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Tanner the Planter | The Most Rewarding Part of Owning Plants | Wine Down the Week Ep 11

Tanner the Planter | The Most Rewarding Part of Owning Plants | Wine Down the Week Ep 11

Tanner The Planter

Tanner, along with his wife Erika, is the owner of the north Texas-based plant shop, called Famous in Oregon. Tanner grew up in Pilot Rock, Oregon always surrounded by beautiful greenery and the mountains. He began his plant collecting journey because of missing his lush hometown. Tanner has seen firsthand the immense benefits of having plants to take care of, but he’s also quick to point out that to get the real benefits of growing, you can’t just read about plants. It’s about personal interaction with plants and getting your hands dirty.

Where you can find Tanner:

Website: https://www.famousinoregon.com/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@tannertheplanter
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tannertheplanter/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tannertheplanter/
Thank you to our drink sponsor the Colony Meadery in South Bethlehem. They produce honey-based alcoholic beverages that surprise the palate and amaze the judges. The Colony Meadery started selling in late 2013, with a focus on clean finishes and bold flavor profiles. You can check it out at colonymeadery.com.

Wine Down the Week is created in partnership with:

Soltech Solutions: https://soltechsolutions.com/
Steel City Plant Co: https://steelcityplantco.com
Domaci Home: https://domacihome.com
Lehigh Valley With Love: https://lehighvalleywithlovemedia.com

Transcript:

Angie 0:10 Hey Plant Fam! Welcome to Wine Down The Week with Angie, I'm your host Angie and owner of Steel City Plant Company here in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. This podcast is brought to you by Soltech Solutions. Today we chat with Tanner Mitchell. Tanner, along with his wife Erica are the owners of the North-Texas based plant shop called Famous In Oregon. Tanner grew up in Pilot Rock, Oregon, always surrounded by beautiful greenery and the mountains. He began his plant collecting journey because of missing his lush hometown. Tanner has seen firsthand the immense benefits of having plants to take care of. But, he's also quick to point out that you get the real benefits of growing you can't just read about plants. It's about personal interactions with plants and getting your hands dirty. Welcome, Tanner!
Tanner 0:50 Thank you. I appreciate you having me on today!
Angie 0:53 Thanks so much for being here! We're so excited to chat with you.
Tanner 0:56 Yeah, me too. It's great opportunity! I never miss out on an opportunity to speak about plants.
Angie 1:02 I love the opportunity to talk to another plant shop owner! That's what I get super pumped about... because we can commiserate a little bit haha!
Tanner 1:11 Commiserate!
Angie 1:15 Alright, so we're gonna kick it off with an icebreaker called 'Petal and Bud'! 'Petal' is something that happened recently that you are excited about. 'Bud' is something that's coming up soon that you're excited about. So I'll kick it off! 'Petal' - So something that just happened recently... I would say, hmm, ooh! The tree lighting ceremony in Bethlehem. So we are Christmas City, USA. It's a very big deal. We take it very seriously. I work for the Chamber of Commerce, and we plan the tree-lighting ceremony. We had 5000 People jam-packed into the City Hall Plaza. And I'm responsible for planning that event! So it was just really cool to see all the hard work pay off, and how many people came out and had a really, really beautiful time. It's like a Hallmark movie. So excited about that! Yeah! And it was actually.... this leads me to 'Bud' what I'm excited about! That was actually my last event in that job....So I'm starting a new job going to work for the new mayor of Bethlehem. He's taking office January, so we'll take office together January 3.
Tanner 2:25 Wow. Congratulations on the new job! That's really exciting. How cool.
Angie 2:29 Thank you! really excited. It was a great way to close out my career with the chamber with an awesome tree lighting ceremony.
Tanner 2:36 I was gonna say it must be real....I mean, if you're going to end your career in a spot.... I mean....
Angie 2:42 that's how you do it, right?
Tanner 2:44 Great magical time of the year, culminating in this big event that you plan - that's really nice.
Angie 2:50 Yeah! how about you what's going on?
