Speaker 1: It's Night Side with Dan Ray on WBS Boston's radio.
Speaker 2: I've been doing the show for nearly eighteen years, and
Speaker 2: a few weeks ago, a great mutual friend of ours
Speaker 2: us being at Jan Goodman, the owner, the founder and
Speaker 2: owner of city Scapes Boston, was telling me my friend,
Speaker 2: our friend Walter, that I have to have Jan Goodman
Speaker 2: on as a guest, and we finally set this up.
Speaker 2: I am thrilled to introduce to my audience Jan Goodman,
Speaker 2: the owner and founder of city Scapes. She talks about
Speaker 2: the power of plants as being transformational. She has been
Speaker 2: doing this for three decades and we're going to learn
Speaker 2: a lot about plants in the next couple of hours
Speaker 2: and how they're actually very good for us and also
Speaker 2: something called biophilic Bill Phillick design biophilic design. So, first
Speaker 2: of all, without any further ado, Jed Goodman, welcome to Nightside.
Speaker 2: How are you this evening?
Speaker 3: I'm very good Dan, it's thank you so much for
Speaker 3: having me on. This is exciting, Well it was.
Speaker 2: It was all Walter's idea, and he's a great friend
Speaker 2: of yours, and I know he's a great friend of mine,
Speaker 2: and I just wanted to a little tip of the
Speaker 2: hat to to our friend tonight and talk about this. Look,
Speaker 2: I am not the most learned person when it comes
Speaker 2: to plants, but I've learned a lot in the last
Speaker 2: day or so just going over the variety of things
Speaker 2: that your company does. You know, obviously, exterior landscapes, We've
Speaker 2: walked by many of them in Boston. Interior landscapes, that's
Speaker 2: that's understandable. But then things like living walls, which are beautiful.
Speaker 2: Other other moss walls, living fur not sure, a little
Speaker 2: play in the.
Speaker 3: World for nature, for nature, nature for nature.
Speaker 2: I'm there, all right, we got it. I like that
Speaker 2: holiday decor. We've got so much to cover, as well
Speaker 2: as transplanted, which is which is a great a great cause.
Speaker 2: And I just like to start at the beginning. When
Speaker 2: did you fall in love with flowers? When did you
Speaker 2: fall in love with plants?
Speaker 3: When I was very young, my dad was an organic
Speaker 3: gardener before the term was even famous cos coined. I
Speaker 3: don't think organic was even I don't know in the
Speaker 3: sixties seventies. So he had a very large garden and
Speaker 3: in everything was you know, no pesticides. He had a
Speaker 3: huge compost pile which was very smelly in the backyard,
Speaker 3: but very He taught us a lot about growing six
Speaker 3: with tomato plants, and we used to can hundreds of
Speaker 3: like cans of tomatoes and pickles and you name it.
Speaker 3: Always loved the garden.
Speaker 2: Did he do that, you know, professionally or was it
Speaker 2: an for him an avocation.
Speaker 3: It was for our family of six basically, so it
Speaker 3: fed a lot. We had a lot of produce. And
Speaker 3: I you know, he always is like, you know, get
Speaker 3: out in my garden or the garden. It wasn't always fun,
Speaker 3: but he used to always say, you know, you have
Speaker 3: such little fingers. You know, you can plant the carrot seed.
Speaker 3: So it always made me feel good that I was
Speaker 3: the carrot planter, the seed planter. But it was kind
Speaker 3: of just the growing and the feeling of the soil
Speaker 3: that brought me to the houseplant world when I was
Speaker 3: probably I don't know, it's old enough that I could
Speaker 3: get on the bus in Manchester, New Hampshire, and I'd
Speaker 3: take my allowance. We all, you know, back in the
Speaker 3: day of allowance, and we get it on Saturday mornings.
Speaker 3: So I'd take the bus downtown to this little flower
Speaker 3: shop called slur Lye and I'd buy little house plants
Speaker 3: and then I'd take him home, so much of a
Speaker 3: plankeek I am. I bring them home, put them in
Speaker 3: my bedroom and have like little name tags, and I
Speaker 3: name them like they were my pets, Charlie and Harry.
Speaker 3: And I'd have these little house plants that I thought,
Speaker 3: you know, love to take care of. So it goes
Speaker 3: way back. I was like ten years old or so, and.
Speaker 2: He ignited in you what became your vocation. But you, you,
Speaker 2: it wasn't as if you inherited. Some people these days,
Speaker 2: they they inherit a company that their grandparents or their
Speaker 2: parents had founded. You didn't. You started off with working
Speaker 2: in your own boss for some time. But it was
Speaker 2: not always that.
Speaker 3: Way right now. I went to you and h University
Speaker 3: of New Hampshire and I got, uh yeah, I loved it.
Speaker 3: Went for horticultural technolology and landscape design, you know. I
Speaker 3: went for the four year school to get a bachelor's
Speaker 3: but it was all too much like genetics and all
Speaker 3: that stuff the first year. So I was like, oh,
Speaker 3: I just want to get my hands dirty. I didn't
Speaker 3: really want to get into the pathology and all that stuff,
Speaker 3: which I learned quite a bit, so I switched to
Speaker 3: the Thompson School the second year and I got the
Speaker 3: more applied school, so a lot, you know, a lot
Speaker 3: of learning about you know, landscape design and just a
Speaker 3: lot about plants, basically ecology and all that fun stuff.
