GARDENFIT

- I'm Madeline Hooper.

I've been gardening for decades and living with aches and pains, so I finally decided that maybe I should find a fitness trainer to see if I could fix my problems.

And after learning better ways to use my body in the garden, it dawned on me, what would be more exciting than to travel all over America, visiting a wide variety of gardens and helping their gardeners get "GardenFit"?

In season one, for all our guest gardeners, gardening was their life.

For season two, we're going to visit artists who are also passionate gardeners.

And for this lucky group, I'm so thrilled and excited to welcome this season's Garden Fitness Professional, Adam Schersten.

Taking care of your body while taking care of your garden, that's our mission.

- [Narrator] "GardenFit" is made possible in part by Monrovia.

[gentle bright music] [upbeat bright music] - Adam, I brought you to this spot in my garden today because we're actually going to visit a flower farm.

And I just thought these flowers maybe would give you a taste of what you're about to see.

- They're beautiful.

- Thank you.

So we're gonna visit Jenny Elliot and her husband, Luke Franco.

And they were musicians.

- [Adam] Music and nature seem to go together.

- I think you're right.

And this couple decided that they would become farmers and their niche would be flowers.

So they started farming on one acre, and they called themselves the Tiny Hearts Farm.

But it's not tiny anymore.

They have 40 acres.

- Wow, so this multiplied out to 40 acres.

- Can you imagine?

And they grow all kinds of flowers.

They grow perennials now so they don't have to replant things every single year on all that acreage.

But they do also plant a lot of annuals that they store from seed.

So you're putting this seed into these little packets.

Then you have to take out the seedlings and plant them in the ground.

And then when they grow, you have to cut them so you can actually use them.

So I can't imagine how many hundreds of thousands of times they're bending over.

- Yeah, because if they're doing all that by hand, that is a ton of work.

- They sort of have this motto that they wanna grow healthy flowers for healthy people.

They also have an actual design business.

So they're floral designers.

And they really do weddings, you know, events.

So she has special techniques that I know she's gonna show us and how she plays and organizes her flowers, so I'm quite excited about that.

I love to put flowers in the house.

So I think we're gonna have an amazing time, and an absolute smorgasbord for the eyes.

[gentle bright music] There they are.

- Hi - Hello!

- Good morning.

- Hello, hello.

- Good morning.

- Hello, good morning.

- Hi, good to see you.

- Hi.

- How are you?

- Adam.

- Luke, nice to meet you.

- Nice to meet you.

- Good to see you.

Good morning, Luke.

So, have you met Adam?

- Nice to meet you, Adam, hi.

- Nice to meet you.

- Hi, welcome to the farm.

- So before we learn more about Tiny Hearts Farm, we know that you guys are musicians.

And you transitioned into being farmers?

[couple chuckles] - Well, for me, I have been a musician my whole life, but career-wise, it always felt weird.

And so I thought I would try working on a farm for the summer, and my first day on a farm, that was it, I knew.

So I've been farming ever since then.

Dragged Luke in.

- That's true.

Well, I still play all the time, actually.

I do a little bit of both.

I farm during the day, I play music at night.

- Well, that's a full day.

- Yeah, it's kind of being like a double agent.

But, I enjoy it.

One of the things makes me crazy, the other thing keeps me sane.

[group chuckles] Well, I've got all sorts of stuff going on today.

I know you guys have some fun things planned, so.

- We'll see you later.

- Thanks, great to meet you.

- And come on in, 'cause I have things to show you in the greenhouse.

- I can't wait to see the greenhouse.

[gentle music] Oh, Jenny, this is exciting.

- Wow, look at all these little babies.

- A lot of little baby plants in here.

All flowers, all waiting to be transplanted out into the field.

- I love the leaf color is already beautiful.

It's like a tapestry.

- Yeah.

- A lot of different colors.

Some of these are just the same plant, but different varieties, different colors.

And they're showing their color already.

And some are foliage plants are growing for that color.

