The Fearless Road

12. PART 1 - From Broadway Lights to Botanical Delights: Maria Failla's Journey Through Plant Parenthood and 'Plantpreneurship'

• Michael D Devous Jr • Season 2 • Episode 12

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In today's episode Part 1 of From Broadway Lights to Botanical Delights with Maria Failla, we dive into the leafy world of green gurus and botanical wizards!

Maria Failla, a plant killer turned plant lady, shares her inspiring journey of overcoming fear and cultivating a fearless mindset. We explore her transformation from struggling performer to thriving plant enthusiast and host of the top-rated houseplant podcast, Growing Joy with Plants.

Embark on a green-fingered journey with us as we sit down with the ever-radiant Maria Faella, who's left the bright lights of Broadway to illuminate the world of botany. From her humble beginnings as someone who couldn't keep a cactus alive, Maria has blossomed into a true plant savant, and she's here to share the soil of her wisdom. Together, we unpack her transformation and how, through nurturing her leafy friends, she's unearthed a wellspring of joy. And it's not just about the plants; Maria's insights weave through the importance of maintaining an open heart and the sweet - and sometimes savory - treats that make the journey of plant parenthood a delectable one.

Feel the soil beneath your fingers as we delve into the emotional tapestry that gardening weaves into our lives, often becoming a poignant reflection of our family ties and spiritual beliefs. Our conversation with Maria takes root in the very essence of human connection, as we explore how plants can become the living legacy of our loved ones, evoking memories and forging new friendships in the shared language of the botanical world. We also traverse the fertile ground of 'plantpreneurship', following Maria's footsteps from stage to seedling, and investigate how this shift harmonizes with age-old agricultural traditions and the deep-rooted culture of local farming communities, all while unearthing the courage it takes to cultivate a life-altering career change. Join us for this 3 part episode which promises to plant seeds of inspiration in the gardens of your mind.

Key Takeaways:

  • How to find joy and connection through caring for plants
  • Embracing a growth mindset to overcome fear
  • The power of community and shared passions
  • Uncovering hidden talents and unexpected career paths

Action Items:

  • Gather your open heart, open mind, journal, dedicated window, and snacks!
  • Reference page 8 of Maria's book, "Growing Joy with Plants" for her top tips
  • Repurpose your unused items for plant care (think: ice tea as a mister!)
  • Embrace the "crazy plant person" connection and find your tribe

Highlighted Quotes:

  • "Sometimes the best wellness tools are the most affordable ones." - Maria Failla
  • "I came for plants for the aesthetic, and I stayed for the wellness." - Maria Failla
  • "The theater industry has its ups and downs. And I ended up connecting with this incredible community of plant people..." - Maria Failla

Excellent Reference Material:

  • Book: Growing Joy with Plants by Maria Failla https://a.co/d/3uOlfOM 
  • Podcast: Growing Joy with Plants https://growingjoywithmaria.com/podcast/


Speaker 1:

you, you, okay, everybody. So hi, welcome to the Fearless Road podcast. I am your host, michael DeVue. We're in studio with a very special episode this time, for the first time actually, we're in the studio with a co-host, my co-host, phaedra Chonyaki, who will be joining me today. To interview this incredible guest on board has been sort of a long thing in the process of getting germinating To get us here. I'm very excited. I don't know if I've spoken about this before in our past episodes. I'm pretty sure I mentioned my mother and Phaedra's art. We share a mom and our journey with plants and her love of them, and so for me this is a very personal, joyful and wonderful opportunity to sort of explore what I think is a bit of a geek and nerd part of my life about loving plants, and I will get into some of the weird things that I do with them a little bit later to share that with you, but let me jump into the introduction. So okay, here we go.

Speaker 1:

In today's episode, we dive into the leafy world of green gurus and botanical wizards. Maria is a plant killer turned plant lady. She's on a mission to help everyone successfully care for plants and make the world a kinder and greener place. After learning to care for plants successfully and experiencing the exponential joy caring for plants brought to her life. The exponential joy caring for plants brought to her life.

Speaker 1:

She founded the Growing Plants with Joy podcast to learn alongside her listeners as she interviews experts and all of the aspects of plant care. Growing Joy with Plants has grown into the top home and garden house plant gardening podcast in the world, closing in on 3 million downloads, and was a 2020 Webby honoree. And in 2022, she authored Growing Joy, the Plant Lover's Guide to Cultivating Happiness and Plants Awesome. Maria spent the last decade as a professional musical theater performer Thank you very much and has been seen on Broadway musicals, on the Great White Way and around the world. She's thrilled now to use her voice to help people grow more joy in their lives through plant care and to use her voice here on the Fearless Road podcast. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Maria Faella Faella.