Tanner 2:52 So I guess my...my 'Petal' is also going to be about the Christmas season. So every year at our shop - with a shop like Famous In Oregon - you can't really not bring in Christmas trees. So we bring trees from Oregon, which is kind of funny because that's actually one of the reasons why it's called Famous In Oregon is that plants are famous in Oregon... and Christmas trees are Oregon's number one export! So we export some down here to Texas. And of course, everybody locally that's from the Northwest absolutely loves it. So we have kicked off our Christmas season as well with our really cute Christmas tree lock. So that's probably the thing that I'm most excited about right now. Just we've got all the decorations going, we've got our photo op going, and of course the smell! You can't really beat a live Christmas tree - So that's fantastic.
Angie 3:45 That's awesome.... I will get into it! I have so many questions about what Christmas looks like in Texas, but we're going to play a drinking game! So what are you drinking today? I know you're leaving me hanging...
Tanner 3:58 I'm doing my 'bloom' (bud) part..
Angie 4:00 Oh, yeah. Yeah!
Tanner 4:02 So that's something I'm looking forward to? Yeah. Okay. So I'm really looking forward to... Well! Whenever you're a business owner, and coincidentally, in this case, a plant shop owner as well. I think we always look forward to springtime. And I'm REALLY, really looking forward to springtime, not just because of like the warmer weather and all the plants are coming out of dormancy, but there's just a lot of really great things coming up a lot of things that are happening. A fresh new year- you know, every year you get a little bit better, hopefully...when you're a business owner and when you're a plant parent - and so I'm just really excited for that new life. I'm excited for the holidays as well, you know! But as a business owner again... you're a couple months ahead of the time. At least weeks, you know?. So now that we have gotten and experienced our excitement of the fall and the winter months - now I'm looking forward to spring for sure.
Angie 5:02 Nothing - as a plant shop owner - nothing beats spring, you know? Like the holidays are amazing, obviously, there's gift giving. But spring is spring! And people just get so excited! They're out and about, they're happier, the plants are happier, and as you said, we're already ahead of ourselves. So we're ordering for spring and, you know, getting Easter gifts and Mother's Day and all that stuff.
Tanner 5:24 Exactly. Yeah, it's great, I mean, it's always fun to see what we can do better this year than last. Great time for progression and new life, and the sun shining and it's great. Yes!
Angie 5:35 Okay, well now for a drinking game! So I am today, I'm drinking Mead. Have you ever had Mead?
Tanner 5:42 I've never had a mead. I've only read about it in books. Hah!
Angie 5:44 It's so good! So it is a liquor made from wine...no, honey! So it's like a honey wine. Not from grapes... from honey. So very cool. Fermented honey. It's called Balmiada Apple Balm. And it's from Colony Meadery On the south side of Bethlehem here in town. So they're a great local business. And thanks to Colony Meadery for sponsoring today. Absolutely love your mead and recommend trying meead to anybody! because it's very fun, different tastes, it's hard to explain until you've had it.
Tanner 6:15 That's pretty cool. I might have to try one of those!
Angie 6:17 Yeah. And you are drinking water, right? Cheers to that!
Tanner 6:23 I've gat that water. I mean, it's just barely five o'clock here. So I mean, I gotta be - I gotta be good for someone you know!
Angie 6:28 it's 6:11 here. So I am, I'm ready to go!
Tanner 6:32 Go for it yeah!
Angie 6:32 I'll drink for the both of us! So we're still gonna play a drinking game. We are going to play two truths and a lie - plant edition! So it needs to be about your plants. Two truths, one lie. Um, I guess I'll kick off. So two truths and a lie - Okay! My favorite plant is a Hoya. My cats don't bother any plants in my apartment. And I really enjoy misting my plants. What do you think is my lie?
Tanner 7:26 I would say your lie is your favorite plant is a Hoya. Yeah!
Angie 7:33 That is my truth! So you should drink some water haha! It's newly my favorite plant because it just bloomed. So it's a whole thing - I'm on a kick now. i It's been seven years that I've had this Hoya. And I was like: "meh, like, you're cool, but I don't know. Nothing special". And then a bloomed! And now my mind is blown. And I need all the Hoyas so that they can bloom! Because it is so rewarding to wait seven years for something to flower. And then for the first flower to be...
