Ping Yu: (music) Hello, everyone.

Ping Yu: Welcome to the Blooms and Beyond podcast, a podcast that uncovers plant history, culture and management through the lens of science.

Ping Yu: I'm your host, Ping.

Ping Yu: How's everyone doing today?

Ping Yu: Without further ado, here is part two with Dr. Dave Creech.

Ping Yu: I hope you enjoy.

Ping Yu: (music) Another thing that I remember a lot when I visited the garden, 'cause you guys have a lot of connections in azalea, camellia,

Ping Yu: and Japanese maple, and magnolia, you mentioned.

Ping Yu: Are you saying most of those are from, or connections from Asia?

Dave Creech: No, on the azalea world- The azalea world is changing.

Dave Creech: So they are Asian, and Japan, Korea, China, Nepal, etc. There's lots of- Rhododendron's a very, very big (Ping Yu: Mm-hmm) genus.

Dave Creech: About half of, or maybe a third of our azaleas really took it on the chin.

Dave Creech: Minus four degrees was too much.

Dave Creech: Some indicas went to the ground, Kurumes were better.

Dave Creech: Some of the hybrid groups.

Dave Creech: So we had, we had a lot of problems.

Dave Creech: And so we did not allow a single pruner in there for over a year.

Dave Creech: I wanted to see the plant.

Dave Creech: And so in many cases it would've been better if you'd have gone into the landscape and seen some damage, and just cut it off at the ground and start

Dave Creech: over again.

Dave Creech: But we lost some, we lost some azaleas completely.

Dave Creech: The same thing is true on camellias.

Dave Creech: We had a lot of edgy camellia species that I was real excited about.

Dave Creech: I'm talking trees 20 feet tall, 15 to 20 feet tall, and now there's a sprout from the ground.

Dave Creech: You know, it's not a pretty picture.

Dave Creech: And then the Japanese maples, unaffected.

Dave Creech: Japanese maple's a very special plant, and we got into them in the 1980s, so we now have nearly 40-year-old Japanese maples.

Dave Creech: And they're not like me, they get better with age.

Dave Creech: (laughs) The older a Japanese maple it is, the better it is.

Dave Creech: And we just have some of the most beautiful maples, and I knew nothing, Ping, about maples.

Dave Creech: And Japanese maples are different in the sense that there's so many cultivars you can't- Cultivars that are this big, and cultivars that are huge, and weeping, and

Dave Creech: thin leaf, and thread leaf.

Dave Creech: There's six different types of leaf.

Dave Creech: They're all fine for us.

Dave Creech: I mean, we do rather well with them.

Dave Creech: We have acid soils under a high canopy pine forest.

Dave Creech: We do know one thing, drainage, drainage.

Dave Creech: They have to be- We plant- We don't ever plant a Japanese maple in our bottomland gardens.

Dave Creech: We put it on top of the ground and then build up a berm so it sits on a knoll.

Dave Creech: Drainage will- poor drainage will kill Japanese maples.

Dave Creech: And we've discovered quite quickly that they're- Once they're established, they're very drought resistant here.

Dave Creech: And the quality of the fall show- So we have a fall show that starts the first week of December.

Dave Creech: Never knew this was gonna happen, and it just was by accident, because we planted Japanese maples, a wide range of varieties, and I got the first batch of 50

Dave Creech: from Del's Maple in the Northwest.

Dave Creech: And he said, "What varieties do you want?"

Dave Creech: I said, "Just send me 50 different varieties.

Dave Creech: I don't know anything about maples.

Dave Creech: Just send me something that can stand it to be really hot.

Dave Creech: It's Texas."

Dave Creech: And he did.

Dave Creech: And they were $2.95 for grafted liners.

Ping Yu: Mm.

Dave Creech: $2.95, nothing.

Dave Creech: And we planted them all out, many of those are still here.

Dave Creech: Most of them are still here.

Dave Creech: And the other thing that's interesting about Japanese maples is it doesn't seem to have a chilling requirement.

Dave Creech: It can grow it in Houston, as long as you have drainage, and you can grow it in Minnesota.

Dave Creech: And so what's going on there, it's probably has to do with photoperiod, is what I think, is that it really responds more to the photoperiod than it does to

Dave Creech: the absolute hours under 45 degrees chilling requirement.

Dave Creech: And we have really very few problems with Japanese maples.

Dave Creech: Our number one problem that we have is young plants being liberated and taken home by visitors.

Dave Creech: (laughs) And we're working on that right now.

Dave Creech: We do have some cameras up, but that's a real problem.

Dave Creech: People like Japanese maples- (Ping Yu: Oh, yeah.)

Ping Yu: They are, they are pretty.

Dave Creech: And they are pricey.

Dave Creech: Very expensive.

Dave Creech: A good size, anything over a two inch is worth a lot of money, $400 or $500 wholesale really, a good sized Japanese maple.

Dave Creech: And we have very few people in Texas that are growing maples.

Dave Creech: They're bringing them in from the Northwest nurseries, and they bring them in on tractor trailers.

Dave Creech: And they're expensive because of the transportation costs, and that you can't cinch them.

Dave Creech: So I don't know if your audience knows what that means, but that means you can't take a tree, put a net over it, and then tighten it up so

Dave Creech: that it's just a pole and you can stack them up like poles.

Dave Creech: Japanese maples will break.

Dave Creech: They cannot be cinched.

Dave Creech: They have to be fitted (Ping Yu: Yeah) perfectly, and they're real brittle.

Dave Creech: They're- You know, it's a big problem.

Dave Creech: So we've ended up with over 400 varieties of Japanese maple, and then we work with a lady, Jen's Maple, Tennessee, in, in Tennessee.

Ping Yu: I know her.

Dave Creech: Yeah, she's awesome.

Dave Creech: She's awe- She comes to IPPS.

Dave Creech: She's awesome.

Dave Creech: And we work a little bit with Heritage, and we work with Hidden Hollow.

Dave Creech: We get some stuff out of Hidden Hollow.

Dave Creech: And, and then we do our own, we graft our own.

Dave Creech: And so that's a lot of fun in classes and everything and- But you do have to watch your- watch- You can drown a maple pretty easily in a

Dave Creech: container nursery operation.

Dave Creech: And if you skip a watering every now and then, it's probably- They like that variable.

Dave Creech: We've ki- we've hurt maples at the nursery here by consistent daily water in a regular nursery shade house.

Dave Creech: And, you know, you can, you can blow their roots away pretty quickly.

Dave Creech: So they are sensitive to wet feet.

Dave Creech: That's a major issue with them.

Dave Creech: On the camellia world, we have Bobby Green and Maarten van der Giessen, and have helped us so much in the Mobile area.

Dave Creech: And Bobby's introduced a lot of plants that are bulletproof for this freeze as well, but there were a lot of camellias here.