Speaker 3: So I graduated from there and then I started working
Speaker 3: for a company called City Gardens and it was great
Speaker 3: because I'll never forget the ad. In fact, the City
Speaker 3: Scapes uses that ad sometimes. So it said in the
Speaker 3: Union Leader in Manchester it says, you know, love plants,
Speaker 3: question Mark, love people, question Mark. And I'm like, yes, yes,
Speaker 3: and this is the job for you. And it was
Speaker 3: because you know, I love talking to people, love love plants.
Speaker 3: And it was basically I started with a water bucket
Speaker 3: in my hand and I watered plants for a company
Speaker 3: out of Boston, but I was still in New Hampshire
Speaker 3: in Manchester, and I watered plants at different banks, like
Speaker 3: the Bank of New Hampshire back in the day. Sounds
Speaker 3: so old on it.
Speaker 2: And building I used to reporting met. The first time
Speaker 2: I interviewed Jimmy Carter was on that.
Speaker 3: Place way absolutely, yeah, the Dempshire Plaza.
Speaker 2: August of seventy six, Uh yeah, he was the Democratic
Speaker 2: nominee and I had I had interviewed him previously and
Speaker 2: that was the first time I interviewed him as the nominee.
Speaker 2: So I know that well, I know Manchester, New Hampshire.
Speaker 2: Over the years, Uh, every four years we spend a
Speaker 2: couple of weeks up there. We used to spend a
Speaker 2: couple of weeks up there. It's great. It's great city,
Speaker 2: particularly when it's when it's really bumping with politics on
Speaker 2: p Yeah. So you conquered.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, so I was. I grew up in the Anchester.
Speaker 3: So I was watering plants all first a company out
Speaker 3: of Boston, but they had they had accounts in New
Speaker 3: Hampshire and Maine, and I was watering plants. I'd go
Speaker 3: into the Amascig Bank, I'd go into the Hampshire Plaza.
Speaker 3: I'd go into all these different accounts manpower, you know,
Speaker 3: and I had water their plants. And then after a
Speaker 3: year or two there was never really anybody selling up
Speaker 3: there and or designing and adding on to the portfolio.
Speaker 3: So I went to the sales manager at the time,
Speaker 3: I but my Roger Schiever, and I was like, I
Speaker 3: can do you know, I could sell plants. I can
Speaker 3: do this, you know, And the first time he's Nope, Nope,
Speaker 3: I didn't get the job. So I continue to water
Speaker 3: plants and I'm like, all right, I'm not going to
Speaker 3: give up. So I had another salesperson. She didn't work out.
Speaker 3: So then the territory came up again and I was like,
Speaker 3: I can do this, Roger. I'm telling you, I can
Speaker 3: do it, and it's like, Nope, didn't get it to
Speaker 3: second time. You know, I was young. I was young,
Speaker 3: but that's okay. So I was like, I'm telling you,
Speaker 3: So I didn't get it, they hired somebody else. They
Speaker 3: failed because it's hard because you work for a Boston
Speaker 3: company more expensive. You're up in New Hampshire and Maine
Speaker 3: and whatever. You're trying to sell a Boston company to
Speaker 3: you know, New Hampshire people that are like, that's just
Speaker 3: too expensive. So yeah, so the third time I tried, yeah, yep,
Speaker 3: I did. I walked in with these landscape plants I
Speaker 3: had from college. I laid him on his desk to
Speaker 3: prove that I could do the drawings and things like that,
Speaker 3: and I could. You know, my clients loved me at
Speaker 3: the time. It was it was it was great. I
Speaker 3: loved taking care of plants because, like I said, people
Speaker 3: and plants. So I did it. I got the job.
Speaker 3: So I started selling in New Hampshire and Vermont and
Speaker 3: everywhere all over you know above not in Massachusetts. But
Speaker 3: so I started creating a territory up there, which is
Speaker 3: funny because I ended up being a competitor, a competitor
Speaker 3: of a woman who came to my one of my
Speaker 3: classes at un huh. She her name was Nincy Carlisle,
Speaker 3: wonderful businesswoman, had a great business up and conquered, and
Speaker 3: she came to our class at un h to talk
Speaker 3: about interior landscaping. So I was feversually taking notes and
Speaker 3: I'm like, oh, I want to be Nancy someday. And
Speaker 3: fast forward a few years later, I'm competing against her.
Speaker 3: I'm taking some of her clients, and I was a
Speaker 3: best to her. But you know, we respected each other.
Speaker 3: I didn't do anything, you know, it was just it
Speaker 3: was funny because when I, you know, I sold in
Speaker 3: New Hampshire. After a few years doing really well, there
Speaker 3: was a Boston territory that came out and it was
Speaker 3: the best territory. So I went from the lowest kind
Speaker 3: of salesperson the least revenue to the highest. I ended
Speaker 3: up moving to Boston and taking this.
Speaker 2: That's what we called a big break. But you make
Speaker 2: your own yess here, and you were and you were
Speaker 2: ready for it. We're going to pause there for a second.