Speaker 3:

Faella, faella, faella, but no one. That was awesome. Yeah, no one pronounces my name correctly, so I'll never hold it against you, so weird.

Speaker 1:

Well, ladies and gentlemen, that's the first F up of this episode, so don't mind me. Yay, welcome, maria. Thank you, I didn't want to pause all the way around.

Speaker 1:

Thank you, we're so excited to have you. I can't believe this. Like I said before, you know, this has like been a journey to get us here. Both Phaedra and I got your book and we've been sort of reading your book and leafing through it. It's terrible, all these puns, but before we begin our journey, I would like, for all of us, if you guys have the book and you've already picked it up fantastic, you're good listeners. Congratulations, you get a star for today.

Speaker 1:

We're going to reference I believe it's page eight. We're going to take a little cue out of Maria's book with Growing Joy Parent Lovers On page eight. These are the tips she said we need to go on our journey. So before we begin our journey together, gather around, ladies and gentlemen. One you need an open heart and an open mind, which you already have, because you know that's what you bring when you come and listen to our show to a journal to expand on the writing prompts and tips and tricks that we're going to be talking about today. So make sure you write this stuff down. Keep these notes. I have my journal here and my notes on the street. Phaedra's got hers and has a leaf on it. A little flower. Oh, a plant or two. You can see mine here and this one. Yay, mine here and this one.

Speaker 2:

This is gonna be our representative for today I don't know if they show or not, but and then fedra has hers in the background and maria's got a couple uh.

Speaker 1:

Maria's not in her normal uh habitat, so she brought a bit of habitat with her uh to her parents yeah, my normal where she is currently my normal office I have about 40 plants.

Speaker 3:

I've completely changed my bookshelf into a. I installed grow lights in my bookshelf to have a bunch of plants. But sadly I'm at my but my parents are in Florida and Florida is where, like all of our houseplants just grow naturally outside. So I'm still enjoying the scenery.

Speaker 1:

All right. Well, the next thing we need is a dedicated window, and that is because we always need light in our lives, right? We need light to come in and we need to absorb that light. I have one here. The sunlight's shining through and bouncing off my table From the morning light here in the mountains in New Mexico. Phaedra has a big window of light behind her, Maria does too. And the last thing, but this is really important snacks. Snacks are important. I have Ritz crackers and an apple. Phaedra's got her little fruit.

Speaker 3:

This is no fun. We are prepared, Yep everybody.

Speaker 1:

take a sip. I've got my iced tea. We are prepared. Ladies, you guys curl up, roll up, get up, snuggle up, whatever you gotta do. We're going to get into this with Maria Paella and our guest Growing Joy. We'll be right back, okay. So before we get started, let's get a little background on you. Know, I love to get background on my guests. For those of the audience who don't know Maria, maria, can you catch us up a little bit on your journey to get here as the plant killer turned plant lady? We already mentioned that you came from Broadway, so I assume that your journey has been a bit of a winding road.

Speaker 3:

A very winding, fearless road, shall we say. So yeah, I mean, I used to be an epic plant killer. Couldn't keep a plant alive if someone paid me money. I really viewed plants as a lot like if I had ten dollars to spend on a bouquet of flowers or ten dollars to spend on like a you know little snake plant or orchid at Trader Joe's, I would always buy the plant because it would die slower, like I felt like I would get more out of my investment. But I never even thought that these plants could like thrive in my home. And I used to be a musical theater performer, which we have that in common.

Speaker 3:

I spent my first 10 years my all of my 20s, luckily enough, you know performing, living my dream, singing, singing and dancing and musicals, traveling around the world, performing on Broadway. And because of that, you know, I was very transient. I hadn't, I had apartments in New York City but they never really felt like home. I was always picking up to go, move, to go on tour, to go do you know? A regional contract in a different city for three weeks. So I was never really focused on cultivating like a long-term sense of home because I was just so transient, because of my job. Um, things changed when I fulfilled my dream of being on Broadway. I was in Cats, the musical on Broadway, and I moved in with a was.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I don't know what I was thinking back then, first time living with my boyfriend in such a tiny space, but it had beautiful southern exposure, like it was. There was so much natural light and a tiny little Juliet balcony garden. So it was nine square feet. Like you couldn't sit Sorry, not garden a Juliet balcony you couldn't sit on it, you couldn't even really stand on it. It's like a teensy, tiny balcony that had a door.

