in a while. We give it a little light
dilution of fertilizer. - [Kevin] Okay. Yeah. - That's one of the things
I think people forget is that plants need to eat. So when we had the orchid show in here, a woman came up to me
and she said, you know, I've had an orchid in my house for two years and it's never rebloomed. And I said, well, when was
the last time you fed it? - Yeah. - And she said, well, I water it about every seven or 10 days. And, I said, when was
the last time you fed it? And she said, well, I've never fed it. And I said, well, darling, what if I brought you to my
house, put you in a corner. I made sure you got light and water, but I didn't feed you for two years. - You'd be a little emaciated. - You're gonna be a little
tired and not at your best. And so that's what happens with plants. And so I think one of the
ways that people fail is, that plant can't walk away
and find a better place to be. You are its provider, and
so I like to use a system. I call it weekly, weekly. Where you give it a weak concentration of fertilizer on a weekly basis. - Okay. - So if it requires a tablespoon per gallon of water once a month, well then give it one quarter
tablespoon once a week. - So, you meter it out a little bit more? - I meter it out. Yeah. Sure. - So for, so a plant like this, I think a lot of people
with Tillandsias especially, they're like, okay,
well it's an air plant. So does it, does it really need food or at what rate does it need food? So if you were caring for
Spanish Moss, which you are, and I honestly, I've never, I don't think I've ever seen
them hanging this sort of well, you know, they look really healthy. What's the ratio? Like
what's the care protocol? - So in this space. And so if, if this were in my garden at home, rather than in this space, it would be the same regimen really. And that is that we're
doing a dilute concentration about every seven to 10 days. So that microdosing in this big space, we either use a SiphonX, which, you know, mix it in a bucket and then you pull it through with the hose, or we use a Dosatron,
which is a little machine and we can fertilize everything with water soluble fertilizer. - So you just take a sprayer and just- - We just spray it down. Yeah. One of the added benefits
in this space too is we have reverse osmosis water. - Ahh. - That's really helpful. - Yeah. - It's clean, it doesn't
have all the salts that we have in San Diego water. And so a lot of times people have burnt edges on their plants, they don't look so great,
they look a little yellow. A lot of times it's because
we have awful water. - So for those who are obviously not in that position where
you can get RO water, a lot of house plant growers are like, can I water from tap? Maybe. Maybe I'll leave the water out, let the chlorine off gas. If I have chlorine, I need
to throw a tablet in there. What would someone do? 'Cause RO water is basically pure water. It's as close as you can get
to pure water really at all. But what if someone
throws it through filters? Is that better? Or is that worse? - It's better. Yeah, sure. You know, in fact I water my
orchids and things at home with my under the sink
filter, which is, you know- - Like a carbon filter. Yeah. - It's got carbon filters
and multi resin beads and that's better than nothing for sure. And it really makes a difference. But if you're using tap like
this little plant behind you, this is a common house plant- - Beautiful plant. - You know, it's just beautiful. - This is Brasil, right? - Yeah, it is Philodendron Brasil. And so if that were just given tap water, you'd see pretty soon these
edges would be turning brown. - And that's the
dissolved solids in there? - Yeah. The dissolved solids. Yeah. Yep. And just high
alkalinity of our water. So you'll do a lot better
if you give better water. - Sure. - Yeah, and it doesn't have to, you don't have to have
a big reverse osmosis. - You don't to go crazy with it. - But just the purified will help. - Sure. Yeah, this is a great specimen. The thing that's the shocks me about this I've grown I'm not gonna say
even a significant percentage of the plants in here,
but maybe a cultivar, a more common cultivar,
pothos, philodendron, and I don't know that I've seen a collection so well preserved. Like everything looks good, you know? And speaking of, I mean, I'm seeing something up here that I think we probably ought to talk about, 'cause I've never seen
this in my physical life. I've seen this on the internet,
in dreams, in fantasies, but this right here is potentially the rarest plant in the collection, right? - It, it is. It's probably the rarest plant
in the whole garden. Yeah. - Yeah. And so that's
philodendron spiritus sancti. - It's my spirit plant.
That's my last name. - That's right. That's your name. - Perfect. I need this
plant somehow. I need it. - Wow. Well they're hard
to propagate, you know, and they're almost extinct in the wild. There are very few in the wild, so this is a very hard
plant to get your hands on. - And how was that taken by?
