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

Mar 18, 2025 · 45 min
How to Live Seasonally and Celebrate the Spring Equinox
What if the secret to a happy life is to live seasonally? Living seasonally isn’t just about eating fresh produce (but, yes, that’s delicious). It’s about noticing nature’s rhythms, then adjusting depending on the season and celebrating those small shifts that define the passage of time.And with the Spring Equinox here, which is a time of renewal and balance, it’s the perfect moment to talk about how we can welcome the season with intention. I’m joined by a dear friend Bailey Van Tassel—a mom, g
Mar 11, 2025 · 50 min
How to Use Plants to Heal From Grief
Grief is so heavy that it can feel like an impossible weight to carry. But if you think about it, you can use plant care as a method to process grief and loss. Like plants, people can also grow and find resilience. They don’t rush and don’t demand. They just grow… little by little, day by day.In this episode, I want to share the story of my dear plant friend, Wade Lee, also known as Plants by Wade Lee. His story is so much more than houseplant care. It’s about loss, grief, healing, and finding j
Mar 4, 2025 · 29 min
5 Signs You're Overthinking Plant Care (And How to Relax)
Have you ever found yourself overthinking over a yellow leaf and wondering, “Is this overwatering or underwatering? Does it need water? Is this normal?” You’re just like the rest of us, plant friend! It's something I've done many, many times, and I know it's something that people in our community do all the time. We all want to get it right, but overthinking plant care can suck the joy right out of it. But in 2025, we need as much joy and as little stress as possible. So here are 5 signs you mig
Feb 25, 2025 · 32 min
Houseplants for Kids: Raising the Next Generation of Plant Parents
“Start ‘em young.” That’s my motto. Well, it’s not really mine but I say it all the time when it comes to houseplants. And for this episode, I’m sure plant parents are gonna be happy to learn how to connect the younger generations to plants and nature at a young age. So I want to share this conversation with my plant friend Priscille Joseph, who is a Canadian author, illustrator, and plant lover. She wrote My First ABC Book of Houseplants and she’s all about helping kids connect with nature.In t
Feb 18, 2025 · 56 min
The Transformative Power of Flower Essences: What Are Flower Essences and How Can They Help Me?
Have you ever once thought about how flowers could do more than brighten your day? What if they could actually support your emotional well-being, reduce your stress, and even spark creativity? After 270+ episodes, this is my first time ordering a guest product right after the interview. Yes, I am on the flower essence bandwagon HARD after this interview.But who wouldn't be after talking with Katie Hess, founder and flower alchemist of Lotuswei, a company dedicated to harnessing the essence of fl
Feb 11, 2025 · 36 min
Houseplant Confidence: The Mindset Shift That Changes Everything
Lately, I’ve been hearing so many people talk about Mel Robbins’ Let Them Theory—this idea of letting go of control, shifting your mindset, and ultimately finding peace. And you know what? I realized that I went through a similar shift when it came to my plant care journey, and I want to share it with you in this episode. I'll talk about how we think about our plants, our plant care, and how that shift in mind can bring so much joy, not just to our plant parenthood but also to our lives.In this
Feb 4, 2025 · 52 min
Water Saving Techniques for Your Garden
How can we conserve water while maintaining healthy, attractive gardens, no matter what climate you're in? Record-breaking heat waves, devastating droughts, wildfires scorching millions of acres, floods turning streets into rivers—we've seen it all this year. As climate extremes test our resilience, our gardens are feeling the impact too. How do we ensure our gardens not only survive but also grow in these unpredictable conditions? Let’s talk about water-saving techniques and strategies to keep
Jan 28, 2025 · 55 min
Plant Inspired Vacations
Did you know you can use your plant passion as inspiration for how and where you go on vacation? I'm sure many of us have already done this on a small scale. Maybe you've been on a trip and kept taking pictures of plants that look just like the ones you have at home. Or perhaps you've insisted on visiting a local plant shop or botanical garden while on vacation (guilty as charged!). But plant friends, that can be just the beginning of how you travel and botanize for your plant passion.And we're
Jan 21, 2025 · 51 min
Easy Houseplant Care, Houseplant Pest Control, and Motherhood and Plants
If you’re a plant lover, you’ve probably come across Chantel, the brilliant mind behind @channygrayhome on Instagram. Over the past few years, she has built a community of over half a million plant enthusiasts. But there’s so much more to her than her incredible follower count.In this episode, I’ll take you behind the scenes of my chat with Channy—where we talked about her plant history, her love for DIYs, her big move from the Arizona desert to lush Iowa, and how she juggles being a plant mom a
Jan 14, 2025 · 52 min
Beneficial Insects For Effortless Houseplant Pest Management
When I visited the Seattle Spheres and saw the famous green wall with its 40,000 plants, I was mesmerized. But what really caught my eye were these strange little plastic baggies hanging off some stems. I wondered if they were hurting the plants at first. But then I looked closer, I realized those bags were filled with insects. Beneficial insects, to be exact. And they were there to manage pests naturally.So if you’re like me and have struggled with pests like spider mites, thrips, or mealybugs
Jan 7, 2025 · 47 min
I Grew 40 New Plants in 2024: Ranked from Favorites to Flops
I can't believe we're already in 2025, but I am SO excited to spill all the tea about my wild plant experiment from last year. In 2024, I totally went for it and added over 40 new plant species to my collection—and it was quite the adventure! Some of these plants thrived, some flopped, and yes, some didn’t make it. So in this episode, I’m sharing it all—from my favorites to my fails—and what I learned along the way.In this episode, we learn:[01:51] Reflecting on 2024[04:31] What’s your plant par
Dec 31, 2024 · 57 min
The Role of Nature in Personal Growth
What role do you think nature plays in your life? For me, it has always been a deeper way to improve my mental, physical, and emotional health. In fact, it’s not just me who thinks this way. The minute I hopped into the digital recording studio, I knew that my guest was someone very similar to me! I’ve been following Marcus Bridgewater, better known as Garden Marcus, for years, and I’m so happy to say that he surpassed my dreams of what this conversation on plants and wellness could have been.In
Dec 24, 2024 · 1 hr 1 min
Carnivorous Plants: The Houseplant Pest Control You Never Thought Of
Plant friends, did you know your houseplants can double as pest control? Carnivorous plants don’t just survive—they hunt. Venus flytraps can snap down on unsuspecting flies, while pitcher plants lure bugs into their slippery traps. These carnivorous plants themselves are nature’s own pest management system.So I’ve brought on a guest who knows everything there is to know about them: Kenny Coogan, the head of education at the International Carnivorous Plant Society.Kenny has been growing carnivoro
Dec 17, 2024 · 1 hr
How to Work with The Winter Equinox
As the winter solstice–or the longest night of the year–approaches, how does it reflect and represent you? This is the season of dormancy, a time when plants, the earth, and even we are drawn to rest, recharge, and prepare for growth. In this final installment of our 2024 seasonal sessions, on the pod once again is my dear friend and our resident green witch, Rachael of Our Infinite Nature. She shared with me how the winter solstice can help us honor cycles of rest and renewal. It was a lovely w
Dec 10, 2024 · 25 min
Create a Biophilic Office Space: Boost Your Workday Motivation by Adding These Plants to Your Office
According to a Human Spaces report, “workers in office environments with natural elements, such as greenery and sunlight, are 6% more productive at work and 15% more creative.” Personally, they’ve been my number one most useful tool for increasing joy throughout my workday, and they help me reduce eye strain from staring at my computer all day. So in this episode of Growing Joy with leafjoy® miniseries, we’ll be talking about biophilia, common problems of office plant care, and some practical ti
Dec 3, 2024 · 56 min
CaliKim on "10 Time Saving Tactics for a More Efficient Garden"
How do you have a life and a garden? Between busy schedules, family time, and pretty lengthy to-do lists, how can we fit gardening moments into our lives without sacrificing precious time? As we close out our 2024 gardening season, it’s a great time to reflect on what worked, what flopped, and how we can make our gardens even better for 2025. This is exactly where CaliKim shines the most, and her new book, The 10-Minute Gardener, helps us become more efficient gardeners who can, as she says, “ha
Nov 26, 2024 · 44 min
Winter Houseguest Plants: Outdoor Plants That Can Grow Indoors This Winter (and go right back outside next summer!)
What if there’s a way to enjoy your favorite outdoor plants year-round, save money, and keep them inside as houseplants during the winter? The answer lies in overwintering outdoor plants indoors, which is a brilliant technique I talked about with my friend and gardening expert, Janey Santos from Dig, Plant, Water, Repeat. Janey is a master gardener, YouTuber, and just an all-around plant genius, and she shared five incredible plants that can grow successfully indoors over winter and head right b
Nov 19, 2024 · 27 min
Vacation Proof Your Plants
How do you vacation-proof your plants before going away? The holiday season is fast approaching, which means many of us have already booked out-of-town trips that would require us to be away from home for a longer period of time. So how would you keep the plants back home alive while on vacation? It's not like we could water our plants while away, right? So in this episode, I want to make sure that stress never happens to you. I'm going to set you up with all that you'll need to know so you know
Nov 12, 2024 · 20 min
Give the Gift of Growth // Holiday Houseplant Gift Guide
Why are plants the perfect holiday gift? Plants symbolize so many things such as growth, life, and connection, so it only makes sense that we want our giftee to feel this. And unlike typical presents, if you pick just the right plant for whoever you’re gifting it to, trust that this will continue to grow and evolve long after the holiday season is gone—making them think of you every time they look at it. But if you’re not careful (and well-informed), that gift could turn into a time bomb of wilt
Nov 5, 2024 · 1 hr 1 min
Holiday Plant Care: Poinsettia/Christmas Cactus/Norfolk Pine Care
Christmas and the holiday season are coming! Which “festive” plants should you grow and how can you help them stay alive? For many people, nothing makes the holidays lovelier than getting a beautiful poinsettia or holiday cactus during this time. But there’s absolutely nothing worse than seeing the holiday plant that you fell in love with just wither before your very eyes because they need a different care than you’re used to. So today we’ll talk about how to care for classic holiday plants with