Speaker 3:

And you know, I was in this like first time nesting experience. We were living in most of my boyfriend's, or my husband I guess we'll call him now his furniture and so I thought, ok, how can I breathe some life into this place? How can I nest? I think plants would do the trick. Even though I have this like horrific, you know graveyard of dead plants from my past. Let's try plants one more time. The trail dead bot, the graveyard, yes, but this time the difference was I actually tried to empower myself with education, so I knew that I couldn't do it on my own. I knew I didn't have the intuition to be able to care for them successfully. So Google was my best friend and I Googled my way to kind of figuring out the basics of plant care. There were also some great plant shops in New York City.

Speaker 1:

Sorry, I'm cutting an apple. I just pardon me for the. Oh yeah, please continue. Yeah, I'm just gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna have my snack, have your snack while I tell the story.

Speaker 3:

So, yeah, so I made friends with our local plant shop owners and asked them for advice, and I connected with a lot of people on Instagram. There were all of these like plant fluencers, plant influencers, but people on Instagram that all liked plants and they were kind enough to answer my DMs. And you know about questions that I had Plantpreneurs yes, plantpreneurs, exactly. So. You know, I like to say that I came for plants for the aesthetic and I stayed for the wellness because I really did. I came for them because I feel like when I looked at Interior Design Magazine, there were plants everywhere and what I didn't realize was plants. You know, I'm a wellness junkie. I've read every self-help book. I've been in therapy my whole life. You know, I go on the wellness retreats, I do the yoga, I do the juice cleanse, I do all that kind of stuff, and so at that point I had spent thousands of dollars on wellness and I was shocked that these affordable, tiny little pots of plants were one of the best wellness tools that I had ever encountered. Once I started caring for plants and seeing them grow, seeing life unfold before my eyes, this like dormant corner of my heart opened up and I started experiencing such joy and connection to something larger than me in a way that I had never experienced it before, and I wanted to talk to all my friends about it and no one wanted to listen to me. None of my performer friends wanted to hear about my tomato plant. So I took to the internet and I found friends online and at that point there were no podcasts about houseplant care.

Speaker 3:

I was an avid podcast listener and I was searching for episodes on houseplants and I couldn't find any. And my contract to Katz was ending and I thought you know what? I'm sure I'm going to book another Broadway show immediately, but until then, why don't I just like figure out how to make a podcast? It'll be my love letter to plants. It'll be kind of an active service for other millennials like me living in urban environments disconnected to nature. And I just YouTubed my way into launching a podcast. I used GarageBand, I borrowed a friend's microphone for my first 20 episodes.

Speaker 3:

I launched the podcast and then kind of thought after 10 episodes I'd be done, I'd book another show, I'd move on with my life. And I did not book another show soon after because, you know, the theater industry has its ups and downs and I ended up connecting with this incredible community of plant people and the downloads kept doubling and, you know, the energy in my life was just naturally flowing towards plants and the podcast and I feel like I had a lot of divine intervention of doors opening and doors closing, you know, closing on my performing career and opening in this, in this podcast career, to kind of allow for this to unfold and bloom, and I haven't looked back. So, like you said, you know I think we're seven years in and I get to be a full time planty podcaster. It's like who? Who thought, yeah, thought that's a real job, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:

That's a, that's a. Your journey is, is is one of many I mean many podcasters who discover that they just want to sort of video journal, something that they're fascinated with. They're fascinated with and the um, pardon me, the gift of the internet, uh has afforded us the opportunity to find our people, you know, and, and when you do that, like to be supported and get that kind of spread, that joy, spread that impact, spread that love. Um, it's such a cool journey to see it happening. Uh, as I mentioned, I think, before, youhaedra and I have a very unique experience and very unique background.

Speaker 3:

Yes, tell me more about this, because you mentioned with your mom. I want to know more.

Speaker 1:

Phaedra, will you please tell the story a little bit about our relationship both with our mom and plants, and let's get the audience a little bit.

Speaker 2:

So Michael's mother and my dad married gosh, almost what 25, 30 years ago. It's been well, 25 plus. It's been a long time, um, you know. So we're, we're technically stepbrother and stepsister, but we've we've been in each other's lives so long. We don't see a difference. So he's my brother, I'm his sister, um, and then people see us together and they're like what, that doesn't make sense, um and uh, and so, um, his mother was very much a second mother to me.

