GARDENFIT

- I'm Madeline Hooper.

I've been gardening for over 20 years and of course, with gardening comes a lot of aches and pains.

So, I finally decided that maybe I should find a fitness trainer to see if I could fix my problems.

And a fellow gardener introduced me to Jeff Hughes.

After working with Jeff, 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 garden fit?

[bright upbeat music] Taking care of your body while taking care of your garden, that's our mission.

[bright upbeat music] [bright gentle music] - You know, Madeline, I usually ask you, you know, where are we going?

What we're doing?

And- - Yes you do.

- I don't have to do that today.

I am some place I am so familiar with, I told you I used to live down here in Miami, right?

- You did, and I know you loved it.

- It was some of the best days of my life and I'm really starting to feel it again.

I'm looking at right there, you can see the sailboats, there's palm trees.

- And coconut growth.

You know a lot about coconut growth?

- I know a little bit about coconut growth.

I do know that it was here a long time before Miami ever existed.

- Really?

That's interesting.

- There's this old story about they established a post office down here and they had to give it a name and they called it Coconut Grove.

You know why?

- 'Cause there were coconuts.

- Yeah there're coconut palms everywhere so it just made sense, right?

And that's all I know.

So why don't you tell me, now, who we're going to see today?

What's going on?

- So today we're gonna meet a landscape architect, Raymond Jungles, who's best known for doing really big scale tropical gardens.

- Jungles, a guy named Jungles tropical gardens.

Well, you know, that's right up there over Coconut Grove because there's coconut trees.

- Yeah.

Exactly.

- So Raymond, right?

- Raymond.

- All right, tell me a little more about Raymond.

- So Raymond is really concerned about restoring and establishing habitats for every living thing.

- You just said habitat so to me that's a key word.

Habitat to me is the birds, and the bees, and the animals, and the water, and the air, right?

- Everything.

I'm sure he'll tell us a lot about that when we meet him.

So you know, I know we're a little bit early, and I have lots of things to show you.

- Well of course you do, there's the bag, what you got in the bag?

- I've got just a bunch of things.

Could you pull over?

I have some things to show you.

- Of course you do, the Mary Poppins bag.

This is heavy.

- It is.

- What's in here, Madeline?

- Books.

- Okay, heavy books.

- Heavy books, big books.

- Oh, yeah, big, heavy books.

- But these are books that Raymond has written.

I think he's very prolific.

- I like the covers, they're really pretty.

- Aren't they beautiful.

So this one's about the colors of nature.

I'm sure he's gonna tell us a lot about this, Jeff, 'cause he's so all about habitats.

- [Jeff] Yeah.

- Look at that.

- [Jeff] Wow, these are the ones that he's designed?

- Absolutely.

And this was how I first learned about Raymond Jungles, somebody gave me this book.

I'm sure will really learn a lot about him.

And so maybe we should get back in the car and go meet Raymond.

- Okay.

[bright upbeat music] This is so lush.

- It is.

You know what's impressive, Jeff?

- What?

- He planted the entire block.

- Raymond?

- Yeah, how cool is that?

- But, you know, you can tell which block is his.

- You can.

- Yeah.

[bright upbeat music] Wow this is a pretty cool building.

- It is, it's fantastic.

There he is.

- Hey, welcome to The Jungle, come on up.

- Good morning.

- All right.

- Great.

- Hey, guys.

- Hi, Raymond, I'm Madeline.

- Nice to meet you Madeline.

- So nice to meet you in person.

This is Jeff Hughes, [all chattering] We're here.

- I'm excited.

- Me too.

- Welcome to Miami.

- Thank you.

- And welcome to my world.

- Yes.

Oh, I can't wait to see everything in your world, the office, the surrounding garden, everything.

- You know, it's a beautiful day for it.

It's not raining and it's just fantastic outside.

- Let's go check it out.

- Let's do it.

- Follow me.

- Okay.

[bright upbeat music] - Yeah.

So come on this way.

It's like a really cool place.

- Oh, this is, oh, my goodness!

- Can you believe none of this was here before?

- No.