Speaker 2: I'm going to take a couple of commercial messages here.
Speaker 2: But I've characterized you as the Queen of Plants. I
Speaker 2: don't know if you accept that title, or the Princess
Speaker 2: of plants, whichever you would like. That's a little bit
Speaker 2: more alterative.
Speaker 3: Fairy godmother they called me on chronicle one time.
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, well I think the Princess of plants. Again,
Speaker 2: that's alliterative, so I always think alliteration. Anyway, we'll get
Speaker 2: back jan Goodman as our guests. From where she came
Speaker 2: and what she has built is what's extraordinary. And along
Speaker 2: the way we're going to learn a lot about plants
Speaker 2: tonight on Nightside. If you have any question, if you've
Speaker 2: had trouble, look, one of the things here in New
Speaker 2: England that all of us should remember is we're not
Speaker 2: a growing season. I mean, we have winter. Winter comes
Speaker 2: in sometime in late August and doesn't leave until early June.
Speaker 2: I'm being a little sarcastic when I say that, but
Speaker 2: we have a long winter here and that is not
Speaker 2: that's not great for plants. We're not Florida. But Jan
Speaker 2: Goodman has been able to conquer that. We'll talk about
Speaker 2: that and how she came in and really has conquered
Speaker 2: Boston and some of the great, great projects that she
Speaker 2: is that she is involved in, including Transplanted Transplanted Sprout,
Speaker 2: which provides charity money. We've got a lot to talk about.
Speaker 2: If you have a question or common if you had
Speaker 2: trouble blowing growing a plant, this is the this is
Speaker 2: the option you have right now. The numbers are six
Speaker 2: one seven, two, five, four, ten thirty or six one
Speaker 2: seven nine thirty. We're coming right back on Night Side
Speaker 2: with Boston's Princess of Plants, Jan Goodman.
Speaker 1: You're on night Side with Dan Ray on w b Z,
Speaker 1: Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2: We're delighted to be talking with Jan Goodman. Jan is
Speaker 2: the owner of City Scapes Boston. So, uh, you start
Speaker 2: off as an employee, and you're still an employee, but
Speaker 2: then at some point you decided, hey, I can do this,
Speaker 2: and you set up your own flower shop called flirtatious, uh,
Speaker 2: which I was in Copley Place Mall for a number
Speaker 2: of years. So now you are a business woman at
Speaker 2: this point, still dealing with the subject that you know
Speaker 2: best and that you love the most.
Speaker 3: Plants tell us about it, right, So for ten years
Speaker 3: I worked for my previous you know, city gardens, and
Speaker 3: they were great. I would stayed there forever, Like even
Speaker 3: though it was the largest, one of the largest in
Speaker 3: the nation. I loved it because they took good care
Speaker 3: of us. But then they got bought out by a
Speaker 3: huge company from across the pond, and it just was different.
Speaker 3: So I decided, well, I'm going to leave. I don't
Speaker 3: care if I work in the nursery or whatever from
Speaker 3: minimum wage. Again, I was going from the top of
Speaker 3: the food chain of the you know, high sales person
Speaker 3: selling in the back bay and hospital district to like
Speaker 3: I didn't care because it wasn't about money for me.
Speaker 3: It was more about I loved what I did. So
Speaker 3: one of my clients was Copley Placed, so I knew
Speaker 3: the landlords there. I knew them well, and they had
Speaker 3: the scar shop, that wash that had closed, you know,
Speaker 3: the legal seafoods and sex four so you're like, why
Speaker 3: don't you move in? So I was kind of at
Speaker 3: the time. Knew a lot about Bond's eyes and things
Speaker 3: like that, and I honored the non compete that I
Speaker 3: had signed where I wouldn't go after any of my
Speaker 3: accounts because integrity, to me is pretty important because a
Speaker 3: lot of people were leaving at the time and they
Speaker 3: were stealing accounts and quietless and I just didn't do that.
Speaker 3: I said, nope. So that's why I didn't do interior
Speaker 3: landscaping right away. For a couple of years, I started
Speaker 3: this little flower shop Bonzeie dried flowers called Flirtatious at
Speaker 3: coffee place.
Speaker 2: And Nice, a nice little double Entendra.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I waited. So I didn't really have any
Speaker 3: formal training in flower arranging, which is crazy, but I
Speaker 3: feel that either have you don't, Like I definitely had
Speaker 3: the green thumb that was from my dad or just
Speaker 3: every thing that I you know, sometimes you have it
Speaker 3: or you don't. With that too, you can learn, but
Speaker 3: with design, I feel it's hard to really force that
Speaker 3: if you don't have that eye. So I just started
Speaker 3: buying flowers. I didn't even have a floor schooler, and
Speaker 3: I'd go to the market, and a little by little
Speaker 3: I'd buy flowers and more flowers, and then all of
Speaker 3: a sudden, as the you know my company, you know,
Speaker 3: I'd have one employee and then maybe then then then another,
Speaker 3: and then we'd start doing flower arrangements for like the
Speaker 3: Marriott and the Fairmont Copley Plaza. I don't know how, Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's crazy. My husband now, he worked at the Flower Exchange.
