Transcript
Jennifer Gulizia: Welcome back to the Backyard Bouquet podcast. I'm so glad you're here today. I have a special guest joining us, and that is none other than TJ McGrath of TJ McGrath Design in New Jersey. TJ is a floral designer, micro flower farmer, and one of the most vocal advocates for sustainable floristry working in the country right now. His studio is entirely foam-free.
Jennifer Gulizia: He grows his own organic flowers at a cutting garden he calls Jardin de Buis And he brings designers and growers together to talk about soil, seasonality, and what the industry could look like if we did it differently.
Jennifer Gulizia: And here's what I love about his story. TJ did not grow up with a garden. He was one of nine kids. He studied literature and philosophy and then spent years in advertising and marketing and retail.
Jennifer Gulizia: He took a part-time job in a flower shop at 30-something just to learn the business. And then in 2020, in the middle of a pandemic, he walked away from a steady job and started his own studio outside of his house.
Jennifer Gulizia: TJ, welcome to the Backyard Bouquet podcast. I'm so glad you're here today.
tj: Hi, Jennifer. Thank you very much for having me. It's very nice to meet you.
Jennifer Gulizia: Likewise.
tj: Thank you. for
Jennifer Gulizia: ah So glad you're here today.
tj: Thanks for having me.
Jennifer Gulizia: Yeah. Well, let's just dive right in. And I would love to know, before we start talking about sustainable design in your studio, can you tell my listeners who you are in your own words?
tj: Sure.
tj: Well, yes, and I, that you've made it easy for me because I think you've, you've, you've made me younger than I am. um I actually started, I gave up my full-time job, I think I was probably in my mid 40s.
tj: So a little bit all further along in my career.
Jennifer Gulizia: Okay. Okay.
tj: So I've actually been doing flowers really for about 10 years. um And it is a big part of who I am, but I am also um husband to Andrew. i am great grandson, I think, to that guy on the wall back there.
tj: um very sort of big irish family which even near i'm turning 60 this year jen and or jennifer how do you want me to call is it jenfer jen or jenn jennifer what do you prefer okay great yeah so um so you know i've got a big big family um i'm a family guy i have a a husband who's not technically legally my husband andrew we've been together 15 years
Jennifer Gulizia: Congratulations. Neither is totally fine.
tj: um and i'm a dog dad to english setter and his adopted brother who we call percy um and yeah super cute they're they're like the best friends um i'm just like a big old dork who still wishes at least musically that it was 1985
Jennifer Gulizia: oh
Jennifer Gulizia: Some of the best music came out of the eighty s
tj: Yeah, a lot of really great music from the 80s. There's some really great music now, trust me. you know There's a Taylor Swift tune or two that I thump myself around to. Yeah, i'm just I'm just exactly who, if any of your listeners have seen me on Instagram, I am that dork in real life.
Jennifer Gulizia: What you see is what you get.
tj: What you see is what you get, exactly.
Jennifer Gulizia: I love it. Well, you're just so use youthful.
tj: No.
Jennifer Gulizia: That's why I got the introduction wrong.
tj: No.
Jennifer Gulizia: so
tj: Well, I put on face cream last night, hoping that would like help. but um
Jennifer Gulizia: It does. Oh, man, the sun exposure.
tj: yeah
Jennifer Gulizia: I've been using extra face cream lately, too.
tj: Oh, so I actually, love that you were like, we're just going to have a conversation. i was pulling weeds about 40 minutes ago over at Jardin um And, I did have the the thought to like pop that sweaty shirt off and put this one on, but, um, I'm very conscious of trying not to get any sun as much as I possibly can not get any sun as micro flower farmer. I am. And I want to qualify that because I know a lot of your listeners are, and a lot of your listeners probably have gardens that are 10 times the size of what I call my micro flower farm.
tj: Um, I'm growing, um, on my friend is Andrea's property. And i'm I'm growing there because she has she had two hoop houses, 20 by 40, 20 wide by 40 deep structures that had nothing going on in them.
tj: And we live in a pretty highly populated deer area. So they enabled me to kind of deer fence them and grow my flowers without the fear of deer munching away from them.
tj: And I've expanded outside of them now. Dahlia are outside these these hoops. so um But it's it's tiny. it is tiny. But I grow a lot of flowers there.
Jennifer Gulizia: You can grow a lot in a little space. And I think what's interesting is most flower farmers are technically micro flower farms classified by the USDA.
tj: Hmm.
Jennifer Gulizia: i I don't know where it switches over, but I mean, when you think about like I live in the Hood River Valley and when most people say they're a farmer, they have 100, 200, 400 acres um because you can't grow as much with trees as you can in that same space.
tj: Right.
tj: Right.
Jennifer Gulizia: You can pack a lot of flowers.
tj: Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting too. Like it's so there, The amount of sunlight she you know is great for these flowers. I grow some really nice um cut and come against is what I'm good at. Zinnias, cosmos, and dahlias mostly.
tj: um But we just moved into this house in October. And it is, I feel like I'm like a big farmer now. We went from a property that was like 49 feet wide 135 feet long almost three quarters of an acre. I feel like I bought a farm.
tj: Um, and, but it's so shady. There's so many trees that, and just the the way the house is positioned on the land, the way the property is, I'm not, I'm not sure I'm going to be able to grow much actually here.
Jennifer Gulizia: You could grow a bunch of shade loving stuff. You can plant some hydrangeas and some hellebores.
tj: I could.
tj: Right. I could, I did actually, I planted a bunch of, maybe you can help me out because I don't have much experience with hydrangeas other than, um, oak leaf hydrangea which I absolutely love I just planted three that are called invincible and I was like hydrangeas like the shade but they're like they're barely they're they're getting dappled sunlight I don't think they're going to be that happy
Jennifer Gulizia: Oh.
Jennifer Gulizia: You might be surprised, my last house before we moved, I had a, our house was lined with hydrangeas on the side and they were so stunning and they got, oh gosh, did they get morning? I forget if it was morning or afternoon shade already, but they got shade half day and sun half the day.
Jennifer Gulizia: I just had to give them extra water in the heat of the summer, but they were so beautiful.
tj: Yeah. Yeah. I'm i'm hoping they'll take.
Jennifer Gulizia: Fingers crossed for you.
tj: Fingers?
Jennifer Gulizia: Okay.
tj: Yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: Okay.
tj: Thanks.
Jennifer Gulizia: Before we hit record, you were telling me this new house is a 300 year old house.
tj: Yes. um it's It's a stone house. It's made out of stone. um
Jennifer Gulizia: Amazing.
tj: Yeah. it's It's pretty cool. this The town that we moved to is called Long Valley. It's in Washington Township. that there's New Jersey is very historical, as you may or may not know.
tj: We are, i think, the only state that has three townships named Washington because George Washington spent a lot of, yes, Washington Township, three different, um
Jennifer Gulizia: Wow.
tj: So yeah, it's ah it's a cool, it's ah it' it's a bit rural, but it's we're only still, I'll say only an hour and a half out of New York. So city is still readily available. um And it is, i don't know, it's um it's got a lot of character and energy, but good energy, like, you know, so it's a cool place.
Jennifer Gulizia: Absolutely. That sounds so neat. Well, I want to kind of talk about your path and your history because I love, I was going to say in your 30s, but you made a career shift in your 40s, which so many people are scared to pivot later in life.
tj: Yes.