How'd you guys come across it? - Well, it was given to us
as part of a collection, which we're eternally grateful for. People will sometimes
include us in their wills- - Oh, really? - or we'll get donations from
other Botanic gardens too. We actually exchange material. And so yesterday in the
garden, it was so cool. I met people from Lebanon. - Wow. - And from the American University and the university was pretty much wiped out, but they're now trying to turn what was the old American university
in Beirut, Lebanon into a Botanic garden. And I said, we'll hook you up, you know? - Yeah. Perfect. - Because there is a big
organization called the BGCI. - Okay. - And we share plant material
with other Botanic Gardens. - So let's say you guys are
trying to grow something, it's not working super well, and you can hit up a partner and say, Hey, would this be better in your area? Type of thing? - Right. Sure. Yeah. Or we publish lists for each other. They'll say we have these
available, would you like some? oh, heck yeah. We'd love some of that. And then by the same token, we offer some of our plants to other people. So it's like a big plant swap. - Does the spiritus sancti, if I was to create my own
Botanic garden in my backyard, could I join the BG?
Could I somehow receive- (Kevin and John laugh) - Oh, wouldn't that be swell! - It would be. Well, what do we need to know? I mean, this plant, what's
striking to me about it is it's like almost the most
extreme characteristic expression of that type
of anthurium, right? - It is. - Extremely thin. - Almost an arrow, you
know, like an arrow point, this little leaf, it's very, very thin. You know, this is an epiphyte. It's gonna be growing up in trees. This is one of the things
people frequently err on that they don't give plants enough light. So if it's growing up in the
crotch of a tree up high, well that's a good clue.
Give it more light. - Sure, sure. - They're really growing in the treetops. And you can imagine if we
were in the jungle in Brazil, that thing just hanging
there with the roots. - Can you imagine? Yeah. - Oh my gosh. Can you imagine walking
around and actually seeing it like truly endemic, you know? - Oh, boy. Wow. - Wow. - It's very cool. But on the other hand, and I look at that and I think it's the most valuable plant we have arguably in the one garden. And then I look at this
anthurium over here, or some of these other aroids and that to me is as equally as stunning. - Yeah. - You know, they're absolutely beautiful. - Well, it's interesting
how the collector market of which I'm at least
somewhat familiar with, I'm more of an edibles grower myself and I dabble in house plants, but the collector's market
really makes the whole market. - Sure. - 'Cause there's no other real
place to buy and sell these. - Right. Right. - I mean, unless you're
sort of doing it on Etsy or Facebook or some sort of
Instagram group or something. - Sure, sure. - Yeah. I've seen,
let's just say I've seen some prices for that
that get a little crazy. - It's pretty nuts. - What's happening over here with these little mini terrariums? - You know, boy, the terrarium craze was so huge in the seventies. - This is a cool way to do it. It's just, don't even bother. Just put a glass dome. - Put a glass dome over the top of it. You have to be careful you
don't put it in too much light. That's the one thing because, you know, it's just like your car- - Get a greenhouse effect. - The greenhouse effect,
it's gonna heat up and the ultraviolet rays stay in there. But if you get the right spot, isn't that so cool? It makes its own humidity. - So how are you deciding which plants you're gonna be putting under here? Just ones that prefer a lot more humidity than you can even provide
in the greenhouse? - Yeah. As you can see,
this is more low light. So we are gonna put in things that are lower light, higher humidity. Mostly little ferns, you know, the lemon button fern. There's some leather fern in there. - So we get a lot of questions about, as far as house plant care, like how do I keep a
maiden hair fern alive or some of these more delicate ferns? - Sure. - Maybe this is the play. - This would be, for sure. - 'Cause they're an under story plant for the most part, right? And so put a terrarium on 'em keep the humidity high and you're indoors. You're not getting a ton of light anyways. And that's one plant that
probably is okay with it. - Yeah, especially the maiden hairs. They want high humidity, you know, I'll never forget. I was in Zion Canyon, national park. - Oh, love, that's my favorite. - I love it. I absolutely love it. And so here is this red sandstone wall. It's 110 degrees. We are
just sweating like crazy. And we look, water's kind
of weeping and coming out and right in front of us are
all these maiden hair ferns. - Yeah. They're thriving. - Yeah. - Well what are they getting? You know, I always say, give a plant what it wants
