Transcript
Jennifer Gulizia: Welcome back to the Backyard Bouquet Podcast. I'm your host, Jennifer Gulizia and today we get to step into the garden with someone many of you may already know and love. If you've ever searched YouTube for garden inspiration, DIY projects, or cut flower tips, chances are you've come across In the Garden with Claudia. Claudia Lyashenko is a passionate zone 8 bee gardener here in Oregon who shares her own garden, creative projects, and beautiful garden tours from around the country. Her videos feel like an invitation to slow down, notice the details, and enjoy the simple beauty that a garden brings.
Jennifer Gulizia: What I perhaps appreciate the most about Claudia is how she shows up with a genuine love for creating and sharing beauty. Her channel has become a place where everyday gardens feel encouraged, inspired, and confident to try something new in their own space.
Jennifer Gulizia: Today we get to learn more about Claudia's journey, what feels her creativity, and the lessons she has learned along the way. Claudia, thanks so much for joining me on the podcast today. I'm so happy to have you here.
Claudia: Thank you so much. I'm so happy to be here with you today. i was really looking forward to the invite for one of these episodes. Yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: Well, I'm so glad. It's so fun to talk with you
Claudia: Yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: And it's end of November when we're recording this and it's so gloomy and dreary in Oregon. I always get excited and look forward to recording these sessions because it's so fun to connect with fellow gardeners, especially who can commiserate with the rain in Oregon right now.
Claudia: yeah
Claudia: Yeah, exactly. it's like It's like a little bit of light on these like dark, dark, dark, slow days.
Jennifer Gulizia: Yes, before we hit record, we were talking about the lighting that we're having to put on for those of you watching on YouTube, just because it's so dark outside and it's still daylight. So, yes, well, let's dig in here.
Claudia: know, it's crazy.
Jennifer Gulizia: And so for our listeners who may not be familiar with you, can you share a little bit with us about how In the Garden with Claudia first began?
Claudia: Yeah.
Claudia: Yeah, for sure. So and i always joke, like, how far do we want to go back? So it really started during the pandemic that I i felt, to be honest, I felt a little bit lost during that time just because I was making a big career change. I was in the process of applying to dental school and I was going to go to Oregon Health Science University. That was my My path was to become a dentist. It's something I was dreaming about since I was 13 years old. And then at that time, I was also working and running a research lab OHSU.
Claudia: And the pandemic hit and our lab got shut down and i got really into gardening. We were in the middle of buying our current house. And all I knew was i wanted to redo everything in our garden. I thought, okay, it would be kind of fun to record the process, but I had no intention of like doing like a full thing on YouTube. And it was really my husband, Sergey, that got into my head because I remember one day I was recording myself just putting together a container and like talking through the process. And he's like, I think you're really good at this and I think you should do something with it. And so you know cut to starting YouTube.
Claudia: and you know Instagram and all of that social media, i just was like, you know what? I'm going to completely redo our garden. i have so many stories about my failures growing flowers in the beginning and it's it's really funny to look back at.
Claudia: And this was only like four years ago and here we are today. And so you know it was just like a way to be creative and to share my learning and journey and journey with people And I thought, well, if if one person can get inspired by this and then they can go out and do it, then i think I've done something great.
Claudia: So and that's kind of how it started. It started out as like a passion that got out of control. and So now we can't stop.
Jennifer Gulizia: It happens quickly.
Claudia: Yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: I love that. So, okay, let me get this straight. You've only been gardening for four years.
Claudia: I would say, yeah, like five five years. Before that, I was growing. i was really into lilies, especially like the Casablanca lilies. And I only had like a little space to grow flowers and things that I love. And everything was in a container. So we had figs and lilies and then like a little patch of sunflowers.
Claudia: And so and I think that was in... I mean, i don't even remember, but like serious gardening, I would say started like five years ago. Like when I actually started to like, okay, this is how you dig a hole to plant a tree. This is how you do things. And then i you know, I'm a research by nature. i graduated with a biology major. And so I love anything nature related, anything science. And so I really did a deep dive into research and as I was learning about gardening. So it really took up a lot of my time and I really got into like the nitty gritty of it.
Claudia: so yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: That is so fun. Okay, so paint a picture of your backyard for us.
Claudia: Yeah. So, so our whole property is just like a tinge over a quarter of an acre.
Jennifer Gulizia: Okay.
Claudia: And so we have to be kind of creative in how we garden. So the backyard is probably like my main playing space. And I wanted to grow flowers like a farmer, but in the garden setting. i know i like i knew I wanted have low-growing beds because I wanted to be able to like see my she into my backyard. This was before we started remodeling our house, but I knew ahead of time that I was going to put in a 16-foot slider in my kitchen window going out. So I wanted to be able to see my full garden. And see things kind of low and not like have anything super raised. So our main cut flower garden takes up a bulk of our backyard. And then the surrounding border is where we really got excited about trees. And so we started planting densely. And if any of you have ever seen my garden, you're going to say you have too many trees. And it's probably true. But You know, you just maintain them and they'll they'll be fine. So we have a like pretty a pretty big border of trees and mixed shrubs and perennials and annuals. And so it almost feels like you're walking and you're kind of like in a little almost like it feels like a big garden room. And then when you come through our side garden, which is a project that I'm very excited to tackle starting this winter, probably. It opens up into this kind of lawn area, and then you have the cut flower garden, which, again, is like the main attraction for me in the backyard. So we have low-growing beds. we have We have seven beds. They're four feet wide, 16 feet long. They're a little bit wider because of the the wood that we used. And so it has a little bit of formal feel to because it's –
Claudia: There's edging around at the cut flower garden and there's gravel. So there is a sense of formality, but it's not really a formal garden. But I grow for production, so I had to be methodical about how I set up that place.
Jennifer Gulizia: It sounds amazing. What kind of flowers are you growing?
Claudia: So, mostly dahlias. I love, love dahlias. Like I can't, yeah, I can't turn it off. And so I get so excited that I get to call you my friend and like all of the dahlia farmers.
Claudia: I'm like, oh my gosh, I feel like I made it. I'm in the circle these amazing farmers.
Jennifer Gulizia: but
Claudia: And I'm like, how did I get here? i don't know, but I don't want to leave. So I think dahlias are my main squeeze. So they're my main girls in the garden. and then i love zinnias.
Claudia: I'm really, really into zinnias right now. And then we dedicate one bed to a mixed bed. So that's where we get to grow like zinnias. cosmos, caviosa, phlox.
Claudia: We did forget-me-nots. We did, what else did we do? Gosh, we did such a variety of like different flowers and I plant everything so tightly. So like I really, I'm a max, like what is it?
Claudia: Maxillist? No. When you just, when you maximize the space, I forget the word. Anyways, so I just try to squeeze in as many flowers as I can in the space that I have. So that one bed is always like fun because I'll do like Celosia and just every year try something new to see what I really love and like what brings joy to me.
Jennifer Gulizia: Oh, I love that. OK, so dahlias are your main crop in your garden.
Claudia: Yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: And I said in the intro, you're growing zone 8B. You're just outside of Portland, is that correct?
Claudia: Yeah, yeah, we're in Beaverton. And I always say Portland because nobody knows what Beaverton is. It's a Beaverton.
Jennifer Gulizia: You're the opposite side of Portland as me. There's about a probably an hour and a half distance from the two of us.
Claudia: Yeah.
Claudia: That's right. That's right. Yep, exactly.