Speaker 2:

I was truly blessed, um, and the stepmother that that I received in life, and she was a mother to me, um, in all the ways that my mother couldn't be and wasn't equipped to be. And so I called her mom. And you know, mom was a prolific gardener. She was much more with outside gardening than she was with houseplants indoors. She had a couple and she always had the best garden on the block. It was always a haven. There was always some sort of water feature, there was herbs, there was flowers, there was roses, and you know, she would spend a lot of time outside because for her, that was her, that was her prayer time, that was when she communicated with god, was when her hands were in the dirt. Um, so it was, uh, very important for her. Um, just, it was beyond a hobby, you know, spiritual um, and so, yeah, it was very much a spiritual practice for her and, uh, you know, michael and I both spent time with her in the garden and you know we, we took a lot of inspiration from that. What are your?

Speaker 1:

plant selections look like individually now Well, I guess what's funny is like when we when we had to move our parents up to the we I don't want to call it a retirement home. This is our family home. That's been in our family for like they were tired as two.

Speaker 2:

Okay.

Speaker 1:

Yes, and so we were moving them from Texas up there, and I moved a 20-foot truck with about 100 plants Up there for her, and, even though she passed away, we inherited a few of these plants. My sister, our other sister, michelle, inherited some of these plants. Daddy Leon got the bulk of what was left over and I don't think very many of them are left because he didn't have the green thumb that she did.

Speaker 2:

He's not a plant man.

Speaker 1:

But one of the things that Phaedra and I have done and kept up to this date which is both our love of the plants and our mothers is taking their ashes and putting them in our plants.

Speaker 1:

So, like I, I I put them in there so that when I talk to my plants, the irony of this was when I started talking to them because her ashes were there.

Speaker 1:

It's like I'm talking to my mother, and one of the things that that she said to both Phaedra and I right before she passed away, it had to have been that week that we had moved her up there, cause she used to always say, she used to gather us together and always say my babies.

Speaker 1:

But she said I, I am the gardener and you are my flowers, I will always be watching over you. So if I ever pass from this planet or this earth, know that I will always be in the sun and in the sky shining down on my little garden and and and watching over my babies. And it makes me cry, but it's like we always knew she'd be there for us, taking care of us, and this is sort of our little journey. You know where we get to do this with our plants and they get to bring us joy. So this connection that I have with you over what the joy that plants and the caring of plants and even the loss of plants can teach you about life and self-care and self-love, it's super important and it's super.

Speaker 3:

It's really deep. It's really deep, I mean, your. Your story is so beautiful and I've heard so many different versions of it through interacting with so many different listeners and other plant people like plants and your relationship with nature is so emotional, many times because of this ancestry, you know, ancestry that you feel. Or you know I can't tell you how many people I've interviewed where they say I grew up with plants, I took them for granted, my mom had all these plants. I went to college I didn't have plants, and that's when I realized how important they were, you know. Or people who have difficult relationships with their mom, where, where it used to be difficult to connect, um, for me I've, I experienced this ancestral reclamation of this lineage of italian gardeners and farmers in my family that I feel like as I come into my yeah, like as I come into my um ability to garden and and have my you know, green, my green thumb, I feel like I'm connecting with the lineage of ancestors.

Speaker 3:

Or people feel very negatively, like there's either a very positive association or there's a very negative association, like, oh, I kill plants, I can't keep them alive. Or, you know, oh, my mom always used to make me cut the lawn and it used to make me so mad, you know. So I do think it's very interesting. I don't, you know, when you look at other hobbies, I don't feel like knitting is as emotional as plants can be, like, you know, the emotional and, you know, don't come at you know, the knitters, don't come at me. But you know, I just think that it is a very special, deep hobby that requires commitment. And I think when you, especially as an adult now and I'm sure you guys have experienced this to an extent, we're experiencing it with each other Once you see another plant person, like, once you meet another plant person, it really doesn't matter where they come from, who they are, what their job is, whatever, like, if you meet another plant person at a party, you're in the corner for 30 minutes talking about your roses, trading, cuttings.

Speaker 3:

It is such an equalizer, it's such a mode of connection that is so beautiful, that also instant, yes, and so instant. It's like the crazy. You like see the crazy in each other's eyes about your plants, you know, and there's just this instant connection. And I think that's so special, especially, you know, for adults, because it's hard to make friends as adults, but I always say, like it's not as hard to make plant friends, you know.

