Transcript
Jennifer Gulizia: Hi, Flower Friends. Today we're joined by a truly inspiring guest, Nicole Sarto of Midnight Magic Garden. Nicole's journey is one of transformation, beginning in the magical world of stop-motion animation and leading her to a backyard filled with blooming beauty and purpose.
Jennifer Gulizia: After landing her dream job at Laika Studios, Nicole's life took an unexpected turn when a rare autoimmune disease changed everything. What began as a deeply personal health crisis slowly blossomed into a garden-centered healing journey, one that is now connecting her to her family, her community, and a greater mission through flowers.
Jennifer Gulizia: In this episode, Nicole opens up about how gardening became her lifeline, the healing magic of growing from seed, and how she built a thriving microflower farm.
Jennifer Gulizia: By embracing community, creativity, and a whole lot of determination, from sourcing seeds through the Buy Nothing group to launching her own heirloom dahlia study, Nicole's story reminds us that even in our darkest seasons, beauty can still take root.
Jennifer Gulizia: Nicole, thanks for joining us today.
Nicole Sardo: Thank you so much for having me and what an introduction. Thank you so much.
Jennifer Gulizia: Absolutely. you begin by telling us a little bit about your background in stop motion? What drew you to that field?
Nicole Sardo: Oh, ever since I was little, i was very drawn to art, any form of art I could get my hands on. My mom used to sit me down with her craft bucket and say, make whatever you want.
Nicole Sardo: And it was always little dolls and little people and anything that I could create from nothing. And it always ended up being storyline. so As I got older, I started to get more involved with art classes and more involved with all things that a teen girl gets involved with makeup. and But I noticed that I was doing more extravagant makeup looks and I was doing all kinds of sculptures on the side and I found myself wanting to do more with makeup.
Nicole Sardo: And I found myself looking into special effects makeup. And at the time, there was this show called Face Off. I don't know if you've ever heard of it.
Jennifer Gulizia: No.
Nicole Sardo: So it used to be on the Syfy channel, but it's basically um ah competition show where people... all different special effects artists come together and they get challenges where they pick a theme in a movie that these characters are going to be in and they create an extravagant makeup look using prosthetics and sculptures and props. And I just thought that was the coolest thing ever. I had already loved all kinds of animation and horror movies. I was that's the job for me.
Jennifer Gulizia: Thank you.
Nicole Sardo: which is so obscure.
Nicole Sardo: So I found a school that was in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania called the Tom Savini Special Effects Makeup School. And it was a school where I could go and get my associate's degree and learn about all things prop props, mold making, special effects, makeup, all the ins and outs of how movies are made and how things are.
Nicole Sardo: made to look like things they're not. So when I went to special effects makeup school, I found myself drawn more towards the creation of the props rather than the makeup aspect.
Nicole Sardo: And that kind of led me down a rabbit hole of creating props and scenes and everything like that. And then I started following Laika on all the social media websites.
Nicole Sardo: And ae gu that dream forth then, 10 plus years ago that I was like, I'm going to work at Leica someday. I'm going to work in stop motion animation. I'm going to work on their tiny puppet sets and I'm going to do it. and I did finally achieve that goal, but it took me years and years to get there.
Jennifer Gulizia: So for those of us that are not in stop motion, because most of us are gardeners that are listening to this podcast here, tell us what is Laika and why was this place your dream job?
Nicole Sardo: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Nicole Sardo: So Laika is a stop motion animation studio and it's located here in Portland, Oregon. Portland, Oregon, believe it or not, is actually the stop motion capital of the world.
Jennifer Gulizia: Oh, wow.
Nicole Sardo: It's kind of where, yeah, it's kind of where stop motion animation got its start and there's multiple studios in town and it's very world renowned for its stop motion.
Jennifer Gulizia: Wow.
Nicole Sardo: If you remember back in the day, all the old claymation stop motion commercials, those were all made by the older Leica, which was Will Vinton Studios back in the day.
Nicole Sardo: it evolved to Leica over the years. But so it used to be Will Vinton Studios and that's how it got its start here in Portland. And you might now know it as the studio that brought Coraline correalline to you So Coraline, Paranorman, Box Trolls, Missing Link, all the big blockbuster stop motion animation films nowadays, those all come out of Laika.
Jennifer Gulizia: Got it Thank you.
Nicole Sardo: Mm-hmm.
Jennifer Gulizia: What was the experience like for you being a creative and getting to work for Laika?
Nicole Sardo: Oh, it was so inspiring. Being around that many artists all day in every department was just so inspiring inside the workplace and outside of the workplace.
Nicole Sardo: So I worked in the art department. So I worked in the molds and all the props. that go into all the tiny sets that the puppets interact with. But that's just a very small, minute part of stop motion.
Nicole Sardo: There's all the rigging that goes into the film, all the lighting, all the miniature trees and flowers. And believe it or not, that's really what I wanted to do. But I...
Jennifer Gulizia: Thank you.
Nicole Sardo: unfortunately got put in the mold making and the props department. But there's miniature sets, miniature landscapes, and then of course the puppets. The puppets have hundreds and hundreds of employees that work on every single puppet there. And there's, you would think it's just one puppet. There's probably 20 different kinds of puppets for each character.
Nicole Sardo: So it's very expansive. It takes a very large team to make those movies. And it was very inspiring working there every day.
Jennifer Gulizia: So it sounds like kind of like gardening, it was a lot of working with the hands.
Nicole Sardo: Yes, yes. Every teeny tiny thing was all made by hand there at Leica. so if a puppet was interacting in their garden per se you would have to make every grain of dirt whether that you would be making it out of coffee grounds and you would have to sculpt a little shovel the fabrics department would have to knit little gloves because they went that far of doing tiny knitted things for the characters and every aspect was handmade for those movies
Jennifer Gulizia: Amazing. So it sounds like this was really a dream job and career opportunity for you. What ultimately led you to leave that career?
Nicole Sardo: So I ended up getting pregnant in my second year there, which was an absolute joy. This was my first baby and I was very excited about it.