Jennifer Gulizia: One of these days, we'll visit each other's gardens.
Claudia: Exactly. I cannot wait to come to the new farm. I'm dying to see it.
Jennifer Gulizia: Maybe wait a few months when it's not small in mud.
Claudia: yeah
Claudia: Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Jennifer Gulizia: So your growing season is probably just a little bit longer than mine. You can start planting your dahlias what time of year?
Claudia: Yeah.
Claudia: But the way I want to combat that this next year is to plant them even more shallow and then just mound up the soil as they start to come up.
Claudia: so I'm going to try to plant them a little bit ahead of time. So maybe like by mid-April, I want to be able to have our dahlias in the ground.
Jennifer Gulizia: Okay.
Claudia: Yeah. Yeah. We'll see how that goes. As long as we don't get any like wacky temperature drops, but like, I feel like we're also like in a microclimate in my backyard always feels warmer than it is.
Claudia: like even in my neighbor's garden, it's really odd. So like those microclimates really play a big role in the way I decide, like, when am I going to be putting out my flower starts or anything like that? And we also grow a lot of flowers in our landscape. That is one of the biggest things I love to do is incorporate cut flowers in the actual landscape.
Jennifer Gulizia: Is that in your backyard space or do you have a front area that you do that?
Claudia: Yes.
Jennifer Gulizia: Where is that?
Claudia: Yeah, yeah. So yeah, i completely skipped over the front yard, but we do have a really beautiful front yard that is more landscaped. Again, a lot of trees. We are playing around with moving a lot of things this next year, which we're excited about, but I always leave room for cut flowers especially things like zinnias and cosmos those play really well in the landscape and i just feel like you can never have too many flowers and if you don't have like an area for production i promise you tucking in dahlias and zinnias it's going to add beauty into the landscape but it's also going to be a way for you to have cut flowers especially with those cut and come again right so they're constantly blooming for you So instead of just using bedding annuals like your typical petunias, then I would say try a cut flower instead because that's always really fun. I love a bedding annual too because of that color show. But I do sneak in flowers everywhere.
Jennifer Gulizia: There's always room for those, especially Cosmos. It seems like they can just work themselves through everything.
Claudia: Yeah, exactly. They'll go'll find a way. They'll find a way to bloom and they'll tower everything else you have in there.
Jennifer Gulizia: so going back to buying this house, did you see this house and say, this is going to be the perfect spot for me to grow a garden?
Claudia: Yeah. Yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: Or did you buy the house and then say, I should put a garden here?
Claudia: Yeah. Well, funny story. We actually bought this house from my mother-in-law.
Jennifer Gulizia: Oh, okay.
Claudia: So yeah. So that was kind of a blessing because we were able to, we we knew we wanted to gut this house completely. And just to paint a picture, it's a one level ranch style house.
Jennifer Gulizia: Oh,
Claudia: It has five bedrooms and four baths.
Jennifer Gulizia: wow
Claudia: Yeah, it's a great size. It's a great starter. I would say it's probably bigger than a starter home that we probably needed. But because we're able to kind of set the price and feel comfortable with what we wanted to pay, that gave us a budget to redo the entire garden. and then we started this.
Claudia: remodel in our house that we're coming up on three years right now. And it's been, it's been a roller coaster. know, thankfully we don't have kids. Cause I think that would have been like an added element for, you know, family planning right now. So we're like at the tail end of, of this remodel. So I knew like this was going to be the space where I started cut flower journey. And it kind of just happened perfectly because i knew the space I knew,
Claudia: Like I know the soil, the soil wasn't great. So I was kind of like mentally prepared for what we would have to do to get the garden and the soil up to par for what we wanted to do So it was nice because I had kind of a head start of how this climate in this area behaved for many seasons. So it worked out really great for us that way.
Jennifer Gulizia: That's amazing. It's always neat when you can keep a house in the family like that.
Claudia: Yeah.
Claudia: Yeah, for sure. For sure. It's been, it's like, it's been stressful, but it's also been quite a big blessing. You know, the days that I get irritated about things not being done, but I'm also like, how lucky are we that we got to do what we got to do? So, yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: I love that mindset as I was digging dahlias today and it's taking four times longer than normal because of our new soil that's poor and has clay and we let clover go that we should not have.
Claudia: Yeah.
Claudia: Yeah. Yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: It's just taking forever. And I'm like, okay, I found myself complaining. And then I'm like, how lucky am I that I get to dig up all of these dahlias that are producing all of these tubers.
Claudia: Yes.
Jennifer Gulizia: And then my mindset just totally changed.
Claudia: Totally.
Jennifer Gulizia: So I love that you said that.
Claudia: Totally. Yeah, yeah. It's definitely something I like to like tell myself if I'm tired or if I'm this, I just think, okay, what a blessing that you're tired doing the things that you love.
Claudia: You know, like I just, that's the mentality i we have to have, especially in what we're trying to do you know, juggling so much.
Jennifer Gulizia: Yes.
Claudia: It's just, it's easy to let like those intrusive negative thoughts come in. So I just, I always try to just be as positive as I possibly can.
Jennifer Gulizia: That's such a great mindset to have.
Claudia: Yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: I want to go back. You mentioned that the soil wasn't great. What did you do to heal the soil or to improve it so that you could have such a beautiful garden?
Claudia: Yes.
Claudia: Oh, Jen, I just prayed. Okay.
Jennifer Gulizia: I wish it was that easy.
Claudia: I know, right? So like probably what your soil is, it was very compact clay. And here's the thing, clay actually does have nutrients in it.
Claudia: But when it's so compact, it's hard for plants to access those nutrients, Right.
Jennifer Gulizia: can
Claudia: So we tried a few different things. We did quite a bit of lime into into our our like holes that we were planting new things.
Claudia: We did gypsum. But really what we found what worked the best was compost. And instead of using mulch, we used compost for several years as our mulch.
Claudia: And it actually has a really beautiful finish. It's very fluffy.
Jennifer Gulizia: Aha.
Claudia: And so it actually lasts a long time and it retains the color really well. And then we also use a lot of Biotone starter fertilizer from Espoma. And that really has transformed our garden and our plants.
Claudia: let me tell you what, that like charges up your soil for anything new that you're planting. So I'm like a big, firm believer of Espoma, especially their Biotone Strider Fertilizer that has worked wonders for us.
Claudia: And I'll be honest, in the beginning, like I didn't, I was just trying everything. I did Miracle-Gro. would literally like dig a hole with a shovel and it it felt like a workout, right?
Claudia: would have to use like picks to just really go at it Now we have an auger, which is like the best thing ever.
Jennifer Gulizia: Oh, amazing.
Claudia: recommend for making an auger. Like it's a good investment. But anyways, so we would just dig these holes and then I would put like miracle grow garden soil in there and just like beg that something good would happen.
Claudia: And then I learned about Espoma and then I went down You know, the rabbit hole, just reading and reading and reading. And the science made sense to me. Everything made sense to me. And I was like, OK, I made the switch. And ever since, everything has just been growing so well in our garden. So, yeah, I think if if you are buying a house and you're starting a garden or, you know, a farm, as you probably know this. I think compost is going to be like the number one thing first. Investing in good, good compost has really made a difference for us.