What was here, Raymond?

- It was all weeds.

There was no lawn, or it was totally a blank slate.

- So what happens when you look at that?

What's the first thing that comes to mind?

- I'm a preservationist, so if there's existing trees, I wanna preserve them, but if there're no trees, I put the trees in first, and I try to put them in as large as I can.

I try to put them in mostly as native trees because that's one of the building blocks of our garden.

And then so we kind of do the biggest stuff and then we do the next size and the next size down to the very lowest, the ground covers and wildflowers.

- That's a fantastic tree.

- [Raymond] Yeah, that's the American oil palm.

- Wow.

- I call that a legacy tree.

- Legacy?

- Yeah.

It has grand scales.

- Tell us about legacy trees.

- Well, legacy trees are canopy trees that live a very long time.

And they're like the accent points in the garden.

Legacy pertains to, in my mind, is something that we're leaving behind for the next generation.

It'll improve the environment of the city that we planted.

Our mission is to try to get people to get closer to nature and appreciate the planet that we have that's like in bad shape right now, and to try to put things back that were removed with human occupation.

And to create habitat for the local flo and fauna, as well as the people, it's what makes a garden alive and makes it more interesting.

I mean, rather than just seeing a collection of plants that do nothing and give nothing back that are pretty.

See, that does nothing for me.

You know, for me, I'd rather sell shoes or something, you know.

One of our other things, is to try to make it look natural, try to make it look like nature put it there, and try to make it look like it was always there.

We don't really like to see the heavy hand of man in our gardens.

- And does that help, you know, the biology of these gardens in terms of how everything lives together?

- [Raymond] It's really a lazy man's way of having success because all these plants were designed for this climate and for these soil types.

- [Jeff] They're designed to survive.

- Yeah.

And so why would you go against nature?

You know, why would you not design with nature?

I was always a student of nature.

I always went hiking and camping, and like would observe how things happen in the woods and streams and waterfalls and things, so that's what I study when I really wanna study plants.

Gardens, not as much, believe it or not.

- Really?

- Even though I make gardens, you can make new gardens, but you can't make new nature.

You know, I mean, it takes a long time for things to get balanced like they were, you know, when they just evolved over a long period of time.

- This is inspiring.

- It is inspiring.

I love the fact that, you know, the balance of nature is so important.

It really looks great.

Can we go see more?

- Sure.

- We'll follow you.

[bright upbeat music] Wow!

So look at this.

This is such a beautiful view of the garden and this screams to me, texture.

I mean, don't you think that, Jeff?

I mean, every surface looks so different, yeah.

That tree is amazing, 'cause it's little.

- The monkey no climb?

- Oh, the monkey no climb.

You can't climb that tree, Jeff.

- That's what they call them in the Caribbean, in the islands.

- Yeah, I can see why.

- And do you think the monkeys don't climb it?

- You know, I think if we had llamas here, like they have in Madagascar, they'd climb it.

You know, I've never seen a monkey climb one that has that prominent of spines though.

- It's scary.

- Then this tree with a green trunk, that's only two years old.

That was a seedling when I planted it and it's one of the legacy trees we have here.

- Oh really, another legacy.

I think this man has a magic wand.

How could that grow that big in two years?

- In good soil there.

It's in a habitat that it loves, the amount of rain we get, it gets a lot of light here.

It's on the south side of the building and the property.

As landscape architects, we actually use time as another dimension in our gardens.

We rely on time, we think in the future.

Our philosophy is put nature back in the city, let city people who never had the ability to see what was there before, except for a few areas that are preserved, see what nature intended for here.

- And live in it.

- Yeah.

- And be inspired by it, exactly.

- We were excited when we got out of the car and walked down the street, that you have planted the entire block.

- We're gonna plant the rest of this neighborhood eventually.

And one of the things is that we do is, we call it subversive design, so we plant plants that were naturally from the woodlands here, that the birds will eat the seeds, and they'll drop them in these gardens that have no native plants, and they'll come up and they'll just make their way in the city.

- And that are habitats then, right?

- Absolutely.

- This is such an exciting area.