Jennifer Gulizia: And 40 is still young.
tj: Yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: um At least I'm saying it is. I'm 42. But um my body feels a little bit older these days. um But you started with a degree in literature and philosophy, and you spent years in advertising, marketing, tech, and retail.
tj: Yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: How did someone with that background end up on a path with their hands in flowers?
tj: Yeah.
tj: Oh my God. So that's a great question. Like, how did I end up anywhere is really the the real question that you're asking because i shouldn't have landed in advertising, but that just kind of happened.
tj: Um, and it just sort of led and led and, and life made decisions for me. So we'll just kind of walk through it real quick. Right. Like, um, I landed in advertising because I got a, I got a job out of college.
tj: working for Women's Wear Daily, but not the fabulous magazine for their directory. And I was calling all the button shops listed in the directory to update their telephone number, or their address, did they move, all this kind of stuff, which somehow landed me into a great advertising um agency that actually was like a pretty storied agency. They were the oldest agency at the time, specializing just in book publishing.
tj: um
Jennifer Gulizia: Oh, wow.
tj: Yeah. So i my my accounts were um all imprints of Random House. And so um a lot of coffee table books, Martha Stewart, maybe a few cookbooks at the time um kind of thing. So it was kind of cool. And then life threw me a curveball. My partner at that time sort of died on me. And that at the age of 30 made me start making all kinds of decisions that I wasn't really probably prepared to make.
tj: which is how I ended up finally.
Jennifer Gulizia: I'm sorry.
tj: Yeah. How I ended up kind of finally in retail for a really long time. Um, and then, you know, as life would have it, my new partner, Andrew was just kind of like, dude, you're miserable. Like you got to do something like you're, and it was work. It was work made my life miserable.
tj: I was working a lot, um, lot of hours, high pressure job. And, uh, And he he had discovered a new shop in the town, two towns over from where we were living.
tj: And was like, it sounds like the kind of, the thing with people in retail, especially in management and retail, we all dream of like having our own retail shop one day, of like what it could look like and what you would do and how you would do it all differently.
tj: And we would never look at a planogram again and all the things. um So he had told me about this little shop and was like, and it has a flower cooler. Like I had been a gardener, not a great gardener.
Jennifer Gulizia: Okay.
tj: I want to clarify that. Like I bought my first house when I was 29 years old. And when I moved into that house, my neighbor, I immediately started pulling up juniper in the front yard. And my neighbor across the street came over and was like, Hey, I'm Julie. What are you doing at Finn Bars Garden?
tj: And I was like, it's not Finn Bars Garden. I'm TJ. It's my garden.
Jennifer Gulizia: but
tj: And I have no idea what I'm doing. I just know that this juniper is you know, from, from my experience as a kid, bees like to nest in this in the summer. So I'm getting rid of it.
tj: Um, so, you know, I dreamed of this shop, this shop opened up and I actually went on my next day off to take a look at the shop that Andrew was like, you should go look at the shop. They have flowers in there. You're a gardener. Maybe it'll all, I don't know. And so, uh,
tj: I actually went home. I went home. He came home from work that night and was like, you know, how was your day off? I said, I went to that shop and he was like, Oh, did you meet the owner? What is it? Like, it's kind of confusing because it looked a little bit like anthropology.
tj: Um,
Jennifer Gulizia: No
tj: but with a flower cooler um and some earrings and all kinds of different things. I said, I don't know, but the little girl there, the girl who was shopkeeping, I could have stole the whole store. She didn't take her face out of her book.
tj: And, you know, I said, so I'm going to go to work tomorrow and quit my job and I'm going to get a job there. They have a part-time health science and kids. So Andrew is, yeah, Andrew a bit of an accountant and ah has that kind of sort of brain that an accountant might have.
Jennifer Gulizia: away
tj: And he was like, what, what? I was like, yeah, listen, and um you know how miserable I am You feel it every day when I come home from work. you You and the dog are the brunt of how unhappy I am. And that's not fair.
tj: so um So it was an actual like walk off up to the cliff and go jump or or just spend the rest of your life miserable.
tj: And so I jumped.
Jennifer Gulizia: Amazing. Well, and he kind of gave you that permission.
tj: Well, you, I mean, you know, kind of, sort of.
Jennifer Gulizia: He told you to go check it out. Yeah.
tj: He did tell me, he gave me the, he gave me the spark. I will say you that. He gave me the spark.
Jennifer Gulizia: aha
tj: He gave me the permission in 2020 when I had to decide about what was next for TJ. He's the one who said, don't go work for somebody else.
tj: Open your own business.
Jennifer Gulizia: Amazing. So you got that part-time job. You quit your job and you got the part-time job.
tj: I got the part-time job. um I got the part-time job. That part-time job became a full-time job very quickly. We went from being what i the most beautiful confused store, right very beautiful, but in my opinion, kind of confused.
tj: And we went from from not selling many flowers to booking a lot of weddings and um selling more flowers than anything else to the point where it became more of a floral studio than a really cute boutique that it was a very smart business model. I thought, um you know, and I, the original idea was I would get a part-time job there. I said to, to the owner, I said, I'll teach you everything I know about running a retail business. You teach me what you know about the flowers. This is New Jersey. There's,
tj: enough business for everybody who wants to be a florist.
Jennifer Gulizia: Mm-hmm.
tj: Um, I'll move on my way in a few months and, you know, and whatever. And, um, So what I learned is you need a lot of money to start up a brick and mortar.
tj: um I learned very quickly, you have to talk a lot when you want to sell flowers to people who walk into a building, not specifically with the idea of buying flowers.
tj: um And so so I decided to just dig in hard and and and make that full-time job work.
Jennifer Gulizia: Amazing. So how long did you end up staying there? 2020.
tj: what year was the pandemic pandemic? And forgive me, I have pandemic brain still like the 2020.
Jennifer Gulizia: twenty twenty
tj: Yeah. So, so 2020, 2020 kind of changed, um, for me and for, for that studio, she was kind of changing the way, um she wanted to operate it.
tj: And, and the pandemic just kind of beat us up a little bit. And, and I was going to be out of a job at the end of the year. And so, I had to figure out what to do.
tj: And so I do what a guy my age does is I sent resumes to every flower shop within 20 miles, hoping to get a job in a flower shop. And I did get an offer and it came with medical benefits and everything, which was crazy.
Jennifer Gulizia: wow
tj: Yeah. Um, And Andrew was so excited about it. he was like, oh my God, that's great. That's amazing. It was actually a shop who was opening up their second shop in the middle of the pandemic.
tj: um and ah But just, yeah we looked at it more and more and it was him. I'm totally blaming him. So if he's unhappy about like the fact that we now live 10 minutes from my micro flower farm instead of an hour and 10 minutes and all the things, it's because he said,
tj: I think if you take this job, you're going to be a glorified salesman. You're not actually going to be making flowers anymore. And is that really what you want? And I said, no, that's not what I want. He's like, then I don't think this is the job for you. I think you need to open your own business.
Jennifer Gulizia: And what did you think of that?
tj: I thought, oh my God, i like, I have like $700. How do I open a business with $700 in my savings that account? Like that's the truth. You know, i have,
tj: i I've been a guy living paycheck to paycheck at since since I'm 32 years old, since I quit advertising.