Claudia: So I would highly recommend anybody do like do your research on different companies because, I think I don't always think some of those companies have best practices. So it's really important to know like how your compost is being made and where it's coming from and the sources that they're using. i think that also makes a really big difference. So yeah, I would recommend that first, like compost and then bring in your biotone starter fertilizer. Those two combined have been like the heroes for our soil. Now our soil is just like very lofty and fun to dig into. There's some areas, like we just planted a new planting strip and that hasn't been planted in years. So it was definitely like, okay, we know what to do now. We came in with compost, we came with the biotone and now the plants that we've planted there are doing fine. So, you know, it just takes time. It takes time to time and patience, but it'll get there. It'll get there.
Claudia: Yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: That's one of the hardest things. a friend is a landscape architect, and she once said to me, she said, plants, first they sleep, then they creep, and then they leap with a three-year period.
Jennifer Gulizia: So i'm trying to tell myself that.
Claudia: Yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: I'm like, okay, the farm this year is sleeping. Next year, hopefully it's going to creep. And then by year three, hopefully it'll leap.
Claudia: Yeah. Yeah.
Claudia: yeah And it happens so fast.
Jennifer Gulizia: But
Claudia: Like all of our trees are leaping. I'm like, oh my gosh, wait. didn't think about this.
Jennifer Gulizia: that's amazing.
Claudia: but Yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: The compost, though, what you said about that is such an important piece because at our last location that we were growing, I brought in some compost and I just brought in what was cheap. It was organic, but it was cheap.
Claudia: the Yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: And we had lots of problems with it. I had fusarium in it. I mean, I planted multiple rows where i lost status.
Claudia: and
Jennifer Gulizia: I lost lisianthus. I lost, I didn't lose dahlias, but the dahlias didn't do great in it.
Claudia: Okay.
Jennifer Gulizia: But I lost a whole bunch of plants.
Claudia: Great.
Jennifer Gulizia: So this time around, I was like, okay, I need good compost. And I had rexias come in all the way from Eugene, which is about four hours from here, but they deliver all over Oregon and Washington.
Claudia: Yeah.
Claudia: Oh, wow. Okay. Okay.
Jennifer Gulizia: And I didn't have money to put compost down
Claudia: Great.
Jennifer Gulizia: on everything.
Claudia: Okay.
Jennifer Gulizia: So we were working with an agronomist because we're at such scale. And so we put amendments down. But as I'm digging now, the areas that did get compost, it'll be like, I'm digging through clay.
Jennifer Gulizia: It's like four shovels through to get one tuber out. And then all of a sudden you put your shovel through and you're like, oh, this is where there's compost.
Claudia: Yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: Yeah.
Claudia: It's so nice. Right. It's so different. And you're right. It is like, it is an expense, right? It was in like, when we started this, when we started guarding, I wasn't working because our lab got shut down.
Claudia: So I had to like, really think about what, like, where can I spend my money?
Jennifer Gulizia: Right.
Claudia: Like, what was the most important thing?
Jennifer Gulizia: right
Claudia: And I am the type of girl that will always look for a good deal. So, you know, anytime a plant was on sale, I was like, i don't know what I'm going to do with it. i'm just going to buy it. But like that initial investment, yeah, it was the compost and it was a lot of money for us, you know, just to buy, you know, a truckload of compost. And we just took a leap of faith and luckily it worked. And, you know, here we are today. We still use compost quite a bit in terms of like using that as our mulch. This year we we did use mulch because we we had quite...
Claudia: we had several, several inches of compost and we felt like, okay, everything looks good now. So we brought in like a a thin layer of mulch this year and, you know, the garden did really well with it as well, but compost is going to be your best friend.
Jennifer Gulizia: It's always one of those hard things to spend money on because you're like, I've got this heap of black dirt. And I'm like, OK, remember, it's black gold. It's it's it's feeding the but biology underground.
Claudia: Yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: But at the time, it's one of those things where you you can't see the effects immediately.
Claudia: That's right. Mm-hmm.
Claudia: Mm-hmm. Right.
Jennifer Gulizia: But it does make such a difference.
Claudia: Exactly. It does. You know, I met Dan from Dan's Dahlias. absolutely adore him.
Jennifer Gulizia: Yes.
Claudia: I love him so much. We did a we did an interview with him last year. And we were off camera. We were just talking about like the compost. I have a habit. Every time I visit a farm, I touch the soil.
Claudia: Like literally like get on my knees.
Jennifer Gulizia: Oh,
Claudia: I'm like, let me just see your soil. Because everybody's soil is so different.
Jennifer Gulizia: yes.
Claudia: And so his was very like rich.
Jennifer Gulizia: Uh
Claudia: And he said he uses cow manure. And like, and he noticed his doll, his dolly is loved it. And so he, I think one year they just brought in like truckloads of it and they planted like almost directly into it and it, they did great.
Jennifer Gulizia: huh.
Claudia: And i was like, oh, that's very interesting.
Jennifer Gulizia: Wow.
Claudia: So I'd love to learn more about that from him. But yeah, I don't know if it's cheaper to bring manure in. I have no idea when you are growing at scale, like you, like, does it make sense to do that?
Claudia: I don't know, but I thought that was very interesting.
Jennifer Gulizia: Well, I know that we constantly, because our new farm is out in the country, we'll have neighbors and I'm doing neighbors in quotation marks because they're like several miles down the road, but they'll be like, we have goats.
Jennifer Gulizia: If you want to come get the manure, it's all yours.
Claudia: Yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: And I'm like, well, how am I going to shovel it and transport it I don't have the bandwidth right now, but you can often get manure for free.
Claudia: Yes.
Claudia: Yeah, yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: I'm finding.
Claudia: Yeah, yeah, for sure. People want to give it away.
Jennifer Gulizia: Yes.
Claudia: but that's a good like that's a good source. I mean, chicken manure, obviously, I mean, doesn't smell great, but, you know, that that does do a lot for poor soil as well. So we I don't think we've ever had to use chicken manure. We do have some. But, you know, with the biotone and the compost, things have been have been loving that.
Jennifer Gulizia: That's awesome. Yeah.
Claudia: Yeah, yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: and It's just such a process, but it it really does make a difference.
Claudia: It does. does. It does.
Jennifer Gulizia: So you're five years in now on your garden.
Claudia: Yeah, I would say five years and then really growing flowers on a more serious like way. I would say probably like three years.
Claudia: I would say like truly understanding how flowers work.
Jennifer Gulizia: Okay.
Claudia: I and i did take Florette's course and that was very helpful. That was one of my Christmas christmas gifts one year was the the course. And that was a tremendous help in just learning all of like the behind the scenes of how, you know, a farmer grow flowers to scale and then I had to just bring that back down into my small space and how do I do it without compromising my garden space because I think even when we have we do have a hope to buy land that's our goal for in the next like year or two is find some acres to scale up but I will always want to have like a garden or like a farm within a garden type of feel For me, that like I can't say I love one more than the other. you know they For me, they're equally important. I just want to be able to scale way up in terms of flower production. So yeah, i would say i would say about three years for sure, like flowers and then yeah gardening for five years.
Jennifer Gulizia: So you talk about scaling up, are you selling your flowers or what do you do with your flowers right now from your garden?
Claudia: Yeah, it's funny. There's this really cute quote. always forget how it goes, but my my husband always says it to me, like, when you love a flower so much that you don't want to cut it. And I feel like that is me. Like, I just love looking at all of my flowers. I just, I'll walk by them and I'll just talk to them. Like, how are you today? Like, you're all blooming beautifully. Good job. And so i do cut flowers from bouquets.