- I love this area.

This is one of my favorite areas.

This is all public land here.

- This is amazing.

We're in the middle of the city.

- The road used to actually come right through here, but when they rerouted the avenue, they moved the road farther so it created an opportunity to create a little urban pocket park.

So we basically adopted a whole city block here.

The whole intention was to have the office be in a park, it's a park like atmosphere.

The fact that there's a sidewalk here now where there wasn't one before, people walk their dogs or push their kids in strollers, we've basically created a defacto park in the city.

- This tree is amazing, Raymond.

That one.

- This one right here, that's a very mature, what I would call an understory tree.

I love the exfoliating bark, which means the bark peels as it gets bigger and it starts to spread, and then you get this very smooth, light, reflective trunks.

- [Jeff] Yeah.

- I think this really shows the variation of heights also.

This is what makes it look like a jungle and feel like it's been here forever.

- But once again, you know, the trees and the plants and the palms that I've used here, are all based on the proportion of how they'll grow.

You know, they'll grow in and then they'll keep that same sort of proportion.

And the different textures, like you said, are great.

So this right here, is the allspice.

Talk about, you know, the color, dark green, and talk about fragrance.

Here's one for you.

And here's one for you, I should have done ladies first.

That's okay.

- What's wrong with me?

But we actually, you take this and we chop it up and we put it in the powder rooms, you know, for popery, that's you can refresh whenever someone's coming to the office or your house.

- What a great idea.

- That's strong.

That's powerful.

- Yeah, and the cloves from this tree were harvested and they would dry it like they do coffee beans and they sold it, you know, in the spice market.

- Let's go see what-- - Maybe you should see what it all looks like from above.

- Love that.

- I mean like, hear the waterfall from like my vantage point.

- Let's check it out.

- We'll follow you.

- Let's go.

[water burbling] - Oh, wow!

- Oh, my goodness, this looks so great from up here.

- This is such a nice view.

- So tell us about water features, Raymond.

- I think they're very central to all of my gardens, I think, to any garden really.

I mean, how do people build gardens?

They use plants, they use stone, they use water, they're the primary building blocks.

Water can do a lot of things.

Reflection of water can link to the universe, it can reflect the sky, it can reflect the plants.

It can bring in another dimension.

The sound is something really magical.

- [Jeff] Yeah.

- I must say, it's just been such a treat to be here.

Everything about your garden surrounds you with smells and sounds and beauty.

It's really wonderful.

- That's exactly it's treat.

I'm enjoying showing you guys everything.

- Thank you.

- Well, I've got something I wanna show you now.

Can we take it inside and talk a little bit about your body and-- - Certainly.

- Yeah.

Okay.

- Look forward to that.

- Let's go.

- Let's check it out.

- This has been quite a day, just walking around your garden and your creation here and really getting a sense of who you are, but there's more to you.

I'm sure there is.

So I'd like you to tell me a little bit about yourself outside of the Raymond Jungles garden persona.

You know, like what's your life been like athletically and with your body and so forth?

- Well, you know, I've always been very active.

I've played hockey since I was 12, and we went to the nationals when I was 16.

I used to run, you know, five miles every day.

I love playing tennis.

I like to hike a lot, but hockey pretty much consumed me until I stopped playing a couple years ago, when I just started getting too many things going on in life, I wasn't getting any faster.

I was playing with 30-year-olds and 20-year-olds.

- I knew there was, like this athlete in you.

You mentioned a little bit in walking around, how you'll just jump up in a tree and prune it.

- Well, I've climbed trees since I was little.

I love it, but I climb them with intent more now, I'm pruning them basically.

- Yeah.

With all that in mind, what are some problems, like, just anything going on with your body?

Any aches and pains that recur, your hips, shoulders, knees, anything?

- Well, now that you mentioned that, my lower back does hurt.

I usually garden intensely for a day because I'm pretty busy.

So I set aside a day that I don't do any other work, and so I start the crack of dawn and I stop, you know, the end of the day.

And doing the same thing I used to do when I was in my 30s with no consequences whatsoever, and now I'm like, my back is so tight, you know, and I'm sore.