Nicole Sardo: um um And I had my baby in August of 2022. And I ended up going back to work eight weeks after he was born.
Nicole Sardo: So fairly early. So that's a little stressful on a new mom. I was really passionate about my job. And I really just wanted to get back into it and Although they were very supportive, I just I really wanted to get back.
Nicole Sardo: So I ended up getting back to work and I had to put my infant in daycare pretty young. Unfortunately, he got RSV, which is a pretty serious like upper respiratory infection for tiny ones.
Nicole Sardo: And sadly, he did have to go to the hospital and I was sick alongside him. But as a mom, I was not focused on myself. I was only focused on him getting better.
Nicole Sardo: i was not sleeping for days on end. I was worried about my job. I was just a wreck. And shortly after i and was in the hospital with him, I started...
Nicole Sardo: to develop some sort of rash. And at first I saw it and I thought it was a rash that I'd had as a kid and I kind of wrote it off. And then things started taking turn.
Nicole Sardo: And I realized that something had to change in my life because my body was ultimately telling me, you're under way too much stress, you need to stop.
Jennifer Gulizia: So it sounds like your health started to decline after you became a mom, not because you became a mom, but you had a lot going on that maybe triggered something that was already inside your body.
Nicole Sardo: Mm-hmm.
Jennifer Gulizia: Can you walk us through what happened and how you eventually were diagnosed with an autoimmune disease?
Nicole Sardo: Mm-hmm.
Nicole Sardo: Sure. So the week I went back to work after my little one got out of the hospital with RSV, actually, I think it was the same day I went back.
Nicole Sardo: So let me walk you through the.
Jennifer Gulizia: wow
Nicole Sardo: Yes, it was a lot. My body was like, no, we're not doing it anymore. um um The day I went back, and I'll walk you through the day because my days were very long and strenuous, I commuted from Vancouver, Washington to portland ah ah to Hillsborough, Oregon, which is past Portland, for work every day. And I had to bring my infant with me to put in daycare by my work because I was still actively breastfeeding as well.
Nicole Sardo: So we get up at 5 a.m. m We start our routine with an infant. I get him in the car, we go to daycare, I drop him off and get him situated, go back to work. And within an hour of work, I started getting pains shooting down my legs.
Nicole Sardo: And I was like, gosh, what's going on? And I had went to the bathroom and I looked at my legs and it was covered with like this purple red rash.
Nicole Sardo: And I knew right away that it was something serious because it didn't look like anything i had seen before. And thankfully at the time, my best friend worked at Leica and I texted her and I was like, can you come downstairs? I have a serious problem.
Nicole Sardo: And she took one look at my legs and she was like, I think you need to go to the doctor like now. And I said, okay. So I sent a picture to my doctor and she got me in within an hour.
Nicole Sardo: Like it was serious. She was like, you need to come in. And so I coordinated with work. I coordinated with daycare. And I went to my PCP and she took one look at my legs and she said, i know what this is and you need to go the hospital.
Nicole Sardo: And I said, what is it? And she said, this is something called vasculitis and your body is attacking your blood vessels and it could be attacking your organs.
Nicole Sardo: So you could be an organ failure and you need to go to the hospital now. And I said, my God.
Jennifer Gulizia: Oh my gosh.
Nicole Sardo: it was very scary. So I quickly called ah my daycare and I said, I have something really serious going on. I need to go to the hospital, but I have no idea how to coordinate with my baby.
Nicole Sardo: I can't leave him at daycare. And we're located in Vancouver, Washington. My partner was working. He's kind of east of where we live. sort of in the Portland area, but he's 45 minutes away.
Nicole Sardo: So we had to coordinate a whole infant swap before I could even go to the hospital. And luckily we were able to coordinate that. And then I took myself to the hospital well hospital by myself i had I had no, I had to drive myself and basically sit there and just like, am I dying?
Jennifer Gulizia: ah my
Nicole Sardo: I have no idea what's going on. And yeah, so incredibly scary. And this was kind of the time when people were still freaking out about COVID.
Nicole Sardo: So i was put in an isolation room because they weren't sure if what I had was something like ah ah new virus that was going around and people were gowning up and They brought in a dermatologist at 2 a.m. to make sure I didn't have something that was really life-threatening and that could also hurt others, which I didn't, thankfully.
Nicole Sardo: But at that time, i did get a confirmation that it was vasculitis. They did all my labs. And this point, they weren't sure what type of vasculitis I had. They just knew I had it and that my organs...
Nicole Sardo: were under stress but not terrible. They were stable for this point in time and nothing was in dire straits, which was good. So i was able to be released from the hospital.
Jennifer Gulizia: Wow, that is so scary.
Nicole Sardo: Mm-hmm.
Jennifer Gulizia: And so much after having just had a baby eight weeks ago, you'd only been back to work for a couple of days.
Nicole Sardo: Yeah.
Nicole Sardo: Yes.
Nicole Sardo: Yes. Mm-hmm.
Jennifer Gulizia: Oh my goodness.
Nicole Sardo: Uh-huh.
Jennifer Gulizia: So this is quite life altering event that you experienced. And I'm not very familiar with, you said it's called vasculitis.
Nicole Sardo: Yes. So vasculitis as a broad term is basically a group of rare autoimmune diseases where your body attacks your blood vessels. There's four different types and it's ah ah categorized by the size blood vessels it's attacking.
Nicole Sardo: So there's small vessel vasculitis, medium vessel, large vessel, and arterial vessel. So currently i only have small vessel vasculitis. And the type that I have is called leukocytoclastic vasculitis, which affects the skin.
Nicole Sardo: It's also called... hypersensitivity vasculitis or cutaneous small cell vasculitis. And then I also have IgA vasculitis, formerly called Henoxhamine purpura.
Nicole Sardo: These are all very crazy rare names that I've had to memorize over the years, but I'm sure they sound like gibberish too people who aren't sure. And that second type is one that can affect my liver, kidneys, eyes, and lungs.
Nicole Sardo: But so far, we've been pretty good about not having anything that's life-altering affecting those organs. So that's really good.