and it will love you to death. So it's getting the right water, clean water and it's in dappled light. So as long as the humidity's high enough, it's gonna be happy. - It's fine. - Yeah. So this is a great
solution to no humidity. - And where like, if I wanted to do this, which I immediately do upon seeing it, where would you recommend
sourcing these domes from? Cause I've never seen 'em
quite like this before. - Yeah. Those, those are really nice ones. So, you know, eBay is a great source. You know, look up terrarium domes there. Etsy is another really
good source frequently. - And then are these two- - Antique stores. - Are these like shallow
and wide terracottas with mostly sort of a
peaty moss mix in there? - Yes. In it with just a little moss. - Yeah. - And a little bit of extra sphagnum just to make it look good. - How are you caring for these, you know, with the Spanish Moss
you can come through and, and hit it with the weekly weekly, right. - Right. So we'll pull the
top off about once a week, we're gonna give it a
little shot of water and then we put the dome back on. And again, that whole
idea of weekly, weekly. - So you're getting a little
fur every now and then. - A little bit. Just a little bit. - Yeah. - I mean like truly a microdose. - Okay. Do you ever have
to then prune this out 'cause it's gonna overgrow
its own terrarium? - These have only been in here
about three or four weeks. So if you wanted this to
perpetually be like that, you're gonna probably prune
that every few months. - Propping it down and
all that. Okay, yeah. - Yeah. You just go through and thin it. So in the three, four weeks
that this show's been open, we haven't trimmed these yet. So you know, it's fairly slow growing. - Sure. - Even so, yeah. - Can you talk to me
about caladiums because this is a plant that I think it's probably one of the more common house plants that people will start with. Cause I think they get attracted to the very delicate leaves,
but also the vibrant colors. And so how are you caring? 'Cause again, I've never gotten a caladium to look quite this good before. I'm a little jealous. - Sure. - How are you actually
making it look this full? - Well it's again, they're getting pretty good doses of fertilizer. - Okay. - And when these things come
in from growers, you know, when people say, I don't
really feed my house plants, well, I guarantee you that the grower did. - Yeah, the grower did of course. Yeah. - He did, or she did. Trust me. They're really feeding. And so you were really
not gonna be successful unless you're really on a regular basis, making sure they get good food. - With a plant like this, especially 'cause, correct
me if I'm wrong here. But there's not a lot of
photosynthesis able to happen in a variegated variety like this, right? - Sure. All variegated
plants are tough to grow. - Yeah. - Yeah. They are not as easy. - And simultaneously the most popular, at least in the house plant
world, the variegated aroids, everything's becoming a variegated variety if they can possibly do it. So are you having then to like, let's take this one and then
let's say this one, right. This one should ideally be
in a little bit more light. Right? Because it needs to
photosynthesize a little more. - Well they do, but part of the other side of the coin is they also burn easier. - Yeah. - So it's really a conundrum. So if you put it in more light, they burn easier than if it
were a green leaf calladium. - Sure, yeah. - On the other hand they need more light, so what we try to really do
is get really bright light. - Yeah. - But no direct light- - Filtered down a bit? - You know, filtered down a little bit. And then again with caladiums, that's probably one of
the more difficult plants if you're giving it tap water. - Okay. They're really not. They're
gonna get very quickly. You can, even with- - Yeah, I've seen- - You get some little- - It's a little bit. I wouldn't
beat yourself up personally about that because I've
absolutely roasted these before. - Oh sure. They're easy to roast, but you know, it does start to happen. - Yeah. - But for the most part, just cut it off. - Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah. When you have one this bushy, I think you can sacrifice a few leaves. - Yeah. Yep. - Awesome. Any other like little
standout sort of oddities? 'Cause I know on the low level here, these are more of your
so-called common house plants. But each of these has its own unique story and unique history as well. - Yeah. You know, there's
so many good ones. I mean, so in the
seventies I can remember. I can remember, so I'm old enough, I mean I've been at this a hundred years. - You're over a hundred years old. - A hundred years I've been doing this. I can remember in 1973 I
bought my first Boston Fern. - Wow. And I remember I bought it- - They were popular then,