Speaker 3: I met him there and his grandmother, Betty, was one
Speaker 3: of the original woman owned floors businesses in the United States. Ever,
Speaker 3: Like she was in Hingham called Levels, and so she
Speaker 3: taught me so much about how to make a boot
Speaker 3: and and all that stuff. Because ended up I did
Speaker 3: weddings at the Fairmont, like and I did Tiffany's flowers,
Speaker 3: you know, the Tiffany and Company. And we would be
Speaker 3: doing like big, huge flower arrangements and they're thirty thousand
Speaker 3: dollars base and I was like, I don't want to
Speaker 3: pick that thing up. I don't want to drop it.
Speaker 3: So it just progressed, and after my two year noncompete,
Speaker 3: all my clients, my older clients started to come to me,
Speaker 3: like Christian Science Center was one of my big first
Speaker 3: new accounts, and ended up getting like the John Hancock portfolio,
Speaker 3: which was huge, and I just started kind of mimicking
Speaker 3: what I had learned about. Well, I knew how to
Speaker 3: take care of plants, but about the structure of how
Speaker 3: you have people going out watering them and if they
Speaker 3: die you replace them for free, so you price it
Speaker 3: with a guarantee involved.
Speaker 2: Well, again, that's just good business. I mean, that's you
Speaker 2: know that application can food business, plant businesses, whatever. If
Speaker 2: you if you're selling snow tires and they're blowing out
Speaker 2: at fifty miles, you better be able to replace them.
Speaker 2: So things grow, things grow, and just as Chauncey Gardner
Speaker 2: said in the movies, you know it, water it and
Speaker 2: it will grow. And you watered your business and it grew.
Speaker 2: But when did you get to interior and exterior landscape,
Speaker 2: because that has to be the next big step I
Speaker 2: assume after Yeah.
Speaker 3: So right, So I had flirtation and this is when
Speaker 3: Walter actually that you know worked for me a million
Speaker 3: years ago. He would help he would help me in
Speaker 3: the in the shop and deliver some stuff for me.
Speaker 3: He drove the flirtatious van. But you know it as
Speaker 3: an epiphany, ended up marrying the flower guy at the
Speaker 3: flower market, and when we started having kids, had flirtatious
Speaker 3: still doing the flower arrangements in the shop. But then
Speaker 3: I decided after a few years, when you know, it's
Speaker 3: very hard. Everybody thinks I'm gonna have a flower shop
Speaker 3: and it's so easy and fun playing with flowers. It
Speaker 3: is grueling. It's seven days a week, forget about Valentine's
Speaker 3: Day and every holiday. It's a hard business. It's fabulous,
Speaker 3: but it's not what everybody thinks it is. And so
Speaker 3: one day I just remember, you know, you did maybe
Speaker 3: five hundred dollars in a day. That's a busy day
Speaker 3: in the flower shop, like you just bust in out right.
Speaker 3: But I'll never forget. Somebody came in and they bought
Speaker 3: one six foot like palm tree, you know, bamboo palm
Speaker 3: in a brass pot, and that was like six hundred
Speaker 3: dollars just one plant in a pot or whatever it was.
Speaker 3: And I had it delivered by Walter I think probably
Speaker 3: took it, who knows. And I was like, that was
Speaker 3: so easy. I think I'm going to go back to
Speaker 3: the interior landscaping and again, so then I started cityscapes.
Speaker 3: That's when I incorporated, and I had two businesses for
Speaker 3: a little while well, but after I started having kids,
Speaker 3: I was like, something's got to go, so I let
Speaker 3: the flower shop. I sold the flower shop business off
Speaker 3: because I ended up having quite a few clients that
Speaker 3: we did weekly flower arrangements, and I decided to be
Speaker 3: have more of a normal life Monday through Friday, not always,
Speaker 3: but to start a corporate landscaping business, and that's where
Speaker 3: city Scape started. I incorporated that in so I started
Speaker 3: for Lictatious in nineteen ninety two, and in two thousand
Speaker 3: and I incorporated city Scapes. And it was just like
Speaker 3: one account, then another account, then another, and another and another.
Speaker 2: Grew the metaphor the metaphor, look, I got to take
Speaker 2: a break out.
Speaker 3: So I started. Yeah, I started interior, but then my clients,
Speaker 3: like say the Maria Long Wharf, who I still have
Speaker 3: thirty two years later, they have exterior landscaping. So I
Speaker 3: was like, oh, I can do their pots outside. Then
Speaker 3: I started doing exterior, which is a lot harder in
Speaker 3: the city because, like you were saying, in the winter
Speaker 3: and the wind and the salt and you know, from
Speaker 3: the road salts and the building.
Speaker 2: I'm sure, I'm sure you you'll learn to everything. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I got to take a break for the news at
Speaker 2: the bottom of the hour. And again we invite folks
Speaker 2: if they have any questions about anything we're talking about.