Jennifer Gulizia: Mm-hmm.
tj: That's just the way it's all worked out for me. I've saved i've worked, I've saved up money in 401ks, and then I've made decisions that made me have to spend that money on different things. And so when I decided to quit retail, I said, he was like, but what are we going to do? And I looked him square in the face and said, I have no emotional attachment to this house.
tj: So if I have to sell it and take out my equity and that's what we live on while I figure out the next parts and we get a small apartment somewhere, and then that's what's going to happen. Like, um, so
tj: Sorry, is that too honest?
Jennifer Gulizia: No, I love that.
tj: I feel bad.
Jennifer Gulizia: No, um I mean, I resonate so well with this because when we lost our last growing space that we were leasing, we had a very similar conversation. I'm sitting here nodding, just feeling like my chest, feeling the feels of what you went through. Because I mean, when we lost our growing space, I thought my whole career was over, which is why I launched the podcast to stay connected to the industry. And my husband says, well, I guess we have to sell our house.
Jennifer Gulizia: And at the time I thought we'd built our dream house. But then i was like, I realized, oh, we have to sell our house to build the next thing. And ah so sometimes it's, it's,
tj: Right.
Jennifer Gulizia: fear, but it's also bravery at the same time being willing to kind of sit through that next open door.
tj: Yeah. Yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: So what do you feel like made you say yes to this next opportunity?
tj: um
tj: Which to TJ McGrath design or going back?
Jennifer Gulizia: and to
tj: you
Jennifer Gulizia: To selling your house and feeling unattached from the house and being willing to take this next leap?
tj: um
Jennifer Gulizia: Were you afraid?
tj: you know You know, no back then I wasn't, I wasn't afraid at all. um So that's back, you know, we're back now in 2015 ish.
tj: I wasn't afraid at all. I was, I don't know where, and I don't know why. I really don't know why, but I was just like, I don't know. Well, I think if you live through such a great loss at such an early age and it doesn't,
tj: fully destroy you, you realize, you know, at some point you do have some sort of survival instinct that kicks in. And so I think at this point, you know, at that point I was like,
Jennifer Gulizia: Mm-hmm.
tj: I'll figure it out. We'll figure it out. Like we will figure it out. Whatever the next move will be has to be better. i mean, we had this beautiful chocolate lab. Her name was Dingle. She was named after the Dingle Peninsula in Ireland. She was so lovely. And I would walk in the door and she'd be wagging her tail and like I'd trip over her a little bit. And then I'd be like, what the is wrong with you? i'd be it And he'd be like, she's a dog happy for you to be home. And I'm like, I know my life is miserable. I can't go on. It's terrible. um So I had nothing to lose.
tj: I had nothing to lose. I only had everything to gain.
Jennifer Gulizia: So it was, yeah, that's, I think each one of us hit that point sometime in our life. And you either, i mean, the easy thing though, for so many people to do is it's almost like it's comfortable.
tj: Yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: You know, that that's that miserableness, at least that's a level that you've learned to live with. I think it's kind of a leap of faith to do what you did and be willing to go to that next level.
tj: Mm-hmm.
tj: Yeah.
tj: It is. And I think it's hard to say it was a leap of faith because you're admitting out loud that you had faith in yourself. Right.
Jennifer Gulizia: Yes.
tj: And like, like that's, that almost makes you sound a little full of yourself and like, I'm somebody I believed in myself, but like, we do need to believe in ourselves because if we don't believe in ourselves, who the hell else is going to believe in us?
Jennifer Gulizia: who
Jennifer Gulizia: Right. I kind of relate it back to a seed. Like we plant seeds and that seed already knows what it's supposed to do.
tj: Yeah. Yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: And if we trusted ourself like that seed, what could happen? I mean,
tj: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: So. of
tj: I mean, if you if you were to say in 2015, did you see yourself 10 years down the road, sitting at a 300 year old stone cottage across the street from a river, which could flood me out any minute?
tj: um You know, the answer would have been no. I was working towards towards never having to be in front of the camera, towards always being the behind the scenes, doing as much as I could behind the scenes.
tj: to make sure that the front of the house was always packed, you know? um So no, I never saw myself 10 years down the road as TJ McGrath of TJ McGrath Design.
Jennifer Gulizia: So if you could go back 10 years into the past, what would you tell yourself?
tj: Stick to your original plan, do it for six months and then go out on your own. That's what I would tell myself now.
Jennifer Gulizia: so So you're glad you made the decision to go out on your own.
tj: Oh yeah. Oh my God. Yes. But am I terrible at time management? A hundred percent. Like, you know, sometimes, sometimes I look up the stairs and I'm like, is there a real boss up there who could like make me get like out in the garden now or, you know, make me get this proposal done faster something. But yeah, no, it's, um I do not regret it. I'm very, very happy because I sort of again, took a leap of faith, you know, when I,
tj: and I need to remake it. So if anybody goes and looks at my website, understand, I know it needs a lot of work. Okay. But I'm the guy who does all of the things. So, um, you know, the first two inquiries I got were, do you teach and do you do weddings? And, um, I was like, Hmm, I just packed to the van every weekend for the last five years for weddings, mostly by myself, most of the time. Um,
tj: do I want to do weddings again? I don't know. So I kind of said, no, I don't do weddings. And yes, sure. What do you want to learn? And I kind of pursued the teaching more.
tj: So if I were to go back to that guy in 2020, I'd be like, take the wedding too. Take both of them.
Jennifer Gulizia: And why do you say that?
tj: um Because because it's because i needed because i started the whole thing with I needed both of those incomes, really Um, so I, uh, and it would have, it would have given me probably a little more footing to start off on to, to build the business based on what I was good at, which was producing weddings. Um, I wasn't, you know, I mean, I knew I was a good teacher, but I didn't have it.
tj: in the way that I didn't know in the way that people were asking if I taught, I knew that I could teach freelancers how to execute the style of the shop that, that they were coming into.
tj: um I knew that I could teach them, you know, some functional things. I didn't know that I could teach a wannabe florist how to design a flower arrangement, but that's what I said yes to.
tj: So turns out I'm actually pretty good at it because that is the biggest part of my business is the teaching part.
Jennifer Gulizia: And how did you grow that then without having that prior experience? do you think it was your marketing and advertising background or what, what helped you build that?
tj: So marketing and advertising background helps me think about things differently than and than most people sort of think about things. um I very naturally think about things in how you would sell it.
tj: How do you sell it?
Jennifer Gulizia: Mm-hmm.
tj: Like, how would you sell that to somebody? um That's always kind of the first question for me. um But I'm also incredibly fortunate to have my friend Andrea at Chardon Debris, who um who was like, but so if you're not familiar with that property, you can go through my Instagram and see lots of pictures of it. um I'm very fortunate to kind of work out of there a lot.
tj: um It's a beautiful, beautiful setting. And florists had been doing flower workshops there for a long time. um The amazingly talented Ariella Chezar has hosted workshops there. I mean bla i was like, wow, Ariella Chezar has taught... Because my friend Andrea was like, listen, if the first question you got when you put out your website was, do you teach, host a workshop here.
tj: And I was like, what? Host a workshop? She's like, yeah, host a workshop. Um, and I had been to one flower workshop in my five years or two actually. So I knew what the concept was.
tj: i I, I, I thank her. I have her as a believer in, in my abilities, offering me the space to kind of create a teaching and an inspirational teaching environment to help that that's where the foundation of the teaching came from.