Claudia: Probably three years ago, I started doing like free bouquets for our neighbors, nurses, nursing homes, our family. a lot of my uncles are in the retirement facility world.
Claudia: And so I would bring like little bouquets to the residents. And that was always really fun, especially during that time. I literally will put like bouquets in my gorilla cart and walk around my neighborhood and like knock on people's.
Jennifer Gulizia: Oh, I love it.
Claudia: OK, because i love I like you have to I want to share my flowers. You know, I want to share and I didn't have a system set up where I could sell them.
Jennifer Gulizia: Yeah.
Claudia: So that's what I did. And then this year I actually started selling them for the first time. I i have a corporate job. So that is something that, you know, that i do have a regular nine to five on top of our YouTube world. And I just made a post in our internal communication app saying, hey, I, you know, grow flowers, blah, blah, blah. These are my bouquets. And then within like a minute or two, i had 15 orders and I was like crying, Jen. I was like, people want to buy my flowers and my bouquets. And I was it was like one of the happiest days of my life. Truly, truly like one of the happiest days of my life. And, you know, so I made all of these really beautiful bunches and I brought them into work.
Claudia: Total, total like mess, if I'm being completely honest, because transporting flowers, I don't know how you guys do it, how the farmers do it.
Jennifer Gulizia: My car smells really bad, I'll tell you that.
Claudia: it It was difficult life because we have I have a truck. And so like the water was flashing everywhere and the paper that I wrapped them in got wet. So I had to rewrap them at work in the parking lot.
Claudia: And I'm just like, you know what? we're We're just going to pivot. We're going to do it. It's fine. And so I did start selling them. And I really love that. The goal this year was to have a flower stand, but because of our filming schedule got so out of control, we just didn't get around to it.
Claudia: But I do hope to sell Dahlia tubers this year.
Jennifer Gulizia: Totally.
Claudia: we We still have to dig up our Dahlias and see how they look. And I'll probably actually pick your brain about selling online after this call, because I have a lot of questions. I know Oregon and Washington are different and A lot of our Washington friends have told me what they do, but it's like, okay, what what did the Oregon girls do? Like, what do we have to do? That's different from them. But definitely at least like a small in-person sale, I think i would I would do. Maybe team up with a couple of the other girls who do sales at their barn or their farms. I'm thinking something like that as like an introduction.
Claudia: It feels very scary to me.
Jennifer Gulizia: Maybe you can come join me at the farm.
Claudia: Yes, I would love that.
Jennifer Gulizia: I'm thinking about doing an in-person one this year because we don't have a good spot to ship.
Claudia: Oh, really?
Jennifer Gulizia: So yeah.
Claudia: Okay, then yeah, let's talk about that. I think that would be much fun. And you live in like the funnest place to visit. Oh, I love the gorge. It's so beautiful out there. So people can make like a day of it.
Claudia: You know, you can come out, explore the town, come to Jan's Farm, buy tubers, and then go back home.
Jennifer Gulizia: Totally.
Claudia: It'd be really fun.
Jennifer Gulizia: Walk through the mud.
Claudia: Yeah. Yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: Oh, hopefully it's not money by then. But yeah, that's exciting.
Claudia: Yeah. Hmm.
Jennifer Gulizia: So with your, you have a long-term goal of buying land and is that your goal to become a farmer now?
Claudia: Yeah, yeah, I do. I do think that's like the trajectory that I i see myself. I think like, again, being a gardener and filming that journey, i think ideally our dream would be to buy land that's like raw land and develop it into a beautiful garden. And, you know, open that up to people to come visit and then the farm side of it, you know, so I don't know. i have a vision in my mind of what that would look like. And I have big dreams. I'm a big dreamer. And i know what I feel I know what I want it to feel like. I just don't know how we get there. Right. Like, I know it's going all come come together. but yeah, I eventually I do think I like flower farming is going to be like a big part of our life and like kind of the path that I want to take.
Jennifer Gulizia: That's exciting. Well, I can say you're doing the right steps.
Claudia: Yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: Like if you have clarity now, that's the first piece is I always say, like for me, when I lost our growing space, I was, I thought that was the end.
Claudia: Yeah.
Claudia: Yeah.
Claudia: Right.
Jennifer Gulizia: I'm like, I don't want to give up flowers. What I do. And that was why I hired a coach at the time.
Claudia: Yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: And the one thing she said is she goes, what do you really want?
Claudia: Yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: You have to get crystal clear on that. You don't have to know all the steps to get there, but if you just know that one thing, and then you keep working towards that, every step will get you there.
Claudia: Yeah.
Claudia: Exactly.
Claudia: Mm-hmm.
Jennifer Gulizia: And then all of a sudden you'll look back and go, that's where I had to go through all of that to get me to that spot. So,
Claudia: I feel so validated in you saying that because that's exactly how I feel. Like I know what I want it to be. i just, I don't know every single step to get there, but I'm going to get there. Like there's no way I'm not going to do this. So I'm so excited about that. And by the way,
Claudia: When that happened, when you lost your groin space, i don't think we were friends yet, but I had been following your journey ahead ahead of like you and I connecting. And I honestly, I think I even sent you a message one time, like I am praying for you because i totally...
Claudia: believe in everything that you're wanting to do and that you are doing for your community, for the flower community. And I was like, something really special is going to happen for this girl. Like, I don't know what that is yet, but something really great is going to happen.
Jennifer Gulizia: Thank you.
Claudia: And look, it did, you know, and like and i and it's fun because we all get to witness it from the beginning like you're sharing from the beginning and i think that is so exciting just to see how your farm is going to grow and flourish and what you're going to do next so it's really fun to watch yeah
Jennifer Gulizia: Yeah, thank you. I appreciate that. It's it's always interesting in looking back on those things because at the time I was so devastated and I had the mindset, why is this happening to me?
Claudia: yeah
Jennifer Gulizia: And I was angry because it was like, my job was ripped out for me, like or the space that I could do my job, it felt like was ripped out for me. But when I stepped back and I got clear, it was like that opportunity, like had I not lost that growing space, I would have never been pushed to find something else.
Claudia: Yeah. Yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: And it also forced me to start the podcast because I thought that I was going to be disconnected from the industry.
Claudia: Yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: So i'm like, I can't lose my connection to flowers. So I literally a month after finding out I was losing the growing space, that I'm going to do a podcast.
Claudia: There
Jennifer Gulizia: And it was to talk.
Claudia: you go.
Jennifer Gulizia: it It was because I talked to so many amazing people on this podcast. and the amazing listeners that listen to this podcast who reached out to me said, oh, have you listened to this? Have you seen this?
Jennifer Gulizia: That my mind said, well, if they're doing this, why can't I?
Claudia: Right.
Jennifer Gulizia: and it caused me to take that next step and then that next step. And then all of a sudden, one day i changed my Zillow search from two acres to 20 acres or to unlimited acres.
Jennifer Gulizia: And here's this 20 acre farm, because in my mind, I'd always said, I can't farm 20 acres.
Claudia: Yeah.
Claudia: right yeah
Jennifer Gulizia: because that's too much. But I was looking at two acre parcels that everyone in Portland was looking at to have a big green grass lawn.
Claudia: Yeah.
Claudia: Yeah. Right? Like, why?
Jennifer Gulizia: And so as soon as I changed that, the universe was like, here's a parcel that no one else wants that you can you can develop.