Speaker 2: This is not the normal coin of the realm here
Speaker 2: on nights Side. But I like to do things differently
Speaker 2: and I like to mix things up. And I appreciate
Speaker 2: Jan taking her time on a Friday night, not for
Speaker 2: me a Friday night, because tomorrow I'm off on Thursday
Speaker 2: night and we'll we'll get some phone calls at six
Speaker 2: one seven, two, five four ten thirty or six one seven,
Speaker 2: nine three one ten thirty. And I also want to
Speaker 2: talk about Transplanted Boston and Transplanted Sprout and all the
Speaker 2: great work that you have done for charitable work. So
Speaker 2: so not only have you done good, but by doing well,
Speaker 2: but that is the key. Not only have you have
Speaker 2: you seen succeeded and have you literally you know, flowered
Speaker 2: as a business, but you've reached out and helped other people,
Speaker 2: which is I think what is most most important for
Speaker 2: any business. We'll take a quick break back with Jan
Speaker 2: Goodman and calls and more conversation here on Nightside.
Speaker 1: You're on Night Side with Dan Ray Boston's News Radio.
Speaker 2: My guess is Jan Goodman. She is the older founder
Speaker 2: of City Scapes Boston. Jan, you you've had an incredible career.
Speaker 2: You've you've done it with help of people along the way,
Speaker 2: no question, but you also have given back a great deal.
Speaker 2: You were impacted, I believe by a trip that you
Speaker 2: took to Peru. We we know a little bit more
Speaker 2: about Peru because we just had a pope elected, and
Speaker 2: the American pope who spent a lot of time in
Speaker 2: Peru never ran across Pope Leo when you and Peru,
Speaker 2: I assume, right, right, Okay.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So I went on a few service trips there,
Speaker 3: some mission trips with my church and my sixteen year
Speaker 3: old daughter at the time, my oldest Samantha, and it
Speaker 3: changed my life pretty much. We went three times, but
Speaker 3: and really saw some i awakening, you know, poverty, obviously joy,
Speaker 3: a lot of joy too. It wasn't like, you know,
Speaker 3: we think we're there when you're on a mission trip
Speaker 3: or service project to do good for them, but you're
Speaker 3: they're actually you're bringing back the fruit of what you
Speaker 3: learn and what you see. So what happened when I
Speaker 3: came back, I felt like, yes, the business was successful.
Speaker 3: This was like in twenty nineteen, and we had been
Speaker 3: doing a lot of charity work here and there with
Speaker 3: you know, Hope and Bloom and all these different places.
Speaker 3: But I just knew that there was more impact that
Speaker 3: we could have on the on the city and the
Speaker 3: the world basically by doing something else. So when I
Speaker 3: came back from Peru, I said, you know, what can
Speaker 3: we do to do a more more of an effort
Speaker 3: to do more charitable work for our own town in Boston?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 3: And so I saw, I don't know, an ad, I
Speaker 3: saw this picture of a plant truck in New York
Speaker 3: and I was like, oh, I do a plant shock.
Speaker 3: That's pretty cool. And I said, but let's do it
Speaker 3: for charity. So I designed a truck that it was
Speaker 3: all custom designed with a glass top. It's called the
Speaker 3: Roaming Greenhouse Sprout right, And so it's like a little
Speaker 3: plant shop on it, like it's like, yeah, it's a
Speaker 3: food truck, but it's a plant shop, you know.
Speaker 2: It was.
Speaker 3: It was custom made for us. So what we do
Speaker 3: is we go to our clients' offices and we have
Speaker 3: little pop ups and we bring all the plants and
Speaker 3: the containers and all the profits go to the charity
Speaker 3: that they pick, which is nice, not just one charity.
Speaker 3: They get to pick the charity they wanted to go to.
Speaker 3: So it means a lot to the clients and we
Speaker 3: and we asked the charities to come and they can
Speaker 3: have a table there, they can talk to people about
Speaker 3: their their their work. And I mean we just big,
Speaker 3: you know, big Sister Association, Boys and Girls Club. There's
Speaker 3: so many. So it started in two thousand and nine
Speaker 3: and still growing strong out there and I think, you know,
Speaker 3: raising probably over one hundred thousand at this point in
Speaker 3: charitable donations to all kinds of local and you know,
Speaker 3: national international charities. My daughter helps start it in twenty
Speaker 3: nineteen and fast forward six years later she's heading up
Speaker 3: the whole department with other things including our Sprout pop
Speaker 3: up shop downtown Boston on Summer Street. You have.
Speaker 2: I shouldn't say that we're taking advantage, but you have
Speaker 2: made the most of you know, this this gift that
Speaker 2: you have in giving back. I have one other question
Speaker 2: before we get to phone calls, and that is this
Speaker 2: concept of bio design. That's a concept that I see
Speaker 2: on your website and I don't understand what that means.
Speaker 2: Can you explain that?
Speaker 3: Sure? I can give you a nice simple definition. So
Speaker 3: bioso design, it's a design approach that connects people with
Speaker 3: nature by incorporating natural elements like my favorite plants, but
Speaker 3: not just that light, so lots of windows, water, natural
Speaker 3: materials like nice wood, liveage, tables, things like that incorporated
Speaker 3: into the built environment. And what it's rooted in. It's
Speaker 3: in the concept of biophilia. Have you ever heard of
Speaker 3: that term, dan, I have not. Bio biophilia. It aims
Speaker 3: to enhance well being, health and productivity by tapping into
Speaker 3: Biophelia means the innate affinity to the natural world. Basically,
Speaker 3: it's the bio is life and phelia is love. So
Speaker 3: it's the love of life or the love of living systems.
