Plant Daddies, Miracle-Bros and the Seeds of Modern Masculinity

So you know, we started out the year sitting next to one another, but a month later I was stuck starring at the back of his head with about seventeen or eighteen girls sitting between us. But and I promised, there's a point to this. It wasn't long before the kids in my school started poking fun at the boys who played clarinet. It wasn't as quote girly as the flute, but was in the same bracket. So I started a pr campaign. I said, the clarinets great because it gets

you out of study hall. It's great because you can use the carrying cases of shield and snowball fights. It's great because you can cope the read in fun dip, which I actually did, so it tastes like cherry candy while you play, and you cannot do that with a trumpet. Like a nine year old Don Draper, I took this thing that was seen as not fit for boys and started a campaign to make it a thing of envy, and I kind of spun my way out of any bullying.

Like I've said before, my grandfather was a botanist, so I never saw a gardening or really most things ex gendered. I was encouraged to pursue the arts, and really just anything I was interested in. I was never told cooking or sport, or dance, or engineering or men's or women's work. That's kind of how my family was, and that just wasn't my home. But last week, as I started thinking about what sort of flowers I might try to plant in my garden, I kept stumbling into these weirdly gendered

posts on the Internet. They screened things like do you real men garden? Three reasons why flowers can be masculine, manly horticulturists, and history. In a strange way, it felt like algorithms were trying to tell me don't worry. It's okay to be a guy and garden. And it made me wonder, how is the culture around gender and gardening changed, and does gardening feel like a safe space for everyone

to get their hands dirty? Let's dig in. Hey there, I'm Mongish Particular, co host of Part Time Genius, one of the founders of Mental Flaws, and this is Humans Growing Stuff, a collaboration from My Heart Radio and your friends at Miracle Grow. Our goal is to make this the most human show about plants you'll ever listen to. Along the way, we'll share inspiring stories, tips and tricks to or to your plane addiction, and just enough science

to make you sound like an expert. Today's show is all about gender and gardening, what your plants say about you, and how men have opened up their arms and their hearts to embrace the world of growing. Chapter eleven, Plant Daddy's Miracle Burrows and the Seeds of Modern masculinity. Maybe this is just how I want to view the world.

But one of the things I found heartening about watching kids today hang out in New York is that kids who are clearly artsy, you're gay, you're queer, don't seem to be ostracized or bullied the way they were when I was younger. I don't know whether it's the Internet or the way TV has shaped us, or maybe being raised by a generation that grew up on Mr. Rogers, but it feels like there's less pressure to fit into a certain stereotypical mold and more space to explore who

you are and who you want to be. And it made me consider just how much things have changed. I was reading Michael Perry's Mr. Plant Geek website this week and I stumbled into this article he wrote called Beating the Stigma around gender and Gardening. In it, he writes about hiding his love from gardening from his schoolmates the

same way he hit his sexuality. And in one paragraph he talks about being called a pansy on the playground and how quote the way school bullies grabbed that innocent plant name and used it to hurt me really summed up how they felt about my less than masculine weekend hobby. Just hearing that made my stomach drop, and I want to hear how his perspective has changed, how he's learned to embrace his identity as a gardener. So we called him up Hey, Michael, Hey, how's it coming. Hey, It's

so nice to have you back on the program. I've got to say I loved your tips so much, and and I loved all the plants that I showed my kids, the dancing plant, how you could hang flowers upside down, and all these amazing wonders. But I'm thrilled to have you back on the program. Oh, no problems. It's good to be here and good to share my love of innovation and new plants and new ways of growing plants and most of all, easier ways to grow the parts

we love. Yeah. So, so today we're talking about masculinity and gardening, and I want to get into that topic. But before any of that, I know, the last time we chad with you, you were, I think, just laying down concrete in your backyard and your gardens. How's that coming along? Well, we're developed now, So it's the finishing touches because everything obviously after the concrete then came the decking, painting. I then planted everything. So I planted lots of bulbs,

lots of bear roots. So I've been able to really multi plant and have some real colonies of bulbs, and and I tend to plant them very closely together as well, because I like them to support each other, and so I have that kind of informality and just keeping my

fingers crossed that everything I planted will appear. So it's always a bit of a leap of faith when you plant something in the autumn and you don't see anything until spring, and it's kind of, you know, it still makes me kind of like get anxious, as it were. Once I get my tulips with their lovely, luscious leaves, you know, dangling over my concrete, I'll be happy. That

sounds nice. So, you know, one of the things that we're talking about on this program is about masculinity and gardening and also just like beating the stigma around gender and rightening. And so I know you wrote an article about this a while ago, and I really loved reading it. I was curious what prompted you to put your feelings out there and right about this topic. I think kind of my love of plants and sexuality have always been kind of intertwined, both in a good way and in

a bad way. And I'm just really jealous now of younger people these days because it's so much easier to be yourself. And I don't just mean sexuality wise, I mean in terms of following your interests the things you really love, because we've got the Internet, which has really helped, and social media, so you can find other people that are interested in that very niche thing that you're interested in. So it just kind of helps the whole sense of community.