So you get this beautiful look in the prop house.

- So, this is where you actually place the seeds in the trays?

- That's right, and grow them on until they're big enough to transplant out into the field.

- So, about how many seeds you think you plant?

I mean, there's a lot here.

- Many [chuckles].

I think we're seeding about 100 to 120 trays, every week from February through mid to late June.

- And each tray has... - Each tray has 70 to 120 plants.

So I think we're upwards of about 300,000 plants grown in here and planted out into the field every year.

Just the annuals.

- Just the annuals, 'cause you have other things growing in the field.

- Right, that doesn't count the perennials or the dahlias or anything like that.

- So I bet the soil is very important that you select.

- It is, it is.

And this is a compost-based soil, which I prefer for almost everything, because it just continues to feed the seedling as it grows.

- [Madeline] That makes sense.

- It does, right?

- They all look so happy in here.

- Yeah, yeah, I think it's good just to try a bunch of different kinds.

I did years of side-by-side trials just to find the soil that I like.

- [Madeline] That's fun.

So, you just dump the soil in?

- I just dump it in.

We built this.

I mean, this is really a pretty small potting bench.

We're doing a tray by tray.

We have this so that we can pull the soil down over the tray rather than scoop it in.

It is much faster.

So I just do the one fill and push down.

You have to make sure also that everything's equal.

You don't want the middle to be really hard and filled and the edges are soft.

You know, everything has to be the same.

- So after you do what seems like millions of these trays, then what happens?

- And we do do millions.

We'll make a big stack of these.

We'll make, you know, 40 at once.

We have a big stack of trays, big stack of soil all ready to go, and you can just be a seeding machine.

We seeded by hand for many years until we couldn't anymore.

And that's when we bought a vacuum seeder, which makes it go much faster.

So I just dump a bunch of seed right inside.

And I'm gonna flip on the vacuum.

Now, I can control the vacuum from here, so I can turn it off and I can have it on.

And then I just shake it around.

- [Adam] Oh!

- [Madeline] Oh, my goodness!

- [Adam] That's genius!

- It's pretty cool, right?

And I have some control over how many seeds.

- [Madeline] That each one holds?

- And I'll give it a little tap, 'cause I don't want too many seeds per cell.

And then the extras.

Thank you.

- You're welcome.

- [Jenny] Put that on.

- [Madeline] Well, that's a little miracle!

I feel like applauding.

- [Adam] Yeah, seriously.

- [Madeline] Well done!

- [Adam] That's magic.

- Pretty cool, right?

And then all that's left is to cover them, put them on the table, water them, and wait.

- Wait until they, you wait till they get to a certain size, and then we take them out in the field.

- Out into the field.

- Let's take ourselves out into the field.

- [Jenny] Yeah, it's hot in here.

Let's get out of here.

- [Madeline] Yeah, I think that's a good idea, Jenny.

Jenny, this is quite a treat walking through all your flowers in this field.

Do you plant on all 40 acres?

- [Jenny] We grow on about eight acres each year of annuals.

- [Madeline] So, you rotate?

- We rotate.

So we have a seven-acre field here, a seven-acre field there.

And we flip-flop them and give each field a rest every other year.

- [Madeline] Oh, that makes sense.

- [Jenny] Yeah.

- [Madeline] And then, how many actual flowers do you get in a field?

- Oh, gosh [chuckles].

Lots and lots and lots.

- It's unbelievable.

It's, like, I've never seen a flower farm.

And it's like walking through a fairy tale.

- [Madeline] It is.

This is so beautiful.

And the colors of these zinnias are magnificent.

- [Jenny] This is a really nice mix.

This is a cactus mix, and it has some really beautiful soft pinks and apricots, and I really love-- - [Adam] And so much variation in the petal structure.

- [Jenny] Right, the shapes of the flowers and everything, yeah.

- So with all of these amazing assortments of plants, you have to harvest them, right?

They go another place, right?

So, could you show us maybe your technique of even just harvesting zinnias?