I have a rowing machine that I haven't been using the way I should either, but, you know, it's just not the same thing to be honest.

- It's not the same thing.

- Yeah.

I've never been a gym guy.

- We're kind of the same age, and at a certain point, you have to start thinking about your age, but what I've learned from that is not to think of it as something where you can't do things.

Age doesn't mean you can't do something, age means that you need to understand how to preserve your body while you're doing it.

What I'd like to do is teach you how to use your body like that.

When you get ready to go do something, you have to teach it to prepare.

And if you do that, and you teach it prevention, it'll start, it's an autonomic habit, your body will like that and will start doing it by itself.

And you won't have to think at it anymore, if you can make it think for itself, if it makes sense.

- It makes sense.

And I always have been motivated by doing things fast when I'm in the garden, 'cause I usually have a crew behind me dragging everything.

- That's what I'm getting at, you see and do, and you just have to see, prepare, and do.

You need some balance in your body and you need some conditioning in your body to go see and do.

Just for instance, when you go to push something, you can hunch in and lean and push and it makes sense to your body 'cause you're using body weight to push.

But you're not using muscle, you're using your shoulder joints.

Your body is like this, you're tensing up your neck, you're completely using chest to push with.

And so if you hold your body, just try this one time, kinda sit out here on the edge and lock into a nice posture.

It's this thing right here.

This is it.

It makes you look, you're youthful, just looking this way.

And when you lock into this, if you go to push this way, you're not bearing down on your shoulder, you're not bearing down on your wrists and your elbow, although they're being used, and you end up using the correct muscle simply by one role being in this posture.

If you're in this posture, you can't hurt yourself.

It's not about building strength with these exercises.

That's just this thing that happens.

That's the mindless part of it.

The mindful part is making sure that you don't break your form and you stay here.

So are you ready to try a few things?

- Absolutely.

- All right.

So you mentioned that your back bothers you sometimes and you know, the spine is just a series of bone stacks on top of each other, they can't protect themselves.

They are protected by muscle.

The muscle that protects them is your core, and a lot of it is your abs.

So I'm gonna show you a little exercise, I call it the five minute abs.

It's five exercises, each one takes about a minute each, so that's why it's five minutes.

They all have a little touch point.

So the first one's called elbow to opposite knee.

So just lightly grab your head, don't reach around and lock in, just comfortable, and just back and forth little bicycle action with your legs.

And you're just touching your knee back and forth.

You got a little rotation in your body and elbow to opposite knee.

Keep your form.

Think of your chest being out instead of caved in.

The next one, you just roll up, you're balanced, go from balanced, tuck in, and come back.

And when you do that, you can tag your ankles.

It gives you a touch point so you don't have to think.

Again, it's the same kind of idea of mindless.

Don't work hard, just tag your ankle and you know you did it.

Little bit.

Good.

Just like that.

The next one is you're on your back and you rock your legs, then you've cut your body in half, the top half's holding a isometric crunch.

You're just locked in and you're just touching those ankles, again, by rocking the legs like a metronome, back and forth, rock and tuck, rock and tuck, very gently.

All right, the next one, you're gonna cross your ankles and you're gonna apply breathing to this one.

So you're just gonna come up and you're gonna push against your knees as hard as you can for an entire exhale.

And then when you come back, you're gonna inhale.

[Jeff exhales deeply] And you just come back, so lock, inhale, come up, exhale.

And it's very natural.

If somebody punched you in your stomach, you would double over and air would come out.

So you're doing that here.

[Raymond exhales deeply] You go back and you inhale.

Kinda like a human billow, you know, suck air in, push it out.

And then the last one, there is no touch point.

It's just really simple, just crunch.

It's just a crunch.

Back and forth rocking.

Think of five inches, two inches, five inches, two inches.

Think of what you're, actually what you're lengthening and what you're using to come up.

Longer, shorter.

And that's it.

It's just something to do as a warmup before you start the other exercises I've given you, it's a nice way to start to get you moving.

And it's not a bad way just to start the day.

