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This is Later with Lee Matthews,
The Lee Matthews Podcast More What You Here

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Weekday Afternoon's on the Drive. Summer
rain Oaks is a YouTuber who's on a

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mission to bring people closer to plants
and bring plants closer to people. You

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may have seen her YouTube production called
Plant one on Me and her creation of

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the house Plant Masterclass. She's a
podcaster now and her new podcast is called

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Bad Seeds. It can be heard
on the iHeartRadio app and everywhere you get

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podcasts. Summer rain Oaks, good
to have you along. I'm happy to

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be here. Thanks for having me. Your Bad Seeds podcast is about the

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biggest black market we've never heard of. What is that black market? Well,

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it's the illegal stuff and smuggling around
plants and the plant market. And

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I think for those of us who
love plants, are into indoor and outdoor

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gardening, we probably have seen some
news articles cross our paths at some point

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about how houseplant market is booming,
that millennials and gen z are really into

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house plants, and in some cases
some people think that that has fueled this

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rare plant market. Now, the
reality is that rare plants have always been

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out there There's always been people plant
hunting for plants, but it has boomed

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during the pandemic. And this is
a huge issue for a lot of different

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reasons, and it's a giant wildlife
trafficking issue that often gets underreported. So

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we decided to come together to produced
Bad Seeds, which is kind of like

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allah true kind crime podcast, to
raise awareness on this and to tell people

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some of the almost unbelievable stories I've
read about orchid poaching in the Florida Everglades.

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But that's about the extent of any
type of plant poaching I've ever heard

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of. Is a lot of it
in the United States or is it more

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so in other countries? It's it's
all over, you know. Orchid poaching

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in Florida, of course, is
a big one. Orchids have always been

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kind of a lustful item for plant
people, and there are it's the most

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diverse plant group that's out there,
and they are everywhere. But actually some

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of the most endangered plants and most
poached plants are cacti, psychads, and

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conifers. And you know, if
you think about cacti, I mean a

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lot of that is in North and
South America, and so, uh,

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you know, our southwest and in
parts of Peou and Chile and everything along

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those lines have had definitely some poaching. And then of course we think about

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plant sefta as well, and you
can think about it from our own botanic

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gardens, which are there for the
public and the public enjoyment and the public

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education and also nurseries. I've had
friends and friends of friends who have gotten

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plants picked off just in nursery environments
as well, just by people going through

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the garden. Yeah, just by
people going through the gardens saying I want

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that plant, and and it's it's
crazy, but like you know, plants,

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even rare plants and plants that are
just unique go for thousands of dollars,

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tens of thousands of dollars. And
now because it's the amount of plants

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is not as much as the demand
for them at this stage, and a

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lot of these will go to collectors
or for people who are just like unknowing

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that they might actually be purchasing something
that is had been maybe plucked from the

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environment or unscrupulously harvested. So bad
seeds is really just raising awareness for this

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issue because when you think about like
wildlife crime, you think about like maybe

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elephant ivory or tiger claws or anything
along those lines, which you know obviously

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is a big issue, But plants
often get underreported for I think maybe obvious

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reasons is that sometimes we just take
them for granted. Bad Seeds is the

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podcasts and Summer Raine Oaks is the
producer of the podcast. It's about illegal

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plant poaching. What branch of government
is charged with enforcing this kind of thing,

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Well, oftentimes it's like you know, the US Fish and Wildlife Service.

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You know, in some cases there
had been especially in agricultural areas,

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there had been police departments that had
been set up specifically for plant thieves because

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plants was a big part of the
economy. That's but that's really few and

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far between. I think the challenges
is even if we have regulations and enforcement

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around it, a lot of times
in what you'll find out if you listen

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to the podcast is that is people
stealing these plants, which may be worth

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tens of thousands of dollars on the
market or hundreds of thousands of dollars in

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some cases millions of dollars on the
market, they're really getting just a slap

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on the hand. Comparatively, so
you know, very few will get like

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a jail's time, and most of
the time people will get a very light

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sentence with like volunteer service and then
and then they get charged to fine,

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and then that fine goes back to
maybe a botanic garden or the US Fish

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and Wildlife Service or anything along those
lines. So I think we just have

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to become more aware of it,
especially because like as the economy shrinks and

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the pandemic happened, there's a lot
more people looking for creative ways in order

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to be able to make funds.
And sometimes you can't fault people for trying

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to put food on the place,
but in some cases it's getting way more

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organized and it's becoming definitely part of
like organized crime in the black market.