Nicole Sardo: It's just kind
Jennifer Gulizia: Did they give you advice or is there help for managing this autoimmune disease? What what was the prognosis from the doctor?
Nicole Sardo: So when I first had it, I was under a severe flare. So my body was undergoing a lot of inflammation and basically their main goal was just to bring that inflammation down. so I underwent a lot of tests to see what medicines I could take. unfortunately the first route of medication for getting inflammation down is steroids.
Nicole Sardo: So I had to take a lot of steroids in the beginning, which was very heartbreaking because I had to stop breastfeeding. So not only was i dealing with ah ah very serious health crisis, but I was also really heartbroken that I had to stop breastfeeding at the time.
Nicole Sardo: It was my first baby and it was something i was very headstrong about. And so I unfortunately had to stop so I could get better for my baby and get medication, the proper medication.
Nicole Sardo: And going forward, it was just basically getting the inflammation under control with steroids. And then we were going to start long term medication, which I have been on off and on since the diagnosis in 2022.
Jennifer Gulizia: So how did getting this diagnosis affect your career with Leica? I assume there were some changes that had to be made.
Nicole Sardo: Yes, yes. So initially they were willing to work with me and nothing happened right away because the diagnosis was pretty abrupt and we didn't know what my life was going to look like after that.
Nicole Sardo: So I was off work for a pretty good amount of time. I want to say weeks, possibly months. And i ended up coming back and was working part time.
Nicole Sardo: i was not doing a strenuous of jobs within my job. So we did a lot of mold making and a lot of heavy lifting sometimes if we were lifting chemicals or products to make other things.
Nicole Sardo: So I wasn't doing any of that and just trying to do light work.
Jennifer Gulizia: Mm-hmm.
Nicole Sardo: But overall, what really was the issue for me was the routine. I was killing myself literally with the routine of 13, 14 hours a day around the commute, getting the baby ready, getting to work and then getting home, having an hour FaceTime with my partner and my stepson and then going to bed and doing it all over again.
Nicole Sardo: I was exhausted and my body had had enough. So I think I made the decision to ultimately leave for health and wellness in April of 2023. And and i was still kind of hanging in the balance with like, a a they weren't sure if I was going to come back and they were welcoming me if I wanted to come back. But It was basically a let's see how it goes.
Nicole Sardo: And they were willing to work with me, which was wonderful. And because no matter what I tried, no matter what medication I tried, it was ultimately the days that I was on my feet too much.
Nicole Sardo: I wasn't sleeping enough. I was up with the baby and then having to go into work that were causing me the most pain and the most severe flare ups. And then i would be down for two weeks trying to recoup.
Nicole Sardo: So there is a constant routine of pushing it and then having to rest, pushing it and having to rest. So it had to change. So in April, that's when I finally said, okay, enough.
Nicole Sardo: And I'm going to stay home, keep the baby home and figure out where to go from there.
Jennifer Gulizia: I'm so sorry that you've gone through all this. I mean, it's hard enough going back to work after having a baby, but to go back to work having a baby and a newly diagnosed autoimmune disease, I can't even imagine.
Jennifer Gulizia: In the midst of all that you had going on, how did you find your way to gardening?
Nicole Sardo: So I had always kept a garden here at our home in Vancouver, but I mean, work always took priority and I ended up killing mostly everything that I grew. Maybe some things were resilient, but, you know, we'd get like one zucchini or a couple tomatoes or a couple peppers, the usual.
Nicole Sardo: But when I actually had time to dedicate to the garden, i but noticed I wasn't killing things and I was like wow I'm actually pretty good at this if I could dedicate time and effort to it and I kept gardens at my parents house when I was younger and when I did have time those flourished too but it in my adult life it seemed like I couldn't ever keep anything alive until I finally had time to do it And at the time, you know, my partner was like, well, we're going to one income.
Nicole Sardo: You really don't want to be wasting all your money on these plants you're going to kill and adding more beds. So he's like, you need to be frugal about it, you know, try and maybe source things other places. And yeah, so I was trying to do everything as cheaply as possible.
Nicole Sardo: And that kind of led me to sourcing everything from my buy nothing group.
Jennifer Gulizia: What is a buy nothing group?
Nicole Sardo: So buy nothing group is a a ah community of gift giving. It's essentially a way to reduce waste and reuse materials within your community, but gifting them to those in need and not asking for anything in return.
Nicole Sardo: So if you have something that you want to get rid of and you're like, oh, I could just throw this away, you can put it up on your Buy Nothing group. And in my case, it's a Facebook group, but there are web forums as well.
Nicole Sardo: It's dependent on each neighborhood. You can put it on your Buy Nothing group and say, hey, does anybody want this? And odds are someone's going to want it and they'll use it and it'll have a better life and it won't end up in a landfill somewhere.
Nicole Sardo: it's really great because you can also ask for things on a buy nothing as well. It's not just gift giving. You can also put asks out as well. So in my case, I was like, does anybody have extra seeds? Does anybody have extra soil? Does anybody have extra beds?
Nicole Sardo: And with all of that, I was able in my first year gardening from scratch. I was able to build an entire garden, I would say probably on like a $500 budget.
Nicole Sardo: We're talking seeds, plants, soil, beds, everything, fertilizers, sprinklers, hoses, all of it by nothing.
Jennifer Gulizia: Wow.
Nicole Sardo: Yes.
Jennifer Gulizia: That's amazing. So you had just left your job to take care of your health and for self-care, but you also needed to not be spending a lot of money.
Nicole Sardo: Mm-hmm.
Nicole Sardo: Mm-hmm.
Jennifer Gulizia: So you got resourceful and found a way to get seeds and soil even and beds without spending a dime.
Nicole Sardo: Mm-hmm.
Nicole Sardo: yeah Yes.
Jennifer Gulizia: that i bet your partner was happy about that.
Nicole Sardo: He was. He was even more happy that I wasn't killing things. But the more i i went i went to gardening because I ultimately needed something to do. I had always gardened, like I said before. But when I was home now for the first time in 10 plus years of not being a career mom, I kind of felt myself slipping away.