Tanner 8:03 Seven years? Woow.
Angie 8:06 Yeah. That's right. It smelled amazing. It was gorgeous. So now I'm like, I got to see what all the blooms look like. So my...my lie was that my cats leave all of my plants alone...? It is somewhat true in the fact that they leave my REAL plants alone! We have an apartment, so there's only one big window that we can put the real plants in. And then a bunch of dark corners. So we have the Soltech lights in a lot of rooms to help with that...but you know, in the bathroom - in the dark bathroom - We'll, i'll admit, have a fake plant or two. That, just for the aesthetic of it take up the corner. I know, I know, I know! But we do! Because of it being, you know, worrying about the cat - something being on the floor - not elevated - we'll just throw like a really nice fake plant in the corner to spruce it up. So that is what my cats bother!
Tanner 9:03 Gotcha. So you do enjoy misting your plants then I guess?
Angie 9:07 I do, I do! I love it. It's very therapeutic. But um, yeah, so just a warning to all the cat parents out there! ake plants are not necessarily safe for your cats. My cat licks the plastic plant obsessively, and he got an ulcer on the tip of his tongue from doing it. So I've since had to throw out all the fake plants and elevate any toxic ones so that he just can't get to anything but - yeah! Tanner 9:35 You know, on that note as well - I don't know if they still make them this way - but I do know that at least some of the older versions of faker are plants, the material that they make ...as it ages and like dries out so to speak - the the plastic or you know, whatever they're made out - of has some sort of toxic ingredients in it as well. I want to say formaldehyde? But don't quote me on that, please. But - some guy came into our store and just like spouted off this big old long thing about how even toxic plants are more healthy for your pets than fake plants! Which I thought was really interesting.
Angie 10:16 Because most toxic plants for pets I mean - there's some that are awful you have to do your research - but most of them it just means they're gonna get an upset stomach and puke it up. Like...
Tanner 10:25 Exactly...
Angie 10:26 This was a whole ulcer on his tongue! He had to be on medication for a month! Like it was NOT good. So - no more fake plants in our house, which is good anyway, it was time. It was time to move on from that life.
Tanner 10:38 I'm with you.
Angie 10:41 Okay, you're up. Okay, so two truths and a lie.
Tanner 10:43 Two Truths. Okay. Um.... two truths and a lie, Two Truths and a Lie - Plant edition - Okay. I don't grow any outdoor plants. I have two greenhouses. And cacti are my favorite family of plants.
Angie 11:06 I would say that you don't have two greenhouses
Tanner 11:09 I do have two greenhouses!
Angie 11:13 So are cacti not your favorite?
Tanner 11:15 No, they're probably my least!
Angie 11:17 I have to drink twice now. Or once. Okay, so I got that one. Okay! I agree with you on that. I like I said, I like to mist my plants.... I like to love on my plants. And the cacti just want me to leave them alone. And I can't I can't get with that lifestyle. So then I over love them and make them very unhappy.
Tanner 11:39 For me, it's a lot about - because I like to decorate with our plants so much! And there are no like low light cacti, right? There's only so much you can do with cactus. You know, like as far as decorating goes? You're very limited.
Angie 11:52 Right, for sure! I did just invest in two very big ones.... because I don't have to grow them to that point, they're already there.... So I'm like: "Okay, let me try this". And I got a Soltech light to hang over just the two of them... and they are flowering now! Which I... I am dead, I cannot! I like - I've never had success with a cactus like that before! And to actually see a giant one flowering? it's insane. So...
Tanner 12:20 We had a similar experience... I'd never seen.... I guess it's not technically a cactus... so it's the Euphorbia ingens? And we had our we have ours at the shop under a Soltech light and it's the first time I've ever seen them bloom in person! So it was cool to be able to see that inside - in store. You know.. Angie
12:41 blooms in general on plants are just so rewarding.
Tanner 12:44 That's the culmination of all you know, if you stressed about it, or if you forgot about it, or,whatever the case may be, when it all culminates into the little bloom - It's just like, it's the best! It's really hard to beat.