Jennifer Gulizia: What do you think makes your teaching style in particular click with people? Like what was it about your workshops that drew people in?
tj: Oh, well, i think I think one, let's be honest, i I build into the workshop budget a healthy flower budget, like a big, big flower budget. So I like walking into the Jardin on day one of one of my workshops, you know, and a bunch of florists coming in. It is literally like children let loose in a candy store. Like they all just walk in and they're like, oh my God, all of this is for us?
tj: all these flowers are for us. Um, So creating an environment that is just super inspiring. And it, you know, with the bones of Jardin de Buis all I have to do is bring in flowers. I don't have to do anything else. I just have to bring in beautiful product to create an atmosphere where you're immediately put at ease. You're not worried.
tj: Oh my God, it's the right flower going to be there for me. Or is there going to be enough flowers for me to make the arrangement I want to make or sort of thing? Because I don't, I don't teach a recipe. I teach,
tj: i approach it from I approach it from the place of, I think I'm a really good listener. i think I see people's hurdles before they even realize the hurdle that's in front of them.
Jennifer Gulizia: Mm-hmm.
tj: So that enables me to, you know that's a florist who's been floristing for 10 years. That's a garden club gal who's coming to her first flower arranging workshop. um I'm able to see people's hesitation, I think before they even realize what their hesitations are. And then I just kind of try to dismantle it for them or help them get over that hurdle or even just acknowledge that there's this hurdle and what do we do about it
Jennifer Gulizia: What are some of those hesitations that you hear from your students?
tj: oh well it's it's all the noise that social media floristry schools and all the things like that get into people's heads like that they're like i don't want to do it wrong The first thing is I don't want to do it wrong. And I'm like, whoever said there's a right way to do it? And trust me, I know I don't live under a rock. There's hundreds of florists around the world who say there's a right way to do it. um You know, there are schools that have been in existence forever that whose whole principle is there's a right way to do it. um
tj: But I don't really believe that. I believe i believe there's a way... i What I try to teach people is you have two end goals. You have something that pleases you.
tj: and if if you if you're just doing it for yourself, great. how Why does it matter whether you did it right or wrong? Or two, you have a client's expectation.
tj: And if at the end of your brief, the client is like, wow, that was amazing. They're not asking how you got there. They're not going to ask you how you got there. They're just, they just say, I want X. And then they want to say X was X plus plus and you're amazing.
tj: It doesn't matter how you got there. So there is technically, I don't believe a right and a wrong way to do things.
Jennifer Gulizia: I like that train of thought because I think so often it's like everything's black and white. It is how we're taught.
tj: Yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: We're raised to tea learn everything is black and white.
tj: Right.
Jennifer Gulizia: Like you go to school, this is right. This is wrong. This is how you do this. This is how you don't do this.
tj: Right.
Jennifer Gulizia: And it eliminates the creativity in people.
tj: Right.
tj: It does. Yeah. And it's, it's amazing when you say to somebody, you know, so I was recently in Colorado. i did a workshop out in Colorado and yeah, it was so, it was so amazing.
Jennifer Gulizia: I saw that.
tj: June is amazing. um it it was, and there was one particular student who was like, really wanted to start with like the high point in the design and was like, you have to come help. You have to come help. And I was like, okay, i come over. And she was like, how do I know if it's if it's high enough or not high enough? And I was like, it's the only thing you have in there. You don't know anything yet.
tj: Like you don't know anything you and you have to acknowledge that it's just your first step.
Jennifer Gulizia: but
tj: And it may live there for the entire lifetime of this arrangement, or it may change, but like you, you, you can't decide right now whether any of this is right or wrong because it's one insert.
Jennifer Gulizia: I think that's so reflective of life too. It's like we make one decision and we think we're stuck or tied to things. And it's like, no.
tj: Right. Right. Yeah. No, a hundred percent. And that's like, so then that gets you into the sustainability piece of it. Right. Because then I, like i then, say because we're working with what's called a reusable mechanic or because we're not because our mechanic isn't this block of floral foam that tends to fall apart the more you pull and take things out like we have we have three and a half hours to make this one arrangement you can pull that flower in and out put it back in cut it not cut it this that all day long if you want like because because we're using a mechanic that enables you to do that
Jennifer Gulizia: I've got several questions swirling in my head from that. The first I want to ask is, do you ever find that people are too indecisive with their designs when you're saying they can cut it all day long?
tj: Gosh,
Jennifer Gulizia: Like at what point do you just need to make a decision and keep the design moving forward?
tj: thats you're so intuitive because there was one of those at that workshop. There's always, I won't say there's always one of one of the indecisive folks. um So I kind of address that with,
tj: with i When I'm teaching, i um I use a lot of um metaphors, I think. And sometimes sometimes when it's really young people, they don't land as well as I would like.
tj: um But a lot of times what I'll say is, listen, Picasso didn't call up Vincent van Gogh when he put a brushstroke on the thing and say, hey, can you come over and tell me if this is right or wrong or which direction I should go in? you know i kind of I liken it to we don't have enough here to make any sort of decisions.
tj: Like, like you do, there are, and then I go back to like the quote unquote rules.
Jennifer Gulizia: Mm-hmm.
tj: I'm like, you do have to understand that to edit something, you have to have things in there. Like, and so that's something I say all the time. I'm like, listen, you have to put the editor back in her place for a minute and let the designer have at the bowl because, because you don't have anything to edit yet.
tj: And when it's, it's amazing when you kind of say that, when you say to somebody, you don't really have anything to edit yet. And they're just, they look at it and they're like, yeah, right. It literally is three flowers in a bowl.
tj: How, what am I, why am I, you know,
Jennifer Gulizia: Uh-huh.
Jennifer Gulizia: That's such a good point. I know, especially when I was starting, I would like remake wedding bouquets over and over again. And I'm like, oh, I can't. And then I would just like drop the whole thing and I'd start from scratch.
Jennifer Gulizia: How do people get out of their head on those decisions?
tj: Oh, so and so if you're talking bridal bouquet, i think, I don't, I don't know how to get somebody. I've, I freelance a lot. I've seen, I've seen florists let the bridal bouquet destroy everything.
tj: Like just destroy the, the vibe in the workspace, like the whole nine yards. Um, For me, I can only answer that question from my my perspective.
tj: You know, i I never wanted to build a studio that was based on selling a particular style of bridal bouquet, right?
Jennifer Gulizia: Mm-hmm.
tj: Like, um and I never, when I worked in the flower shop, I never made the bridal bouquet. That was the owner's thing. That was, you know, i know And I never wanted to. Like, I never wanted to place that much emphasis on any one component um because the bigger picture is really, i think, what has the the ability to last in people's memories. So, um you know, i i would say to somebody, listen,
tj: put it down, walk away, do something else. I think it's important to do something else that you then feel good about, even if it's making a bud base that has like amazing movement or whatever. And it's just something that you can like rebuild your confidence again and be like, yeah, no, I do know what I'm doing.