Dave Creech: I, I love camellia species, just the straight species.

Dave Creech: And just to confuse your audience, there's two that we got that are yuhsienensis and gauchowensis, and these were in bloom

Dave Creech: when minus four hit.

Dave Creech: It knocked the blooms off, but didn't hurt the trees at all.

Dave Creech: So there's some genetics out there (Ping Yu: Yeah), they're Yunnan.

Dave Creech: There's some genetics in the camellia world that's very, very hardy, and we offered them out.

Dave Creech: The minute I saw something like that, what do I do?

Dave Creech: I go propagate them.

Dave Creech: Here's something that can take a minus four event in bloom and just re- kind of came back and had another crop of blooms that had some buds that

Dave Creech: didn't get damaged.

Dave Creech: So we need to be looking at that constantly.

Dave Creech: And Ping, I always like to tell audiences and people that the best investment that you make is in an arboretum or botanical garden that's involved in long-term

Dave Creech: evaluation.

Dave Creech: So we spent 30, 40 years waiting for minus four degrees.

Dave Creech: This is a torture test.

Dave Creech: We're waiting on it.

Dave Creech: And when you have 31 gardenias that are nice plants in the landscape, 31 different gardenias, we have two that really survived.

Dave Creech: The rest of them, down to the ground.

Dave Creech: And some of them are promoted by the nurseries, not making fun of them.

Dave Creech: Arctic Frost.

Dave Creech: Now, doesn't that kind of imply that this thing's gonna be hardy?

Dave Creech: Well, it went to the ground and below.

Dave Creech: So the point is, is that time is a wonderful friend to a garden, and you can learn a lot about a plant.

Dave Creech: But we still won't learn, in some cases.

Dave Creech: Look at Rhaphiolepis indica, Indian hawthorn.

Dave Creech: I've watched it die forever, '83, '89, in 2021, and yet we still gravitate back to it.

Dave Creech: There's huge beds of Indian hawthorn everywhere in Texas, and it takes a year or two, people forget, and the next thing you know it's back in the business trade.

Dave Creech: So we really need to look pretty seriously at our shrub world.

Dave Creech: Most of- A lot of our trees, native trees are fine, but our shrub world needs to be- Put an emphasis on trying to find something that is sustainable, and

Dave Creech: not just another candidate for debris removal when we have another one of these events.

Ping Yu: (music) You mentioned that evaluation is very important to maintain a garden in the long run,

Ping Yu: but what kind of characteristics besides- 'Cause you briefly mentioned the hardness of the plant species over the years.

Ping Yu: Besides that, what are other characteristics that you think g- a garden or people who are interested in those plants should be evaluating,

Dave Creech: Very good point.

Dave Creech: Yeah.

Dave Creech: Okay, this one, one that we think, that we believe pretty firmly is that East Texas has some fall color.

Ping Yu: Some.

Dave Creech: Some.

Ping Yu: Oh, oh, only a little.

Ping Yu: (laughs) But it is- Dave Creech: It isn't the northeast, you know, where the whole mountainsides turn ablaze, and we have very few reds.

Dave Creech: And so there's a plant that's been out in America.

Dave Creech: It was discovered in Zhejiang Province, Ping, and it's Parrotia subaequalis.

Ping Yu: Mm-hmm.

Dave Creech: Do you know this plant?

Ping Yu: No, I don't think so.

Dave Creech: This is a shame (laughs) that you don't know this plant.

Dave Creech: This is a Chinese plant, and it's a Parrotia.

Dave Creech: It's an ironwood, and it's re- directly related to Parrotia persica, which is Persian witch hazel.

Dave Creech: But all the way across the globe there in China, in Zhejiang is this rare plant that wasn't really described until the 1990s.

Ping Yu: Wow.

Dave Creech: It's faster growing, it's easier to root.

Dave Creech: It is fire engine red in the fall, and it has some hardiness built into it that we did not have any troubles with minus four.

Dave Creech: Now get out of the way.

Dave Creech: Do you want a fire engine red foliaged Parrotia ironwood?

Dave Creech: I think that's a wonderful plant.

Dave Creech: It's drought resistant.

Dave Creech: It's got a lot of things going for it.

Dave Creech: So that's one of the frustrations as a horticulturist.

Dave Creech: It looks bulletproof to me.

Dave Creech: I've scattered it around.

Dave Creech: I don't think it'll do good in College Station.

Dave Creech: I think it'll do wonderful in your backyard, but it just needs to be promoted more.

Dave Creech: People say, "Parrotia subaequalis, what is that?"

Dave Creech: It doesn't have a common name really.

Dave Creech: Ironwood, Chinese ironwood, that doesn't sound (Ping Yu: No) very appealing to me.

Dave Creech: And so you end up with this.

Dave Creech: So I have another plant that I can't seem to get people excited about.

Dave Creech: It's called Myrcianthes fragrans.

Dave Creech: Are you aware of this plant?

Dave Creech: Myrcianthes fragrans.

Dave Creech: It's called Simpson's stopper.

Ping Yu: Simpson's stopper.

Ping Yu: Okay.

Dave Creech: Okay.

Dave Creech: Now this plant, I had it from- A friend of mine gave me it out, out of University of Florida, and it's actually kind of popular locally around the western

Dave Creech: side (Ping Yu: Mm-hmm) of Florida, and it's a sand dune tree to about 12 feet.

Ping Yu: Ah.

Dave Creech: Myrcianthes fragrans is- It's very, very salt tolerant.

Dave Creech: So I had one in the garden.

Dave Creech: I had one or, or two or three in the garden here that were at SFA, and they grew rather well, and they went down into the lower teens, in

Dave Creech: the high single digits, no problem at all.

Dave Creech: Minus four took it to the ground, but it grew back vigorously.

Dave Creech: I've put it at Moody Gardens.

Dave Creech: We have a project, two-acre project at Moody Gardens, a wonderful- Looking for salt tolerant plants for the future, and I put it down there.

Dave Creech: And get this, it's evergreen, cleanest foliage you've ever seen.

Dave Creech: You can get some clones now.

Dave Creech: There's a variegated, there's a Mexican form.

Dave Creech: I got some from Cuba.

Dave Creech: So we're looking at diversity in it.

Dave Creech: It has white flowers.

Dave Creech: It covers itself up (Ping Yu: Okay) with pollinator.

Dave Creech: It has this orange fruit, kind of like a long pepp- small pepper, that's bright orangy red.

Dave Creech: That's kind of attractive, evergreen.

Dave Creech: Exfoliating bark.

Dave Creech: You can train it like a two-thirds top, and one-third trunks.

Dave Creech: You can have then it's exfoliating bark.

Dave Creech: It's rather attractive dark bark, peeling bark, and the fruit cures diarrhea.

Dave Creech: Is there anything more that you need in a plant?