Angie 12:57 I agree. Alright, well, let's hear about you! I want to hear all about your plant shop. So how long has it been open?
Tanner 13:04 We opened to mother's days ago, so I guess about a year and a half? We signed the paperwork for the lease, and I think like four days later, it was 100% lockdown - you know, from the pandemic. So we were like: "Oh, this must this might be like, the worst decision we've ever made". But it turned out to be great. We spent about six weeks renovating everything, and then we're able to open up. So yeah! We've been open for about a year and a half, it's been going really well.
Angie 13:39 Nice, very similar in that sense. We actually started as a pop up shop a year ago....about a little more than a year ago.... and opened our brick and mortar location six months ago. So same thing right in the middle of that pandemic. But I also think that was, you know, a silver lining for us. The people were wanting houseplants there was limited access to houseplants where we are. So it was kind of the perfect time even though it sounds crazy, because it was a pandemic... and trying to run a business.... It was as you know, just insane. But it's working out so far.
Tanner 14:13 We've had a similar experience - it seemed to be the perfect timing, you know, people wanted to have plants for their zoom calls in the background, or they were being home more so they you know, wanted to beautify their their spaces. So we kind of saw the same sort of trend. Luckily, I mean, we've been open for business... we've been selling online for about four years?...as Tanner the Planter. But that's when we opened up that brick and mortar store Famous In Oregon. But yeah! I mean, it was kind of a silver lining for us as well. So it's neat to know that there are similar experiences for people that were opened up at the same time.
Angie 14:51 Yeah. So what's Christmas like where you're at? What's - I mean, it's just such a big thing here again, we're at Christmas City so it's whild - but I've never been somewhere warmer.
Tanner 15:05 Well, I'm sure it's not... I mean, if you're Christmas Town America, I'm sure it cannot compare for sure! I would say it's similar to anywhere else you would be. Really the only warm part of Texas that's warm year round is the southern half. North Texas, like where we live - I mean, we will get - we don't get a lot of snow but we'll get snow maybe every other year. But it's very routinely you know, in mid to late December and January, it's very common for it to be in like the 30s.
Angie 15:39 Ooh wow!
Tanner 15:39 It definitely gets cold here.. we are zone 8B, which is very similar to like, well actually Northwest! Oregon! Oregon is in gardening zone 8B as well. So most folks think: "Texas, it's always hot!" - It's really only hot from about Central Texas down.
Angie 16:02 That is so interesting. Yeah, I am in the category that thought that Texas was just warm. So yeah, that's nice! I think it's nice when it gets a little chilly around the holidays.
Tanner 16:12 Yeah, we have all four seasons for sure, very distinctly.
Angie 16:15 That's awesome. I love having all four seasons here. It's one of my favorite things about living in the Northeast. And yes...
Tanner 16:21 we just don't deal with much snow!
Angie 16:24 Yeah, lucky you! It was snowing here today already, and it's actually pretty early in the season for it to be snowing like that. So it's like: "Oh boy. Here we go!"
Tanner 16:31 It was 75 today!
Angie 16:34 Oh wow! I think it was about 32 today... and snowing. So yeah, but I don't mind it too much. All right - so where did you pick your name from, for the plant shop?
Tanner 16:48 My wife actually came up with the name. So when we very first started - like I said, we were only selling online and we were very unsure how things are going to go. We actually had a business partner starting out. She had her own business, we were kind of sharing the building. And she has her own big brand. And we had to come up with a name that fit both of us. She actually IS Famous In Oregon, and we... our PLANTS are Famous In Oregon. And so my wife Erica came up with the name Famous In Oregon that that really fit both of our brands really well.
Angie 17:24 I love that so much! That's an awesome name. Very... again, similar situation. So my company is Steel City Plant Company. But our brick and mortar once we decided to open a shop, we went in with partners. You can see their sign behind me... Domaci Flea, so they have vintage and flea items. So the name of our actual storefront is Plants Plus Vintage.
Tanner 17:48 Oh, that's cool!
Angie 17:49 Yep. So there's just a sign that says 'Plants And Vintage upstairs' and I'm the plants, they're the vintage.