And it's funny because I don't know, when you're interested in plants from a young aide, you are automatically kind of you know, people take the mick out of you and they kind of call your pansy or all sorts of different awful names, which are obviously relating to your love of plants, but also you know, tinged with that sexuality edge as well. So it's kind of hopefully things have changed a lot these days, but it's kind of like for me that plants and the sexuality have always

been intertwined, you know. Yeah, I mean, I I think what you're saying is true about community and being able to find community through the Internet. People felt so alone

and even finding information was difficult. Yeah, the YouTube videos are are so easy to access now at versus like the difficulty of like having to go to the library, having to find specialty books like finding someone with that interest, right, Yeah, And I do wonder if the world opening up, the kind of community opening up, you know, at the same time as people getting to know each other, they've realized that there are more people out there like them, which

is you know, obviously gay bye, you know, and interested in plants and so on. It's funny because the last time we talked, we chatted about your love of gardening partially coming from your grandparents home, right, and and and watching your grandparents garden. And I always wanted to do more gardening because my grandfather was a botanist, but those ideas were so romantic. And then to know that you kind of had to hide these feelings in school is

is really I don't know, it's depressing. I don't know, I kind of hit it. I still had a really nice time within that because I made I created my own world, my own world where I was, you know, loving plants, spending time with plants, and you know, obviously the school part of it was just you know, the

thing that had to be bearable. But I didn't necessary hide it from my friends, but I just didn't mention it in particularly you know, or yeah, yeah, or I would have said I was playing with something cool at the weekend, like lego or something that you had the idea of, Like growing something out of nothing and watching a plasts im and sharing food is so much cooler than sticking legos together in something, unless you make it

a Lego bouquet or something like. Yeah, So tell me a little bit about when you started opening up to your school friends or more people about this gardening identity you had. Yeah, it's really hard to judge. And I wonder if I was a straight guy, if I would have felt the same embarrassment about loving plants. But then in those days, it wasn't cool to like anything that

was kind of out of the ordinary anyway. There was always some trend where there was always some jacket you had to have, or you know, when it was teenage mutant ninja turtles, you had to be interested in that, and if you're interested in anything else, then you would be kind of, you know, an outcast. So yeah, I do think it was hard to be an individual in

any way in those days. Yeah. I feel like I've seen magazine articles and website articles recently about how it's okay to give men flowers and the type of flowers men like, and it's so strange to put any sort of limits or ideas on those things. Yeah, I know, I know, it's so bizarre. Social media has changed so much because now I sometimes I'm on there and one of my friends that has probably taken the mick out of me liking plants in the past is then buying

their their first house plant, you know. So everyone's been you know, carried along with this journey, which is fantastic. And then of course you put pandemic into the mix and that is the thing that has accelerated it as well. Yeah, it's a golden time for us because we're accepted from

all angles. Couldn't be better. No, I completely agree. I've done two kids, and I watched it at my kids school, and my seven year old identifies as a day And it's amazing to see the sort of acceptance that is there in the world and and of all interests in a new way that I just don't think was there at least when I was growing up. Yeah, No, totally. It's just it's amazing. Really, I'd like, I'd like to be younger now and see if it would be easier

or perhaps then these days there's different worries. I think there's just a different set of things to worry about. Now. I agree, there's always face to occupy that worry. Unfortunately, So our episode is about plant Daddy's and you know, trying to figure out what those words mean exactly. Do you enjoy that sort of moniker or take any pride

in it? Yeah, I mean it's it's never not puzzling because you know, kind of loving plants was something that wasn't popular, you know, obviously being gay with something that wasn't popular. It's just amazing that those two worlds, two worlds that I'm very involved in, collided in this way.

