Prop Culture

Episode 16 — and it's Hortikult's two-year anniversary, so we're celebrating by talking about paperwork.
Our guest is Dr. Sarah Spaulding, evolutionary biologist, Tanya's co-chair on the IAS education committee, and the person behind BOTANOPHILE — the export business that gets rare plants from US growers into collections around the world. Sarah explains what that actually involves: monthly USDA inspections where a stranger examines every plant you own for hours, phytosanitary paperwork, group shipments with 400 plants going to 25 people in different countries, and the immutable law that if your box gets stuck in customs it will be during the worst heatwave or the deepest freeze of the year.
She also tells us why she calls it "a luxury service that nobody needs," why you will always be somebody's villain no matter how hard you try, what her Instagram handle apparently means to everyone except her, and why sharing plants is basically a love language.
Plus in the news: MIT researchers find that rice seeds can "hear" rain and germinate 30–40% faster because of it; the National Herbarium of Ukraine in Kyiv — 2.3 million specimens, 250 years of history, and a critical resource for Australian botany — issues an urgent call for global support; and Jos reluctantly advertises Cultivar Stitch, his new line of embroidered iron-on plant patches (cultivarstitch.com).
Then: Hot or Nah with a fluorescent Begonia, a blue-sheened fern, and Alocasia longiloba 'Black Saturn'. And Rate That Weird Plant, featuring boba-shaped succulents, a plant that looks unmistakably like a rabbit vibrator, and a Euphorbia we should probably apologize for.
Adult language, adult tangents, adult plants. As always.
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Substack: ⁠⁠propculture.substack.com⁠
Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠instagram.com/prop.culture.podcast⁠
Website: ⁠⁠hortikult.com/podcast⁠
Connect with us: ⁠⁠propculture@hortikult.com

Derek Haynes — The Chocolate Botanist — joins us for one of our widest-ranging episodes yet: equal parts plant science, stand-up, and a conversation that genuinely mattered.
We open with the news. Tanya reports from Japan, where a 26-year-old got arrested within 24 hours for swapping the price tag on a ~$1,700 Operculicaria (a slow-growing Madagascan caudex succulent that mimics a decades-old bonsai) down to about $25 — then panicked and fled at the till. Then Jos digs into TWP Tropical, the Oklahoma seller being called out across Reddit and Facebook over allegedly importing poached Anthurium carlablackiae and papillilaminum, blocking anyone who questions them, running "blind pre-sales," and faking listings with AI-generated plants. All firmly "big alleged."
Then the interview. Derek is a trained plant biologist — a decade managing an automated greenhouse where he says he's grown and touched over a million plants, plus stints at the NCSU Phytotron, tissue culture, and hand-pollinating corn for the USDA. He walks us through how plants can be turned into protein factories, and he's refreshingly honest about where the "scientist in a lab" image ends and the guy with a hole-puncher in a 40°C cornfield begins. (There's also a small-world moment when it turns out Jos breeds the very same tobacco species Derek used to grow.)
But the core of this one is his mission. We get into the Botanical Green Book — his project spotlighting Black plant people and mapping the safe spaces our community doesn't always provide — and Derek shares hard, first-hand experiences of being ignored and unwelcome in plant shops as a 6'3" Black man. He makes the case for being "a co-conspirator, not just an ally," lays out his ethnobotany thesis that plants are food, medicine, and ancestry, and tells the story of the trusted mentor who quietly talked him out of his dreams — and what he'd tell the next young Black botanist instead. He also gives a shout to the Black women who built his brand: Erica Parker Smith, Lucretia of Soul Sister Plants, and Erica Powell.
We close with the games. Hot or Nah rates a color-shifting Dimorphorchis (hot), a "Mother and Daughter" croton (lukewarm), and a big-leaf Anthurium (Jos: smitten; Tanya: stank face). Then Rate That Weird Plant takes on a frilly snake gourd flower, a "grandma's dentures" Bulbophyllum, and Gastrodia agnicellus — officially the ugliest orchid on Earth — with the segment descending exactly where longtime listeners know it always does.
Find Derek: @thechocolatebotanist on Instagram. He also co-hosts The Dirt on Gardening (live Tuesdays, 7pm ET).
CONNECT
Substack: ⁠propculture.substack.com
Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠instagram.com/prop.culture.podcast
Website: ⁠hortikult.com/podcast
Connect with us: ⁠propculture@hortikult.com

The day has finally come. We've summoned the Master of Moss Poles, none other than Jan, aka SydneyPlantGuy! But first things first:
In this episode, we discuss the latest "news" on common houseplant mistakes, and we talk about attending plant shows.
Then we interview Jan, and what an interview it was! Did you know that Jan can be spicy?
In our Hot or Nah segment, we rate:
Begonia U02
Hoya multiflora 'Pandawa Lima’
Alocasia scalprum ‘Narrow'
Cycnoches The Grinch
And finally we rate some really weird plants!
Monsonia multifida
Andromischus marianiae f. herrei
Pilosocereus Glaucescens aka Wooly Blue Torch Cactus
CONNECT
Substack: ⁠⁠https://propculture.substack.com/⁠
Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://instagram.com/prop.culture.podcast⁠⁠
Website: ⁠⁠https://hortikult.com/podcast⁠
Connect with us: ⁠⁠propculture@hortikult.com

International Children's Day is celebrated worldwide on June 1, and on the second Sunday of June in the United States. The day holds special significance for Czechs. 80 years ago, on June 10, 1942, Nazis massacred hundreds of men, women, and children in the Czechoslovakian town of Lidice.
Since Tanya lives in the Czech Republic, we decided to honor this day and 1) have her daughter (10) on the podcast, and 2) publish this episode on this Monday, rather than our usual Tuesday.
Safe to say, Tanya's kiddo is not as crazy about plants as Tanya is. Tune in for this wholesome, candid, and sometimes hilarious episode, where Tanya and Jos ask Zara about her mother's obsession with plants.
In our News segment, we cover a questionable claim that Anthuriums are making a comeback. Were they ever gone? We also look towards Scotland, where the organizers of a plant festival decided to include a sauna in the activities for visitors.
And, of course, we're rating weird plants.

They say sh!t happens, right? Episode 12 has us handling a Take Two, because Tanya & Tech. Nonetheless, it's an enlightening episode!
In the news segment, we cover the past two decades in houseplant collecting according to a Google Trends report (shoutout to affordablebiscuit on Reddit!).
Also in the news: a fascinating report from Matador Network on America's rarest flower. The video follows researchers deep into Florida's remote swamps as they trek through flooded forests and climb high into the tree canopy to study the ghost orchid — one of the rarest and most elusive flowers in North America. It blooms unpredictably and depends on a single, still-unidentified pollinator that continues to baffle scientists.
INTERVIEW with @MonsteraStan
We also got @MonsteraStan on the mic for a proper chat. He breaks down the origin of his handle (name + Monstera obsession, shocking we know), how he became a plantfluencer in the first place, and what six years of aroid madness has actually taught us — if anything. He takes on the critique that variegated Monstera cultivars are basically all the same plant in a trench coat, weighs in on Monstera hybrids muscling into the scene, names the cultivar he's currently losing his mind over, and gets into the politics of plantfluencer friendships and collabs. We also discuss his Monstera World Championship, and he shares a hot take on TC plants that we're just going to let him say.
CONNECT
Substack: ⁠https://propculture.substack.com/
Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠https://instagram.com/prop.culture.podcast⁠
Website: ⁠https://hortikult.com/podcast
Connect with us: ⁠propculture@hortikult.com