Nicole Sardo: Like I needed to find something else that was for me, something I could take care of that wasn't just being a mom. Because it's easy to just only be that only be a mom and have that be your life. And I needed to have something else.
Nicole Sardo: that I could take care of that was mine and make it mine. And that was the garden for me. And noticed that the more I was outside, and the more I was on my feet, surprisingly, I wasn't getting flare ups like I was when I was working.
Nicole Sardo: And the only reason I could think of that was because I was doing something that I loved and it wasn't bringing stress into my life. was doing it to relax and to find peace instead of doing it because I had to because I had to make money because it was part of my daily routine. And yeah, I just ended up finding so much joy in it and my body liked it more than actually working.
Nicole Sardo: So isn it worked out.
Jennifer Gulizia: That's amazing. So the garden helped your physical healing. Did it also help mentally as well of having totally pivoted 180 degrees from where you thought your life was going to be?
Nicole Sardo: me
Nicole Sardo: Definitely. I went through, i would say, mourning process of mourning what my life was like prior to being a mother, because that's just something you go through as a first-time mom.
Nicole Sardo: I went through mourning my life of independence and not having a life that I'm living for me. And then also mourning the life that I had built and the career I had built and spent so many years on and working towards that, that was no longer going to be it.
Nicole Sardo: So but Having the garden and having something I could look forward to and I could nurture and I could cultivate really helped realize that it wasn't about just making the money or the career. Sorry, excuse me.
Nicole Sardo: and was It wasn't just about the career or the money or
Nicole Sardo: I guess the name that came with, or the recognition that came with working for something like Laika, it was more about creating beauty and cultivating a garden and nurturing something from seed and watching it grow. And that ultimately gave me so much more fulfillment than Laika ever did, which was very eye-opening to me. It was not something i thought would happen. I thought that when i got to Laika and I had that dream job in my hands, that my life would be at its peak. I would be so happy.
Nicole Sardo: would never want another thing. but the more I worked there and the more it took a toll on my body and the more I got pulled away from my partner and our older stepson, the more I just realized that like it wasn't fulfilling me like I thought it would.
Nicole Sardo: But when I got into gardening, it was... the greatest thing ever. I mean, i was so happy, the happiest I had been since probably before I was a teenager.
Nicole Sardo: It was ah ah fulfillment like I had never witnessed before and I just couldn't get enough. I just had to keep growing and growing and growing and I kept having to add more flowers.
Jennifer Gulizia: I love that. So you started by just going to the garden as a place to heal and as something to do. How did it go from just growing a garden to becoming a business?
Nicole Sardo: So when I was sourcing everything from the Buy Nothing group, naturally, people are going to be like, wow, she's getting a lot of stuff. This girl's really growing. So a lot of my neighbors knew that I had a pretty extensive garden.
Nicole Sardo: And I had been making a lot of gardening friends with others in the group and through the group. So people knew that I had a lot of flowers. So naturally, when you have a lot of flowers, you're going to give them away at first, at least.
Nicole Sardo: So I gave away my first bouquet in 2023 in the Buy Nothing group. And it was so fulfilling. Knowing it was something that I nurtured and I grew and then giving it to someone because giving your first bouquet is something so magical that I hope everybody gets to witness in their life because the magic that comes with flowers is unlike anything else. It's different than giving a birthday gift, something that you bought from the store, but giving someone a book bouquet of flowers that you grew yourself by hand and witnessing the joy on that person's face is the greatest gift on this earth.
Nicole Sardo: And I was hooked immediately. And It was also really magical because the person that I selected in my Buy Nothing group to give it away to, because we do something in our Buy Nothing group, and I don't know if this is similar to other Buy Nothing groups, but we don't just pick someone and it goes from there or pick first come first serve.
Nicole Sardo: For mine, I asked, okay, I have this bouquet to give away today, and I would like to know what your favorite flower is and why. And the person I picked said that their favorite flower was the yellow rose.
Nicole Sardo: And I forget their story of the yellow rose. And i feel terrible that I forget, but I just knew that the yellow rose to me was super significant. My, grandmother's favorite flower was a yellow rose and we all grew up giving her yellow roses I mean she was just always known for having yellow roses I have a yellow rose in my yard for her and just a huge significance around our family and it still is even though that she's passed on like anytime we all see a yellow rose we know it's like my mom so when she had commented that I was like
Jennifer Gulizia: Oh.
Nicole Sardo: that's definitely going to be the person I'm picking because she shouted out the yellow rose. And I remember handing her the bouquet after I'd chosen her. And I said, I want to let you know that I picked you today because you had said that your favorite flower was the yellow rose. And that was my mom's favorite flower.
Nicole Sardo: So that's why I picked you. And I'm giving you this bouquet today thinking of her. And I remember getting emotional and just... the The memories and the moments that tie us to flowers is so magical. And being able to also share those moments and memories with other people and then have their moments tied to yours.
Nicole Sardo: It's just, it's so beautiful. And i'll I'll never forget that. And I was immediately addicted. Yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: I always sometimes wonder, am i and my feet being selfish in that when I give a bouquet of flowers, I feel like I'm getting more than the recipient just because of that joy and that feeling of feeling like I got to share this incredible gift with someone because it really is powerful. And until you, I think given that bouquet to someone else, you can't really describe what it feels like to be able to give something that you have grown and nurtured.
Jennifer Gulizia: And I mean, I've given away zucchini before. It's not the same feeling as giving away a zucchini from the garden, as giving away this like fleeting beauty that someone gets to enjoy for the moment.
Nicole Sardo: in here
Jennifer Gulizia: It truly, i think it nourishes both souls and and that exchange of energy and
Nicole Sardo: It does.
Jennifer Gulizia: those memories that are associated with it. I could go on and on, but I'm diverging, so I apologize.
Nicole Sardo: It's so true. yeah No, it's okay. It's the magic of flowers. its I totally get it.
Jennifer Gulizia: it totally is. So you gave away this bouquet. Did you start giving away more bouquets or did something click and you say, I'm going to start a business? How did it evolve?