And you have to do that for four weeks, and when I come back, I wanna know what difference you have in your life.

- All right.

- So you gotta promise.

- I promise, It's a deal.

- All right.

[water burbling] - [sighs] I hate long goodbyes.

[Jeff laughs] - Raymond, this has been, this has been a fun day.

- See you at my house.

- Thank you.

- The other jungle.

- Oh, yeah?

- Yeah, so-- - Can we come see your house?

- Oh, please, please.

- Wonderful.

See you in four weeks.

- We're invited.

- All right.

- Take care.

- Take care.

- Bye.

- Travel safe.

- So the first time I talked to Raymond Jungles on the phone, he told me he wanted to climb trees for the rest of his life.

- Yeah, he told me.

- And that's why he was so excited to meet you.

- The minute I met and spoke to Raymond, I knew this was the perfect person to give an exercise routine to.

So I started him off with the five minute abs.

And I've always said, you know, the core is the backbone of the backbone.

And so I wanted to give Raymond a compliment exercise routine that would go along with his core, which would be chest and back.

Now, Raymond is not a gym guy.

- Definitely not.

- He's not a gym guy.

So I wanted to start him off on something that was basic and just only use body weight, so I gave him pushups, pull-ups, and dips.

- Yes, your monkey bar routine.

- Exactly, the monkey bar routine.

So you remember the first time I gave you pushups?

- I do.

I really thought I'd never be strong enough, but you fixed that.

- Biggest thing to remember, is to hold your form.

- Yes.

And that changed everything.

And now that I have the form to hold, I love actually doing my pushups.

- Yeah, now you could do those all day, couldn't you?

- Could.

- All right.

And then I gave him pull downs for the back and I gave him a band.

And in his place, we just threw it over the door, I'm just gonna throw it over a pull up bar here.

- I remember that.

- And basically, it's just pulling these down using your back.

And I told him not to go too heavy at first, just think form, teach your body form while you do this.

And once your body accepts that form, then give another rep, put a little more attention on there, start building strength to the point where, well, pull downs are actually a good precursor for pull ups.

- Which is just like climbing trees.

- Exactly.

And that's right up Raymond's alley.

So when you're doing a pull up, if you really hold your form, I can go right up and I can talk while I do it.

- I like the way your muscles look, but break your form.

- If I break my form, I can't, I'm not gonna be able to get my elbows to my back.

The last thing I gave him was bench dips.

So I wanted to round out everything into something that just kinda does both.

So you got a little chest, a little back in this, and so you just do the dips, just like this.

It gives you a little stretch.

And again, you just wanna keep your form.

- Perfect monkey bar routine.

- Yeah.

- Yes.

How often can somebody do that?

- Well, now this routine is actually a strength training routine.

So you get a little of a breakdown with this, you need some recovery time.

So I'd would say at least every other day, or maybe every two days.

And you can do, start with just simply 10 of each, run around twice and do it, and then you can start adding more if you want.

But that's a good way to start.

- Well, it's such a thorough routine.

- Yeah.

[bright upbeat music] - It's so nice of Raymond to have invited us to his house.

- Yeah, it really is.

- Look at this.

- This is a privilege, and this is just of course gorgeous, right?

- Oh, ridiculous.

- Look at this place.

- Look at it.

Look that's such a signature Jungles look of all the variety of leaves, round leaves and oval leaves and big leaves.

I bet you're excited to see how he's doing.

- You know what?

I really am.

I'm really interested to see how he could take what I taught him and use it in his lifestyle, you know, for his body to be stronger.

- Yeah, and a big one.

There he is.

- Hey, buddy.

- Hey, guys.

- Raymond.

- Welcome to the other jungle.

[ Jeff and Madeline laugh] - This is an amazing space.

- This is really cool, man.

- Great to have you guys here.

- It's so good to see you.

- How you been?

- I'm good.

I'm good.

- Yeah, yeah.

Great to see you.

- Great to see you again, my friend, sir.

- So I see you dressed appropriately.

- I am.

- We got parrots in the trees.

We have like the blue and yellow macaws, they come around here.