Dave Creech: (laughs) If you think about it- This thing is- That's why they named it Simpson's stopper.

Dave Creech: So basically- But- So anyway, I don't like- I think that may hurt it.

Dave Creech: That's a bad name, so we need to have another name for this plant.

Dave Creech: So, for the first time in the history of the world, I found that AgriStarts is starting it with a variety called Geode.

Dave Creech: And so I've packed in some, and we're gonna make some distribution.

Dave Creech: We have a project on Galveston Island.

Dave Creech: Galveston Island is the ultimate torture test for all plants, salt, and wind, and everything leans.

Dave Creech: It's hard.

Dave Creech: It's a treeless island, let's face it.

Dave Creech: It was treeless.

Dave Creech: So that's giving these plants that kind of torture test, and plants that perform well in College Station, Texas are getting alkalinity and water quality issue testing

Dave Creech: (Ping Yu: Mm-hmm) all the time.

Dave Creech: And so that's the value of a botanical garden, just to look for plant materials that are not gonna fall apart under a freeze or a flood or-

Dave Creech: Because the million, billions of dollars that we spend in debris removal is not a good idea (Ping Yu: Yeah) just in terms of ener- So it's a huge amount.

Dave Creech: Oh.

Dave Creech: Now, this gardenia, we found these two gardenias, and I've learned a lot about the psychology of this because I think the homeowners, the horticulturists in our communities

Dave Creech: and our cities would go for this.

Dave Creech: I have yet to get- There's a gardenia called Whispering Pines, and it was discovered by Jim Berry at Daphne, Alabama, near Daphne, Alabama, in a community called

Dave Creech: Whispering Pines.

Dave Creech: And it was the only- It's a big double, and it's a big plant, and it was 10 or 12 feet tall when minus four hit, and basically it

Dave Creech: was undamaged, and it bloomed fine.

Dave Creech: Never had a lick of problems.

Dave Creech: And the reason Jim selected it, Jim saw it.

Dave Creech: It was behind a house place that had melted down, and it was a giant tree.

Dave Creech: It was giant big bush, and it had big ca- So he knew it'd been through a lot.

Dave Creech: He knew it was old, and so he got some wood, and he was growing it at J. Berry Nursery, and I was up there visiting and he said, "Ah,

Dave Creech: Dave," he said, "I like it, but it doesn't fit our product mix.

Dave Creech: I don't think there's anything different about it than some other doubles.

Dave Creech: Do you want some?

Dave Creech: Do you want some?"

Dave Creech: I said, "I'll take five."

Dave Creech: So I took five back to SFA Gardens, and I planted three of them behind a bench, and that was in 2006

Dave Creech: or '7, somewhere like that.

Dave Creech: So 14 years later, it's just a nice gardenia, pretty bloom, doubles, fragrant.

Dave Creech: But 2021, it was the champion out of all of the 31 varieties that we have.

Dave Creech: All the others smashed to pieces.

Dave Creech: My point is, is that arboretums and bot gardens can do that.

Dave Creech: We are there to test, evaluate, find plants for the future, and that should be a plant that ends up in the trade, et cetera.

Dave Creech: So Creech, that's me, I thought, "Oh, I'm gonna make a million dollars on this," and I made a lot of cuttings and I distributed them to nurseries and I

Dave Creech: said, "This is really a hardy, a hardy gardenia."

Dave Creech: But Ping, the bottom line on it is that that's an attribute that is not- Surviving a minus four event is not an attribute that perhaps a landscaper or

Dave Creech: a nurseryman really values that much.

Dave Creech: The homeowner might, the homeowner might, but a nurseryman probably doesn't- And I've accused them of this in a meeting, that it doesn't bother you so much if a plant

Dave Creech: dies after 10 or 15 years in a hard freeze, 'cause that customer is gonna come back (Ping Yu: That's, that's, that's the-) and wanna buy another plant.

Ping Yu: Because you were like, "If you buy a plant and (Dave Creech: And so why get that-) never come back, how can they make money?"

Dave Creech: Why get that worried about it?

Dave Creech: So, so maybe, maybe I'm wrong, but I just think that we ought to be looking at that.

Dave Creech: 'Cause you just think about all the debris that went out of Houston and Dallas, Fort Worth from all of the trees that have been kicked around in the

Dave Creech: environment.

Dave Creech: It's just frustrating.

Dave Creech: Well,

Ping Yu: With your experience working in horticulture industry, 'cause I know you work closely with the nurseryman and then the home garden, and you're also the director

Ping Yu: of the, of a garden, what are the, like, big challenges that you think the horticulture, horticulture industry in the US are facing

Ping Yu: right now?

Ping Yu: Have you observed any change or the trend change over the years?

Dave Creech: Labor.

Dave Creech: Labor.

Dave Creech: Every level of labor.

Dave Creech: And, and when, you know, if you look at a lot of Europe, Europe is where a lot of technology on robotics (Ping Yu: Mm-hmm) et cetera, we're, we're gonna

Dave Creech: have to do it.

Dave Creech: We just have to face up to it.

Dave Creech: It's- And with the present situation with our Hispanic populations, which if you look at nurseries, that's the backbone, that's the foundation (Ping Yu: Mm-hmm) of our work, and in

Dave Creech: the landscape trade as well, we need to address how do we mechanize, how do we speed up things?

Dave Creech: Can we save some labor here, save some labor there?

Dave Creech: I think we're doing it in the greenhouse already.

Ping Yu: Oh, we, we are- Dave Creech: Robotics is part of it- Ping Yu: are, are doing.

Ping Yu: It depends on where- Yeah.

Ping Yu: It depends on- 'Cause I think that's one of the issues a lot of, like, the nursery and greenhouses are facing.

Ping Yu: Depending on how the original operation are built upon, it's hard.

Ping Yu: If they are, if they have a very straight form, like for instance, if they have, if they take the Netherland mode in- for their greenhouse operation,

Ping Yu: which adapts a lot of automation in the beginning, it's easier for them to involve in terms of automation.

Ping Yu: But if they are in a more like American model, which means that they build greenhouses and nurseries over the years, and so each site

Ping Yu: is different, it'll take some time for them fi- to figure out how to incorporate all those technologies in incorporating the automation system.

Dave Creech: I think the greenhouse nursery is the one that'll do it.

Dave Creech: And then the big wholesale nursery's next.

Dave Creech: You and I have both been to a lot of these conferences where we see robots moving (Ping Yu: Yeah) plants around.

Dave Creech: Jim Berry has robot trailers, J. Berry Nursery.

Dave Creech: I was impressed with that, and also doing drone spraying.

Dave Creech: And basically trying to save a nickel here and there, because it's a pretty competitive world that's out there.

Dave Creech: So labor is a, a really huge (Ping Yu: Yeah) problem in the fruit, fruit and vegetable industry.