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She hosts a house plant masterclass and
YouTube's Plant one on Me, Summer rain

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Oaks and the Bad Seed podcast heard
on the iHeartRadio app and everywhere you get

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podcasts. What does a driving the
demand here? There's got to be a

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demand somewhere for this type of poaching. Yeah, Well, there's a researcher

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who's out there named Jared Margoulis,
and he actually just wrote a book.

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It's coming out in November and he
was you know, most if you read

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the headlines, you would think that
it's you know, my era of millennials

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and zoomers who are fueling it,
which may or may not be true.

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But he went to go to South
Korea and a lot of these plants are

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actually making their way over to Asia, and he found that some of the

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demand really is from very high end
collectors who want very specific plants and will

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go to all you know means in
order to be able to acquire that plant.

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You know, back in the Victorian
era or like in the eighteen hundreds,

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wealthy individuals would send out and higher
plant collectors and plant hunters to go

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to some of the most crazy places
in the world and in some cases get

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killed just to harvest plants. And
we're kind of seeing that but in a

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different kind of more modern way,
and people are using channels like on telegram

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and WhatsApp. You'll find them on
places like eBay and fd and you'll find

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these kind of rare plants just crop
up and being sold, not by people

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who usually own nursery licenses or anything
along those lines. So that's part of

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the awareness building is to help arm
folks who are in the houseplant market and

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who are looking for plants, how
to be a bit more mindful on how

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to get proper plants and not plants
that had been perhaps by perchance, plucked

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from the environment unscrupulously. Because it's
not like you're going to go over to

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a friend's house. Oh yes,
here is my picasso. Oh and here

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is my very cannibulous, grociferous whatever
orchid. I mean, it's not like

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that that you see that a lot. You would be surprised if you go

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into if you would go into South
Africa, for instance, the homes that

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have very large psych ads in their
backyard are worth millions of dollars, you

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know, just because you have that
psych had collection. And you know,

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and look, I look, I
find some part of the reason why I

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want to do this podcast, and
you know, I was highlighting some of

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this stuff on my YouTube channel as
well, is that, you know,

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in a way, I feel partially
responsible because I helped usher in this idea

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that that plants are wonderful. And
you know, I have obviously no control

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over how people become obsessive or not, but I wanted to do this podcast

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to help people understand this underreported nature
of unethical plant harvesting and the detrimental ramifications

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that could have on the environment,
and how can we be more aware of

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what to look out for as plant
lovers. But you know, I used

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to do and I still do,
like houseplant on boxings or we'll do houseplant

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home tours, and people love showing
off their indoor and or outdoor plants,

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and you know the rarer it is. And I actually stopped using even that

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term in my subject headers because it
actually fuels this kind of obsessiveness. And

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even though I love plants, I
wouldn't consider myself an obsessive. And I

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think that part of my responsibility now
as somebody who loves plants and loves being

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outdoors as well, is to actually
highlight this kind of the dirty side of

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it and to really give ourselves a
chance to look at ourselves in the mirror

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and say, hey, you know, is this healthy on so many different

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levels? So Raine Oaks, the
podcast is Bad Seeds. You can also

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see her YouTube channel plant one on
Me. We thank you for bringing this

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to our attention and the podcast is
available everywhere you get podcast, including the

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I Heart Radio A well. Thanks
for having me, Thanks for listening to

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Later with Lee Matthews, the Lee
Matthews Podcast, and remember to listen to

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The Drive Live weekday afternoons from five
to seven and iHeartMedia presentation