Jennifer Gulizia: Sure.
tj: um But I've also had to be there and be like, turn into psychologist TJ and be like, why? It's it's literally Rose's and ranunculus and her inspiration Roundy moundy, why are you so stressed about this? Like, you can do this in your sleep sort of thing. There's usually an underlying reason, I think, behind it that isn't always so obvious.
tj: I always, you know, the marketer, the advertising guy in me comes back to like, well, what did you sell? What did you sell? Because I think you lose your confidence if you feel like you sold something that you're not actually executing. And so if you relook at that, that might help give some clarity as well.
Jennifer Gulizia: I like that advice. I also love when you said sometimes you just have to walk away and come back to it, which is so true for anything.
tj: Yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: Like I try, one of my mentors has challenged um my mastermind not to sit for more than an hour, not to work on something and every hour, just take a break, get up and move and let your mind refresh and come back.
Jennifer Gulizia: And I always find that like, if I'm frustrated, like if I can't figure out the irrigation at the farm or I can't get an arrangement, if I just walk away and come back, with a new set of eyes, whether it's taking the dogs for a 15 minute walk or picking up another project, you're all of a sudden like, oh, I can do this.
tj: Right. I'm going to
Jennifer Gulizia: you just said.
tj: I'm going to share a moment of honesty again. when i started When I started in that flower shop, I was a chain smoker.
Jennifer Gulizia: I love it.
tj: Like I was blowing through two packs of cigarettes a day. um But I was very good at hiding it and um And eventually, eventually it came out.
tj: And as soon as it came out, the truth of the matter is is, every time we came across something we couldn't figure out how to do, i would go, let me go have a creative cigarette. and I would go outside, I'd have a cigarette and I'd come back and be like, this is what we're going to do.
tj: We're going to, going to do X, Y, and Z and blah, blah, blah. And they'd be like, how do you do that? How does, and I'm like, it's not the cigarette. The cigarette isn't the answer. It's the walking away from the problem that gives you the opportunity, your brain to sort of rework its cogs.
Jennifer Gulizia: whom
tj: And, and,
Jennifer Gulizia: Totally.
tj: and yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: We get so in our heads sometimes that we are overthinking it or overanalyzing
tj: Yeah.
tj: Yeah. Yes. I mean, I, I sometimes, you know, I, you had a problem with the way that the computer is laying out our images. I'm happier about it because I'm focused on you. I'm not really focused on the smaller version of me.
tj: um I like to say that because I'm not so pretty, it's easy for me to get out of my head. There's not a whole lot of reason on the outside to want to stay in there. So I can, I can get out of my head sometimes pretty quickly, but I can also actually get stuck in there too.
Jennifer Gulizia: There's a great book I read when we lost our growing space called The Gap and the Gain. And it's about um everyone falls into the gap and we have negative thoughts or things that limit what we can do. And it looked at different like Olympic athletes and different high performers. And the thing that it found was the difference in those that succeeded or not were how quickly they could get out of the gap and get back into a positive mindset.
Jennifer Gulizia: And so it just made me think of that.
tj: That's amazing.
Jennifer Gulizia: It's a great book. I When I say I read a book, it's audio books, just to clarify, because my daughter will give me a bad time if she hears this and will say, you didn't read a book, mom.
Jennifer Gulizia: she's She's an avid reader and she can read a book in a day and I will listen to an audio book in a day while I'm working in the field.
tj: That's good. Yeah.
tj: Yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: But she says I have to clarify that difference.
tj: That's awesome.
Jennifer Gulizia: So that's for her. um I want to talk about the sustainability piece also.
tj: That's good.
Jennifer Gulizia: Your studio is entirely foam free.
tj: Sure.
Jennifer Gulizia: Is that correct?
tj: It is. It is. And I'll tell you why it is. Because when I, you know, I hate, I hate 10 years later, going back to where I started, but this is the truth, right?
tj: So I introduced floral foam into the studio, into the flower shop that I was working in.
Jennifer Gulizia: Mm-hmm.
tj: We were creating centerpieces and putting them in a van and driving 90 miles an hour down a highway. um And we didn't know what we were doing. And we were using chicken wire and water and all the water spilled out, which I have an answer to.
tj: like, but like the ah the arrangements had fallen apart. And so we had just spent days making 20 arrangements and now we had freelancers remaking 20 arrangements on site. um And so I thought, this is crazy.
tj: Like I knew at the time, but I couldn't sort of voice what the issue was. The issue was we were operating in New Jersey. Brides have giant weddings in New Jersey. Every table for the most part is 72 inch round.
tj: Nine out of 10 florists immediately think 72 inch round, eight inch vase and basic opening price, $150. It's not enough product to to withstand the pressure of flying down a highway at 80 miles an hour and staying intact. Right.
tj: um And so so I discovered floral foam. I had never seen it before. I'd never worked with it or anything like that. And I taught myself how to use it to create the look that we were creating. And I sort of said, this is how we stop paying freelancers twice for the same job.
tj: We make them make the arrangement once and then it stays intact. And so so when I went out on my own, And I, you know, I'm going to be honest, I didn't, I wasn't that adept at social media at that time. I didn't know anything.
tj: um i didn't know anything about floral foam. I was an average American. It's available on the shop, to on the shelf to buy. Therefore, I can buy it and falsely believe my government is protecting me from something that may or may not cause me harm.
tj: Because there were no more, it doesn't come with warnings. It doesn't come with any of that. So when I became TG McGrath Design, i said to myself, i i need to I need to be able to sleep at night and know that the business I'm trying to build isn't contributing negatively as much as I can possibly reduce my carbon footprint.
tj: Because I have nieces and nephews who have young families and my great nieces and nephews are amazing little human beings. And i I was like, I have to be able to feel good about what I'm doing. So that's the why behind my, my studio, not having any plural foam in it is, is my family and me wanting to feel better. And then there's the practical side of the why, which is, you know, there's that old saying that I'm sure we've all heard. you don't crap where you eat, right? Like to me,
tj: floristry and florists doing terrible things to the planet is crapping where we eat. And i don't, you know, and so I just, I'm kind of like, why are we doing this? Like, I want to work with flowers. I anticipate Jennifer that my obituary will read this guy died with a Dahlia in his hand. He was still making an arrangement when his last breath left him. um And so i don't, you know,
tj: I just believe that you can do amazing things without it. um and i But beyond that, I believe the industry shouldn't be contributing to the degradation of the environment.
Jennifer Gulizia: Sure. Now I know you and I know why floral foam is bad.
tj: Correct.
Jennifer Gulizia: For those listening who maybe haven't heard this conversation or aren't as aware, what are some of the reasons why floral foam is so bad for the environment?
tj: Right.
tj: Um, it is what it boils down to is, is that traditional floral foam breaks down into microplastics and microplastics, um, don't compost. They find themselves into, in waterways and things. And, and it's not even just floral foam, right? Like you, you, any one of our listeners today could go and Google have have, you know, microplastics been found in humans? Yes. The answer is yes. We're, we're not just consuming microplastics because of floral foam or consuming it because of our entire way of life.
tj: um And so, but that's kind of ultimately what it brings boils down to is it is a single use plastic that is petroleum based.