And I'm not single, but I can see that there's a lot of dating elements that go in there, and it almost seems like people meet each other through plant daddy hashtag on Instagram or through you know, Facebook page with boys with plants or similar and I think a lot of guys are meeting through that method these days rather than your typical you meet up apps or different ways that you might have dated in the past, which is very really interesting thing to look in on because

that is a very different movement as well. Yeah, you talk a little earlier about your own garden, and the idea of bob supporting each other sounds kind of adorable. I also find it super interesting that you said bob's grow better together in community. It's not dissimilar from humans really. So why do you grow the bulbs in that way? Well, I'm quite an impatient gardener, so I always want to

have impact as soon as possible. So even with my garden, you know, I talk about the leap of faith of growing bulbs in the autumn and then having to wait until the spring, and it's just it's it's far too much. So when the bulbs come through, I want them to

have impact from the world goes. So I tend to plant them very closely, you know, much more closely than it would tell you on the label or on the instructions, because I want that impact sooner, and I want them to kind of be this lovely big clump and this

like vivid color explosion. And of course when you plant them closer, it makes more sense because the bulbs, the stems all support each other, because you've got this big almost thicket of growth that is then supporting all the flower heads rather than a single bulb, you know, solitary in the border, and another one is six inches away. It's just it doesn't make sense because they're just going

to blow about all over the place. Well, I like the idea also of um, you know, the idea of these bulbs near each other and supporting each other rather than isolated. There's something wonderful and that. Yeah, I mean, it's it's very interesting because the fact I've been talking about bulbs being planted closely together and that gives support

and it gives a kind of more community feel. It has a bigger effect that really relates a lot to how life is and how life has been with social media is the lubricant and kind of the the openness that we now have the ability to find like minded individuals that we then support each other and then we you know, we amplify gardening and the whole plant world. So yeah, it's a it's a really interesting parallel. There. Just a few final tips. Now a spring is hitting

here in Brooklyn. Anything I should be thinking about as I'm figuring out what to do with my garden. Gosh, well, it's time soon to are some vegetables and some salad crops outdoors or if you haven't got any outside, then it could be micro greens on a window cell, or if you are guarding the inside, then soon your house plants are going to start needing some feed again and a bit more water, so hopefully you've given them a bit of a win to rest, but soon they'll be

bouncing back into life. Michael, thank you so much for being here with us. I feel like I can't wait to see what your garden looks like on your Instagram and then how it changes a year from then. Hey, no worries. Thank you very much. It's been really really cool to be here and speak to you again, and hope to talk to you again sometime soon. That sounds wonderful. Humans growing stuff will be right back after a short break.

The other day, I was scrolling through the comments section of Reddit posts with strangers, trying to figure out what's going to happen on the next in of Lupin, and it reminded me that while the Internet is a source of a lot of truly truly awful things, you get moments like this when we get to connect with people around the world who are so different from us about topics we have a shared interest in and In this case, it was a heated debate about what we think we

know about being a successful jewel thief in France that none of us has any expertise in. But thanks to platforms like Instagram and Interest, we've seen more and more communities come together, including men embracing their love of house plants in these creative and very expressive ways. In large part, these sites are where the plant daddy movement was born.

Living at the intersection of horticulture and sexuality, the plant daddy movement has given men this opportunity to display a new side of masculinity and create a space for men to connect with each other as human over their love of plants. You know, most plant daddies are house plant parents, and this growing trend has been gaining numbers for the

last few years. According to a survey from the National Gardening Association, millennials account for one fourth of plant purchases in two thousand eighteen, and it's important to note that tropical house plants were the dominant purchase there and more significantly than any of that, men made up fifty three of those purchases. So today you can follow accounts like Boys with Plants and see men of all shapes and sizes and backgrounds, posing proudly with their parlor palms or

bird's nest ferns. Because, more than anything, the plant Daddy movement is rooted in freedom of expression. So much of our show is about not stereotyping people and boxing them in, but YouTube diva Miss Lady. The Plant Lady enjoys analyzing the plants in your collection and using them to do exactly that interpret your personality. For her, plants are like a zodiac chart, telling her everything she needs to know about the type of man or person who cares for

I don't know a zz plant. So this week we invited her to share her powers of perception with us and give us the t on different types of plant owners? Is this lady on the other side? Was Getty? Was Getty? Was getdy? Miss Lady to the plant Lady, I'm so excited to have you on. I've seen your features in Paper Magazine, I've read about you on Apartment Therapy, I've seen your Instagram and it's just so fun to be chatting with you. What's that boom? I'm happy to be

here and excited to be chatting with you. So I'm a little nervous about this. I'm going to give you the name of a plant, and I want your take on the personnel, the traits of the plant. Dad who lives with this plant? Perfect, Let's do it. Let's let me get these chakras ready, let me get these vibes ready. So what does it mean if someone has a pathos plant on their mantle? Okay, well, if you go into their house and this man has a pathos in his house, he is a man who is a little basic. He's

not the one, you know what. I love me some pothos, and I own know myself, so I'm maybe reading myself a little bit. Pothos are great. They're really resilient. You could literally put them anywhere and they're gonna like survive and thrive and do their thing in nature. They're amazing. They're climbers, they get huge and all that. But the kind of person who brings it into their home, there's no thought process to it is just Okay, this will survive.