Dave Creech: And anything that can be mechanized in a little better way to- Right now, Ping, I don't know if you know this, but I'm working with kiwifruit-

Dave Creech: (Ping Yu: I know that) the fruit and vegetable side.

Ping Yu: I enjoyed the seminar that you gave the other day.

Dave Creech: The math on, on kiwis is very interesting because it's only eight cents a pound to pick.

Dave Creech: One human being can pick 500 to 1,000 pounds (Ping Yu: Mm-hmm) an hour.

Dave Creech: And they're $2.99 a pound, $2 wholesale.

Dave Creech: So you can do the math, but whereas if you're picking a blueberry, it's crazy.

Dave Creech: You can only pick 150 pounds in a day, and you're gonna pay, what, $50 for $100 a day?

Dave Creech: I mean, it's, it becomes extremely prohibitive, where picking a kiwi is- they're- they rain down.

Dave Creech: You don't have any choices, you just pick.

Dave Creech: And I've watched them in New Zealand and in Chile, and it's just like raining down.

Dave Creech: I mean, it's very fast.

Dave Creech: They fill a bag, they drop it in there, they punch a card, and they get, they get it done quick.

Dave Creech: So any crops that have a-

Dave Creech: can, you can reduce the amount of labor that's going in there.

Dave Creech: And so blueberries are left to having a big field, 50 to 100 acres, and then you get a machine to pick, and that machine can pick for a dime.

Dave Creech: Whereas if you're handpicking, it's probably 40, 50, 60 cents a pound.

Dave Creech: With Mexico bringing in blueberries as we speak, that's not easy (Ping Yu: No) to compete.

Dave Creech: They pay 5 to-

Dave Creech: 8 to $10 a day in many cases.

Dave Creech: And so we have to look at the crops and see if we can pick them by hand, and when we can, competitively.

Dave Creech: They're paying $20 an hour in New Zealand, so that's lit- I think you can get some hands at $20 an hour.

Dave Creech: But maybe not, I don't know.

Dave Creech: It's just- (Ping Yu: Maybe-) labor is a huge issue but (laughs) I don't know.

Dave Creech: I don't know.

Dave Creech: It's, it's not the same world that it used to be, but labor is obviously one of the, the biggest challenges.

Dave Creech: I think new and emerging pest is always a headache, particularly on new crops.

Dave Creech: But, you know, we have spot-

Dave Creech: We have a lot of pests that I've never seen before.

Dave Creech: Brown marmorated stink bug is here.

Dave Creech: Spotted wing drosophila is here.

Dave Creech: Ambrosia beetle (Ping Yu: Yeah) is here.

Dave Creech: Just, I saw cal- like, this crape myrtle bark scale that Mengmeng made a career out of here.

Dave Creech: I saw-

Dave Creech: I see it on callicarpa now.

Dave Creech: And I don't know if you know that.

Dave Creech: But crape myrtle bark scale is on my- Ping Yu: It is the- Dave Creech: That's my native plant- Ping Yu: It is on the host range trial on callicarpa when I was back in

Ping Yu: there, so I know it's getting there.

Ping Yu: (music) But how do you see, like, the horticulture involving the next maybe 10 to 20 years?

Ping Yu: We mentioned about the automation and adapting more high mechanical into the industry, but what about the climate?

Ping Yu: Or I wouldn't say climate change, but the more severe weather issues and with the globalization.

Dave Creech: I can say, I can say climate change 'cause I'm 77 years old, but we definitely have a change in climate.

Dave Creech: And one of the disadvantages (laughs) or advantages of being ancient is, is that I can remember I had 11 crops in a row in peaches

Dave Creech: when I was in business, and I never missed a beat.

Dave Creech: And then I had a freeze, and then I had another freeze, and then I was back to normal, but things have changed and it's the severity.

Dave Creech: These late freezes have been a little bit different, but the midwinter low minus four, oh my God, that was devastating.

Dave Creech: And then we have...

Dave Creech: I used to say in Nacogdoches, for the history that I've been here, 47 years, we'd get a flood every three years where it went out over the bottom.

Dave Creech: Now we've had three floods in two years.

Dave Creech: And so it's really, we get these deluges, and so basically you have a more energetic climate.

Dave Creech: You have a lot more energy in the climate.

Dave Creech: The storms are gonna be a little rugged.

Dave Creech: The long dry spells are gonna be a little rougher.

Dave Creech: The heat, 100 and...

Dave Creech: Everybody wants to block these out of our mind, but 2023, 112 degrees and 40, 42 degrees over College Station that usually

Dave Creech: that just burned it to the ground.

Dave Creech: It was horrible.

Dave Creech: So hot and so miserably dry.

Dave Creech: So challenges are there, and I think one other thing I wanted to mention is one of the great issues is I have people come to my office, mom and

Dave Creech: dad and the young man or young woman, and they're talking about horticulture, and they want to make it a major.

Dave Creech: And you know what the dad says?

Dave Creech: He says, "How much is Johnny gonna make?"

Ping Yu: Yeah.

Ping Yu: That's, that's what- That's what he wants- is that.

Ping Yu: next generation- This the- like, "I wanna go into horticulture or agriculture in general just because I will not be well-paid."

Dave Creech: Well, that's the general tone, and I answer it differently 'cause I know he'll pay, make 40 to 55 or 40 to 60, and they want you to work Saturdays.

Dave Creech: And so I know that the jobs are out there.

Dave Creech: We have a lot of jobs.

Dave Creech: It's just they're not that appealing for somebody today who is spending a lot of money to go to college.

Dave Creech: I paid $3 a semester hour.

Ping Yu: Okay.

Dave Creech: And you're paying 300.

Dave Creech: It was, I walked out, no debt.

Dave Creech: We have a lot of students at SFA walking out with a debt load.

Dave Creech: And so you're, you're ending up in a job that you spend $120,000, you know, or $100,000 getting a college degree when you could've gone

Dave Creech: and been an electrician in Dallas and made $150,000 a year.

Dave Creech: I mean, there, there's a reality here.

Dave Creech: And it's impacting our tr- it's impacting our majors, it's impacting our students.

Dave Creech: So the peak...

Dave Creech: A lot of people, young, young professors don't realize the peak in horticulture was 1977.

Dave Creech: Did you know that?

Dave Creech: Real numbers.

Dave Creech: 650 at Texas A&M.

Dave Creech: Are you sitting down?

Dave Creech: You need to be.

Dave Creech: That's a very high number.

Dave Creech: And a lot of universities had high numbers.

Dave Creech: I had 100 here.

Dave Creech: I wasn't ar- I arrived and it was around s- 80 or 90.

Dave Creech: But the peak was 1977, and then we kinda crashed in the '80s, and then we built back up, and we're leveling off.

Dave Creech: And so I think there's 210 now at Texas A&M.

Dave Creech: They were 140.

Dave Creech: They've gone up.