though, weren't they? - They were really popular. I mean, people would
give their eyes and teeth to get a Boston Fern and they were, you know, counting for inflation, it was like eight or nine bucks in 1973. - Okay. Okay. - So it'd be like a hundred dollar fern. - So there was a market
back then for plants in a more premium way,
like there is today. - Oh sure there was. Yeah. Yeah. Nothing like now. Yeah. But people did pay a lot
of money for good stuff. And I remember paying a
lot of money for orchids. Phalaenopsis orchids. Who doesn't go to Trader Joe's. - They're for free now basically. - They're almost for free. Yeah. You know, door prize. Welcome to Trader Joe's, have
an orchid. Like 10 bucks. - Well you get 'em for any celebrate, like some random person
at a party will show up, and give you an orchid. - Yeah, sure. They give you
an orchid as a door prize. And back in the seventies I
was in the orchid business. So you know, a phalaenopsis
like you buy at Trader Joe's, Back then, it was about $40 to $50. (Kevin whistles) They were very expensive and
account for inflation on it. - So talk to me about that,
because what I've seen is let's say the fiddle leaf, right. That got big for a good chunk of time and it was expensive and
then it wasn't, right? Because propagation never catches up with demand perfectly, right? - Sure. Sure. - And I think for a while
it was that, I want to say after that it was the pink
princess philodendron. - Oh yeah, yeah. - The Thai constellation monstera- - Yeah. Yeah. - And so it feels like the market is made on a particular house plant. - Sure. And growers are like, oh my God, all these people want this. - Right. - But we didn't know that they wanted it until some random person made it popular, you know, some trend or whatever. - Yeah. - And then they rush to produce it. But that lags by however long it takes. - And they've already missed the fad. - They miss the fad. Yeah. - And so they're behind the eight ball. - Yeah. So it's like that friend
of mine, Jim Bowman, has Bowman Floral up in West County. He's one of the best growers I know. Raises beautiful carnivorous plants. He's a Rex Begonia guy. - Yeah. - You know, for a while you
could give away Rex Begonias. I mean, nobody wanted a Rex Begonia. - It's weirdly a plant that looks so cool. But you got this sense of like, eh. - Yeah. - Eh, whatever. Cause it was everywhere. - But they were everywhere for a while and they were worth a lot of money. Then nobody wanted them. Now they're making a bounce back. - I know. So, you know, just hang around, 'cause it'll come back in eventually. - We need like a plant prognosticator. Someone who can tell me
where the next thing is. So I can start growing
at a year in advance. - A hundred years ago. I
would've told you buy Microsoft. (John laughs) - Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Screw plants. Doesn't matter. Let's get into tech. - Don't even worry about plants. - But there's some really neat plants. - There really are. This was really, I remember in high school I bought my first, we called it back then- - The star fern. Yeah. - This was called polypodium back then. - Yeah. Yeah. - Now it's Phlebodium, but this was a very, very expensive plant. - Yeah. - I thought, wow. I have a polypodium. - So as we kind of close this tour out, I have a question for you. What do you think the next one is? If you had to just guess. - Oh, the next one. - If you just had to guess. 'Cause I know aroids were hot for a while. - Yeah. They still are. - And they're still hot, but I feel like the coals
are starting to smolder. - Yeah. Yeah. - And the flames are
starting on something else, but I don't know what
it is. I have no clue. - I don't know yet either. I wish I knew. Because I'd buy stock
and maybe propagate them. - I'd buy a little home
nursery or something. - There you go, yeah.
But I'll tell you what, we had a vendor out here the other day that they are from Ecuador. - Yeah. - And there were maybe
25, 30 people lined up and they were all like
your age, Kevin, you know, young people and they're buying boxes at about 60, 70 bucks a piece. They had boxes full of these
things and I'm going wow. - That's what they've said, and I don't necessarily believe this, is that us millennials
can't afford a house and can't afford kids, so
we have dogs and plants. - There you go. - You know, and we spend too
much on those things instead. I don't know if that's true or not. You guys tell me in the comments. John, thank for showing us
the tour. It's been awesome. - Kevin, it's been so much fun. Thank you. - Yeah. Thank you so much. - Please come back. - Guys,you can check 'em
out in the description. This event, if you're
in the San Diego area, is still going on so
please come check it out. Even if the event's over,
it's a great spot to be in. Until next time, good luck in the garden and keep on growing.