Tanner 17:55 And unlike our store, yours is very particular. And they know what they're getting into when they just read the signs.
Angie 18:01 Haha exactly!
Tanner 18:02 There's a ton of curiosity when it comes to our store. I mean, half the time people just peek in there like: "Eh just wanted to see what's in here!" And then they're like: "bye!" Pretty funny.
Angie 18:12 Oh, man, that is funny, and that's interesting. We're on the second floor... so I feel like a lot of our interest too is just like opening the door and they're like: "What, like, Where does this lead?" I always say we're like the speakeasy of plants like you really don't know what you're walking into until you're up here and it's a whole different world.
Tanner 18:29 ...open up the secret bookcase to find the plants.
Angie 18:31 Exactly! haha. So what would you say like one of your best selling plants is at the shop... and then versus... what you recommend as a new plant for a new plant parent?
Tanner 18:44 It would all be the same! Definitively - because we check every month - it says Sansevarius! Snake plants. Far and away they've been our top seller since day one. And really that goes a long way towards.... a lot of our clients are mostly... they're not like plant collectors. They're not trying to find the rare stuff. They're fine. They're trying to decorate their homes with Pinterest, or Instagram kind of plants you know.
Angie 19:10 Same. Same.
Tanner 19:10 Because it is hot around here for most of the year - a lot of Texas Homes... most Texas Homes at least where we live... are built to keep the sun out. A lot of overhanging porches, especially on the south side of your house. Almost everybody has a porch on the south side of the house to keep it out... so that it's a little bit more shaded. So we have a lot of low light tolerant plants. So a snake plant as a home run every time. It's low light tolerant, drought tolerant, you know all the things. So yeah, beginner friendly! We push those a lot... or we recommend those a lot to people because they're just so easy and they do well, in our low-light homes here in Texas.
Angie 19:54 That's awesome. I am bummed - I love snake plants. We don't carry them in our shop. We are - we specialize in pet friendly plants. So 99.9% of everything we carry is non toxic to pets. We carry a couple things that people just consistently ask for. So we'll have a few of those... or like the large floor plans because there's just not many that are non toxic. But we mark them as such. So I do have FOMO sometimes, though, when I see beautiful snake plants. I'm like: "I wish we could have them in our store!" I don't know, once we have a bigger space, I want to have one whole side of the shop. Be the beautiful toxic plants. we'll just have a sign up that says toxic -and then everything else be non-toxic.
Tanner 20:36 That's very inviting, beautiful and toxic.
Angie 20:39 Toxic - come buy me haha!
Tanner 20:41 I feel like that's a mood, or like some kind of a meme or something that should..
Angie 20:44 I know! Like, I'm feeling a Britney Spears meme coming on with toxic? I don't know, I would love to figure that out haha! So what advice do you give out most to plant parents in your shop?
Tanner 20:57 Oh, easily... and all of our employees can attest to this.... It's about lighting. Yeah, 100% lighting. Probably only secondary to, or coming in second place would probably be watering. Lighting is what people get wrong the most, you know. They they perceive bright light as what they are seeing with their eyes. Like they are judging it and to them it's bright light. But we always tell people like - when you come in doors from outside, your pupils are going to, they're going to get larger - so that it lets IN more light. So even a low-light scenario to a plant can look very bright to you just because our pupils will dilate, you know, restrict and dilate, to let in more or less light so that we can depict images, depending on how much light is in your area. Right? We do we spend a lot of time educating people on how to determine the difference between bright light, medium light, and low light, and then help them to find a plant that will fit the situation that they have.
Tanner 20:59 How do you go about like, do you have... I don't know... a go-to explanation of explaining to people the differences between those lighting situations? Because I'm sure our listeners would love to hear more about that. Because I think everybody struggles with that.
Tanner 22:17 The biggest thing - of course, is the plant's view of the sky. So we always say, imagine the leaf of the plant is an eyeball. Are those eyeballs looking at unobstructed blue sky? Or are they looking at your covered patio? Or are they looking at the neighbor's house or a big giant mature tree? And that's the case, even if you're in a massive south facing window that has a covered that has a covered patio, That's still low light. Because most people know that, you know - South is very bright and North is maybe not as long exposure to sunlight. So really honing in on that plants view of the sky, helps people to determine bright light, medium, light and low light a lot more effectively than just perception.