Dave Creech: They've gone up.

Dave Creech: And I think we have 36 or 40 here now at SFA and I've been tracking these enrollments, but I got- most of the universities don't

Dave Creech: have data before 1990.

Dave Creech: You can't find the data.

Dave Creech: And- but I've been keeping it at SFA religiously and at A&M, and so I think that we need to do something with the peop- how we get that

Dave Creech: enrollment up and depends on how good you are.

Dave Creech: I always answer the, the father, I say, "Depends on how good he is."

Dave Creech: I have so many former students that own the business, that have money.

Dave Creech: They bought land in San Antonio on the-

Dave Creech: or Austin and r- watched it grow for 30 years and so it's not a matter of, of how much your starting salary is, although that's pretty

Dave Creech: darn important.

Dave Creech: You can tout, we can tout lots and lots of former students in Ag, in A&M as well, that have gone out and made a huge amount of money, and

Dave Creech: it's because they had a product and they grew and they grew their business.

Dave Creech: And those are the ones that I'm most proud of, are the ones that happen to get a job in Dallas, happen to start their own business, happen

Dave Creech: to grow, happen to buy land, and then the next thing, 30 or 40 years.

Dave Creech: Ping, what do you think it's like for me to have so many former students that are retiring?

Ping Yu: You should slow down.

Ping Yu: You should slow down, 'cause I was so amazed.

Ping Yu: I was talking to my mom the other day, I was like, "Oh, Dave Creech giving us a seminar on kiwi fruit."

Ping Yu: And I was like, "He's supposed to slow down a little bit.

Ping Yu: He's like in his 70s."

Ping Yu: And then my mom was like, "Yeah, he's- I'm gardening."

Dave Creech: I'm...

Dave Creech: No, I'm, I totally understand that.

Ping Yu: I think- Dave Creech: But basically I'm- Ping Yu: the fact about people who was gardening, who are a lot of people who are in this, in your role, similar role like you, they

Ping Yu: never retire.

Ping Yu: They just never.

Ping Yu: Even though you're officially retired, you're hurt by- Dave Creech: I'm half time.

Dave Creech: I'm half time.

Ping Yu: You're, yeah, you're half- Dave Creech: I'm not retired, I'm half time.

Ping Yu: You, your workload, you're putting yourself more than like a full-time employee, basically.

Ping Yu: So- Dave Creech: Yeah, but this is...

Dave Creech: You're surrounded by ex- a lot of excitement (Ping Yu: Yeah, I know) and travel, and it doesn't strike me as, as work.

Dave Creech: And I, lot of people say that.

Dave Creech: I, they say, "Are you working over 20 hours a week?"

Ping Yu: No, more than that.

Dave Creech: And I say, "I never worked a day in, I never worked a day at, I never worked a day in my life."

Ping Yu: Yeah.

Ping Yu: (music) So you've been working, I know how, like you never stop working.

Ping Yu: But what is your next excitement for horticulture in general?

Ping Yu: Is that, is the golden kiwi your next excitement for horticulture, or are there any other current projects?

Dave Creech: Well, sometimes, Ping, when you're stubborn about a crop, stubborn about it, and you run into these obstacles, and I am pretty stubborn about golden kiwis, and I'm

Dave Creech: usually negative, that you can't make any money and blah, blah, blah, this and that.

Dave Creech: But I think golden kiwis, we make crops, we have to manage them better, and we did not thin enough this year, so we have plenty of kiwis, but we

Dave Creech: didn't thin enough and so they're small.

Dave Creech: And this is a crop that's very unforgiving, and you need to invest $20,000 an acre, maybe 40 if you get high shade on it.

Dave Creech: But it can use 40, it can make 40,000 to 50,000 pounds on an acre, and they're two bucks.

Dave Creech: And so the, the-

Dave Creech: And it's a restricted market.

Dave Creech: They're basically, it's kind of a monopolized market.

Dave Creech: And producing four to five in a pound pan- a pack, in a clear pack tray is, doesn't seem like would be impossible, but

Dave Creech: it is very hard to get a, an industry off the ground when you're asking somebody to put up 20,000 or $40,000 or something.

Dave Creech: And so whether or not that actually happens here, and I'm even more optimistic because the Golden Kiwi was, it's been tried in California.

Dave Creech: They grow greens out there.

Dave Creech: They, that they own the market for domestic production on greens, and the Golden won't grow in Northern California very well because it's not, it's too dry.

Dave Creech: So the kiwi shrivel.

Dave Creech: Where I stepped off the airplane in Changsha, China, it was the summer, end of the summer, it was 104 degrees Fahrenheit, and I just started sweating,

Dave Creech: it was so humid.

Dave Creech: And I said, "I am in Nacogdoches."

Dave Creech: And it is, it's a very similar climate, and the Golden Kiwi is in that area.

Dave Creech: The green is a little further north in Wuhan area.

Dave Creech: And so I have a lot of horticultural optimism about the Golden Kiwi, and when you have a crop that can make you that kind of money, you

Dave Creech: can do the things necessary to avoid the frost, sprinkling for frost protection, do this, do that.

Dave Creech: There's a lot of things that you can do.

Dave Creech: I'm not like that about a lot of crops.

Dave Creech: Most crops I say, "Eh, it's not gonna, it's gonna be tricky."

Dave Creech: Feijoas, I'm working with feijoas now on a TDA project with Texas A&M, Tim Hartmann, and I like it, and I think we can make some feijoas.

Dave Creech: I'm just not too sure that's gonna be a very popular crop.

Dave Creech: But our surveys with people that eat our golden kiwis are- they knock it out of the park.

Dave Creech: The Golden Kiwi is very popular.

Ping Yu: My son, my three-year-old son is a big fan for golden kiwi.

Ping Yu: Every time we go to Costco, every time we pass the aisle, he'll be like, "Kiwi, kiwi, I need one."

Ping Yu: I was like, "Okay, we'll get you one."

Ping Yu: So every time, every week, we buy, we buy one, at least one, one pack for him.

Dave Creech: You can bear-

Dave Creech: Can you afford it?

Dave Creech: (laughs) They're pretty high.

Dave Creech: I've- (Ping Yu: Yes) $2.99, $3.99, and $4.99 a pound for five or six of them, four to six of them.

Dave Creech: And I'm, I'm amazed, and they pack a million trays a week in, in New Zealand at the pack house.

Dave Creech: It's unbelievable, and they can be stored for four months.

Dave Creech: That's pretty impressive, and that's what makes it a worldwide continuous supply.

Dave Creech: So I remain optimistic about it, but,

Dave Creech: it's a long way from (Ping Yu: Mm-hmm) the industry, that's for sure.

Dave Creech: Blueberries I'm not as optimistic about because I think the small farms, the pick your own, the local farms are gonna work, but the Mexico production is, is (Ping Yu: Mm-hmm) we

Dave Creech: can't compete (Ping Yu: No) with for our life.