Jennifer Gulizia: Mm-hmm.
tj: You know, it's, I don't know exactly what it's made of because I don't, you know there are privately held companies. They don't have to actually acknowledge all of the ingredients. They're not held to, to those sorts of, uh, restrictions and standards. So, um, I do know that when I opened the first box of it and that sort of cloud of floral foam dust came out and I breathed that in my first thought, which just didn't land long enough was, geez, as a smoker, this is probably not a good thing for me to be breathing in.
tj: Um, But you know the almighty dollar drove
tj: drove the car at that time. So it's it's it's not a great product for the planet. There are so there are alternatives that are out there. um And for me, you know i don't even use the alternatives. I kind of have decided about two and a half years ago, three years ago to focus on selling what I can create using just reusable mechanics.
tj: Um, because we do live in such a sort of consumer driven or instant gratification thing. So even, even if you are, it's easier to stay committed to me being foam free and feeling good about, um,
tj: my business if I don't choose any of the alternatives because because that's kind of limiting to some degree, not a lot, what I can and cannot create.
tj: um and by What I mean by that, Jen, is if I sell everything in water and it all comes back to me, it's really easy for me to pull stems out of a vase of water and put them in the compost.
tj: And that's my goal at the end of every event.
Jennifer Gulizia: Mm-hmm.
tj: If I have to pull it out of some sort of foam alternative mechanic, that's another step, right? and And the reality is, is these alternatives, they do require very specific end of life cycle, you know, endings, if they're going to truly be beneficial and a great option.
tj: In this market where I operate, you know, in New York City, it is not unheard of for a $200,000 wedding to go up in in in one of the most beautiful spaces available in New York City all in a day. I mean, it doesn't all just go up in a day. There's a lot of work that goes into it.
tj: But at the end of the day, it all goes into a dumpster, vases and everything because because time and space and all of the things are at such a premium in New York City that it is more cost-effective for event production florists to throw everything away and just start new on the next one.
Jennifer Gulizia: Which is adding a lot of waste to the environment.
tj: So much waste. So much waste.
Jennifer Gulizia: So much.
tj: So much waste.
Jennifer Gulizia: So I'm guessing you were not involved in that wedding.
tj: No. No. I mean, i try I've gotten to the point where I do try to be a little picky about the freelance work that I'm doing um just because
Jennifer Gulizia: Uh-huh.
tj: I want to be able to talk the talk and walk the line. So I used to look at freelance opportunities as an opportunity to sort of educate while I was, you know, working.
tj: um But at the end of the day, I'm not trying to judge people. I really don't want to judge anybody. But it does if you if you want to pick apart any event, even my own, I can i can find things that were unnecessary, right?
tj: but You know, we all we all want to sell a beautiful tablescape. We all want to sell a beautiful this. And that's what people want. so So I try to make sure that everything everything i do, you know, either gets composted at the end of the event um or that there's there's a real reason behind it in some way, shape or form.
Jennifer Gulizia: I love that. i I like to try and give people the benefit of the doubt and think that we're all, I think it's Maya Angelou that said, do your best and until you know better and then do better. um i hope I'm attributing that to the right person here. um But once you know, it's hard to turn that blind eye to those things.
Jennifer Gulizia: And when we lost our growing space and bought our new farm, and I know I've mentioned that a few times on here, but it's it's really what's led me down my own sustainability journey is stewarding, we have 20 acres now, And one person reached out to me and said, you have to read Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer.
tj: Yeah.
tj: amazing
Jennifer Gulizia: And she's one of those that's on my dream list for the podcast ah for the future. But if you haven't read that book, it's beautiful. And one of the things she teaches is gratitude and reciprocity, always having gratitude for what the earth gives us, which especially as floral designers, floral growers, I think that's an easy piece to have the gratitude for what we're getting from the land.
Jennifer Gulizia: But then the reciprocity, what are we giving back to the land?
tj: Right.
Jennifer Gulizia: And when you're composting it, you're giving back things that are not drenched in chemicals, not covered in microplastics versus the there's not the reciprocity when you're throwing away all of that stuff. So.
tj: Yeah. I mean, i I love that. And I think I will look for that book, but I will also listen to it. I won't probably read it. Um, because i think, you know, there, I just, I just get so bummed out because nowadays i think it's almost impossible to find at least somebody in this country who doesn't have a phone, who doesn't have a social media account, but it's a florist who's still using floral foam and can claim they don't know better.
tj: Right.
Jennifer Gulizia: Mm-hmm.
tj: Like, so it's, you know, for me, it becomes this question of like, just, trying to, am I educating? No, I'm not really educating anymore. I'm trying to inspire. I'm educated. I'm teaching people how to look at can of soda and say, can this become a water source for an event?
tj: Um, which probably it could, if I cut it in half and I can put some chicken wire in there and I can make all the things. Um, you know, i think that that that reciprocity is the piece that's missing, right? um
Jennifer Gulizia: Yes.
tj: i I was fortunate enough once to have Shane Connolly visit from England, and i don't know if you're familiar with him. um He was the Queen's florist. He's now the King's florist. He's a super nice guy, very sort of sustainably minded fella. And, um you know, he was here and he was talking and he was like, you know, I think a lot of times that if you,
tj: If you don't have the opportunity to grow something, you don't really know why how flowers will behave. And that for me was like, wow, he's being nice about it. I'm kind of like, I sort of see a future on this planet where florists will have to grow something to be allowed to be a florist because you know I see that that future where this planet is gray and dying and you're we're not going to be allowed to just kind of crap where we eat whenever we want to anymore.
tj: I think i think that florists should know how flowers behave you know um and to be able to learn it from growing them and cutting them and observing them.
Jennifer Gulizia: Mm-hmm.
tj: That's you know that's and an incredible opportunity and blessing and and all of that. But it's you know it's it's also such a novel idea that's lost on so many florists. I get a lot of DMs where people are like, do you know this rose variety? Will it last without water? My response is never, yes, it will. No, it won't. No, I don't know. it My response is, are have you taken one out of the vase and put it on the counter to see what it'll do?
Jennifer Gulizia: ah we're We're so quick to ask questions instead of observe.
tj: Look.
Jennifer Gulizia: We've lost the curiosity.
tj: Right. A little observation goes a long way.
Jennifer Gulizia: One of my mentors has said one of the most important things going into the future will be to have a curious mindset.
tj: Yeah, I think it's, I'm, you know, not to be Debbie Downer, but I'm glad that I'm 60 and I'm not going to live to that future. But I want to make sure that what I'm doing along the way is at least not contributing to to it as as little as I possibly can.
Jennifer Gulizia: Absolutely. Well, we've talked a lot, the second half of the podcast interview about sustainability. How would you in your own words define sustainability? And what piece do you think people often get wrong?
tj: I think the piece that people get wrong the most is that they think it it is a question of using floral foam or not using floral foam. the The floral foam is is in i is the smallest part of it.
tj: it like it It isn't really even part of it.
Jennifer Gulizia: Mm-hmm.
tj: it's you know the The floral foam is just one piece of plastic in a global plastic pollution problem. right it's It's the most visual billing in our industry, but it's it's it's not the whole complete picture.
tj: i think that and I think that's the biggest mistake. I think people... And I think you landed on what I would say is the real picture is that reciprocity is that sustainability has to include ah a, a full, you know, a life cycle from, from seed to compost. Like that in our industry, I don't, I don't think, you know, people understand flowers want or should
tj: I always say they want, and then I had one person come back and be like, how do you know, did that Dahlia tell you it wanted to decompose? And I'm like, okay.
Jennifer Gulizia: ah
tj: um You know, i don't think it's such a crazy leap of faith to imagine something that came from the earth should probably go back to the earth in as, in as least altered way as possible.