Angie 23:08 Right! So I know what your favorite plant is not... what IS your favorite plant?
Tanner 23:16 My favorite plants family would have to be orchids, for sure. They're endlessly fascinating. And there's just so many to learn about and they grow and adapt in so many different ways. So that's my favorite plant family. Usually people ask me what my favorite like personal plant is, and those are our Monstera Deliciosa. It's just a, it's basic. I know it's basic! There's nothing special about it, except I got it when it was really small. And I had a vision for it to just be one vine that's almost like a tree. And I've been shaping it and training it for several years. And I have finally kind of reached like that picture that I've always had in my mind. So that's what I'm most proud of. That's my favorite plant in our personal collection - just because of all the work that it's taken to get there.
Angie 24:06 What's your recommendation for people who would want to do that same sort of thing?
Tanner 24:09 To train them a monstera that way? Yeah. Oh, man... it's a lot of a lot of hacking. It's a lot of patience. I mean, it's every year I decide: "Okay, I'm going to remove these two or three leaves" or, or "these couple of vines" - because you can't take away too much energy at once. You know, it's a it's a fine balance to maintain. And so, you know, this year I took off, you know, these two leaves and the plant put out two more leaves. It's it's tall, it's like almost seven feet tall. So I mean, you're only getting one or two new leaves maybe three at most a year.
Angie 24:46 Wow!
Tanner 24:46 At that point, it's, you know, you're not popping out a ton of plants. It's one, it goes up and it's massive, you know, so I would recommend a lot of chopping - and just letting it - just patience. You know, and of course you have to have it on the moss pole. It's not strong enough to...it'll break otherwise.
Angie 25:07 Oh my gosh - I want to try it now even though it sounds really hard and like a lot of patience.
Tanner 25:14 You don't have to like an actual moss pole, it's actually just a cedar fence picket. My ultimate goal - this would like complete the vision - is if I could find a piece of driftwood big enough to house the thing because it is sort of in a in an organic shape and I don't like this standard stick straight up and down like...I'm not really that fond of those kind of moss poles. I want some organic and kind of flowy. So as soon as I find a big chunk of driftwood, I might have to take a road trip I don't know what it's gonna take! But - got to find that and then it will be complete.
Angie 25:50 How did you get into plants in the first place?
Tanner 25:54 You know, I grew up with a lot of plants. My grandma, my great grandma, my dad has a lot of plants - had a lot of plants. We've always had a lot around us.. a lot of house plants, big gardens. Everywhere around me is.. you know, where I grew up... a bunch of trees farmland, so I'm very familiar with... it's always been around me as growing up. I moved to Texas about 11 years ago. And if you've ever been to Texas, at least North Texas... most of Texas is extremely flat. So going from a place that's very mountainous, you always have plants around you, you always have green around you... and to go into just... flat - and if you ask me kind of ugly - it effects you! Like we would escape - we would go camping and rock climbing and out to Arkansas to go and get like the mountain fix and like the greenery and you know, all the plants and stuff. But then we just decided, you know, I'm the decorator in the house. And so - I was just reading and it said, you know, if you have an awkward space, maybe try a plant there. And I always tell people, we have a lot of awkward spaces because there's like 150 plants in here now. So that's how I that's kind of how I started. I just brought in, you know, I was missing the the greenery and the plants and that feel. And I started bringing some of the plants in that I remember my grandparents caring for, and my dad had. Uou know, and then it just kind of snowballed from there.
Angie 27:29 So what is your... I know you do so much on social media. So what's your favorite platform to connect with the plant community?
Tanner 27:39 Instagram, probably. It's not, It's not our largest following by any means. It's probably actually our smallest. But it's so vast. And honestly, because Tik Tok is so big for us? I try not to get on plant, tik tok, because, it's too much... like I have to have something different, you know, throughout my day. So my tik tok has very little plants, if any at all on it. So Instagram is kind of where I come for, like, for a lot of the plant stuff. I love the creativity that's on Instagram still. And although I may not be connecting as far as making content, a lot of content on Instagram... or talking to a lot of people on Instagram. I'm consuming a lot.
