Hey, hey, I'm Jessica Marnan, author, horticultural therapy practitioner and founder of Basker, where I help people use gardening and nature for mental, emotional, physical, and social well-being.

I love being outside, but I really love being inside, especially with this 100-degree weather in Charleston.

So each week, I merge those two worlds together. And my guest and I talk about nature. That's the outside part.

And then we share one of our current inside obsessions, books, TV, movies, internet gossip, trends that we love, that we hate.

Before we get to today's guest in interview, every single episode I share a reason why I like to grow because I'm not so subtly trying to get you to grow to.

So in no particular order, reason number seven of why I grow things, the bees, the butterflies, and the hummingbirds.

And I have this connection to butterflies.

My mom's cousin passed away when she was really young.

His name was Gordon and he was only 19.

And at his burial, I wasn't alive for this, but at his burial, there was a butterfly that when he was buried, it kind of flew into the scene. And the lore is, is that butterfly was

Gordon. And so that's something that's always been something in my family. So when I moved onto a street

named Gordon, I sort of felt like it was my duty to grow things that attracted butterflies. So one of my most favorite things to

attract butterflies is this milkweed called hairy balls. And it looks identical to a man's hairy balls.

I just actually gave away some free hairy ball seeds in my newsletter because they produce so

many seeds. So I saved two packets for podcast listeners. So if you're listening to this,

first two people that email me, I will send you some hairy ball seeds. Look it up. It's one of the

coolest plants. But yeah yeah it's a huge monarch

attractor and i don't know if you've ever seen a hummingbird hover and fly around your plants

it's one of the most magical things you've ever seen so i also grow things that attract hummingbirds

and also the bees.

So reason number seven of why I love to grow, butterflies, bees, and hummingbirds.

All right, today's guest.

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