Maybe they'll be here later today.

This is like all new, house we've just painted black, just built the boardwalk, we used to not be able to find the front door.

- It's just amazing that you just put this in.

- It's really good.

It's great.

- Yeah.

- I planted these crazy big trees.

I mean, they are actually saved from a lot, down in the Florida Keys, they were gonna bulldoze.

Brought back a natural forest here and the animals moved in, [chuckles] yeah.

A minute ago there were parrots that were just like crazy.

- We heard them coming in.

Yeah.

- Yeah.

- They're my watch parrots.

They let me know when someone's coming.

- Only in Miami.

- Right, right.

- I have been telling all my friends how I met you and the habitat idea and your jungle and all that, it's just, we just were astounded by all the information you gave us of what you do.

- And I'll bet they all ask if that's my real name, right?

- Yes.

- Yes.

- Well, it is what I do.

I mean, I make jungles.

- He's Jungles, yeah.

So tell me about body, how you feeling.

- Well, I have to say, you guys have been a great inspiration for me for that.

I've been doing my sit ups every morning.

- Five minute abs every day?

- Do the abs first, you know, just like you taught me.

And then you know I've been doing the other exercises every day, before my stretching.

And I feel good.

- You look good.

- It bothers me when I don't do them.

You know, I've missed a couple days, I have to be honest with you.

- You know, that's the human touch, is, if I say do it every day, it'll happen four times a week.

If I said do it every other day, it would happen two times a week.

It's great that you're making the choice to do it.

So how's all the pushups and the band work and all that going?

- Good.

Good.

And I started gardening a lot more to get this place looking good for you guys.

- So you've been busy?

- The only thing is, you know that rubber strap that you gave me.

- Yeah.

- I was pulling it down once and it snapped and it hit me right in the face.

Then I tied it and then it worked for a long time, then it finally broke and so I got another one.

- You know what?

That's great news, 'cause that only happens when you're doing it, man.

[everyone laughs] - Doing well, right?

- Yes, yeah.

- Breaking the strap, that's a new record.

- Okay.

Good.

My core is getting better which is helping my lower back, which is my biggest problem when I'm gardening.

- Yeah.

You wanna be able to have something to use when it's time to climb that tree, you know.

- Yeah, absolutely.

This one, I'm not climbing.

- That's a lot of ways up.

- I climb a lot of these other ones though.

- This one, this one was one of the only trees that was here.

I mean these big royal palms were here, everything else you see here, we planted in the last, well, since March.

- Amazing.

- It looks like it's been here since the Jurassic period.

- Yeah.

I think you're really good at [indistinct].

- Well, we try to bring the jungle into the city.

Well, let's check some things out.

I Have a surprise for you.

- Oh, good.

- Oh, I like surprises.

[bright gentle music] - Well, guys, welcome to the tequila deck, I like to call it.

- This is fabulous.

- I just wanted to say, thanks for all the opportunities to get in shape.

[all chattering] [Raymond speaks in foreign language] - Yes, good stuff.

- That's good.

- That's really about the smoothest tequila I've ever had.

- That feels great.

I like that.

- I love it.

- It gets smoother the more you drink.

- It kinda makes you, I know, you wanna dance, don't you?

- No.

I'm just kind of feeling it.

- It goes down almost like water, you know, so smooth.

- Yeah.

He wants to dance, so let's dance.

- I want to dance?

Is that what I want?

- I think she wants to dance.

- I think I wanna dance.

- Everybody dances here in Miami.

Awesome.

He's got some Latin blood in him.

I like it.

- You like that?

- Absolutely.

- Doing all right?

- You are.

- Absolutely.

- She gives me lessons sometimes.

- When he lets me.

- You know what?

- What?

- I think I have a good teacher.

- And on to Raymond?

- Hello.

- Hello.

- Welcome to Miami again.

[Jeff laughs heartily] - Raymond's got the moves.

- He's got the moves.

He's got the hip going.

- Wow!

- Wow!

- Great of you!

- Oh, back to you.

- All right.

[bright gentle music] [bright upbeat music]