- Absolutely, yes, and I could even use some help, you guys.

- Oh, sounds fun.

- Let's do it, ready!

- There's a machine like the vacuum seeder, right?

- I wish, but no, the picking is all done by hand.

- [Madeline] Wow.

- [Jenny] Every stem.

- [Adam] Whoa!

- So, Jenny, can you teach us exactly where we should cut these zinnias?

- Yes, absolutely.

So these are actually center stems.

These zinnias were not pinched before planting.

So these are the big center stems coming right up.

So we're actually gonna cut pretty deep in.

You're going to be taking some side shoots off on these center cuts.

So you can get your flower by the head.

- Right.

- Reach in with your cutting hand, and you're gonna cut just above a leaf node.

So you're looking pretty low down.

You wanna leave about three sets of leaves on the plants.

Perfect.

And cut.

And then you're gonna strip all these off.

I do it with my hand.

On these first cuts, you can use the clipper to cut off the big branches.

And I like to leave two or three leaves.

- I squished my leaves already.

- [Adam] So pretty.

- So pretty, I love this stem.

This is exactly why I grow flowers, 'cause I love a stem that's got a natural curve to it.

- It's a personality.

- Exactly, gorgeous, right?

- Absolutely gorgeous.

- Yeah.

- [Adam] And now what?

- So, we just keep doing this?

- We just keep doing this.

- This is a lot of bending, Adam.

- For hundreds and hundreds of plants.

You just keep doing it.

- [Madeline] Down the whole row?

- Down the whole row.

And if you do find one where the center's already been cut out, that's a little bit easier, because you're just cutting off the side shoot at about the same place, pretty low down on the plant, and you're taking off all of that extra foliage.

- Look at these colors.

- Aren't they gorgeous?

- [Adam] It's amazing.

- [Madeline] They're just gorgeous.

- [Jenny] They're so pretty.

- I'm finding really inconsistent stem lengths.

Is there, like, a goal?

- Yeah, well I...

So what we say is, for for a bouquet, that we want it to be from our elbow to our fingertips, just about.

For, like, a market style bouquet.

This guy I just cut, and it's ugly and... [Adam gasps] It's going in the grass behind me.

- The ugly ones go that way?

- Yes.

And I cut it out anyway because I want to encourage that plant to grow up and branch out.

But so it does, like, here's an ugly one that just didn't form right.

But I'm gonna just cut it out anyway because I want the plant to grow.

You know, if you look out over the fields, you can imagine there's a lot of flowers to get out of this field and get packed up for orders.

- I bet.

- So we're cutting a lot.

From July through mid-October, it's just about all we do.

- Yeah, and a lot of bending.

- A lot of bending.

- So once you do this, do you hold onto them or do you put them someplace?

- So once I have a handful and I can't really hold anymore, then we'll run them to the bucket of water, which we've got over here.

And when I put them in the bucket, I make sure that all my stems are all at the same level.

Sometimes I just tap them on my leg like that, just to make sure the stems are all gonna equally go in the water.

Otherwise you will end up with wilty flowers.

- Wow, those are really good tips.

- Wow, yeah.

- Right?

'Cause you could see how, when you put it into a kind of full bucket already, ones could just pop out, so you need to make sure and feel that that's under water.

Yeah, pretty, right?

- Fantastic.

- Look at that work, nice job.

- Yeah, good job, guys, thanks.

- Okay, wait, is there more?

Yes.

- Oh, yeah, there's more.

- We gotta go back to it.

Well, I can see how this could actually really start to bother the back, 'cause you really don't have an option.

You can't, we're moving fast enough that you're not down on the ground.

You're not kneeling.

You really got to bend.

- That's right.

- And it's okay to round your back?

- I mean, the spine is just a stack of joints all close to each other.

And, of course, it is meant to bend.

So yes, you can, you have my permission.

- Oh, I like that.

I'm always so busy trying to, you know, keep my back totally straight.

- Right, right.