Claudia: Here you
Jennifer Gulizia: and it's amazing because it's a blank slate like you talked about, and we literally get to build it from the ground up.
Claudia: go.
Claudia: Yeah. And isn't that just magical?
Jennifer Gulizia: And so I'm Yes. So I heard something.
Claudia: Yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: It was just, it was either this morning or last night. Gabby Bernstein said, when you're trying to manifest or create something, the universe has three answers for you.
Claudia: Mm-hmm.
Claudia: Yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: It's either yes, not yet, or it's not a no. I don't think it was a no. It was something though, like it's a lesson, like it's either teaching you a lesson, it's giving you a gift or it's preparing you.
Claudia: I love that. Can we all just take a minute and take that in? Because I think we all need to hear that. That's so true.
Jennifer Gulizia: so
Claudia: That is so, so true. Oh my gosh, that is so true. Like I totally feel like that sometimes. There are a days where I'm like, why not me? Why am I not there yet? Why don't I have a farm yet?
Claudia: Why, why? why my god Ready?
Jennifer Gulizia: because the right one is not ready for you yet and it's so hard when you're in that spot and you're like well why not i want it now
Claudia: right. Yeah.
Claudia: Right. Yeah, i want it now. Exactly. But my ideas, it's going to be so great. Like, I can't wait for people to see. Yeah, I this is like cathartic for me to hear that.
Jennifer Gulizia: So when you picture this farm, is it near you where you currently are? Are you open to going anywhere? What is your vision?
Claudia: Yeah. So funny enough, like we we toyed very, very briefly. We toyed with the idea of moving to like the Midwest for like a split second. i was like, what about Texas? I'm like, no, no, we can't go to Texas. We even thought about like upstate New York because there's really good land there for, you know, for affordable like it's affordable, you know, anywhere like in the West Coast, everything is so expensive here.
Claudia: Like the it's just so expensive to buy land up here. And we quickly realized, especially Sergey, that he cannot be anywhere where there's not salt water.
Claudia: So our friends ask, well, what about like living near a lake? And he was like, no, it has to be salt water, but we don't wanna live on the coastline. So I think our dream place is Washington.
Jennifer Gulizia: Mm-hmm.
Claudia: So we have been very diligent about looking at what's available up in Washington, up north. We love the Skadja area. i love the Skadja area so much. So like anywhere up there, I think is where...
Claudia: will I think we dream of end up being we could potentially maybe find something here in Oregon, but I think we want something new. We want something different, you know, and we want and we want to find a small community, too. Like we like the small town. we like that, like sense of community. I feel like we don't have that here. I love our neighbors.
Claudia: Great neighborhood. But I just want that like farm life community. And I think there's there's a very big presence of it up there. anywhere like that i think is where where we hope to be yeah
Jennifer Gulizia: That's exciting. So you mentioned that you have a corporate job and that's where you sold some of your flowers this year. So you are literally juggling your YouTube creation, being a gardener, like, cause you don't have just a small garden with a couple of raised beds. You have a full scale garden that demands a lot of your time and you have a corporate job.
Jennifer Gulizia: How do you juggle all of that?
Claudia: I don't, you don't sleep. Like you just, something's gotta give. No, it's going back to like what we're saying, like when you really love something and you're tired all the time, I just keep telling myself like, again, how lucky am I that I get to do this?
Claudia: And my mom even, she'll tell me like, don't ever complain about being too busy or too tired because you're doing things that you love. Like just, you know,
Jennifer Gulizia: Thank you.
Claudia: Say your prayers for for for having all of that. So to be honest, it's very hard because my corporate job is demanding and it's a regular, you know, eight to five Monday through Friday. Some weeks I feel like I work 50 hours. Sometimes it's a little bit slower because we work with, you know, different projects.
Jennifer Gulizia: Wow.
Claudia: And we've been doing that for a little over a year and now, full time. So I feel like I've been on YouTube full time for a year. And it's really thanks to my friend Janie again at Dig Plant Water Repeat.
Claudia: She really got into my mind about it when she came to our garden. But anyways, so it is a lot of work because I film and I edit my own videos too. So it's all us. And so I would say between my corporate job and YouTube, I probably put in at least 70 hours a week.
Claudia: in terms of working, filming, and my job and all of that. Luckily, my husband, Sergey, is really supportive. And so he will get things set up. you know like If I'm doing a specific project that day and I might need my table, I need all of you know i need these vases because I'm going to make an arrangement. I need this. I need that. Like he's really good about like, what can I do to get you set up so you can just start filming? So that is very helpful. Like having a partner that supports your dream and can help. That's great. I'm just very particular about how I want my videos to look. That's why I choose to do my own editing. But the days that we post our videos, I'll be honest, most of those days I don't go to bed to at least one o'clock.
Claudia: in the morning and then I had to get up by seven, you know, to start my job at eight.
Jennifer Gulizia: wow
Claudia: So you do sacrifice, a you know, quite a bit of your time. Sometimes it's not that demanding because, you know, you have more daylight and you have a little bit more flexibility, but especially in the wintertime, it's a lot more challenging for me because we, yeah I can't always just leave my job during the day to go film a video.
Claudia: Sometimes I can, and then I can make up those hours after, after hours when it's dark. But it is very demanding. It is. But again, it's doing what we love to get to where we want to be.
Claudia: So, yeah, I don't I don't want to stop. And eventually I think YouTube will be our full my full time job. We're just not there yet. Yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: So with the YouTube, you said your husband inspired you or mode encouraged you to start this.
Claudia: Yeah. Yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: Did he have a background in video or how did you guys decide that we're going to go in on YouTube?
Claudia: No, we had no idea what we were doing. We we literally learned like as we went. so He told me we were very honest with each other because he was also working on his master's degree and he had his own career goals. And so we were very clear that like, OK, if you do this, like you have to learn how to edit. You know, you have to learn how to put together a workflow when you're editing like that's on you. He did the research for like buying all of the equipment that we needed. So in the beginning, I'll be honest, and you don't have to do this if you start YouTube.
Claudia: We spent thousands of dollars on cameras and mics and like what what's the best thing and, you know, all of the silly stuff. I promise you, you could do it on your phone. So many big YouTubers do it on their phone and you would never know. And their footage is great. So you don't need to spend a ton of money.
Claudia: on equipment. Just good audio is going to be the most important thing. And then we just really started. Like i I quickly learned that everybody has their own way of editing and filming a video on YouTube. and there's always going to be crossover because we're all gardeners. There's only one way to film me planting a tree or a rose or talking to, you know what I mean? Like,
Claudia: there's going to be a crossover. But what I found helpful is watching other YouTube channels. So, like, uh, just to see like the angles that they film in.
Claudia: So it had nothing to do with gardening or flower growing. It was just other YouTubers that I watched. Like there was one guy who reviews camera equipment, but I love the way he edited his video.
Claudia: So like, I started to pick up tricks there. And then I went on YouTube to learn how to edit videos. That's how I learned. So yeah, we there was a lot of this ups and down how we got there.
Jennifer Gulizia: Okay.
Jennifer Gulizia: What advice would you give to a gardener or flower farmer who's listening today that's either started a YouTube channel or thinking about starting a YouTube channel? What should they know?
Claudia: Yeah. So I'll be honest. I'm a hype girl and I'm always going to hype you up. Not a lot of people in this community is like that. I'm being completely honest. And so that's a little bit disheartening. So I think focus on what you love and stay in your own lane Imposter syndrome is very real. So do not compare yourself to other people. i was doing that for such a long time. That's why in the beginning I wasn't consistent because I always thought everything had to be perfect before I filmed anything. and That's not true. People want to see...