We'll just throw it here. Avoid But that's just that's the team. So this is another plant that I feel like. These fiddle leaf figs are everywhere, and I'm curious what your thoughts are when you walk into an apartment and see one on full display. Okay this and like you really cancel me right now, but I have like my hand on my forehead and I'm just like, stay stay

away from this man. To be honest, I've never even owned a fiddle leaf fig and I've owned like pretty much every plant you live in a rainforest essentially right your apartment, pretty much. And this is the one plant I do not let into my into my space because of the energy that it gives off. A few basic traits that I would give a person who has a fiddle leaf is they're a little selfish and it's either

their way or the highway, you know. Like fiddle leaves, once you put them in a place in your house and they start to grow, don't touch them, don't do anything different, leave them where they're at, because they'll drop leaves like crazy, they'll get brown edges. It is the most problematic plant. They just show you no kind of love, too finicky, and we don't want that. We don't want that energy. N you know, no, I feel that. To tell me about succulents and and maybe cacti in particular,

I feel like it's all bad news. Okay, I don't really care for plants that can hurt me, thorn, spikes, all that kind of stuff. So the aura that I get from a man who has a cacti is good from Afar, but far from good. When you're growing these luscious grain tropical plants, you love touching the foliage and seeing like the textures. Some are velvety, some are rubbery and leathery, and it's part of this relationship with your plants. And I really feel like succulents represent that kind of

man that is totally closed off. He's very beautiful, he's handsome, he's gorgeous. So when you get close and you try to touch, you donna get spikes. And we're not dealing with that. We're not just a good from Afar, but far from good. So I am ready for some good news. Yes, what are your feelings on zz plants? Now? See, this is a plant I could get behind. ZZ is completely and de rated. It might not be the showiest plant, but let me tell you, the z z is gonna

stick with you through thick and thin. Z z s don't eat that much water. They're very hardy and resilient plants. You could even sometimes throw a z eazy in a closet for like a month or two and go check it in a month and it will still be alive. It won't be thriving. Don't do that to the poor is easy, you know. And yeah, So in regards to a man who has his zaz, he is a man who is loyal, who is going to stick with you through the good times and the bad times. And that's

the man you marry if you believe in that. So I approve of that. So I have another one for you that I'm seeing pop up a whole lot recently on Pinterest. And I think it's called and Thorium waa quiana. Do you know how do you know what that is? Yes? And Theorium walk Reanum queen and they um and like in the plant community right now there's like spikes and plants that become very popular. The variegated monstera and then the Pink Princess was one, and now it's the Intherium

war Aquianum or the Queen and Theorium. And this one is an interesting one. It's detail oriented. The man who has this characteristics that really like describe him are somebody who is invested in you, and invested in life, and invested in the little things, because he knows the fruits that come when you pay attention and put focus on life, relationships, work all of those things. So I get behind that man too. He's a lot more work than diseasing, but

worth it. But worth it, Go bigger, go home. Right. I saw them with a friend and they said that it looked like cheetos were growing out of it. Yes, the inflorescence, yes, they get pollinated. The fruits turn orange, which is really cool. Yeah. And and one last question, I read that part of your design sense comes from from your grandparents, from the way your grandmother kept the house, but your father's exotic bird collection, and I was curious,

what sort of matches your grandfather's personality. Yeah, I mean my grandfather always the birds that he brought were just

always very exotic. And I was born in the US that day, came over from Cuba in nine and because of them always telling me, like their stories of how it was in Cuba and them growing up seeing like my grandfather bringing in like plants that were reminiscent of Cuba, like that they're like planning them around the house or inside the house and even some of the birds and stuff that they had always felt that was the connection, you know, plants and animals like that was my connection

to Oh, this is the piece of Cuba that I didn't get to experience with them, But I'm experiencing it with them in real time right now, and you know, and I feel like a lot of the birds were always like beautiful and like flamboyant and stuff like that, and I feel like it was a reflection of how he like viewed Cuba. Well, I love these descriptions. I can't wait to go out into the world and stereotype everyone based on their plant touchtions. But but I really