Speaker 1:

Yes, well, and your journey? Well, both your lineage and your journey. You know Italy. Ladies and gentlemen. If you haven't been to Italy, you got to go first. I mean, come on, just you got to get there. Phaedra and I had the amazing opportunity this past summer to go to my friend's wedding in Sorrento. We stayed in Sorrento, italy, and I'm telling you, italy's floral game is en poix. I mean, it's not a joke. These people have been doing this for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years. They have created environments and circular economies that are reliant on the plants, the farming, the product and produce that is created from it. And then it goes back into it and it's so seamless and it's so beautiful. And in June, late May, june, during the budding and floral season, what is southern Italy? You gotta go. It's incredible. The citrus.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, the citrus, I mean just incredible.

Speaker 3:

So it's so funny, you mentioned it, I'm the trees growing down the side of the road. I am uniquely obsessed with citrus and Italian citrus. One of my favorite books is called the Land when Lemons Grow and it's all about the history of citrus in Italy and how it's actually. Wars were created like the mafia. The creation of the mafia was, in part, created to to um, protect the southern italian citrus farmers. Like it's fascinating. Um and uh does not. Yeah, and I have a whole episode on my podcast. If anybody wants to go down the nerd, like you know, if you want a whole hour on this specific topic, um, I have an. Recently I released an episode on my podcast interviewing the author of that book on the history of Italian gardening and Italian citrus. It's really fascinating.

Speaker 1:

Is it a she or a he that wrote it? Does she talk about how lemons are not grown from lemon trees?

Speaker 3:

Yes, well, yeah, how they're stocked.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, we went on a farm tour and it's fascinating, you know, and they talked about you know how, because it's all grafted onto a different type of tree that grows faster.

Speaker 3:

So they can yield and produce fruit. Yeah, the book dives deep into that. If you, you guys should definitely read the book. It's called the Land when Lemons Grow by Helena Atlee.

Speaker 1:

Yes, and the Land when Lemons Grow. Ladies and gentlemen, if you ever get a chance to tour and see one of these farms, the scaffolding, the gardening, the landscape and the hills and the terrain, and all of this builds this really unique world, this underbelly world where people climb these little ladders and they climb across scaffolds and they graft these plants onto little orange trees and tree stubs, Like it is a living, breathing, unique world. It's like going through the Witch and the Wardrobe. You know what I mean. Like you open the door and you come out the other side Getting its.

Speaker 1:

Narnia yeah, it's very Narnia. It's such a different world of plant, if you really like plants Such a different world and I could totally see why the mafia got started there, Because it's so. I can see how it's embedded in their culture. But it's not just their livelihood, it feels like it is very rooted in who they are culturally speaking, yes recipe, so I could see why, defending it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's, it's fascinating. Well, I loved it when we were at the farm and, uh, the, the young gentleman that was there, he and his brothers, they'd been farming that farm for 200 years but they just acquired it over the last 90 years, and we were all sitting there, you know, after our little tour and everything, and he had told us all of the cute little stuff about the pigs eat this, and then the poop this, and then it goes back in and they bury it here and you grow more of this and it comes back out, and then mama, over here, she makes the food and this, this is a farmer to table, right, literally, literally.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, literally, and we were like it was, we were so tired. Yeah, it was amazing. And there's something about you know Sorrento lemons and citrus from that area that is, that's Limoncello land, baby, oh yeah, it is beyond. Yeah, it is beyond.

Speaker 1:

I mean, you think you like lemons from here, like no, it's a next level experience for sure, next level Pardon me, I might eat another snack, so All right, so let's talk. This show is about the fearless road and it is about, sort of like, how we deal with fear in your unique experience as a plantpreneur, podcaster, female entrepreneur making that transition from your previous career which, by the way, for those of us who are performers the moment when you mentally have to decide you're moving away from what has consumed your life, your body, your nurturing, your nurturing your nutrition, your diets, your habits for years and it's time to move on right. Talk to me a little bit about that fear in that moment and how that you addressed it, because you talk a little bit about this in the book how you addressed this fear and what. How this beautiful world of plants provided you with a sort of a different perspective and avenue to take this transition.

Speaker 4:

And this concludes part one of the interview with Maria Faella. When we come back with part two, we'll find out what it was like to leave Broadway and literally move into the woods.