Claudia: the real, like raw, everything that's going on. So if it's messy, if you have a bunch of pots, if you have a bunch of trees or plant, like whatever, just show that because that's real life. And so don't think you have to be perfect or you have to look a certain way or have a certain amount of property or flat, like whatever. If you want to do it, then do it. And don't watch other YouTubers in your in your niche because you're going to compare yourself all of the time. Don't do it. Like I just, I don't watch any other gardeners anymore because I just, like I wish everybody well. I frankly just don't care what anybody else is doing. I just want to do my own thing. And so just like have that focus. So that is the biggest advice I can give you just have a focus and just stay in your lane and like
Claudia: you know, do what you wanna do. And don't try to reinvent the wheel either. People always think you have to be creative in this. It's about what's already out there, but how do you put your own spin on it? So don't be shy that like, oh, I was inspired by this person, but I'm gonna do it my way. We all do it. There's nothing like new to recreate, you know, to create out there. So it's not about copying people, but it's about taking an idea or something that you see somewhere and then you make it into your own.
Claudia: And so don't overthink it and do it. Like if you want to do it, you should just do it. And it's going to suck in the beginning. You're going have like 10 viewers. then it slowly starts picking up and picking up. And, you know, yeah, you your your your channel will start growing. So just just do it.
Jennifer Gulizia: I love that it's almost, well, it is kind of, it can be a journal. Like it I see some people call it their vlog instead of a blog.
Claudia: Yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: Because I started out blogging and now I'm like, I wish I would have started out just telling the stories instead of having to write them down.
Claudia: Great. Yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: It would be so much easier.
Claudia: I do too. Yeah, because we're visual learners, you know, and I think that's what I think our industry has to recognize too. it's It's hard for me to sit down and read an article. It's really like my attention is just not there.
Claudia: But if I see Jen, if I see you walking around your farm just watching with your phone showing us, I'm like, oh, I want to see this. This I can like tune in and like get excited about.
Claudia: So don't be shy from like social media because one, it's free marketing and it's a good way to put yourself out there.
Jennifer Gulizia: Right.
Claudia: And if you have something of value to sell, like that's the way you build your audience and just connecting with people. I'm a people person, so I love to connect with people. So i I love to share my little, like what I'm doing in my own little corner of the world.
Claudia: And I love my audience. I do. My subscribers are the best. At least I have the best subscribers. I love them so much. They're great.
Jennifer Gulizia: No, when you say you love your subscribers, i I don't fully understand YouTube. So do you have connection?
Claudia: Yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: Do you actually talk to the people that watch your channel or do you engage with them?
Claudia: So. Yeah, I engage in the comments.
Jennifer Gulizia: Okay.
Claudia: don't always get to reply to every single comment that comes in. But I do see I read every single one of them. And so and you start to see like your regular subscribers that tune into your videos, you know, on the days that I post.
Claudia: I post every Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday morning.
Jennifer Gulizia: Wow.
Claudia: That's when videos go live. so you start to recognize the names, you know, and then sometimes they'll send me a message on Instagram and I've met so many of them at different local events that they drove out to just to meet me in person. And I thought, like,
Claudia: Why? Like how? Like how? It's so exciting, you know, and it's all of these amazing people online that you get to connect with. And so it's just like Instagram, but it's on YouTube. People comment and you get to connect with them that way. And it's really fun. Like I i truly love meeting, meeting them in person, but just also talking to them in the comments section. It's really, really fun to learn, you know, to learn from them as well.
Jennifer Gulizia: That's great. Can I ask you a few more YouTube questions?
Claudia: Oh, please. Anything. I'm an open book. I promise.
Jennifer Gulizia: Okay.
Claudia: I'm an open book.
Jennifer Gulizia: So you mentioned that audio is important.
Claudia: Yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: How do people record with good audio? Because I mean, my cell phone's right here.
Claudia: Yes.
Jennifer Gulizia: If I'm just walking around my farm, I actually can get really good video, but I'm in the Columbia Gorge.
Claudia: Yes.
Claudia: Right.
Jennifer Gulizia: For those of you that don't know, we're called the windsurfing capital of the world for a reason.
Claudia: Right.
Jennifer Gulizia: It is so windy here. So I have posted videos and people will comment, I can't hear anything because it's so windy.
Claudia: Yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: And I'm like, I've got a muffler on my phone and it's still terrible. How do you get good audio?
Claudia: Yeah. So good audio. So you have to invest into a good mic system. The first one I ever had was Rode, R-O-D-E. And that one, yeah, that one worked good for for a while until I switched to DJI.
Jennifer Gulizia: I use those, yeah.
Claudia: And that's my preferred one. So it's like it comes in a little box and they're two little mics and you just clip them on. Really take time to understand how that one works, because there is a feature on the DJI one that does noise canceling.
Claudia: If you have it, it's like if it's blinking blue, it's not noise canceling. If it's blinking green, it's noise canceling. So that's really important is to like make sure that you're blocking out all of the other noises behind you.
Jennifer Gulizia: Okay. Sure. Okay.
Claudia: And you can connect that to your actual phone or a camera. For my main camera that I film with, do you do you care to know about this? Like I'm honest, I use an action four or five cameras.
Jennifer Gulizia: sir
Claudia: So it's kind of like a GoPro. I like GoPro too. I just like the action better. It's also a DJI camera. And that's really my main camera that I like to film everything. Sometimes I supplement with my phone.
Claudia: I will say like your iPhones, especially the newer ones, have a sharper look to them. So if you don't want to invest into a camera and you just want to invest into a mic, get the DJI mic and then use your phone. You can pair the two together. And then we use a bigger Sony camera to do like B-roll shots when we do garden tours and farm tours. But I also supplement that again with my phone and I just shoot in 4K at 30 frames per second. So you really can do just about everything with your actual phone, which some days I'm like, I'm in a pinch and I'll just grab out my phone as long as my audio is good because you can actually record audio directly to your mic and then export that audio.
Claudia: And then for editing, I just use Final Cut Pro, which was the easiest one for me to understand. There's the Adobe one, which is a little bit more complicated and, you know, you can really get get into all of like all of the the bells and whistles if you want but I found that Final Cut Pro was just the like super user-friendly and easy to learn there wasn't a big learning curve with that one that's what I remember
Jennifer Gulizia: That's good to know. I've used just iMovie to edit so far.
Claudia: oh yeah I'm going to break
Jennifer Gulizia: and it's it lacks a lot of things, though.
Claudia: Right. But it's like, that's great I think that's what I started with too. And then you if you purchase Final Cut Pro, I think it's just like a one-time purchase. And then you really like, you're it's kind of like iMovie, just more advanced.
Claudia: And then you can really just go on YouTube and watch tutorials.
Jennifer Gulizia: OK.
Claudia: And so you just learn that way. That's how I learned. And there are still things that I could do better, but I'm also... I'm not trying to make things flashy and like fire fire emojis or, you know, sound of effect like I don't nobody cares about that in our space.
Claudia: You know, we're not.
Jennifer Gulizia: We're not a tech industry.
Claudia: Yeah, we're not like, what's his name? What's his name? Mr. Beast. you know Like we're not trying to be like that.
Jennifer Gulizia: Yes.