appreciate this, miss lady. It's been so fun. It was so fun. Thank you for having me. If you ever need me to read some more plant horoscopes, let me know we'll do. One of my favorite sites on the web is the sociology site Society Pages, and I love it because they analyze culture in all sorts of intriguing ways. Like in one post, they analyzed over kids books, including Richard Scarry's Busy Town Books, and they learned that mice

and pigs mostly get depicted in service industry jobs. While more predatory creatures like lions often end up as executives. They also do a couple of interest collections, including one of pointlessly gendered items, and the page is filled with real items like manrea sangria, men can feel comfortable drinking at barbecues, chap fix chapter that's engineered for men, and

cleanex for men, which sports man sized tissues. If we're being honest, it all feels a little ridiculous, doesn't it, Like why do men need a manly label to justify that they like fruit in wine? Or why would someone feel inadequate about buying tissues to blow their nose in? It is a bodily need, and when you're about to sneeze, most people are just looking for something to sneeze into and grateful they have any tissues on hand, let alone

something gendered. But the truth is there is nothing gendered about any of these products, and there's no reason to feel less of a man because you're passionate about plant care. But where does this all come from? The site also has an interesting history of gardening on it, showing how the nation's first popular garden designer, this guy named Andrew Jackson Downing, who I guess was a Martha Stewart like taste maker taught people how to design a tasteful garden

way back in the eighteen forties. So as more and more houses were set back from the street, Downing wrote quote, men should tend the lawn walkways, vegetables and fruit trees, and women the flowers. Meanwhile, a book called Gardening for Ladies, published in England around the same time, encouraged women to gain in the garden and actually gave them permission to go outside and do something. So for proper women to be told playing the dirt was okay as long as

they didn't exhaust themselves too much. That was liberating. But this book to focus their world to flowers, and as Society Pages points out, these stereotypes persisted, especially as lawnmowers were marketed to men in the eighteen fifties. But between Quarantine and the connections we can make through Instagram, new communities have sprouted up, and there's so many different ways to picture your pursuits. In previous episodes, we've talked about

black gardening communities. We've seen the world where sneaker heads and plants collide, and we've heard people label themselves plant parents and members of plant parenthood. While the plant Daddy's movement was born from the LGBTQ community, men of all sexual preferences and identities have come to embrace their status as plant parents and we are excited to talk about it too. I sent my producer Molly out to talk to men from all across the US who love their plants,

from flower beds to jade plants. They shared their thoughts around plant care and masculinity. I'm Bob Hershawn, and I like plants, you know. When you you touched on the eighteen hundreds and gardening, that just reminded me. Leo Tolstoy, the novelist. He was born in aristocrat, all the money he could ever need. He had peasants, hundreds of them,

taking care of the outdoors. But it was very important to him to go outside and prove that he knew how to use a shovel, and he could use a plow, and he could use a syfe, and that showed that he was a real man. He was really masculine, you know. To be a real guy, you know, you have to go out and make stuff grow. And that whole idea caught on and I think that we're kind of stuck

because of that. And I think that we do have a lot of men that live that act badly and think of masculinity as being a big dufas, or at least because they are males, they have license to be a big dufis. And I think that's terrible and negative. And I see signs that we're getting away from that, and I hope that's true. E J. Horne. I'm located in Bursailles, Kentucky. I grew up on a farm. We had bulldozers and sawmills and tractors and escalators and everything

driven cold juts. I mean, I can say, you know, I'm masking, is your job or whatever, But the process of creation and this, the process of watching things flowers is really neat. It's a miracle, I mean it really is. And to bring those into the house and to not beautiful the house and let's see other people get to enjoy those things, or that's just a good thing. My name is Douglas Waterbury Team and I'm currently living in Franklin, Tennessee with my wife. I do believe that flowers can

be masculine. I suppose the most important thing is that there's the human response to them, not the gendered response to them. You know, as humans, we are attracted to beauty, and flowers are undeniably and unmistakably beautiful. My name is Joel Arnold, and I grew up in Michigan, where I really liked gardening, and I now live in Los Angeles where I don't have a garden, but I do take care of a few house plants for the guy who's

like very skeptical of plant care. If there are wanting to like attractive partner, it shows like that they can care and that they have some kind of responsibility to them if they have house plants that they're actively caring for, like in their space. I feel like showing that you can take care of your space having it clean, like that's one thing. Another level would be like plant care, like that's that's very attractive. I feel like. My name

