Growing Joy with Plants - Wellness Rooted in Nature, Houseplants, Gardening and Plant Care

Maria Failla- Happy Plant Lady and Author of Growing Joy: The Plant Lover's Guide to Cultivating Happiness

Looking for free, natural ways to decrease stress and increase joy and calm in your life? The answer might be simpler than you think: houseplants, gardening and nature. On Growing Joy with Plants, learn alongside Happy Plant Lady, Maria Failla to care for plants, engage with nature, and use them to manage your overwhelm, anxiety and experience happiness and calm you thought was only available on vacation.Plant care is self care. Come grow some joy with us. Follow along on socials @growingjoywithmaria

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429 episodes
Updated Thursday

Episodes429

Newest first

May 3, 2022 · 50 min
Preserving Asian Heritage Through Seeds and Stories
Seeds do not only provide us with food to eat, but they represent the future and also allow us to reflect on our history. They are heirlooms, a connection to our ancestors and their stories. In this episode, on Asian-American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, we celebrate stories of Asian culture and connection to nature and food through seeds, with YC Miller from Kitazawa Seed Company. YC walks us through the importance of preserving our heritage through seeds and the stories we share and te
Apr 19, 2022 · 1 hr 17 min
Beginner's Guide to Greenhouses
I feel like there comes a time in every plant parent's life when we start to get really curious and excited about having a dedicated space for all of our plants. If you are an outdoor gardener, the promise of a greenhouse for seed starts and overwintering plants is even more promising! I’ve had several different moments in life where I’ve Googled greenhouse kits but never crossed the finish line due to the overwhelming and somewhat intimidating aspect of installing them properly (and the price t
Apr 17, 2022 · 6 min
I Want to Hear YOUR Story: Join the #GrowingJoyChallenge
Plant friends, in celebration of the launch of my new book, Growing Joy: The Plant Lover's Guide to Cultivating Happiness (and Plants), which is about my personal journey with plants, I want to celebrate YOUR stories on launch day. Growing Joy is not just about my personal journey with my plants, it's about the thousands of stories I have heard from listeners about how plants have helped them heal, grow and find more joy. This is your official invitation to join the #GrowingJoyChallenge and sha
Apr 12, 2022 · 8 min
What is Seed Scarification? // Knowledge Nugget #3
Growing your own plants from seeds is one of the most gratifying experiences in the garden. Watching a tiny seed become a full-grown plant just gives you the most amazing feeling as a plant parent. However, seed starting is a whole different science and practice on its own and requires special soil, different care, grow lights and water monitoring, and interesting practices to make sure that your seeds actually sprout: seed scarification is one of those practices that may seem intimidating, but
Apr 5, 2022 · 53 min
Bulb Basics with Jenks Farmer
They produce some of the most desirable flowers we know and love, but a bulb can be very confusing to an amateur gardener. We look at this little stub and think, "Seriously, a daffodil is going to sprout up from this thing?" As tropical houseplant growers, bulbs can be a totally different game when it comes to caring, with different sets of tips to be mindful of. Jenks Farmer is a bulb expert and lifelong gardener and in this ep, he joins us to break down everything you need to know about bulbs.
Mar 29, 2022 · 23 min
Limey's Grand Adventure // Flying My Lime Tree to Florida
This might be the CRAZIEST thing I’ve done with my plants but this has also been such an extraordinary experience as I fly our lime tree, Limey, from New York to Florida! I am so excited to share the experience with you and talk about the citrus alley Mama Failla and I made in their beautiful Florida home. I document the entire journey of flying with a plant including the thought process, plant modifications, legal processes and the next few days' updates in an Youtube Vlog: https://youtu.be/jte
Mar 22, 2022 · 1 hr 18 min
How to Start a Product Based Planty Business plus a big announcement with Samantha from Hemleva
Plant friends, this has been in the works for almost two years and I am so excited to finally be able to share it with you! Two YEARS of quietly working on a very special project with our guest, and not being able to talk about it! We will dive more into this project in the second half of this episode, but more importantly, we get to know Samantha Leung. Samantha, the founder of the well-known plant brand Hemleva, is the real deal. She's so freaking smart, she's kind, she's generous, she's hones
Mar 8, 2022 · 1 hr 4 min
Rubber Plant Care Guide: The Overlooked Ficus with Raffaele from Ohio Tropics
Rubber plants don't get enough credit in the tropical plant world. These humble plants are always available at the garden center but tend to get overlooked for some of our sexier Instagram-worthy plants. In this episode, we will dive into the many reasons why rubber plants are fantastic plants with Raffaele of Ohio Tropics. The first part is going to be an overview of general rubber plant care and different types of rubber plants, and then the second half is actually frequently asked questions t
Mar 1, 2022 · 9 min
Do plants see brightness? What is PAR? // Knowledge Nugget #2
Has the concept of “bright indirect light” ever confused you? Or how to measure your light in your home in general? Or how to figure out when you need to supplement with grow lights, and if you get grow lights, how to set your plants up for success under them? Light is probably the most confusing topic when it comes to our plants. It was definitely my biggest pain point when I was starting out as I had so many plants in what I thought was indirect light… but it was actually extremely low light.
Feb 22, 2022 · 1 hr 4 min
How to Care for Carnivorous Plants Indoors