Claudia: Like that's a whole different world from like flower and gardening. So don't overthink it.
Jennifer Gulizia: Right.
Claudia: Don't overthink. As long as your content is good, that's what's important.
Jennifer Gulizia: That's great to know.
Claudia: Yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: Okay, so then once you go to publish something on YouTube, it asks for a title and a description.
Claudia: Yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: How important is that?
Claudia: It's so important, but so it can be really annoying. I won't lie, you guys. like there There are times, let me just give you like a little behind the scenes. You will watch one of my 20 minute videos. That video might have taken like four hours to film.
Claudia: probably like another five hours to edit depending on what it was if we have multiple angles because and then you have to export all of those clips, align everything perfectly. It's exhausting. And then at the very end, you still have to come up with a creative title and a thumbnail.
Claudia: Just like why? And so i do think it is important. So for your thumbnail, what I like to use is Canva. It's just C-A-N-V-A. It's really easy. and i And I try to keep it simple. Like again, I don't I don't want to make things overly complicated.
Claudia: i like Canva because you can brighten a picture. So usually I'll just take like a picture from a scene in the actual video, take a screenshot of that.
Jennifer Gulizia: and
Claudia: And that will be my thumbnail. So I upload it to Canva. I might make it a little bit brighter. Don't, don't like do like a ton of editing you guys. Like when you do like the face tuning that looks so fake and like, you don't look like that in real life.
Claudia: So don't do it because it's really awkward. so don't try to make yourself like look into somebody that you're not. And then with your titles, the cool thing now on YouTube, it gives you a feature that you can try out three different titles and it'll tell you which one is performing its best.
Jennifer Gulizia: Oh.
Claudia: and I really just tried to keep it simple. Like I, I tried to pick up like a fun line that we had in the video and like, okay, what are we doing today? And I really just base it off of that.
Claudia: And then I do like a really short description. Again, i don't overthink it and publish it. And some videos do really great and some videos flop and you're like, why, like what happened?
Claudia: Why, why didn't people want to watch this? It was such a good video, you know? So I think it's also like learning your audience, is really important and paying attention to like, okay, what did they like? What don't they like? And a lot of them will be vocal and it can be me and they, some people can be very mean.
Claudia: So you have to have tough skin. so just be ready for the criticism. but you know, you just kind of pick up on like what works for you. Cause something might do really well for another gardener or a farmer, but it's not going to translate to you.
Claudia: Like they don't care about that from you They want to see something else from you. So really understanding your audience and your analytics is important. So take time to learn that. And I'm a data analyst. So, you know, it's it's nice because I actually get excited to read those charts.
Jennifer Gulizia: Well, if you're a data analyst, you maybe have heard Peter Drucker's quote, you can't manage what you don't measure.
Claudia: i yeah Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
Jennifer Gulizia: Back in my business days, that was one of my favorite quotes. And I still love diving into analytics.
Claudia: yeah. yeah
Jennifer Gulizia: I do have to say, you mentioned Canva. I was a professional photographer before starting my flower business.
Claudia: Yeah.
Claudia: Oh,
Jennifer Gulizia: And I spent many a days, many a nights in Photoshop. And I don't even know the last time I opened Photoshop because of Canva.
Claudia: yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: Because it's so easy.
Claudia: Oh, yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: It's so amazing.
Claudia: You know what's funny? So many of the farmers, like the flower farmers that I've met, guys are such good photographers. And I'm like, why aren't you posting more? Like, you know, like I feel like you get so in your mind, like you want to critique every little thing, but I'm like, why? This is perfect. Like you should be doing more. Like you shouldn't struggle with any of this because you're so good at it. You know what I mean? So it's like, just put it out there. Just put it out there. And exactly like Canva, It's like, I think it's like a $15 subscription a month for a pro version, which I do recommend you get. Cause then you, if you want to do like text overlay or a certain feature like that, then you can do that. so yeah, it's super easy. Keep it simple. Like again, we're not Mr. Beast that we need to like you put up a building blowing up behind us. you know it doesn't have to be complicated at all.
Jennifer Gulizia: I love what you're saying. It reminds me of what Amy Porterfield says. She says, done is better than perfect.
Claudia: Mm-hmm. Yes. Sometimes you just have to submit what you have, right? That's even like in the corporate world. Sometimes it's like I can get so, if there's even like a 0.5% error in my data, I'm like, oh no, I have to, like why? Like what's causing that error? And it's like, just get it out. Like it needs to go out to leadership. Just put it out there.
Claudia: Like just let it go. you know doesn't have to be 100% every time because, and then you'll just, you'll get into this rut of like, not doing it.
Jennifer Gulizia: Yeah.
Claudia: You know what I mean?
Jennifer Gulizia: Well, you hit a nerve with me because I can't even tell you how many pictures are on my camera. Like I have a professional, I have three professional cameras because I used to be a professional camera photographer.
Jennifer Gulizia: And so I, and I've barely taken any pictures on my camera. I have, I've probably taken 10,000 pictures on my cell phone this summer.
Claudia: Yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: But how many times have I posted on Instagram this year?
Claudia: Yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: It's terrible because I overanalyze everything I take and I'm like, oh, that's not good enough.
Claudia: Okay. So,
Claudia: Thank you.
Jennifer Gulizia: I'll retake it. And then I never get around to posting.
Claudia: Right, right. Okay, so your homework, okay, we're all going to keep you accountable.
Jennifer Gulizia: Perfect. I get homework.
Claudia: i think This winter, because there's nothing going on in our garden, you're going to do a lot of like throwbacks, okay? Throwback to, I don't know, pick a Dahlia, pick three, do your carousel and post your pictures. I'm going to literally be waiting to see pictures from you now. Because also, i do I do love when people post pictures on Instagram. Just, you know, when you do Instagram, you want to put like a carousel. So not just one photo, do multiple.
Claudia: But yes, we're all going to be like, hey, Jen, where are those pictures?
Jennifer Gulizia: Right.
Jennifer Gulizia: You said you have a lot on your camera.
Claudia: We're ready.
Jennifer Gulizia: Prove it.
Claudia: From like years ago, I don't care. I just want to see your beautiful photos because you you get so inspired, you know, by seeing beautiful things like that. And then it gets you excited for springtime and all of that.
Claudia: Yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: Absolutely. I think... I don't know. I can't speak for everyone, but I've met so many people in the floral industry that are also perfectionists. Like were striving for perfect for perf.
Claudia: Yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: i can't even talk here as I'm trying to say perfection.
Claudia: and
Jennifer Gulizia: We're striving for perfection. And it's like, oh my gosh, look at nature in front of us.
Claudia: Yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: Like, If you overanalyze every bloom, none of them are perfect.
Claudia: It's not.
Jennifer Gulizia: there's you can I'm sure you can find a flaw in every one of them, but when you just look at it, it's like, this is beautiful.
Claudia: Yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: It's perfect as is.
Claudia: Right.
Jennifer Gulizia: So why do we hold ourselves to such a high standard?
Claudia: Right. Right. Right. And I think it's like, I think there's a difference. Like, I i think it's okay to spend time creating things because sometimes people just post things to post things. I'm like, what value are you adding into the world by just posting that? I think there's an app for that. Like TikTok is a great place for just like,
Claudia: unfiltered, raw, go, you know, where like if you want something a little bit more curated, it's okay to take time to do something beautiful. But if you're the like, if you're zooming in to make like every little detail perfect and you're in your spending time editing a flower, like that's not real at that point. You know what I mean? Like you've just put something out there that's beautiful, but that's not real.