Ping Yu: (music) You have been to so many different countries and so many different places, what is the rarest or most unusual plant that you

Ping Yu: have seen, visited, and where did you see them?

Ping Yu: And w- or are you, have you thought about on your wish list what kind of plants that you would wish to see them more here in

Ping Yu: the United States that you have seen overseas?

Dave Creech: Not really on the latter, but there's, the one that I, I'm a little bit of a camellia nut, and I did get, I g- I had an experience

Dave Creech: in the Yunnan with my friends, and there was a camellia that's in the mount- near the Himalayas there, and it's near Kunming to the west, and it's called

Dave Creech: the Camellia of 10,000 Flowers.

Dave Creech: Have you heard of this plant?

Ping Yu: Yes.

Dave Creech: You know this plant?

Ping Yu: No, have not.

Ping Yu: I am, I'm a Chinese.

Dave Creech: So I asked my- Ping Yu: There's a lot of...

Dave Creech: (laughs) So anyway, I asked my friends, I said, "You know, this, we're close to this area.

Dave Creech: Do you think I could go see the Camellia of 10,000 Flowers?"

Dave Creech: And so they said fine.

Dave Creech: We jumped in the van.

Dave Creech: We went up there.

Dave Creech: It's about a 45-minute drive, and it's a monastery, and the village around it is the Naxi.

Dave Creech: So anyway, we went around the monastery, and then we went to this plaza, and there it was.

Dave Creech: It was obvious, and it's...

Dave Creech: This camellia was huge, and it's grafted to two clones.

Dave Creech: One of, I can't remember the name of them, and it basically, there's two varieties on it, and it was all woven together.

Dave Creech: If you type in the, on a Google, Camellia of 10,000 Flowers, you can get to my article on it.

Dave Creech: It's really pretty amazing.

Dave Creech: And sitting there is a monk.

Dave Creech: (laughs) And since he was a child, no, I'm not lying, since he was a child in his 20s or 30s, he trained under the monk before.

Dave Creech: This thing goes back to the 1400s, and he's been sitting there, and his job every day is to sit by the tree and protect the tree.

Dave Creech: So I got a picture of him, and I was just kinda like in a state of shock that this tree has had a monk sitting by it

Dave Creech: for this many years, and it, it's a different kind of...

Dave Creech: There wasn't an insect on it, that's for sure.

Dave Creech: It's well-protected, and it was in a plaza all by itself.

Dave Creech: This monastery had been invaded twice and burned to the ground by mo- you know, it's been through all this history.

Dave Creech: And the amount of protection and love given this tree by, at this monastery was kinda shocking to me.

Dave Creech: And China has a habit of moving trees that you wouldn't think could be moved, (laughs) and to get 'em out of the way of a highway or off the

Dave Creech: mountains or something.

Dave Creech: Anyway, it's amazing to me, and I really enjoyed meeting him.

Dave Creech: Although that's a tough job.

Dave Creech: Can you imagine that job, sitting in a tree for your whole life?

Dave Creech: He has passed.

Dave Creech: I found out he has passed.

Ping Yu: No, I cannot.

Ping Yu: I'm just like, no, that's definitely (laughs) not gonna be- Dave Creech: That's not your job aspiration.

Ping Yu: No.

Ping Yu: I would be so bored.

Dave Creech: No, that was pretty interesting.

Dave Creech: I don't really have any trees that...

Dave Creech: There are some small trees, some trees here and there that I wish we had in America from other countries, but there's some sophoras in China that we

Dave Creech: don't have.

Dave Creech: The golden sophora that's weeping, a weeping golden Sophora japonica on a tall stem.

Dave Creech: I thought that was pretty good, and a lot of weeping trees that are not in this country yet.

Dave Creech: And there's a lot of breeding lines that are going on in China that, at the institutes of colleges and at the universities that I'd would like to see

Dave Creech: here, but that's, those are minor really in a way.

Ping Yu: (music) So was your...

Ping Yu: Like, 'cause you basically were abroad when you were just only two year old, and then you spent your 14 years abroad before

Ping Yu: you come back to the US.

Dave Creech: I came back on home leave.

Ping Yu: And then after you started your horticultural career, you've been to, I don't know how many places and how many different countries, but with all those

Ping Yu: overseas experience, what...

Ping Yu: Can you share one or two stories that you still remember, or in terms of what are the some of the moments that shocked you when you, when you visit

Ping Yu: other places?

Dave Creech: Yeah.

Dave Creech: Well, I can.

Dave Creech: You know, I mean, there are a lot of them.

Dave Creech: I was in Pakistan in the, the 1980s as a result of the money coming from USAID into Pakistan.

Dave Creech: The Afghan refugees were coming across.

Dave Creech: Russia was fighting in the valleys, and these, these refugee camps were so big, and they were tents.

Dave Creech: And then I was back there the next year, and they were mud houses.

Dave Creech: And then I was there the next year, and they were houses with nice roofs, and they're, they're just building them right there.

Dave Creech: I was kind of impressed on that.

Dave Creech: And we were going, and I was doing apple trees and peach trees, and they had wonderful orchards there and karezes and ancient irrigation systems.

Dave Creech: And they handed me off to these villages, and he'd come with me, and I'd spend two or three days at a village, and I'd do a pruning demonstration

Dave Creech: and do the, you know, talk, had, had slides back when there was slides.

Dave Creech: Travel is its own punishment to me because it leaves you restless.

Dave Creech: Jefferson said that.

Dave Creech: It's a wonderful thing, but it leaves you restless, 'cause there's always a new place that you can go, and you can go see, and you make friends along the

Dave Creech: way.

Dave Creech: And some of the best friends I've ever made are still with me today from 40 years ago of travel.

Dave Creech: And it's just too bad politics gets in the way, 'cause we all wanna be friends.

Ping Yu: I think it's one of the things that why the horticulture in and of itself brought all the people from different places all together.

Ping Yu: And then when you go visit a place because you wanna go see the plants over there, you'll get to expose the culture, the history, the people there.

Ping Yu: And those experience and the people that you met there, the experience that you had there are really the one that makes your...

Ping Yu: I don't know if that's gonna be, if I'm exaggerating it, but I really think the people or the culture that you see with

Ping Yu: the plant really played a big role in changing your view of the whole world.

Ping Yu: I think that's one of the things I love about- Dave Creech: It's my worldview.

Dave Creech: Well, I, I agree.

Dave Creech: Being raised in Asia and then ending up working there on short-term basis, a month here and a month there, it was, had a huge impact.

Dave Creech: And bringing Janet, my lovely wife, to many countries, and it's opened her eyes (Ping Yu: Mm-hmm) and she appreciates it, too.

Dave Creech: She's kinda got a world, world view anyway, and, and we are...