But for us, we are, we're moving so fast, we can't stand still.

I can't, you know, squat or anything.

I have to just be bending and moving along all the time, and, yeah, I really start to feel it.

- Yeah.

And so the way that you can kind of slow that down or combat it is just by resetting the muscles of the back.

This is really kind of a repetitive stress scenario.

You're down there for a long time, and you might have the natural inkling when you stand up to just [groans] stretch out.

But I'm gonna give you a couple sequences to go through where you can really hit all three planes of motion and all the muscles of the back, in a pretty quick little two-minute routine, and then we can cut some flowers some more and reset our backs.

- Okay.

- So I would say let's start with this forward and backward motion.

We're already kind of doing this a bunch.

So the way we can counteract that is just by turning the arms out, lifting the chest really tall, stretching into those back muscles.

- Oh, that feels good.

- That feels great.

- We can swing that pendulum and kind of come the other way, turn the arms in, come back out.

Let's do this three times maybe.

You can already feel how it's-- - It's cracking!

- You're your own chiropractor right here.

Nice.

So now we've got side to side motion that the back does.

And so I want you to try and keep your hips in place.

I don't want you to kick them out too much, 'cause we're really going to try and target the mid-back here.

And so just reach down your thigh with each arm.

Try not to hike your shoulders too much to really fake what should be that side to side tip.

Yeah, exactly.

These look great.

We'll do that a few times.

And then the last one, which is my personal favorite, is rotation.

Palm is up, shoulders rolled back.

And retract as you turn.

And we're really getting at these back muscles that are just stretched long through that whole cutting process.

- Yeah, that feels great.

- It does.

It's kind of like just following that rotation.

Like it's like all the way through.

It does feel good.

- Saying hi to the mountains.

- Spine and shoulder blade and arm.

We might even feel a little chest stretch in here.

And this is just really a great way to remind all those back muscles that they don't have to stay long the whole time as we're bent over.

But they do have another side to their existence, which is this shorter contracted side.

And it will really help stave off that, you know, repetitive stress feeling.

And you can do it throughout your cutting day.

I mean, we're doing it right now.

We're gonna cut a few more.

- And do it again.

- We'll take this little break, do it again.

- [Madeline] And after, let's go see what Luke has brought over to the shop.

- [Jenny] Yeah, Luke's been busy all day hauling buckets from the farm up to the shop, and he's setting up for us.

- [Luke] Hey, welcome to the shop.

You made it!

- Hi, Luke, nice to see you again.

Oh, it's so exciting to be here - Here's our haul for the day.

- Solid.

- It matches your shirt, it looks good.

- I planned it.

- Well, this space is fantastic.

- [Jenny] There's a lot in here.

- [Madeline] You do all your designing here?

- [Luke] That's true.

- So, you have really studio space?

- Yeah, it's a beautiful studio space in the back.

We have room to spread out when we're doing the design work.

We have the most fantastic sink, which is the most important thing to a florist.

- What an upgrade after years of working in our, you know, dusty, kind of dark barn, to be able to bring our wedding floral design work up to the shop here.

Climate controlled, which is good for the farmers and for the flowers.

- [Madeline] Yeah, no, that's really nice.

It's quite exciting.

We are thrilled to be able to maybe get a peek at how you design things for weddings and events.

Do you mind showing us some of your special techniques?

- I would love to, and it's all about what's in season.

And you guys even helped pick the flowers today, so we'll go and work with them.

- [Madeline] Let's go.

- [Adam] I love that.

- To me, creating a design is kind of about recreating what I see in the field.

And with that comes the seasonality of it.

You know, a design is gonna look really different early in the springtime when I just have tulips and maybe the first willows.

Then it's gonna look, in September, when there's just this crazy explosion of dahlias and all the weeds and, like, everything is just in bloom.

But, I mean, those two aesthetics are totally different, and it's the flowers themselves and what's coming in in that season that informs my design work and what I'm gonna do.