Nicole Sardo: Well, I started giving away a lot of bouquets. I started realizing that, okay, we're giving away a lot. Maybe we could, you know, make this into something. yeah My partner had even said, you know, you're spending so much time out there.
Nicole Sardo: And I was tending to it so much. And I was able to produce so many flowers on such a small lot. i said, yeah, maybe I will start selling flowers. So The following year, dubbed it my trial year.
Nicole Sardo: yeah Like, what can I grow? What grows best? Can I really grow enough to sustain what would be floral business? And that was 2024 for me.
Nicole Sardo: So a lot of trial and error, a lot of... finding what works best for me and how much I can maintain with my current health and well-being and still also juggling a toddler now, which a toddler at almost three this year is definitely different than a toddler of two last year. So we're learning to deal with that now.
Nicole Sardo: So yeah, i had noticed that I definitely was growing and enough to sustain a flower business and i rolled with it. And here we are in 2025 and now I'm selling flowers.
Jennifer Gulizia: That's so exciting. And your business is Midnight Magic Garden. How did you come up with that name?
Nicole Sardo: Yes. so I always come up with my best ideas when I'm laying in bed. And it's usually in the latest hours.
Nicole Sardo: And I was sitting there at night trying to think of ways that are different names I could come up with and nothing was sticking. You know, Greg, my partner, Greg would always say random names. And how about this? And nothing ever felt right. No part of any name.
Nicole Sardo: And then randomly I was laying there in bed one night and I was trying to think of a name and I just typed it out in a notes on my phone. It just came in one line, one steady line. Nothing else was on the page.
Nicole Sardo: Midnight Magic Garden. And I was like, wow, that was weird. And immediately when I wrote it, I knew it was it. And I was like, wow, that's going to be my business name. Even though it's a mouthful, it's definitely going to be it. It felt too right to be wrong.
Jennifer Gulizia: I love that. Sometimes when you just, you just know when you have the right idea.
Nicole Sardo: Mm-hmm.
Nicole Sardo: e Exactly.
Jennifer Gulizia: So what are your outlets that you're selling to this year?
Nicole Sardo: So I am doing a lot of events. um I'm doing pop-up events and markets wherever I can. And then I'm also doing a flower stand this year, which has...
Nicole Sardo: been going pretty well. I'm pleasantly surprised. I think having the reach with the buy nothing and my buy nothing being local and in my neighborhood kind of already gave me a presence in my neighborhood so that when the flower stamp did pop up, kind of people already knew about it.
Nicole Sardo: So that's doing pretty well. So I'm pretty pleased about that. And just with how small I am, and having to stand and then also events, I'm noticing that that's kind of probably my limit for how many flowers I grow and how much I can put out to the community. So those two avenues are looking like they'll be it this year and then we'll see where next year takes us.
Jennifer Gulizia: So you are growing on a small scale. Do you know how much space you're growing on?
Nicole Sardo: Mm-hmm.
Nicole Sardo: So i have 2,800 square feet that I'm growing on currently in my yard. And then i also have a neighbor's yard that will house some of my dahlias very soon. who We're finishing up planting.
Nicole Sardo: And then i also just got approached with an opportunity that's not 100% yet, but to also help maintain a community garden area. 30 minutes north of here. So I may have additional growing space up there as well.
Nicole Sardo: It just may be a little far away. So I don't know about that. So all in all, I'd say probably like 4000 square feet total.
Jennifer Gulizia: So less than a 10th of an acre and you're managing to sell flowers to events and have a roadside stand.
Nicole Sardo: Yes.
Jennifer Gulizia: That's awesome. Especially this is your first full year of making it as growing for profit, which is fabulous.
Nicole Sardo: Mm hmm.
Nicole Sardo: Mm hmm.
Nicole Sardo: Mm hmm.
Jennifer Gulizia: I will say, sorry, my voice is going out on the 30 minute drive. We have to drive 15 minutes to our farm right now. And I find that I'm driving two to four times a day to the farm, which if it's 15 minutes each way, that's an hour to two hours a day I'm spending driving.
Jennifer Gulizia: It is challenging with the kids.
Nicole Sardo: my gosh.
Jennifer Gulizia: So definitely there's something to consider when you have to add in ah ah drive to a farm. It definitely eats into the amount of time. We can't wait to live on our farm someday, but right now it's a lot of driving back and forth.
Nicole Sardo: Mm-hmm.
Jennifer Gulizia: So,
Nicole Sardo: That I feel has been like the biggest thing that's holding me up is the potential drive. I'm going to try it this weekend and I'll see how it goes. Luckily, it is, like I said, a community garden.
Nicole Sardo: So I would be partnering with two other people and there is irrigation set So there would be other, yeah, there would be other people...
Jennifer Gulizia: Oh, amazing.
Nicole Sardo: to kind of check out things. So I wouldn't be going all the time. But I think if things are starting to get established, I wouldn't be able to help myself and stay away for like more than a few days. But still 30 minutes each way is is a lot of time, especially when you have young kids.
Jennifer Gulizia: Absolutely.
Nicole Sardo: So it's not just running up the street. So it's definitely something to consider.
Jennifer Gulizia: I find for me the hardest thing is that I will get to the farm and We don't have a barn or or anything yet. So my so tools always have to come with me. So if I forget a tool or a supply, like putting irrigation together right now, it's like, oh, no, I forgot one of the caps.
Jennifer Gulizia: And so I've got like the different connector pieces and I go, oh, I've got to go back because I can't fully hook it up without this one piece. So it's when you forget something and having to remember what do I need to bring with me.
Jennifer Gulizia: But I'm sure you'll figure that out. I think you've got a great plan for your first full season.
Nicole Sardo: Yeah.
Nicole Sardo: Thank you.
Jennifer Gulizia: You've also created something called Small Farms, Big Orders. Can you tell us what is it that you created?
Nicole Sardo: So when I was first getting started last year and not more or less getting started, but trialing everything, I realized that there were things that I was going to have to source out and naturally happens when you're a flower farmer. A lot of flower farmers will resort to plugs.