Angie 28:24 Yeah. That's my favorite too.
Tanner 28:27 It's I consume a lot of things that I don't practice, like bonsai. Yeah.
Angie 28:33 So tell me about the different things that you do on social media. So I know you're doing something every Wednesday at 6:30 - Facebook Lives - you do free educational classes. So tell us about that.
Tanner 28:44 Yeah, so when we very first started, I was talking about Tanner The Planter and that was like our online business. We would do... one of the things we did for our online customers was to just do a live plant sale every... once a week, we would do it. And that's basically my wife and I we get on Facebook Live on Tanner The Planter, and we choose like 30 of our favorite plants - and we just talk about them and give people the opportunity to buy them if they like. And so when we opened the store, we didn't really feel like we could get rid of that because that was, you know, these people buying these plants on the sale was the reason we could open up a brick and mortar store in the first place! So we couldn't just leave them high and dry. So we still do that weekly sale. We do a bi-weekly now - because it was kind of getting to be too much. It's actually a big production. But to supplement that - so one week we will do the live houseplant sale, and then the following Wednesday we do a free educational class. And so it's sale, education, sale education, so we just stagger on like that.
Angie 29:55 So what are the different topics that you cover in the educational class? Is it for newbies? Is it for more advanced, is it for everybody?
Tanner 30:09 It’s for everybody! We try to keep it somewhat seasonal? So like in the springtime we’ll have another re-potting class. You know, that’s a big time for re-potting. So we’ll go into all that and answer a bunch of questions. Each class is about an hour long, give or take, depending on how many questions there are. But we cover everything! Of course we try to cover a lot of things that are the most popular topics like: “how do I water properly, how do I get rid of fungus gnats, how do I determine light? How to separate and propagate?”. So it’s really stuff like that. I find that if i go too in depth: “eh… people kind of go to sleep”. You know they are just like: how do I keep my snake plant alive? And they are happy with that. And that's a really good foundation and the base for people to enjoy the hobby, and to not be killing the plants anymore - that’s who will really benefit. So that’s kind of what we like to do the education about. Easy, popular stuff.
Angie 31:05 That’s amazing! So what are the different platforms our listeners can find you on, and what are the handles?
Tanner 31:08 Yeah! It was be: @Tannertheplanter on tiktok, instagram, facebook, and youtube.
Angie 31:20 That’s nice and easy. @Tannertheplanter - everybody go and check out all of the amazing things he’s doing, join a class or two! Really awesome stuff. So thank you for joining us today! We are going to wind it down - we always end with a trivia or riddle question though. So last week’s trivia question - we’ll see if you can guess it Tanner - “What kind of flowers live between you nose and your chin?”
Tanner 31:44 Between your nose and your chin? Flowers? Tulips!
Angie 31:48 Oh my god you got it right away! Yeah! Get it? Two lips? Haha! This week’s...I don’t have the answer, so you can still guess, but we won’t know until next week what the correct answer is - “What do you get when an apple and a christmas tree have a baby?”.
Tanner 32:06 Ooooh man! Is it Johnny Appleseed?
Angie 32:15 Honestly I have no idea - we will find out next week! Drop your best guesses in the comments section or the reviews, if you guess correctly you’ll be entered to win a prize! Tune in next week on Friday for that answer. Thank you again Tanner, can’t wait to catch up with you on social media, and thank you for being with us! This podcast is brought to you by Soltech Solutions, Domaci Home, and Steel City Plant Company. Thanks everybody! Bye!
Like the name says, these pots are a source of improved plant health, efficiency, and convenience to plant lovers.
Father’s Day is fast approaching and it’s a special day to show them your appreciation for making you into the strong and loving person you are. 
Soil. The home of plants. Without soil, plants would be unable to grow as they would lack the nutrients to build more plant matter. To a novice level plant parent, soil may seem pretty simple. Just a pot of dirt should suffice right?