The other thing that's so important to me is that we have, on the farm, very purposely unmowed strips all around the farm.

- Jenny's always telling me, no, no, no, don't mow that.

- Don't mow that!

You're gonna ruin someone's wedding if you mow that.

I need those weeds.

I pick from those places as well and incorporate that into the design work.

And to me, it's so important that those two elements are combined, because that's what the fields look like in reality.

And that's what I want the design work to reflect.

- [Madeline] I think that's so exciting.

- I think it's really nice too, to not just like... Everybody knows that this is a flower and this is what it's supposed to look like.

But when you're looking at the wild things, I think you really cultivate your own eye for what's beautiful.

And so I really just like using not what the world tells us is a flower, but I wanna use my own eye.

So I was gonna show you guys how I put together a hand-tied bouquet.

- Oh, I'd love to see that.

- Bouquet for a gift or something like that.

So when I start, the first thing I do is I look for something branchy.

It gives me a little bit of a base to start feeding the flowers through.

I also like that it sets my tone of wildness right off the bat.

- Oh, I love that.

- I think about that.

I think right off the bat, I'll put in flowers that are gonna set my color intention and also my size intention and maybe my wispiness or shape.

Am I going asymmetrical or symmetrical?

I might decide all that stuff kind of at the beginning, and the first few flowers are gonna set that intention.

Now, when we were picking some of these, I was so happy to see that I had a lot of orange and yellow.

And I'm an orange lady.

I love orange.

I use it whenever I can.

So I thought that for this bouquet I would do kind of a yellow-orange theme.

- Very summery.

- Very summery, seasonal for this time.

And I'll just kind of start taking my flowers and sort of processing them.

We do a bit of this in the field.

I have to decide whether I want to keep those or not.

I don't know, I'm gonna keep one, I don't know.

Yes, a lot goes on the floor.

- I love that she does that.

And Jenny, you're holding everything in one hand.

So you're really creating with one and then just molding it with the other?

- So I'm just holding it in one hand.

I have these fingers free that I can help my other hand strip the leaves.

And I'm just kind of looking at the shape as I'm going.

- It's amazing to watch it really come to life, one flower at a time.

- I really want each flower to speak.

I want each flower to have a say in this bouquet.

I don't want them to just be mashed together and not matter.

Each one of them matters.

- I love this idea of that seasonality in where the bouquet actually marks the date itself, just because of what flowers are in there.

- And no two bouquets is ever the same because of that too.

I could have brides request the exact same color palette one week apart, and those bouquets are just gonna be totally different, just because it's different ones growing in the field.

So I need to add something, and this might be where my ogon spirea comes in.

It's just to go there, and it's kind of gonna separate those flowers apart.

- [Luke] I like what you're doing here.

- Oh, well, thank you.

- [Luke] Looks really good.

- [Madeline] She's got this, right?

- I've done this before.

- Flowers have to love each other, like those.

You know, they really work together, and it seems like they belong together, which is sort of the sentiment of the whole occasion.

- And then I was especially excited to find that the first few bright lights cosmos had bloomed.

And the thing that they do so nicely is they just float above a bouquet.

- [Luke] Now, would you categorize that as a yoo hoo?

- I would categorize this as a yoo hoo.

This flower is a yoo hoo.

It goes, "Yoo hoo!"

Yes, that's exactly right.

- I love that.

- And then I will cut my stems all at the same height, fairly short.

- [Madeline] Oh, that's beautiful.

That is just gorgeous.

- And that's it.

- [Luke] It's fun, too.

- Yeah, and it's fun, right?

- [Luke] And it feels like summer.

- [Adam] You are a pro.

I mean, you made that look so easy.

- It's absolutely beautiful.

So besides these amazing bouquets, what other things do you do, let's say, for weddings?

I mean, I'm sure people really want quite a lot of floral display.

- Yes, yes, yes, we do lots of bridal and bridesmaid bouquets, boutonnieres, flower crowns, right?

All the little fussy personals, right?