Dave Creech: The more you travel, the more you try to be understanding and kind (Ping Yu: Yeah) each other, and it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just the way

Dave Creech: it is.

Dave Creech: Whether or not we could all travel, I always think that everybody should travel and try to meet...

Dave Creech: And I never met a stranger.

Dave Creech: I'll talk to a guy on the street corner.

Dave Creech: And, and one thing about China that's interesting to me, 'cause I've been going there 30-plus years, is that the older you get in China, the

Dave Creech: better you're treated.

Dave Creech: (laughs) And- And I don't know why, but- Ping Yu: There, there's a culture behind that in...

Ping Yu: A, a- But it is true Asia in general, or at least in Eastern Asia, a- we value one, we value one concept,

Ping Yu: that we need to respect the elderly.

Ping Yu: That's just how the society treats the elderly, and everyone was like, we have s- that kind of...

Ping Yu: I don't know if you can call it a ladder or social ladder, so the elder, the older you get, the higher your ladder, your social ladder is, at least

Ping Yu: from the family standpoint.

Ping Yu: Within a family- Dave Creech: There's a term- There's a term, and you can...

Dave Creech: There's a term, it's called guanxi.

Dave Creech: Guanxi, the art of relationships, time, trust, friendship, experience.

Dave Creech: It's how you...

Dave Creech: Guanxi, that's what they always say, you have good guanxi, you have- Ping Yu: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, guanxi, yeah, basically develop friendship,

Ping Yu: relationship.

Ping Yu: Yeah, it, you're, you're right.

Dave Creech: (laughs) Okay.

Dave Creech: I'm not very good at (Ping Yu: No) pronouncing it.

Dave Creech: How did you say it?

Ping Yu: Guanxi. Dave Creech: Yeah, guanxi?

Ping Yu: Yeah.

Ping Yu: It's, it means, it translates to a relationship, so yeah, you're right.

Ping Yu: (music) The- You have been a inspiration for a lot of people in horticulture, me included.

Ping Yu: Have you...

Ping Yu: If you, if I'm asking you this, who would you think, who has impact you significantly in your career in horticulture?

Dave Creech: My advisors at Texas A&M, Hollis Bowen and J.B. Storey, were really inspirational.

Dave Creech: That was at a time when I was young, and I thought they were gods.

Dave Creech: I was...

Dave Creech: We just had a different kinda attitude about professors then.

Dave Creech: And when they said, "Jump," we said, "How high?"

Dave Creech: We never asked, "Oh, I'm over my time.

Dave Creech: I can't work any..."

Dave Creech: We n- we just...

Dave Creech: It was a different philosophy about being a graduate student and being an undergraduate student.

Dave Creech: They ran the roost, and so those two really steered me, and J.B. Storey probably in particular, Hollis Bowen.

Dave Creech: I had a professor at Colorado State as my advisor, Milt Workman.

Dave Creech: I did potato tuber physiology, post-harvest phys project.

Dave Creech: Wonderful project.

Dave Creech: Had a lot of fun, but it was the Vietnam War, and we were trying to come home, and I arrived at Colorado State, and Old Main was burned down

Dave Creech: by the mobs.

Dave Creech: There was four dead in Ohio.

Dave Creech: It was Kent State.

Dave Creech: There was a lot of protesting around the campus.

Dave Creech: We had a lot, lot of problems going on associated with the Vietnam War, and I arrived, and this building burned down.

Dave Creech: I was out at, it was m- it's called Old Main, and basically it was set on fire by 5,000 or 6,000 kiddos, kids, students.

Dave Creech: And it was a lot of uproar all over the United States when Kent State occurred, and so I'm starting off my master's degree, and my university,

Dave Creech: they're burning down this university building that was there, and I'm worried about my potatoes in the greenhouse.

Dave Creech: You know, I've got some potato breeding things going on.

Dave Creech: And, and I look at Milt Workman, and he had four kids, and he was the kindest professor that I've ever had, and he was very philosophical, and he'd had

Dave Creech: a wonderful career there, and he really helped me.

Dave Creech: He stewarded me through a very wonderful master's degree program.

Dave Creech: So I look at J.B. Storey for what he did to me to get me into horticulture, Hollis Bowen, who was my PhD boss, and

Dave Creech: I was the first of eight (Ping Yu: Mm-hmm) to graduate.

Dave Creech: Did you hear that, Ping?

Dave Creech: Seven had failed.

Ping Yu: Really?

Dave Creech: That's pretty amazing.

Dave Creech: Yeah, there were seven before me, and he told me that the day I started up underneath him.

Dave Creech: He said, "I don't know if you're gonna make it."

Dave Creech: You know, I mean, he meant it, too.

Dave Creech: It was...

Dave Creech: This is old school.

Dave Creech: This...

Dave Creech: They were tough.

Dave Creech: They tried to break you rather than prop you up.

Dave Creech: And it was a d- different kind...

Dave Creech: But I look back on it now, and I think, "Oh my God," you know, "what a, what a great man," and he b- he had a lot to

Dave Creech: do with my philosophy a little bit.

Dave Creech: Helped me to stay in horticulture, for sure.

Ping Yu: But if-

Ping Yu: Now- Dave Creech: We don't do that now.

Dave Creech: I have to take sensitivity training.

Dave Creech: You do, too. Ping Yu: Oh, we have a lot of- Dave Creech: And so we have to- Ping Yu: We have a lot of training in terms of how we treat students now. Dave Creech: We, these old

Dave Creech: professors would have all gotten an F on sensitivity, 'cause they were pretty hardcore about that.

Ping Yu: Yeah.

Ping Yu: But if, if a young kid or a young man comes to you and say, "Hey, I would, I am interested in horticulture," what kind of suggestions

Ping Yu: that you would tell them?

Dave Creech: If you love what you do, you're, you'll be fine.

Dave Creech: If you get to work three minutes early and leave four minutes late, well, if you're consistently late to work, I've always told students, your bosses may not care that

Dave Creech: much, but if you're consistently late and you're consistently breaking away, then that's- and it, it...

Dave Creech: That to me means you don't love what you do.

Dave Creech: Now, that doesn't mean, like in the peach business you can't move for three, four months, but you can go fishing in the fall.

Dave Creech: And so there's, there's a lot of attitudes about work, and we never had this 20 hours a week for the graduate degree thing when I went to grad

Dave Creech: school at Texas A&M.

Dave Creech: They...

Dave Creech: It was 168 hours in a seven-day week, and the boss had all of it, and we just did what they...

Dave Creech: That was pretty true.

Dave Creech: There was a lot of activity going on after hours, on weekends, et cetera, and it was just kind of a different philosophy.

Dave Creech: Now it's different, and it's probably for the better, because, you know, we have to be sensitive to life balance.

Dave Creech: You've heard of this?