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

How to Live Seasonally and Celebrate the Spring Equinox

How to Use Plants to Heal From Grief

5 Signs You're Overthinking Plant Care (And How to Relax)

Houseplants for Kids: Raising the Next Generation of Plant Parents

The Transformative Power of Flower Essences: What Are Flower Essences and How Can They Help Me?

Houseplant Confidence: The Mindset Shift That Changes Everything

Water Saving Techniques for Your Garden

Plant Inspired Vacations

Easy Houseplant Care, Houseplant Pest Control, and Motherhood and Plants

Beneficial Insects For Effortless Houseplant Pest Management

I Grew 40 New Plants in 2024: Ranked from Favorites to Flops

The Role of Nature in Personal Growth

Carnivorous Plants: The Houseplant Pest Control You Never Thought Of

How to Work with The Winter Equinox

Create a Biophilic Office Space: Boost Your Workday Motivation by Adding These Plants to Your Office

CaliKim on "10 Time Saving Tactics for a More Efficient Garden"

Winter Houseguest Plants: Outdoor Plants That Can Grow Indoors This Winter (and go right back outside next summer!)

Vacation Proof Your Plants

Give the Gift of Growth // Holiday Houseplant Gift Guide

Holiday Plant Care: Poinsettia/Christmas Cactus/Norfolk Pine Care