PLANTED Shorts Episode 12: Why I Garden, featuring Maria Taylor

[Music] Welcome to our segment called y Garden today I have the pleasure of interviewing Maria Taylor my planted co-host to learn her gardening story Maria did you garden with your family as a kid I did I grew up in and near the forest and I think that helped create my love of Nature and then later in life later in life I started as a teen I worked in a grocery store and I was on to the ladies who worked in the flal department I wanted to be part of their team and so I approached the manager and I asked if I could work in there and they taught me the ins and outs of floral work and bers and corsages and all of the wedding stuff oh yeah well that's endlessly creative work yeah it really is I think it also helped create my love of cut flowers and so I wanted to make a cut flower bed at my own house well there's nothing like cutting a bouquet from your own garden just to make you feel happy right it really does so what influenced you to make a career in the nursery industry um I just think it was the constant love of plants and then I was asked to become a wedding designer at my current job and then that led me into becoming the container designer custom container designing tell us what that is and why you love container gardening um I love that they are like mini Gardens right you can take them wherever you need to you can add pops of color where you need to they're endlessly changing seasonally they're interesting and I really like creating something for the customer how does gardening and being in a garden make you feel I think it just helps you to remember to slow down and it creates this calming experience that we also need and um it's my favorite place to be even if it's just in the morning pulling weeds and drinking coffee coffee and gardening that's the thing I can testify exactly it makes me feel comfortable and sometimes I feel like the flowers understand me what do you like best about being a gardener um I like the challenge right I like the challenge of working in a garden center and um the knowledge that you're constantly gaining talking to new people learning new things last year I met a lady who created this expansive beautiful lavender Garden so that way she could distill her own lavender and make perfume wow yeah it was really cool there's so many Niche Gardens out there and different things that you can take and adapt and learn from yeah I agree with that do you have a garden philosophy okay I think it would be it's okay if the plant dies right and move it around if you need to um recreate a garden you don't have to be stuck in one thing choose a spot start there and then let it slowly expand and build from it so your advice to a new Gardener would be you're going to kill things right so yeah you're going to K things mention that so things you're going to find things you love repeat them in your garden or change it if you want to one year you may have a cut flowers and the next year you have vegetables or you have vegetables and then you have a Rose Garden well lovely thank you so much for one being our co-host here on plant and also for sharing your gardening passions with our planted viewers thank you I hope you all love it [Music] h