We’ve likely all had some sort of run-in with a carnivorous plant: maybe bringing one of those little venus flytraps at the hardware store home to realize you had no idea how to care for it, maybe marveling at the wide array of carnivorous plants at your local botanical garden, and maybe even getting to see a fly land on one, or maybe it’s just knowing the man-eating plant Audrey II in the musical Little Shop of Horrors. However you’ve engaged with carnivorous plants, you’ve likely figured out t
Feb 15, 2022 · 9 min
New Mini-Series: Knowledge Nuggets! What is a Peperomia Inflorescence? Ep 1
Welcome to a new mini-series for Bloom & Grow Radio: Knowledge Nuggets. They will be 5-10 minute episodes that show up once a month, in addition to our regular episodes, and will highlight one "nugget" of plant nerd education taken from the Node of Knowledge Plant Science lectures Leslie Halleck gives in the Garden Society. These lectures are so good, I couldn't help sharing a teeny bit with you!Episode one is a snippet from our AHAs (Ask Our Horticulturist Anything) where members can hop on a z
Feb 8, 2022 · 1 hr 1 min
Exploring the Past, Present and Future of Black People in Horticulture with Colah from Black int he Garden
It's been such a joy having fellow podcasters join me in the pod as they never disappoint and have such wonderful insights about plant parenthood and plantrepreneurship. I met this episode's guest in 2020 and figured it was time to have her back on to catch up and explore a concept she’ll be tackling on the next season of her show: the past, present, and future of black people in horticulture. Colah has created an amazing brand called Black in the Garden that has blown up in the last couple of y
Jan 25, 2022 · 1 hr 15 min
Interior Design Trends and Houseplants with Betsy from Affordable Interior Design
Houseplants and interior design: you’d think these two passions would go together like two peas in a pod, but they can sometimes be at war with each other. We can find ourselves desperately wanting to style plants in rooms with no light, or getting overwhelmed with figuring out how to make our homes look planty and not cluttered. Many plant people don't know the first thing about interior design trends, and many interior designers don't know the first thing about plant care (even if they want to
Jan 11, 2022 · 58 min
Streamlining and Simplifying Houseplant Care / Checking in with guys from the Plant Daddy Pod
Happy New Year, plant friends! I hope you had great holidays and like me, are looking forward to a fresh start in 2022. In the first episode of Season 7, I invited some of my favorite planty podcasters back: Stephen and Matthew of the Plant Daddy Podcast, for a really fun conversation inspired by streamlining and simplifying our houseplant care routines. This convo is really rooted in reflecting on 2021 and learning from the transitions we all went through and these guys are just so lovely, so i
Jan 6, 2022 · 7 min
Bonus episode: Plant Inspired Meditation for the Start of 2022
Since it’s the first week of 2022, I wanted to share a sweet moment with you that we recently had on a Growing Joy Call in the Bloom & Grow Garden Society: a 3 minute meditation, on the turn of the year, through the eyes of our plants. Take five minutes, get cozy, sit with your plants, and enjoy!
Dec 28, 2021 · 32 min
Finding Joy through Plants in a Season of Transition: Reflecting on 2021
When I think back on this last year, transition is the word that comes to mind. We are literally transitioning into a new year, but I'm sure everyone went through some form of transition this year: a new home, family additions and losses, job changes, and more. And as we grow through those transitions, our plant collection evolves too. I personally went through a tremendous transition this year and my plant collection and plant parent personality completely shifted. These transitions in my plant
Dec 14, 2021 · 1 hr 23 min
Wedding Flower Crash Course for To Be Weds / My Botanically Inspired Wedding Series
There is so much power in flowers, plant friends. A flower is so much more than a bloom, but an expression, a connection to something deeper. Whatever our known or unknown bias for blooms is, flowers are little joy bombs just waiting to be cut or grown. It’s undeniable that flowers also can play a huge part in a wedding day: from the ceremonial bouquet and corsage to the ceremony and reception flowers can be used to enliven a wedding day, and also express a part of yourself through your choices.
Dec 7, 2021 · 1 hr 27 min
26 Ways to Incorporate Plants Into Your Wedding / My Botanically Inspired Wedding Series
From the moment I got engaged, and frankly, even before that, I knew that I wanted to have the plantiest wedding possible! My plants are a huge part of me and I wanted to incorporate that aspect into our wedding. I didn’t want my wedding to be houseplant-themed, but I wanted houseplants and nature to be woven into our day seamlessly, in a refined way that felt special. Katie O’Neil of Katydyd Events, our wedding planner, joins me in this episode to talk about the different ways we added plants t
Nov 30, 2021 · 51 min
3 Plant Inspired DIY Wedding Ideas that Live On After the Big Day Uploaded
Plant friends, I am so excited to finally bring you this planty wedding series, after almost two years of waiting! This month, I’m bringing you the Botanically Inspired Wedding Series on Bloom and Grow Radio, where we explore all aspects and intersections of weddings and plants. We have something for everyone in this series whether you love to DIY, are curious about the floral industry and how to make a great bouquet, or just really fun ways to incorporate houseplants into your wedding in unique
Nov 16, 2021 · 57 min
Snake Plants 101 with Chris Satch
Snake plants are completely underrated. These “low light-tolerant” plants are often thrown into dark corners, dusty offices, and bathrooms with no windows due to their notoriously hardy personalities, but there is so much more to this beautiful collection of plants than just their ability to survive. Their leaves come in the most mesmerizing shapes and I think they are one of the most giftable plants around because no matter who you are gifting, and what their lighting situation is, a snake plan