Nicole Sardo: as just like a quick way to get plants in the ground. And I was noticing that when I was looking at things like Farmer Bailey and I was trying to source plugs, everything was in massive quantities. And I was like, am way too small to be buying this amount of plugs of one flower, one variety.
Nicole Sardo: and growing just that like but I could buy like three different flowers and it would fill my space i needed to find a way to split these orders and I was part of a couple gardening groups at the time and I had reached out to a few friends and they're like hey would you want to go in with me on an order maybe we could pull together funds and then we can all split the plugs and they're like oh yeah that sounds great And the initial post that I posted got so much interest, like 20 plus people.
Nicole Sardo: And so at first I was like, okay, well, this is a lot of people now. I think I need to make a spreadsheet or something, you know, especially if we're going to be handling money.
Nicole Sardo: It's something really important that we need to keep track of. So we got so much interest and naturally I knew how to handle spreadsheets because I had worked for my father's company when I was younger and it was a lot of spreadsheets. So that came kind of quick to me.
Nicole Sardo: so I was able to manage everything. And one of the people in the original order I mentioned, they were like, oh, we you know, we should start like a group or something for this. I'm sure there's a lot of other farmers out there who would want to take advantage of something like this.
Nicole Sardo: And I was like, oh yeah, that would be a good idea. And I ran with it, I think the next day and created the group and it grew very quickly in the matter of a couple weeks i mean i think we went from like 10 to 15 people to three or 400 within the first month maybe even more and when it started of growing so big i was like okay well maybe this needs to be by state so i spoke with a couple of people who run other groups and luckily my buy nothing group uh
Jennifer Gulizia: Oh,
Nicole Sardo: ae Admin is also a gardener. So her and I were already friends and I was picking her brain about running a Facebook group and how to properly do that. And I came up with the idea of creating statewide chats in the group.
Nicole Sardo: So basically the Facebook group, Small Farms Big Orders, is just a place where people can meet in every state and come together and say, hey, I want to make an order here for this. Would anybody be interested? And they can post it in their chat. They can post it in the main page and then Hopefully they'll have enough people with similar interests and they can all hop on an order together. And it has done very well. And I have gotten so many letters of just, thank you so much for this. What a great tool. And
Nicole Sardo: Now there's, I think, 1,500 members across.
Jennifer Gulizia: well
Nicole Sardo: Yeah, there's there's a pretty good amount of people in there. I'm not sure if every chat is being utilized, but I can confidently say that there's at least 25 states that are better using it pretty regularly and have made orders so and we do have a rep from farmer bailey which i am pretty happy about she is always in there and willing to answer questions and helps anybody with making orders so that's very nice too and what started is like a little communal thing to help fellow gardeners in the area just kind of blew up and is now helping small farmers just like me all over and it's very rewarding
Jennifer Gulizia: That's amazing. So it's it's a Facebook ah ah community forum, basically, that allows people to connect with other growers, especially if you're small scale, where you can't use an entire tray, you can then go in and find people to share an order with you.
Nicole Sardo: you Yep. And it's a non-brokering, not-for-profit group. And that's very important. And it's really high up in our rules because we want to make sure that people aren't going on there just to sell their products because that's not what the group is about.
Nicole Sardo: The group is about building community and sharing resources with one another. And it's not profiting off each other. if If we're all sharing the plugs together, then we can all profit together in the future.
Nicole Sardo: we don't have to profit off each other now. So it's one of the main rules you have to share and sell what you bought at the same wholesale price that you got it for.
Jennifer Gulizia: Got it.
Nicole Sardo: So you can't, you can't lift the prices or anything. So that's very important.
Jennifer Gulizia: I love it. That's such a great, great thing you are doing for small growers. Cause I remember when I was growing small scale and I, I would just sometimes not grow something or be late getting a seed sown because i didn't have a need for 288 or for example. Now I,
Jennifer Gulizia: or lea for example now i
Nicole Sardo: Yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: I've got enough space that I can plant those, but for those that are growing on smaller scale, it's super beneficial. I love it. You also shared with me that you are about to launch an heirloom dahlia study.
Nicole Sardo: Thank
Jennifer Gulizia: Can you tell us what is this heirloom dahlia study and what what's it all about?
Nicole Sardo: you. I got bit by the Dahlia bug. almost immediately after I started gardening. and night
Jennifer Gulizia: Who doesn't?
Nicole Sardo: Right. So went down a slippery slope pretty quickly with that one. but upon all of my research and my addiction to dahlias, I found that there were heirloom dahlias.
Nicole Sardo: And for anybody who doesn't know the term heirloom dahlias or what an heirloom is, It's a collective term that the admins of Heirloom Dahlia enthusiasts on Facebook have created a timeframe that they consider happening.
Nicole Sardo: a dahlia to be an heirloom dahlia. So there's a consensus that around 40 years old or older an heirloom dahlia. they went with anything that's 45 that's forty five years old or older is and heirloom. So if a dahlia was created in year 1980 or earlier, it is considered an heirloom dahlia.
Nicole Sardo: And I am a lover of history and how things were created. so of course, when I went down the slippery slope of Dahlias, I found out that they are pretty old. And not super old, but they have been around and have been...
Nicole Sardo: idolized since the early 1800s. And they were, you know, originated in Mexico and even cultivated by the Aztecs and then eventually brought over to England and everything. So learning the origins of heirloom dahlias was really cool to me.
Nicole Sardo: And when I started to get more involved with the dahlia communities and seeing all the hybridizing, I was hearing the term diseases a lot.
Nicole Sardo: And I'm sure anybody who has grown dahlias in the last five years has come across their fair share ugly looking plants that they eventually had to pull because it had suspected disease.
Nicole Sardo: Well, it's been rumored that the heirloom dahlias have a higher disease resistance. Now, like I said, this is rumored. There's not a lot of research on it.