Jennifer Gulizia: Absolutely.
tj: um You know, I'm working on a concept in my head for a 15 second reel, which drives me crazy. But i'm I'm noticing, and you tell me if you're noticing it, I'm seeing more and more florists working with gloves on their hands.
tj: And um right.
Jennifer Gulizia: I've seen that lately. Yeah.
tj: So you're seeing that more and more. And that's because the message that imported flowers come with so much chemical residue is finally sort of like hitting the inboxes, like, and they're getting it right.
tj: But my brain immediately goes to then, But then are you giving the bride black rubber gloves to walk down the aisle with, with that same bouquet? Because just by, by making it into a bouquet, you're not getting rid of the chemicals.
Jennifer Gulizia: Totally.
tj: Like they're still on that. You know what I mean? And so like, like we're just, we're missing all the connectors. Like I'm going to work with these gloves because I've heard these flowers have so many pesticides, but then I'm going to stick these flowers in a cake and watch people eat the cake.
Jennifer Gulizia: Right. Yeah. Well, it's interesting. We have a recent Parkinson's diagnosis in my family. And so I've kind of gone down a rabbit hole on research.
tj: I'm sorry.
Jennifer Gulizia: Thank you. And golfers and florists are two of the highest categories. And I mean, don't quote me on any statistics or anything. I won't say any, but Paraquat, which is a chemical that was outlawed on golf courses somewhere around 2020,
Jennifer Gulizia: but it seeps into this ah the water within a several mile radius, but it's still allowed in the floral industry and certain things.
tj: Wow.
tj: Yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: So what's what has paraquat on it that we're putting on our hands? Are we gonna see a mass spike in floral designers and florists with Parkinson's also because of this paraquat that we haven't outlawed?
Jennifer Gulizia: And I think that's goes back to the local flowers
tj: it's
Jennifer Gulizia: And being mindful of what we're putting on our flowers, even as a farmer, like what chemicals am I conditioning my flowers with before I give them to the florist to design with them?
tj: Yeah. I mean, it's, a you know, there's so many arguments against the local flower thing. Like, oh, I can't, you know, I will say this in New Jersey, there is a robust interest in in the local flower movement.
tj: um You know, ah adding to the to the imported flowers as much as possible. I've gone so extreme, Jen, that like for me to see a dahlia and a ranunculus in one arrangement, I'm just like, it's wrong! It's wrong! It's crazy wrong! They don't exist in my world! um And so flashback to June again, where I'm in Brazil, and they actually were existing in Brazil from the same farm at the same time. And I'm like, wow, I've got to sort of rethink this. But, you know, we've
tj: we've blurred the lines of seasonality. We've blurred all of that. And so you, I come to a local farmer and I, I ask questions. What are you, what are you using? You know, like, and here in New Jersey,
tj: what are the big arguments for why local flowers are a little more expensive? Of course, the farmers are always like, well, you know, there are, I'm growing organically or I'm using organic um processes. And so that's, that's a little spike in the price. And then, you know, that then they turn around and say that florist, but I just watched you stick on Instagram, your organically grown flowers into a brick of floral foam.
tj: Like where like these,
Jennifer Gulizia: Mm-hmm.
tj: These things just aren't adding up. So yes, are are we going to see spikes in these kinds of things? I don't know. I think that that there's so many... Sorry, I went just went down a rabbit hole.
Jennifer Gulizia: That's okay. We should probably have a part two.
tj: Right?
Jennifer Gulizia: and There's so much to say about this. I think that the biggest thing is that troubles me is how quick people are to call people out, but then they're doing something else that's just as harmful.
Jennifer Gulizia: I think we just need to be mindful of that reciprocity.
tj: Right.
Jennifer Gulizia: What am I doing and how is it impacting the earth?
tj: Right.
tj: Yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: And it's not just one thing.
tj: Yeah. I mean, I try to remind remind myself every day, you know, like historically we have examples of solving problems and then 10 years, 15 years, 20 years down the road, realizing, oh, that solution caused cancer in this group of people, or that solution caused this problem further down the road. I mean, the invasives world is is a whole ah you know can of worms you can open up in that regard. So I ask myself every day, okay, before you rush out and solve that problem, really look at the the solution. And and i
tj: ask, is it, is it truly, you know, going to give back to the compost without soiling the, you know, spoiling the compost in any way, shape or form? Is it, is it really, you know, a solution?
tj: um I don't know that, that if the answer is no, that, that you, what you do, but, you know, i think we have to have a baseline where we're kind of somehow operating from.
Jennifer Gulizia: Right.
Jennifer Gulizia: Absolutely. I hope that's coming in the future. i
tj: Yeah,
Jennifer Gulizia: i think the change is starting. I just think it needs to maybe move a little bit faster. Would you agree?
tj: ah yeah I mean, it has started, but it is a grassroots movement. It is it is an absolute grassroots movement.
Jennifer Gulizia: Do you, let me see here how I want to ask this. With the grassroots movement, how can those that are listening today get involved and make a difference? what What advice would you give them? Someone that's been inspired by what you've shared today.
tj: Oh, so I would, I'd like to
tj: ask the obvious questions. That's one. So, you know, if I can't be the only one who sees the black gloves go on and then my next thought is, what do you say to the bride when you hand her that bouquet?
tj: um So ask the obvious questions, ask them nicely because we, we need to sort of address, you know, if we don't ask the questions, we don't, don't realize that somebody's thinking about that. Right. Like, I think, I think we have to remember we all are, I grew up in an era where if it was on the shelf, it was okay.
tj: And I just don't think that that's the truth.
Jennifer Gulizia: Right.
tj: I don't think it was ever the truth. um But to also to your listeners who might just be flower enthusiasts, you have so much more power than you think.
tj: And I say this to the garden club ladies, every time i close a garden club um demonstration, I say, you know, the most powerful thing you can do is the next time you are sending flowers, ask the florist not to use floral foam and to include as many local and seasonal flowers as possible.
tj: I said, and more powerful is to actually walk in the store and try to paste or place an order and say, I want local flowers. If that florist doesn't have local flowers, you actually say to them, here's my card, here's my number. When you get some local flowers in, I will come back and support your business.
tj: That will change the way florists look at the local growing community far faster than me talking on Instagram about it.
Jennifer Gulizia: Absolutely. We all have to start making that change and asking for it. I think that's wonderful advice.
tj: Yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: Oh my gosh, there's so much more that I want to ask you, but I know we're at an hour already.
tj: Thank you.
Jennifer Gulizia: So I am going to jump into my quick fire questions, if that's okay.
tj: Okay.
Jennifer Gulizia: um i ask
tj: Yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: I started this year asking all of my guests four questions to wrap up an episode. So these are quick, whatever comes to your mind. First one, is what is your favorite flower to grow or work with and why?
tj: Poppy. um
Jennifer Gulizia: Ooh.
tj: ah Yeah, Poppy. i Grow, I'm not great at. So I want to get better at growing them. um but they are absolutely my most i just i i want to come back as a poppy if i have to come back one more time i'm hoping it's as a as a peach poppy um but yeah i i just i love everything about them the movement the wiggly they they're they're everything that like a traditional florist probably hates but i think they're cool
Jennifer Gulizia: I did an experiment this year. am so This is supposed to be quick fire. I did an experiment and I had a whole bunch of poppy seeds left over. And so one of my dahlia rose, I sprinkled poppy seeds all in between them.