Speaker 3: So the design concept that is within the idea that
Speaker 3: humans have an affinity toward the natural world. I mean,
Speaker 3: think about COVID, how many people bought house plants. It
Speaker 3: was the biggest craze I've seen in by forty two
Speaker 3: year career. Like, there were so many people crazy buying
Speaker 3: plants because they were stuck inside and it ended up
Speaker 3: being the biggest boom that the industry has ever had.
Speaker 3: And it just makes people feel better. There's so much
Speaker 3: science stand that is related to this that proves and
Speaker 3: the studies that are showing, you know, increase in productivity
Speaker 3: by fifteen percent if there's biosoke design in an office,
Speaker 3: you know, with more not just plants like I said,
Speaker 3: but natural light. I mean, how about if you sat
Speaker 3: in a cubicle, I don't know, maybe you did years ago,
Speaker 3: no window next to you, cubicle after cubicle, and that's
Speaker 3: kind of depressing when you think about it. So the
Speaker 3: benefits of cubicles, yeah, it was so having a bit
Speaker 3: a beautiful environment. We work with tons of architects on
Speaker 3: bioflog design and we're consulting, you know, with a lot
Speaker 3: of architects on that. It reduces stress and improves your
Speaker 3: mood and it actually enhances creativity. Harvard does study have
Speaker 3: to study all these big research you know colleges are doing,
Speaker 3: you know, studies about focus and plants improve the air quality.
Speaker 3: In fact, the Eale's doing a big study right now
Speaker 3: on that. But it's not just that just makes people
Speaker 3: feel better.
Speaker 2: Sure, it also just adds to the uh to the
Speaker 2: comfort and the cleanliness and the smell absolutely, so I
Speaker 2: now want to say what the word means. But again,
Speaker 2: as you're your slogan transforming people's lives through the power
Speaker 2: of plants, let's let's get to some phone calls because
Speaker 2: I think the number of people would like to speak
Speaker 2: with it. The only line we have open is the six, one, seven, nine, three, one,
Speaker 2: ten thirty. Let me go first to Joe, who has
Speaker 2: a question. I believe Joe, you have a question about
Speaker 2: medicinal value. Correct.
Speaker 5: Yes, I know I called about plants. But could I
Speaker 5: take ten seconds to tell Jim my favorite flowers.
Speaker 2: I would prefer you just go write to your question Joe,
Speaker 2: to be if you could do it in ten seconds, Joe,
Speaker 2: I'll put you on the clock.
Speaker 5: Go ahead, Okay. My favorite flowers are roses, tulips, and
Speaker 5: Glenn Campbell's record sunflower. That's why I like sunflowers.
Speaker 2: All right, I've written that down, Joe. I'll keep that
Speaker 2: in my memory bag. What's your question for Jim?
Speaker 5: I'd like Jim to elaborate on plants being used for
Speaker 5: herbs and for medicine.
Speaker 4: Okay, good questions, Juistic, I am.
Speaker 3: One hun homeopathic. If you know what that word means,
Speaker 3: are herbal. I don't take any type of you know,
Speaker 3: pharmaceutical drugs. It helps. It's it's just it's almost like
Speaker 3: it's back, it's back in the day. But it works
Speaker 3: better than I believe in most pharmaceuticals, you know. Depending
Speaker 3: so like echinatia, elderberry helps improve the immune system. I
Speaker 3: have a lot of energy right or but I do
Speaker 3: have ADHD. I'm self diagnosed. I was never but for
Speaker 3: my to try and focus, I use ash Wa Ganda.
Speaker 3: Have you ever heard of that? Ashua Ganda helps you
Speaker 3: calm down, helps you focus. It's a root, you know.
Speaker 3: At night I take I actually grow my own camo
Speaker 3: meal or Tulsi, holy basil and all that to make
Speaker 3: herbal teas and then you drink that before bed and
Speaker 3: you sleep like a baby. So that you know stress
Speaker 3: and anxiety. Cam a meal digestive health, like do you
Speaker 3: have inflammation, you have a stomach problem, peppermint gingre you
Speaker 3: can just make you take. You can buy ginger in
Speaker 3: a store and just boil it kind of have to
Speaker 3: oil it and then make a tea out of it,
Speaker 3: and it helps your digestice systems, just like turmeric. Did
Speaker 3: you ever hear a turmeric. What is it arthrightis turmeric
Speaker 3: is another route and it's really really good for arthritis.
Speaker 3: Annie inflammatory. I know a lot about herbal remedies, and
Speaker 3: you know just mint, mint is really good for you.
Speaker 3: There's there's so many men. There's a lot of books
Speaker 3: on it. There's a lot of really good herbal therapy books.
Speaker 2: And Joe, you've got a lot of good information here
Speaker 2: from someone who knows. So I hope that you've at
Speaker 2: least made some mental notes and maybe you'll become an
Speaker 2: expert in that area. Joe, I got to run. We're
Speaker 2: up on our break. Appreciate you all very much. Thanks Joe,
Speaker 2: Thanks Joe. There he goes, Jan. We're going to take
Speaker 2: a very quick break. We got a couple of more
Speaker 2: calls for you at least, and we have there's a
Speaker 2: line of two opens, six, one, seven, nine thirty. Quick
Speaker 2: question for Jan Goodman right here on night Side. I'm
Speaker 2: learning a lot. I hope you're learning as well. We'll
Speaker 2: be back on Nightside right after this.