Centerpieces for the tables.

And then there's the ceremony site.

And the ceremony site is a place where people often will get very unique.

They want their ceremony to reflect them.

And so one of the things that we've kind of developed is a spray, a big floral, "How ya doin'"?

I don't know, what do you call it?

- A big, massive floral extravaganza, you know.

- So, could you teach us how to make one?

- [Jenny] You wanna see how to do one?

- [Adam] Yeah, that would be very cool.

- [Jenny] All right, let's do it.

- [Madeline] So, is this our base?

- That's our base.

So we call this a bird's nest.

Or as I was making it, I said it's just like twisting a pretzel.

This is wild grapevine that we're very fortunate is native to our area.

The first thing we're gonna do is just build a base of greens.

And you'll be using the stems on longer pieces like this to kind of weave through.

And the stem weaving through is what's gonna start to really give this kind of loose thing right now some structure and really start to hold it in.

So this is viburnum from our woody perennial section.

- Let me get this underneath here.

- It's nice to get different types of greens in there to get the different colors and textures in the background.

Here's some smoke bush for that.

- Okay, so now this is, these are wonderful accents.

- Yeah.

- I love this.

- I just put a nice one here and here.

- Oh, you did, okay.

- So maybe one up here, or is that is that too high?

- No, I don't think that's too high.

Yeah, get it in there.

Yeah, we're just looking to kind of make a bed for the flowers that's a lot of just really beautiful texture.

And it's all green, but it's all different shades of green.

There's a few stems of, this is that same kind of wily branching hydrangea that is so perfect for this.

So you guys can start sticking those in.

- [Luke] They tell you where to go.

- [Jenny] They do, don't they?

- [Madeline] I love the way they play with each other.

- So these are those gorgeous foxglove that Luke picked this morning, so you can just kind of-- - Maybe you should put the first one.

- You want me to do the first?

A little intimidated?

And we have some nice purple ones.

- [Luke] Symmetry is overrated.

- Symmetry is overrated, I agree.

- [Adam] I'm gonna let this one hang out big time.

- [Madeline] That looks great.

- [Luke] Are you thinking in three dimensions now?

- [Madeline] Is it okay if it's three dimensions?

- [Jenny] Yeah, sure.

- What does the boss say?

That's what you should be asking.

- They're kind of funny-looking when they're really flat.

Sometimes they're really flat.

Depending on the types of flowers, that can be weird.

So we'll start adding in like focal flowers now, so.

- [Madeline] I would just do the sunflowers.

- Yeah, if you can just do that, that's fine.

- I think they're so beautiful with the blend of what you've already given us.

- Here's a couple more.

- And then there is... - Oh, Adam likes these, and I like these too.

- Oh, yeah.

- They're smoking.

- [Adam] The dark ones?

- [Luke] Yeah, they're great, they're great.

- [Adam] Yeah.

- [Luke] Just some of that.

- [Adam] Right, yeah, just like a couple.

- [Luke] Oh, what is this thing on that petal?

- [Madeline] We've had a fantastic day being in your beautiful world.

We can't thank you enough.

- Thank you for coming.

Yeah, we had a great time too.

- [Madeline] And teaching us so much, really!

- Yeah, thank you for coming.

Do you wanna see what you made?

Shall we hold it up, and we'll see?

- Yeah, let's hold it up a little.

- Oh my goodness, look at that.

- Isn't that gorgeous?

- Oh that's gorgeous.

- [Luke] A true collaboration!

- [Madeline] It is a true collaboration.

- Great teamwork.

And to think like, right, you've got these beautiful flowers and then some just kind of ordinary, I hate to call them weeds, but just meadow.

- They are, they are, just all around us, and we're surrounded by this beauty all the time.

You just have to let it speak.

- [Narrator] Get "GardenFit" with us.

[upbeat music] [upbeat music continues] [bright upbeat tune] "GardenFit" is made possible in part by Monrovia.

[gentle bright music] [bright upbeat tune]