Ping Yu: I- Dave Creech: Have you heard of this thing called life?

Ping Yu: heard that. Dave Creech: And...

Dave Creech: But you and I are gardeners.

Dave Creech: That's not exactly a hard row to hoe.

Dave Creech: I mean, that's not...

Dave Creech: Really, to me, what I do is not really work.

Dave Creech: I'd want to do it anyway.

Dave Creech: I'd want to garden anyway.

Dave Creech: I'd want to plant something.

Dave Creech: And so, I don't know, I've always been confused about this is work, this is play, this is, you know, lining them up in a row.

Dave Creech: To me it's all just part of being alive.

Dave Creech: You have 24 hours in a day and what you do with it.

Dave Creech: I do know my energy level is less than it used to be, and it's something you should think about, and my energy is real good in the morning and

Dave Creech: afternoon, and then I'm, I fade in the evening.

Dave Creech: I'm not very good.

Dave Creech: am- Is that your case?

Ping Yu: I, I, I'm more, I'm a morning person, I would say.

Ping Yu: I, my energy level is way higher in the morning and then in the afternoons.

Ping Yu: So that's why a lot of times in the morning I would do more productive brain-demanding activities, and in the afternoons I would, I n- tend to set

Ping Yu: schedule meetings that doesn't need a whole lot of thinking in the afternoons, so I can bear with that.

Ping Yu: But, yeah, for- Dave Creech: I can promise you this, Ping, it gets worse as you get older.

Dave Creech: That late afternoon (Ping Yu: Mm) it's gonna be worse.

Dave Creech: It just, you get tireder.

Dave Creech: It...

Dave Creech: And then there's a little bit of philosophy in there, like what's the point?

Dave Creech: This work will be here tomorrow.

Dave Creech: You know, it's not critical.

Dave Creech: If there's a deadline, I'm, you know (Ping Yu: Yeah) that's bad, but still, still, you know, it's, it's...

Dave Creech: When I look back on my career, and this is, I feel so blessed because I've had nothing but fun and I've had so many wonderful students, thousands actually, that

Dave Creech: have come through the courses and everything.

Dave Creech: I used to teach three or four courses a semester, twice a fall and spring, and, and it amazes me to see them at TNLA and the conventions and across

Dave Creech: the South.

Dave Creech: And most horticulturists end up in horticulture, and I think that's really commendable.

Dave Creech: They're not off in some other arena.

Dave Creech: I have had some leave horticulture, but it's always great to see them, and they're always stunned.

Dave Creech: Matter of fact, I was just at TNLA in August, and you were too, and I had a former student I hadn't seen in six or seven

Dave Creech: years, and he came up to me and recognized me and he said, Ping, he said, "You're still alive."

Dave Creech: (laughs) And I thought that was so cute.

Dave Creech: I said, "Yes, I may outlive you.

Dave Creech: My mother lived to 102.

Dave Creech: That's pretty good genes."

Dave Creech: You know, I thought, that's kind of rude.

Dave Creech: But anyway, he was a fun student, and he's out in the industry working hard, making money, got kids, you know.

Dave Creech: And it's...

Dave Creech: As an advisor, as you know, you get to know students for four, five, maybe even six years if they're slow to get out, but those people are with you-

Dave Creech: (Ping Yu: Yeah) forever.

Dave Creech: Yeah.

Dave Creech: 'Cause that's what makes you a professor, and the better they do, the better it makes you feel about it.

Ping Yu: Right.

Ping Yu: (music) So, last comment about the SFA.

Ping Yu: Are you guys providing any resources for, for people who are interested in gardening?

Ping Yu: 'Cause I know you have some series for master gardeners.

Ping Yu: Are there any resources that people wants to look into it? Dave Creech: We do-

Dave Creech: We have a s- we do.

Dave Creech: We have a wonderful building over here, the Ina Brundrett Conservation Education Building.

Dave Creech: I'm at the Native Plant Center right now.

Dave Creech: 40 acres, on the north side of the campus, and part of the campus really, and we have a once-a-month lecture series.

Dave Creech: It's every second Thursday, and we bring in people, and it's endowment that allows us to do that.

Dave Creech: So we can- P- you're coming to speak for me.

Ping Yu: Yes, next year.

Dave Creech: Next year.

Dave Creech: And we pay you well, we feed you, we send you home with plants.

Dave Creech: It's, it's a plan.

Dave Creech: And that's been great.

Dave Creech: And then my staff, we have eight staff, and so we have grafting seminars and workshops.

Dave Creech: We have a number throughout the year, and you can type in SFA Gardens and you can get our website, and it's got all the events, et cetera, for people

Dave Creech: that are local.

Dave Creech: And we, we, we're real pleased to have a lot of horticulturists that enjoy coming here because I send them back with plants.

Dave Creech: I'm not sure they wanna come, but they like the fact that we really do share some of the largess here to send back in terms of the new plants

Dave Creech: that we're working with.

Dave Creech: So I don't know.

Dave Creech: That's- We also have an environmental education program for kids that we're bringing back.

Dave Creech: So we've had 12,000 children a year coming through under Elyce Rodewald, our environmental ed coordinator.

Dave Creech: It went to zero.

Dave Creech: I lost the position, and now we're back.

Dave Creech: We have a new hire, and we're seeing that growing.

Dave Creech: And so these are the third to eighth grader kind of an emphasis, and I think that's really important, trying to stimulate and excite young people about getting

Dave Creech: in the out of doors and working gardens, and we're doing some raised bed projects.

Dave Creech: And actually, there's a ready market for it.

Dave Creech: The teachers like it 'cause we're essential element compatible.

Dave Creech: What we teach they'd have to teach anyway, and so you cover it that way.

Dave Creech: So we're a busy, real busy garden at SFA.

Dave Creech: The University of Texas has been here for about a year, and there are a lot of changes, and so far, we're still standing, so we'll see what

Dave Creech: happens.

Ping Yu: Okay.

Dave Creech: Send me some money.

Ping Yu: That- (laughs) He has all the money.

Dave Creech: No, UT has got a lot.

Dave Creech: It, it does.

Dave Creech: And I- So far what I see on them in terms of how they're handling endowments and fiscal aspects of it, I'm impressed.

Dave Creech: I'm very impressed.

Dave Creech: We operate on nine endowments.

Dave Creech: People have g- been generous to us, and following donor intent is a really important thing to people that are relying on that kind of income, and I

Dave Creech: think UT has a vision in that way that's encouraging for us.

Ping Yu: Yeah.

Ping Yu: All right.

Ping Yu: Thank you, Dr. Dave Creech, for all those wonderful stories and information about plants, about international travels, about everything related to horticulture,

Ping Yu: and thank you so much.

Dave Creech: Enjoyed it a lot.

Ping Yu: Well, thank you, Dr. Dave Creech, for taking time out of his busy schedule to talk with us as always.

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