Speaker 1: Night Side Dan Ray on w BZY, Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2: My guest is Jan Goodman, founder and owner of Cityscapes.
Speaker 2: As I like to say, she's the princess of plants
Speaker 2: here in Boston. Let me go to Walter. Well, I
Speaker 2: know who this guy is. Hey Walter, welcome, how are
Speaker 2: you sir?
Speaker 3: Good?
Speaker 6: Nick, Good evening. I just want to make a small
Speaker 6: trivia to you, Dan and Jam. The two key ingredients
Speaker 6: to your success are one, you both have a very
Speaker 6: keen eye for detail throughout the years. The second thing
Speaker 6: is you both possessed an enormous heart for others. It
Speaker 6: said that if if we help out this on our way,
Speaker 6: then our living is not in vain. So both of
Speaker 6: you are living has not been in vain. And y'all
Speaker 6: keep going what y'all been doing.
Speaker 4: Have a great night.
Speaker 2: Walter, Thank you very much.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 2: Also were in that category, Walter, trust me. Yeah, he's
Speaker 2: an incredible guy.
Speaker 6: Another name for Jan is Christmas Queen. See, he's the
Speaker 6: Christmas Queen. You knew what you did at Christmas.
Speaker 4: He's the best.
Speaker 2: Is a great guy, I mean, unbelievable. John. Let me
Speaker 2: go next to Jake in Roxbury.
Speaker 7: Jake, you go ahead, Jake, God Dan Jan uh Yeah, Hello,
Speaker 7: how are you so? You're at City Scapes and I'm
Speaker 7: read next door at City Fresh Foods.
Speaker 4: I'm very, very impressed with your company. Yeah, you guys
Speaker 4: do the Prudential Center, right.
Speaker 3: We do the big living walls there and we get
Speaker 3: the yeah here for years. Yeah, that big living wall.
Speaker 4: That's a wonderful, such a wonderful you know setup you
Speaker 4: have that. I see you guys sometimes working that wall,
Speaker 4: and Dan, I know you probably haven't been in a
Speaker 4: little while, but it's really a psight to see over there.
Speaker 2: But look, I've been looking at pictures of it and
Speaker 2: prepping for this show. It's amazing the work that they do.
Speaker 2: Amazing you get and you get to enjoy it. Next door.
Speaker 3: I like that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well I actually grew up right next door City
Speaker 4: city Scapes is right next to City Fresh Food, so
Speaker 4: we are we are absolutely neighbors right there, so we're
Speaker 4: both located there in Roxbury. So it's really a funny
Speaker 4: thing that she's on tonight and I'm listening to the
Speaker 4: owner of City Scape. That's really really great. I love
Speaker 4: your trucks. They look great, and your people always be
Speaker 4: courteous and things of that nature.
Speaker 3: I hope you get to pick up the plants we
Speaker 3: leave out on the sidewalk, that the gently used ones
Speaker 3: that we don't like to throw away and we leave
Speaker 3: them out all the time for people in the neighborhood
Speaker 3: to take. Really, I did not know that I'll have to.
Speaker 6: Come and see you then, looks looks Jake.
Speaker 4: I'm an off site manager. But but yeah, that's that's excellent.
Speaker 4: So very very thrilled, very happy for your business. And
Speaker 4: as I said, I see you talk throughout the city
Speaker 4: and you know, damn once again, you've you had me
Speaker 4: called twice in almost a week. That's that's amazing. I
Speaker 4: always listen. We talked about my mother mama flow. Yeah,
Speaker 4: well put together.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, I remember that phrase. Yeah, Jake, appreciate it.
Speaker 2: I really do appreciate appreciate it very much. We'll talk again.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Dan, Thanks Jake. Talk to good night. Okay,
Speaker 2: let's go have well let's go about three quarters away
Speaker 2: across the country. Let's go to whatever our most loyal listeners,
Speaker 2: who I think probably is a planned person to Laurie
Speaker 2: and Idaho. Laurie, you're on with Jan Goodman of City
Speaker 2: Scapes in Boston.
Speaker 8: Hello Laurie, Hi, Hi Dan, Hi Jam. I just kind
Speaker 8: of aim blown away by your story and your talent
Speaker 8: and your energy, and I wish I lived in the
Speaker 8: Boston area right now, because I would probably apply to
Speaker 8: come work for you. But yay, amazing, Well we do.
Speaker 3: We do work across the country. I have friends in Idaho,
Speaker 3: So do you want to get into the plant business?
Speaker 3: I can, yeah, oh yeah, friends everywhere. Yeah. I'm the
Speaker 3: president of Green Plants or Green Buildings, which connects kind
Speaker 3: of the whole mission of biophilia. You know, plants in
Speaker 3: the built environment, so we have connections all over. It
Speaker 3: wants the country, you need it, and I do, damn
Speaker 3: the right.
