Episodes
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Learn about the Native Plant Connection, a nationwide effort to grow, inform and advance the native plant industry. Find out how you can get involved.
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Many nursery owners have lost small fortunes pursuing a plant they thought sure to be a hit in the marketplace. Danny and Debbie Perkins found success by devoting their resources to a small number of very useful native species. One in particular, the Saw Palmetto, Serenoa repens, a shrub palm of the southeastern U.S., surprised everyone. Well, almost everyone. Danny's dad warned him. Learn how the Perkins have navigated the nursery industry for well over 40 years and built a very good business with native plants.
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Missing episodes?
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David has spent over 42 years growing, selling and designing with native plants. He started his career as a native plant grower when, as a young landscape architect, he couldn't find the plants he wanted to use on his design projects. He is a pioneer of Florida's native plant movement and personally responsible for at least one of our most popular native plant introductions, muhlygrass.
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Troy started his first landscaping business when he was still in high school, and evolved a conventional mowing maintenance business to one focused on designing, installing and maintaining native landscapes that are both aesthetically pleasing and highly functional as it relates to ecosystem services. Now, he's expanding his operation to offer retail native plant sales in his community.
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A little different format: Gage LaPierre, founder of the University of Florida's Native Plant Nursery on the campus of the Natural Areas Teaching Laboratory has just returned from the National Native Seed Conference in Washington, D.C., and has lots to share about seed partnership, seed strategy and the need for seed. Native seed.
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Wilcox Nursery & Landscape, a retail landscape nursery in Largo, Florida, is constantly expanding and evolving to bring better plants and possibilities to its Greater Tampa Bay customer base. Hear how Bruce Turley spent nearly 50 years learning the business, buying it from his former employer, transforming it with native plants, generating demand for new design services and finally, successfully transitioning Wilcox to a fourth generation of ownership.
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Mother daughter duo Laurel and Annie Schiller describe the evolution of their retail native plant nursery, Florida Native Plants Nursery in Sarasota, Florida, now in its 40th year and third generation of management. Learn how this rural, family-owned business works to support a healthy, nature-connected lifestyle for both its owners and their customers. Laurel and Annie talk about creating a destination to attract committed customers, the importance of education and enjoying people as well as plants, and the need to remain flexible in an unpredictable world.
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The one constant in our lives is change. We'll have a new host for Go Native in 2023. Join us in saying thank you and goodbye to our amazing inaugural host, Mitzy Sosa, and find out what's coming up next.
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Since its founding in 1980, Native Nurseries in Tallahassee has been bringing people and nature together in their gardens and yards. To manage landscapes, yards and gardens for the benefit of local wildlife, Donna Legare and Jody Walthall developed a native plant focused garden center and team that educate, inspire, and help their local community. Donna describes the deep relationships forged with customers and staff that contribute to ongoing success. Now in its second generation of ownership, Native Nurseries continues as a treasured community institution promoting sustainability.
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A pioneer in the Florida native plant industry, Brightman Logan established his first native plant nursery in 1981, in response to a growing restoration market. He has devoted his professional life to expanding the native plant industry by growing these plants to landscape quality standards and quantities, and collaborating with a variety of business, government, academic and nonprofit organizations.
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Sweet Bay Nursery was started in 1995 by Tom Heitzman. A graduate of Ohio State University with a degree in Horticulture, Tom has a wealth of knowledge and experience about the culture and landscape use of native plants. Tom is past-president of Serenoa Chapter of the Florida Native Plant Society, past co-president of FANN and past-president of Manatee County Audubon. He is currently a board member of these organizations volunteering his expertise to improve the local environment.
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Nancy Bissett is a horticulturist, restoration ecologist and botanist with The Natives, a Davenport, FL firm providing ecological restoration services and a native plant nursery with over 200 plant species, many rare and hard to find. A founding pioneer of Floridaś native plant industry, Nancy has developed techniques for restoring upland scrub, sandhill and flatwoods native plant communities including site preparation, planting, direct-seeding of native groundcovers and weed control.
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Green Seasons Nursery is located on the very site where sea oats, Uniola paniculata, a critical native plant of Florida's beaches, were first commercially produced. Since acquiring the nursery in 1995, owners Roger Triplett and Mark Holdren have more than doubled its growing capacity with cutting-edge propagation facilities and an emphasis on garden center quality native plants for coastal and upland use. By learning how to grow previously unavailable species, Green Seasons Nursery has helped expand the use of native plants throughout Florida and the southeastern U.S.
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Steve has spent 48 years working with native Florida plant communities, first as a state field biologist and then as the founder of Ecoshores, Inc., which planted over 2,500 acres of natural habitat. Steve founded Beeman's Nursery with his son, Forest, in 2000. In 2009, they invented and trademarked Beemats Floating Wetlands™ to solve the nutrient overload problem of today's waterways. Steve has authored multiple publications on coastal ecosystems, native plants, and floating wetlands water treatment.
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Jane Thompson is the owner of Indian Trails Native Nursery in Lake Worth, Florida, a certified minority business enterprise that grows, designs, delivers, and installs Florida native plants for sustainable landscaping. The nursery serves both wholesale and retail customers. Jane is a native plant wonder woman! Join us to find out more.
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Jerry Fritz is a retired tree farmer and the founder of SUNCO, a wholesale supplier of containerized native trees. SUNCO supplied native trees to landscape companies and other wholesale nurseries throughout Florida, operating from locations in South and North Florida. Hear what Jerry has to say about what it takes to be successful in finding your native plant niche and why to this day, he stays involved in the native plant industry.
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Carl Bates is the owner of Carl Bates Indigenous Plants, which supplies liners and small containerized native plants to wholesale and retail plant nurseries and sometimes landscape and restoration projects throughout Central and South Florida. Carl has learned to endure the cyclical ups and downs of the horticulture industry and supply very large projects from multiple sources. Hear what he has to say about what to grow and when to grow it, and why he still loves getting up every day to drive to the next nursery.
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Can you make a living with native plants? How do you get started? What are the opportunities? Listen to professionals from the native plant industry talk with host Mitzy Sosa about how they turned their native plant passions into satisfying careers and successful businesses. Learn more at <a href="https://www.nativeplanthort.org">www.nativeplanthort.org</a>