Jennifer Gulizia: And I'm not sure if it's going be too hot for them to come up right now, um but they're they're trying to grow.
tj: Wow.
Jennifer Gulizia: So we'll see if I've got dahlias and poppies intermixed.
tj: that's That's awesome.
Jennifer Gulizia: Yeah.
tj: That'd be so cool.
Jennifer Gulizia: Okay. I know I'm excited to see. I've been trying intercrop with our dahlias. And so I'm doing an experiment with a few others this year. Okay, why do local flowers matter to you? I know we've really talked about this a lot today.
tj: Right. I mean, aside from all of the benefits to your environment and your community, all those benefits, I mean, honestly, you know, people send me a picture of my thing. They're like oh my God, this is so beautiful. How did you do this? I'm like, it's because it's all local flowers because the they have character.
tj: You know what i mean? If like, I could say that my only talent is really picking out beautiful flowers. Once you pick beautiful flowers that have character and um a story to tell, kind of doesn't matter what you do with them. They're going to be beautiful.
Jennifer Gulizia: I love that. What is one thing you wish more people understood about the floral industry?
tj: that it is bad for the planet, but it doesn't have to be as bad as it is. Like, I think it could be so much better. think it could.
Jennifer Gulizia: I agree. I think you are making great headway and really making a difference. So I applaud you for that.
tj: Thank you. I don't i don't know.
Jennifer Gulizia: What are you most, oh, go ahead.
tj: I don't know about that, but I'm trying.
Jennifer Gulizia: Well, I think we all, if we all do our part, that's where that ripple comes in and we start to see a greater impact.
tj: Yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: So at least that's my hope. That's our hope with our 20 acres that we're now stewarding is if we can show people that we can make a difference, that it inspires even one other person and then they inspire someone and that's how we'll see real change.
tj: That's amazing. Yeah.
tj: Yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: What are you most grateful for that flowers have given you beyond the blooms?
tj: Um, you and everyone I've met from this, um,
tj: And ah yeah, so the obvious thing, the people that I've met, the places that that flowers have taken me, i know I mean, I went to Brazil. Who the hell? and No one in my family could understand sta that I was going to Brazil to teach people how to put flowers in a vase.
Jennifer Gulizia: Amazing.
tj: um But ah they have also brought me a comforting piece in who I am, um which is, I think, a whole other podcast, but, you know,
tj: they They help me be who I am.
Jennifer Gulizia: Now I have to circle back to the beginning of this episode. You said that you used to come in the door stressed and frazzled and just miserable.
Jennifer Gulizia: Is your life different today?
tj: Oh my God, yes. Like I can barely so keep the smile from it it just naturally.
Jennifer Gulizia: I know I've been smiling this whole time.
tj: yes i Yeah. Oh my God. a thousand times. Like, yes. never going back to that. I will, if I have to work till I die with a dahlia in my hand, you know, i I heard somebody once not that long ago say, those of us in flowers aren't in it for the money. I don't think that that's true. i would like to make more money, but but that doesn't mean I want to beat up the planet to get that more money. um
tj: But yeah, no, i I am a whole lot healthier and better than I was in 2015 when I quit that retail job.
Jennifer Gulizia: Amazing. I love to hear that. And I can just sense it and feel it through the screen. Your your joy um radiates through the screen, which has made me smile this whole episode too.
tj: Thank you.
Jennifer Gulizia: So if you're listening and you don't know, these episodes also go on to YouTube. So if you want to watch this conversation, you can see us chatting there as well.
Jennifer Gulizia: TJ, I've had so much fun chatting with you. Where can our listeners, thank you.
tj: Likewise.
Jennifer Gulizia: Where can our listeners find you and support your work and attend your workshops?
tj: Okay. So while I have that website that needs some updating, that's TJMcGrathDesign.com. I have a little Instagram account called TJMcGrathDesign. um I am really excited about a workshop.
tj: I think she was a past guest of yours. I'm going down to Harmony Harvest Farm in just a, yeah, I'm going to be down there in a couple of weeks, August 24th and 25th.
Jennifer Gulizia: Amazing.
tj: um That's a great two-day class. it's ah It's a great opportunity for folks who maybe can't invest in both days because they've figured out how to sell either one day or you could buy both days.
tj: um We're doing a centerpiece. We're doing broken arch, all foam free. um Harmony Harvest, as you know, is is also where the forge for floral genius and the pin frogs that are in all of my work um is. And we have a guest designer, Dee from I can't think of a terrible, this is awful.
Jennifer Gulizia: Mermaid City.
tj: what Yes, thank you Thank you. Brain fart. um So I'm really excited. That's going to be like an awesome workshop and there's like, I think three spots left. So that's the next place. And then ah I'm actually, if you happen to be in Costa Rica, there's a,
tj: There's a thing called Iberiata 2026, which is a celebration of a south of a Latin American, 40 years of this Latin American school. And I am teaching a i'm teaching a workshop on how to design an amazing dinner table.
Jennifer Gulizia: Amazing. When is that?
tj: That is actually the first week in September. First week in September.
Jennifer Gulizia: Okay.
tj: And it's in, um yeah. like So if you want to go to Costa Rica, I can't wait. It's going to be at a hotel that is, that has, um that's on the side of a volcano. And so there's natural springs and and all this kind of stuff.
tj: Or I don't know. It's, I'm excited.
Jennifer Gulizia: Where is it?
tj: Costa Rica in the La Fortuna region. um So kind of in the mountains. um
Jennifer Gulizia: Do you know where? Uh-huh.
tj: ah Like the name of the hotel?
Jennifer Gulizia: Uh-huh.
tj: a line No, I'm terrible. I admitted to you at the beginning. I didn't read the questions you sent until five seconds before. I'm terrible i'm terrible at that. i I can't remember the name of it.
Jennifer Gulizia: Well, maybe you can tell me after we finish recording and I'll put it in the show notes along with the links.
tj: Yeah. Yes.
Jennifer Gulizia: I visited that area.
tj: Great.
Jennifer Gulizia: Actually, we literally lost our growing space in 2023 and a day later hopped on a plane to the La Fortuna area, which is why I was so curious because that was where I got my inspiration.
tj: a
tj: and That's so cool.
Jennifer Gulizia: And that was when we decided, okay, we're going to sell our house and we we can't let the flowers go. So I love that that's where you're going to be. It's a phenomenal area.
tj: Yeah, I can't. i'm I'm really excited. I'm really excited about that. That's going be cool.
Jennifer Gulizia: Amazing. TJ, is there anything that I didn't ask you today that you wish it I would have asked you or that you want to leave our listeners with today?
tj: and ah No, you were pretty good. You kind of got it all. um i would just leave the listeners with, you know, buy local flowers.
tj: Talk to your local flower farmers and, you know, buy some local flowers whenever you can.
Jennifer Gulizia: Great message. TJ, this was so fun. Thank you for joining me on the podcast. And now I want to attend one of your workshops. So hopefully I can meet you in person one of these days.
tj: You... That would be awesome. I would love that. Thank you for having me.
Jennifer Gulizia: Thanks for being a guest. Have a great day. We'll talk to you soon. Bye-bye.
tj: Take care. Bye.