Claudia: So, you know, like don't get stuck in that. I know like, you you know, you're photographer, like the important things is good lighting, your shadows, et cetera. But other than that, it doesn't have to be like,
Claudia: There's a spider web in that photo. You know what I mean? Like just post it. At that point, you just need to post it.
Jennifer Gulizia: Right.
Claudia: Yeah. Yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: I overthink everything.
Claudia: It's easy to be critical on yourself. Yeah. It's really easy to be critical on yourself.
Jennifer Gulizia: And the funny thing is, is we don't, like the things we think about ourselves, we don't ever analyze on someone else's picture. Like if someone else was to take that picture and I didn't realize it was out of my camera, I probably would never even second guess it.
Claudia: No.
Claudia: Yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: I just go, oh, look at that beautiful picture.
Claudia: Right.
Jennifer Gulizia: Here's a heart. And I'm going to keep scrolling.
Claudia: Exactly. And like I sometimes, you know, you go down the rabbit hole and you're just scrolling and sometimes I'll just like come across like a flower page and I'm like, oh, my gosh, I'm just like obsessed with all of her photos.
Jennifer Gulizia: Yes.
Claudia: But if I sat there and like zoomed in, I'm sure I can find flaws. But but who's going to do that? You know, like nobody's going to do that.
Jennifer Gulizia: Right.
Claudia: So, yeah, you're always going to be harder on yourself. Like the things that you think about probably things that none of us will ever think about when we're looking at your your photos.
Jennifer Gulizia: That's such great advice.
Claudia: Yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: I'm looking at the time here and we have covered so much already and I could talk to you for hours.
Claudia: Yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: We got to meet at Marin from the Farmhouse Flower Farms book signing at Powell's Books this spring, and we've been able to continue our conversations
Claudia: Yeah. For sure.
Claudia: Yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: since then. And it's been so fun getting to know you. And I can't wait till we can do some garden swaps. And we were chatting about maybe some antique shopping before this call started because we're so close.
Jennifer Gulizia: But before I say goodbye to you tonight or this evening, is there anything I haven't asked you that you would like to share with our listeners?
Claudia: yeah
Claudia: Yeah.
Claudia: you know, i just like what, whatever you're trying to do right now, if you want to get into like the gardening world, if you want to get into the social media world, just do it. Don't let yourself, like your life is too short not to do what you love. and Nobody's going to judge you as harsh as you're going to judge yourself because people just don't care and everybody has something going on in their life right now that I don't have time to judge somebody and like critique them.
Claudia: So just, you know, if you are really serious about doing something like that, then I think you should do it. I'm really excited for this next year in terms of like our videos that we're going to be doing too.
Claudia: So I hope people tune in. We have so many wonderful interviews lined up. We have a series called Meet the Farmer, Meet the Gardener on our YouTube channel where we visit different gardens and farmers and interview them.
Claudia: And i love storytelling. i love telling people's story to the world. i have met some of the most incredible people in this series and we have quite a really great lineup for 2026.
Claudia: So if you want to get inspired and learn like how these amazing gardeners and farmers got started, I hope you tune into those. Jen, you're definitely going to you're on the list for 2026.
Jennifer Gulizia: I would love it.
Claudia: So I cannot wait to come interview you and just show everybody your beautiful space. So, and I'm always here if you ever have any questions, if anybody just needs candid answers, I'm here.
Jennifer Gulizia: I love that.
Claudia: Yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: What advice you wish someone would would have given to you when you were starting out?
Claudia: Yeah, so in terms of like social media or general,
Jennifer Gulizia: Just in general with the garden and where you're at now.
Claudia: embrace your failures. i think, I'm, I'm somebody that's really hard on myself. Like if I kill a plant or, you know, I, so I have a dolly tuber and for some reason something happened in store, right. And they're right. Like I, I, I get so hard on myself. I just, there are points I even cry cause I'm so mad at myself for failing at something. And life is just way too short to hold on to things like that. So,
Claudia: Just like our gardens and flowers, they change through season. So do we. And just embrace that change and be easy on yourself. Like let nature teach you life lessons. Don't be afraid to kill plants because you're going to do it. And it's actually at this point, I think it's more fun because and then it's like, OK, what could I have done better? don't worry about plant spacing as much as you think you need to, because I push those boundaries all the time. so we can talk about that at another time. And if you, again, if you want to get into social media, yeah, it's a hard space to be in, but there's too many creative people out there who are too afraid that get stuck in this, like,
Claudia: in this rut of not posting just because they're too afraid of what the world is going to say. But I promise you, people are going to connect with you, you know, and you're going to find your audience and you're going to find a group of people and you're going to create a community that you probably never thought you would ever have a reach to. And it's going to be so beautiful. So just don't be discouraged. Just go for it. Like literally just do it. Like, don't be afraid. Just do it. And if it doesn't work out, you can close the account like whatever, you know, And yeah, just like it's whatever. Nobody cares. Like nobody is going to care as much as you do. So yeah. And just have fun, have fun in the garden, try things, plant things that you shouldn't plant next to each other to see what happens. I do it all of the time. I don't have technical training. So my garden sometimes can feel like the wild, wild west, but it's beautiful. It works. Yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: I think sometimes those are the most beautiful gardens.
Claudia: Yeah, I do too.
Jennifer Gulizia: they
Claudia: when yeah When we were in Chelsea this last year in England, we went to the English countryside and boy, that really, really changed the way i think about gardening now. So a lot more relaxed and less rigid than I was because I'm a neat freak.
Claudia: So now I'm just like, manh that's fine. That's fine. Let those leaves drop. That's fine. let that crawl over there where it shouldn't be zinnia popped up where i didn't plan it that's fine too embrace it embrace mother nature because it's going to be so much better than trying to control it yeah
Jennifer Gulizia: Oh, that's really good advice to end on right there. Embrace mother nature instead of controlling it.
Claudia: yeah yeah yes
Jennifer Gulizia: Okay. Final question here. Where can our listeners connect with you?
Claudia: Yeah, for sure. I'm better at responding to comments and things and messages, i would say on Instagram. So in the garden with Claudia on Instagram and then on YouTube, again, in the garden with Claudia, we post Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. So if you ever have specific questions, I would recommend, that you know, in those videos. But yeah, just reach out yeah if you questions.
Claudia: If you have questions, I would say my email is not the best place just because if you have just a general gardening question, social media is the way to go where that's more of like business inquiries. So, but I'm always here to chat and talk and give any advice that I can.
Jennifer Gulizia: Well, this has been so lovely. It's been so fun chatting with you and you gave us some great advice and I've got some action items, including posting more on social media myself.
Claudia: you.
Claudia: Yeah, we're all watching her.
Jennifer Gulizia: So you guys, you're all watching.
Jennifer Gulizia: You can hold me accountable. Well, I can't wait to connect with you again. For sure, when you find that piece of land, you'll have to come back on the podcast and share that with us. And we'll be cheering for you and sending you positive energy for finding that place when the timing is right.
Claudia: Thank you, Jen. I had so much fun talking to you today. We could go on and on and on.
Jennifer Gulizia: We could.
Claudia: Yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: i enjoyed this so much. Thank you, Claudia. We'll talk to you again in the future. Bye-bye.
Claudia: Thank you. Bye-bye.