is Jake Calasini. I live in Brooklyn, New York. When it comes down to it, they're just like nice to look at, you know, putting care into them, you know, you get you get something back. I think I just enjoyed growing things and being able to transform space into a space that is nice to walk in. That is nice to sit in to contemplate, you know, have people over and and allow them the space and the time to do the same. My name is Ramsey Junt. I

live in Atlanta, Georgia. It's the same nurturing you give to anyone, and in particular for me, and like with my partner and as well as with my daughter, try to be as nurturing as I can with her. And I try to get her excited about things, like I try to keep her involved with what's growing out in the garden if she's having a bad day, just to get her mind off as like, hey, the peach trees blossoming. That was pretty huge for her because she she loves peaches.

And just seeing her demeanor change into happiness, it's makes me happy as a father to see that. My love for flowers and my love for gardening always came from my dad. My name is Ben Polson. I live in Philadelphia. I've been living here for about eighteen months. You can't care for a plant without understanding it in a way that I think men don't do very often. And you know, and you've got to listen to the plant, and that's

always a healthy thing to do. You've got to care for it in a way that I think is sometimes quite unmasculine. But they's definitely got the power to change the conversation to you know, the kind of show men a different way of dealing with things or with living things around them. I don't feel at all qualified to to define modern masculinity outside of my own bounds, which I hope is fair. I'm sure many a male gardener has man splained fertilization to a woman gardener that knows

a lot more about it than they do. But I think gardening has a lot of opportunity, and you know, it's an opportunity for humility as well. You're trying to control nature here and I don't know why my com quote tree suddenly sprouted thorns, and I don't know why my olive tree just uped and died. And I think, you know, accepting that you don't know a lot of things is really challenging to men that are supposed to know things all the time. And I think that's another

good aspect that gardening keeps you humble. So from my perspective, yeah, I think masculinity needs to be a bit moll for about three years to make up for the past a few thousand. But once we do that, I'm sure we can we could all make comment and if plants can help us do that, that would be a beautiful thing. Indeed,

I could think a lot lately about flowers. At some point over time, flowers became this symbol of femininity, which is always strange to me, because flowers themselves have a sex, and some are actually male, but most flowers are actually bisexual, meaning they have both male and female reproductive parts. So even this thing that we've gendered as feminine doesn't adhere to these constructs. So why should we let ourselves believe

that flowers and gardening are also gendered. Men are not a monolith, and masculinity does not have to have just one definition, and neither does gardening for that matter. I know I've taught about my family a lot on this show, and my grandfather, the engineer, It was just this incredible male figure for me as a kid, this role model, and I keep learning more and more about him to this day. His interests had no boundaries. I've mentioned he started an ice cream factory, he had farms, He built

incredible things from scratch. He was a writer, but he also loved roses. He bred them, and he brought in all these rare seeds and cultivated rare flowers that people would come to watch bloom. He also had three types of jasmine in his yard, including one that bloomed and perfumed only at night. The scent used to calm him, and it's actually what inspired me as I started to look into my backyard and start planning for the future. We have this idea that such delicate aspects of nature

can't be masculine, but there's no reason for it. In the same way we've seen in femininity exudes strength and power, it's encouraging to see a wider masculinity that can convey softness and beauty. I find comfort in watching the next generation post online, unashamed of their passions and interests, and sharing how they can live in more than one lane.

It tells me that we're heading towards a more accepting and promising future because at the end of the day, the carrots and the hyacinth they don't care about how much testosterone or estrogen you have. And like all things, the gardening community only gets better with new ideas and different perspectives male, female, non binary. Because to the world out there waiting in your backyard, we're all just humans growing stuff. That's it for today's episode. Don't forget it.

No matter what season it is or where you're at in your gardening journey, there's some incredible resources waiting for you on the Miracle Grow website. Next time on our show, we're gonna talk about regenerative farming practices, stuff you can bring into your backyard. If you like what you heard, don't forget to rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts. Also, we want to hear from you. What are your inspiring

plant stories, relatable struggles or growing questions. Tag us in your post or tweet using the hashtag Humans Growing Stuff, and don't be surprised if you hear your story featured on an upcoming episode. Humans Growing Stuff is a collaboration from My Heart Radio and your friends at Miracle Grow. Our show is written and produced by Molly Sosha and me Mongy Chatiguler in partnership with Ryanovadia, Daniel Ainsworth, Haley Ericsson,

and Garrett Shannon of Banter. Until next time, Thanks so much for listening.