Nicole Sardo: And i said, well, if there's not a lot of research on it then I want to grow all the heirloom dahlias and I want to see for myself. So I had made a lot of friends in the heirloom dahlia community and I had come up with the idea of maybe like oh well why don't we all share what the what varieties were culling throughout the season and we can kind of relay that information to one another and maybe we could see which varieties may be the strongest.
Nicole Sardo: And everybody was super excited. They're like, yeah, let's totally, let's do this. And I said, well, if someone's got to head this up. And so I was like, well, I guess I'll just do a field study and I'll make it public.
Nicole Sardo: So I decided to
Nicole Sardo: essentially make a public field study with no scientific background on my part. Just basically a Dahlia nerd who's wanting to gather information and see what we come up with. And basically it's just a, I'll be sending out a biweekly questionnaire to anybody who's willing to participate that has heirloom cultivars in their field.
Nicole Sardo: And I'm just curious to see how they're performing up against modern cultivars and see if any are being culled, and if they are, which varieties are being culled. And if they're not, then maybe we'll see trends of some varieties that don't get culled in multiple people's fields.
Nicole Sardo: So because there are so many dahlias in existence, I mean, i think there's 70,000 plus now, it's really important that we have a lot of people participate because we're going to have Everybody's going to have different dahlias.
Nicole Sardo: So getting as many people to participate makes more common factors within the study, some more common variables. So ideally, I would like to have at least 50 people, maybe to 100 people participate so I could see how many heirlooms are being culled, if any, up against regular cultivars. And hopefully people have some similar varieties and we could see trends of certain varieties performing best.
Nicole Sardo: And that's my hope. And then we'll see where it goes from there.
Jennifer Gulizia: So dahlia has to have been bred prior to 1980 to be considered an heirloom variety.
Nicole Sardo: Yes.
Jennifer Gulizia: How would you know if you are growing an heirloom variety?
Nicole Sardo: So there is a Dahlia database currently based out of the UK created by this man, Dave Bates. He has created a Dahlia encyclopedia, per se, or glossary, where you can search for any variety you currently have, if you know the name, you could search for that variety on this database by the first letter.
Nicole Sardo: So it is a ah little... not hard to navigate, but it is a lot to sift through. There's 65,000 varieties, I think, on there currently.
Jennifer Gulizia: Wow.
Nicole Sardo: So you you say you're looking for Rocco, which is a tiny pom-pom heirloom dahlia. You're going to click, you're going to go on the Dahlia World database and I can give you the link and you can link it below if we want to do that.
Jennifer Gulizia: I'll put it in the show notes, yes.
Nicole Sardo: Cool. You can look up Rocco by clicking on R and then scrolling all the way down, finding the name Rocco, and you'll see its description.
Jennifer Gulizia: please
Nicole Sardo: So you'll see the size form and the color. And if you find the name, the matching code for it, then it will tell you the year it was hybridized. Now, this isn't always foolproof.
Jennifer Gulizia: Okay.
Nicole Sardo: This man, Dave Bates, has done his very best at... um cultivating this database per se, but there are some repeats. There are some that are entered in multiple times, or there are some because it's a world database.
Nicole Sardo: Naturally, there's going to be copies of names. So it's really important that when you're looking on there, you're looking at the name And then also the size, form and color to see if it matches. And then the year it was cultivated.
Nicole Sardo: And this database is peer reviewed and I think peer submitted, but it is based on things that are in the world Dahlia archives, which I don't know if you're familiar with that. I think the national Dahlia archives. So it's cross-referenced from there.
Jennifer Gulizia: Okay.
Nicole Sardo: Yeah, but but we're actually in the process. One of the heirloom dolly enthusiast admins is actually in the process of creating a new database that would maybe be a little bit more user friendly.
Nicole Sardo: That would be an app. So there wouldn't be any repeats. And then you could also search by full name. You could search by form. You could search by color. Maybe you're cultivated. It'll be up to them to do that. But that is in the works. And hopefully that'll be a little bit more user friendly for everybody.
Jennifer Gulizia: Very cool. So let's go back to your study that you're doing. Is this, when does it start?
Nicole Sardo: It will start June 1st. um um And on June 1st, I'll send out the first biweekly questionnaire and it'll include a series of questions to everybody who's signed up. And they'll answer all the questions and the questions will be like, which dahlias are you growing? Have you culled any varieties?
Nicole Sardo: What's your pest management? What zone you're working in? All the basic questions. environmental questions and things that are going on currently in your garden. And then throughout the entire Dahlia growing season, I'll summarize each questionnaire and then post them publicly on a Dahlia on the disease study data summary page so that anybody who wants to follow along can follow along.
Nicole Sardo: They don't necessarily have to be a participant.
Jennifer Gulizia: and who can participate in this.
Nicole Sardo: Anyone can participate. I even opened it up for anybody who didn't have an heirloom variety. And then I would send anybody who had an heirloom. There's a couple other people on the study who are willing to gift heirlooms as well if someone wants to participate and they don't own one.
Nicole Sardo: So really anybody can. If you want to grow an heirloom dahlia and you want to see how it performs, I would love to have you and I would love to hear how it's performing and you contribute your data to my study. That would be great.
Jennifer Gulizia: Awesome. And we'll include a link in today's show notes for how people could sign up or follow along with your study. How long is this study going to go on for?
Nicole Sardo: So, sedatively, would say probably the average frost date. I haven't locked in a date. I chose June 1st because that felt like a good average date of when everybody would either be planting or had already planted.
Nicole Sardo: i envisioned that some of the participants won't have sprouting, and that's okay. I'm sure the results will trickle in the longer the study goes on, but I'll probably end this study maybe mid-October. That sounds like a good average for the last frost for all the zones that are participating.
Jennifer Gulizia: Okay, perfect. And is it a one-year study or will you continue it next year to be determined?
Nicole Sardo: So my hope is that we'll see enough trends specifically among the heirloom varieties and hopefully we'll be able to see trends among either certain years heirlooms. So maybe varieties that were cultivated in the 1950s seem to be performing better than other varieties were cultivated different years, or we'll see certain varieties by name that are performing best.