Speaker 8: I do love plants, and I love container gardening because
Speaker 8: I've done that while my first when I first moved
Speaker 8: into my townhouse, it had no real place to do anything,
Speaker 8: but it had roof deck and balconies, and so I
Speaker 8: get into that. So I love doing the roses and
Speaker 8: tree roses. But I have a question for you, if
Speaker 8: I may, is there any way you can grow peonies
Speaker 8: and a container?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I mean, you know, if you want them to go,
Speaker 3: it has to be a really good sized container. And
Speaker 3: you're in Idaho. So the problem with a lot of
Speaker 3: containerized plants in the winter is it freeze and thaws.
Speaker 3: So when you got to give it enough area for
Speaker 3: your roots, right, so it'll come back. Maybe you can
Speaker 3: cover it. But what the key is is if you
Speaker 3: have these containers, is that they're nice and thick and
Speaker 3: maybe somewhat insulated. And then when it kind of February
Speaker 3: March is when it could start thought freezing and dawing, right,
Speaker 3: so all of a sudden the plant roots are all
Speaker 3: isolated in their dormant because they're frozen. Then all of
Speaker 3: a sudden you get this saw in March or February.
Speaker 3: It's dry, right, so the ice is gone, the ground
Speaker 3: isn't frozen, especially in the container, and then it dries
Speaker 3: out so drives the roots out. So if you get
Speaker 3: if you keep it in the container over the winter
Speaker 3: and then all of a sudden you have a saw,
Speaker 3: you got to get that plant watered so that when
Speaker 3: it freezes again, it'll freeze the root ball again. So
Speaker 3: when we do big living walls in New England, which
Speaker 3: is tricky, we do them in pots, so it's like
Speaker 3: we almost have to go in water them in like
Speaker 3: February March when there's a saw, so that they can,
Speaker 3: like I said, refreeze so they can go back into
Speaker 3: dormancy because you're taking them out of dormancy when Oh yeah, Gage, it's.
Speaker 8: Not a good idea.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you could do that, you could, you could, you could,
Speaker 3: you could put him in there that But like I said,
Speaker 3: it's that the ground should stay frozen, you know, I don't.
Speaker 3: It'll just dry down there and it won't be frozen
Speaker 3: if you put him in the garage. So I don't
Speaker 3: know if the peonies do you not have a Do
Speaker 3: you have an area that you can plant them in
Speaker 3: the ground at all? Anywhere? Not right here? No? I
Speaker 3: mean I have in the past where I'm right here.
Speaker 8: I'm only renting, so I wouldn't want to leave them behind.
Speaker 3: No, No, I could. You could, and then you dig
Speaker 3: him up and when you leave, that's what you do.
Speaker 6: Okay. I really enjoyed listening to you. It's just fantastic.
Speaker 3: Thank you. Our website you'll see us pictures.
Speaker 4: I will thank you.
Speaker 2: In a beautiful part of the country.
Speaker 3: It's so nice.
Speaker 2: It's it's amazing, and you're amazing. Jan Thank you so much.
Speaker 2: I've learned so much tonight. I hope my audience has
Speaker 2: as well. If folks want to get in touch with
Speaker 2: city scapes, I assume they just can go Boston citescapes,
Speaker 2: dot com.
Speaker 3: It's dot com and then we're on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn
Speaker 3: all that fun stuff.
Speaker 2: And the other thing you need to mention just quickly
Speaker 2: is that you have a big staff.
Speaker 3: It looks to me like, yeah, employees now, almost one
Speaker 3: hundred employees right now. Yep, it's crazy, right how that happened?
Speaker 3: I had a water buck in my hand two minutes ago, but.
Speaker 1: I still do.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we just opened up. Yeah. I just bought another
Speaker 3: business too, called the Route and Situated. It's a garden center,
Speaker 3: plant shop andvent space. I'm spos retiring, but I just
Speaker 3: keep getting busier, busier, But it's fun now creating really
Speaker 3: cool things like immersion rooms and living furnature and all
Speaker 3: that fun stuff.
Speaker 2: Someone once said to me one time, the day you
Speaker 2: retire is the day you really start to.
Speaker 3: Die and you die. Yeah, I'm not dying.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna neither one of us. Jim, thank you so
Speaker 2: much for thank you for having me. Doesn't know a
Speaker 2: lot about this. I've learned a lot about it. And uh,
Speaker 2: someday I'll swing by and say hello in person. Thank
Speaker 2: you much.
Speaker 3: Oh you should. We have three warehouses in Rockster, and
Speaker 3: we have our beautiful biflop design showing him right in
Speaker 3: the back day across the Handcock tower. So come and
Speaker 3: visit anytime and I'll give you a plant.
Speaker 2: That's okay, I'll buy one.
Speaker 3: Don't worry, all right, we'll take care Dan.
Speaker 2: Thank you, thanks so much, and again thanks to Walter
Speaker 2: for setting this up for us. When we get back,
Speaker 2: we are going to change topics and also have a
Speaker 2: very second, very interesting guest. Name is Kevin Surley. He's
Speaker 2: a futurist. He has a special website called Meet the Future.
Speaker 2: This gentleman is someone you're going to hear from many
Speaker 2: times after you hear them tonight on Nightside. It's going
Speaker 2: to be a treat. We'll be back on Nightside right
Speaker 2: after the ten o'clock news here in Boston.