Nicole Sardo: Or what I believe is going to happen in my hypothesis is it's going to be certain varieties that were cultivated in specific regions. I believe that the environment and the microclimate in which the Dahlia was hybridized plays a very important part into its disease resistance going forward.
Nicole Sardo: And then also growing that variety in that same environment moving forward. I think that's really important. So I would hope to see those trends and then moving forward, be able to distribute those specific specific varieties based on those trends to participants in the following years and kind of hone in on those actual disease resistant heirloom varieties, if any.
Jennifer Gulizia: Well, it's gonna be super fun to follow along and see what results come from your study.
Nicole Sardo: Thank you.
Jennifer Gulizia: We've talked about a lot today. i kind of wanna just summarize and recap, but I'd like to go back your autoimmune condition. I have recently heard from lots of listeners who have various forms of autoimmune conditions that affect their life.
Jennifer Gulizia: And some of them are minor. Some of them are life altering. What advice do you have for someone who is living with an autoimmune condition who maybe is feeling overwhelmed or discouraged right now?
Nicole Sardo: First and foremost, your feelings are valid. It's such a life-changing thing to go through and such a huge pivot. I mean, it's a complete change in lifestyle and mindset moving forward.
Nicole Sardo: So ultimately, your feelings are valid. And I know it's hard, but it's not going to last forever. And those feelings don't last forever. i had a moment where I grieved my life and I felt like, you know, what am I going to do now?
Nicole Sardo: But knowing that those feelings are temporary and the day still ends and you still wake up the next day And you can still start again and you could still start your life over and work with what you have.
Nicole Sardo: That's really important. Learning to pivot and work with what you have and making the best of your life is so important. Whether that just be going outside for a walk, because you don't know if you go outside for a walk, you're going to find something on that walk, whether that be a wildflower or I don't know, find out that you like going on walks or runs and then finding out that your body responds to it differently than you thought it would.
Nicole Sardo: You'll never know unless you try. and unless you go outside or you take that next step, you won't know. So being comfortable enough to take those chances and take those risks is really important.
Nicole Sardo: And knowing that your situation, although it feels like something that has changed your life forever and a life sentence.
Nicole Sardo: Essentially, it doesn't have to be the main thing that controls your life.
Jennifer Gulizia: That's great advice. And you have clearly shown that you can pivot and you found something that provides so much beauty to yourself and those around you. So I love it.
Jennifer Gulizia: You also are so resilient and ah a creative person. What has gardening taught you about resiliency, creativity, and also slowing down?
Nicole Sardo: Oh my gosh, so much. I really could write a book of everything that the garden has taught me. But knowing that it's okay to make your own ways and things, it's okay to do what...
Nicole Sardo: you know, not to do what people have suggested because there's a million ways to do everything. There are, you don't have to color inside the lines. I mean, i I, think having that moment where I had to work with what I had and I had to be frugal and I had to source other ways ultimately made me a stronger gardener because I had to put in the work, the time and the effort into learning how Certain things interacted with other things in order to, had to learn how things worked in order to make them work for me.
Nicole Sardo: And that's really important when you're learning anything new is not to just, you know, read the directions and do it because you're not learning anything. Sometimes you have to fail a little bit. You have to do, you have to deviate from the original plan because when you do, you learn that things can be done differently and you learn new ways and you're able to be creative and different techniques in different ways when you do things and,
Nicole Sardo: I think that's really important, especially with gardening. And it's taught me so much on that. I definitely don't have to be like all these, you know, high end farmers and with all their equipment, I can do everything by hand and I can make my own concoctions and make my own beds by hand using three different beds. And you could do anything if you put your mind to it. I've, I learned that very early on and it's helped me build my business today.
Jennifer Gulizia: Absolutely. i love that advice. Is there anything I haven't asked you today that you want to share with our listeners?
Nicole Sardo: Thank you.
Nicole Sardo: You know, I don't think so. I think the main thing that I want everybody to take from this going forward is you really can do anything in this life. It may feel like you're stuck and it may feel like You can't change the life that's been handed to you, but you can, but you have to go out of your comfort zone to do it.
Nicole Sardo: And you have to be willing to take risks. And I think that's a really important thing to take away from this.
Jennifer Gulizia: I love that. Thank you. Okay. Finally, where can our listeners connect with you and follow along on your journey?
Nicole Sardo: So I am most active on Instagram, but I do have Facebook as well. If you follow me on Instagram, you'll be able to see... all my day-to-day things that involve a someone who's flower farming on a suburban micro-flower farm lot. I post a lot in my stories. I post on my page. And then i'll I also have my website where you can follow along with the study or you can follow along on Small Farms Big Orders if you want to use that resource too.
Jennifer Gulizia: Awesome. And you have a website as well. Is that correct?
Nicole Sardo: I do. It's linked in my Instagram profile, or you could just find me at midnightmagickgarden.com.
Jennifer Gulizia: Perfect. And I will include links to all of these in today's show notes. So we'll have a link to the Dahlia database, the Buy Nothing group that you mentioned, the Small Farms Big Orders.
Jennifer Gulizia: Did I say that right? Small Farms Big Orders.
Nicole Sardo: Mm-hmm.
Jennifer Gulizia: And then your Instagram, Facebook, and website as well. So Nicole, thanks so much for joining us for a great episode of the Backyard Bokeh podcast.
Jennifer Gulizia: And we'll We'll be excited to hear how your heirloom study goes this year. Perhaps we'll have to do a bonus episode or something to hear how your results end up.
Nicole Sardo: who That would be awesome. I would love to do that. Thank you.
Jennifer Gulizia: Well, thanks so much. Have a great day back out in the garden getting stuff planted.
Nicole Sardo: Thank you. You as well. We're all busy planting Dahlia. So I hope hope it's going well for you.
Jennifer Gulizia: oh yes, we are.
Nicole Sardo: You too.
Jennifer Gulizia: Slowly but surely. Have a good one.
Nicole Sardo: Thank you.
Jennifer Gulizia: We'll talk to you soon. Bye-bye.
Nicole Sardo: Bye.
Jennifer Gulizia: byebye
Nicole Sardo: but
