Host: Dr. Ping Yu, UGA Department of Horticulture Guests: Meagan Nace, Senior Education Program Manager, AmericanHort; Rachel Rawls, Education Program Manager, AmericanHort; Alejandra Feliciano, Ph.D., Spanish Curriculum Development Manager, AmericanHort Producer: Rich Braman Episode: S02E03 — Blooms and Beyond, Season 2 Duration: 55:40 Air Date: June 14, 2026
Welcome to the Show
Ping Yu: Well, hello, everyone. Welcome to the Blooms and Beyond podcast, a podcast that uncovers plant history, culture, and management through the lens of science. I’m your host, Ping. How’s everyone doing today? I’m doing great, great because here I have not only one, not only two, but three awesome ladies here with me today on the show, and we’re going to talk about the hidden story behind the scene with what’s going on behind the AmericanHort education team.
All of the three ladies have tons of stories and knowledge to share, so I don’t wanna steal any more thunder from our speakers today. Let’s just jump right into it. Without further ado, here is my conversation with the AmericanHort educational team. I hope you enjoy it.
Meeting the Dream Team
Ping Yu: So hi, Meagan, Rachel, and Alejandra. Welcome to the podcast. But first, let’s start off with introductions. Can you tell our audience a little bit about who you are and what you do?
Meagan Nace: Yes. Thank you for having us. This is so much fun. I’m Meagan Nace, I’m the senior education program manager at AmericanHort, which is a lot of words that pretty much says I oversee the education team and all programming that we do through AmericanHort. So anything like the certification programs, Cultivate always a big one, our fall conferences that we do. We have a new micro-credentialing program as well. Any kind of webinars or anything education-focused, that’s my jam. That’s our jam. So Rachel and Alejandra also do a lot on our team. You guys wanna go next?
Rachel Rawls: Yeah, sure. I’m Rachel Rawls, and I focus on education content development. I’m the education program manager as well. And so a lot of my time really lies in events-based education. So that’s Cultivate and any of the smaller conferences that we do, like Plug and Cutting. I work on identifying topics, recruiting speakers, shaping session formats, and just making sure that all of our programs stay aligned with what the industry is asking for right now. So I’m always thinking about how we deliver education that is really applicable and practical, and credible.
Alejandra Feliciano: And my name is Alejandra Feliciano, and I’m the newest addition to the education team at AmericanHort. And I’m the Spanish curriculum development manager. So I lead our Spanish language programming, and I also help lead the HortCred digital badge program. I really try to expand access to education and make sure Spanish-speaking professionals feel represented and supported by AmericanHort.
Ping Yu: Yeah. Well, thank you guys for the very quick introduction, but I know that you guys are all coming from different backgrounds and apparently are working like a dream team together to make the magic happen for AmericanHort. But can you guys tell us a little bit about your background, just within two sentences? I know it’s going to be a lot, and it’s going to be a lot of intriguing stories we can spin off down the road. Just give us a basic understanding of you guys, with the background, and how you guys complement each other as a team.
Meagan Nace: Yeah. Great question. It could take us all an hour at least, maybe five. But ultimately, I think what really helps our team and really gets us to the point of making such great education for the industry is that we’re pretty balanced, but at the same time, we all have a very, very different background, but each one of our backgrounds is rooted in education development from the start. So for me, for instance, I got my start or training in agricultural education is what I went to school to do. And then ended up in the research industry pretty much, with doing new product development, launching products for Scotts Miracle-Gro. So that’s where my horticultural journey in a snapshot could be. Rachel, you wanna take it?
Rachel Rawls: Yeah. So I grew up in Georgia, and I went to the University of Georgia and got my bachelor’s in horticulture and stayed there for a couple of years after to get my master’s in ag. I think now they call it ag and environmental education or something. They changed the title as soon as I left. Yeah, environmental land — [laughs] — so I got my master’s in that. Quickly went to the University of Georgia Extension right after. Absolutely loved it. I worked with, you know, 4-H kids, and I was also the extension agent, so I worked with a lot of homeowners with any questions they had about home gardens. So I loved that. Right after that, I went to Purdue Extension in the Midwest. So we lived there for a few years and did the same thing up there. So, different people, but absolutely loved it. And now I’m here with AmericanHort.
Alejandra Feliciano: And I grew up in Puerto Rico, and I went to school in Iowa. So I got my master’s degree in horticulture at Iowa State University, and then I got my PhD in horticulture at Washington State University, which is where I live now. And after that, I worked as a landscape designer, and practiced landscape design as well as — I was a community college instructor at a horticulture department focusing, of course, in landscape ecology and landscape design. We definitely all have different backgrounds, but honestly, I feel like that’s one of our biggest strengths because we’re able to cover all the different and diverse industry segments that are in horticulture.
Ping Yu: Yeah. Very well said, because for folks out there who’s listening to this — every time, I got those misconceptions from people talking about horticulture, and all they think about is the production, the plant production, or the flower that they pick up from the grocery store. But we as an industry, we just cover a lot, way more than you can imagine. We have the landscape, we have the homeowner, we have the garden, we have the commercial greenhouse, nursery, we have the retailer. We have everything you can think of that has anything to do with plant. And plant is basically everywhere within your life. You have something to do with plants.
So with Meagan’s perception from industry and Rachel’s experience, extension, and Alejandra’s experience in landscape and education, you three are actually building the dream team to provide all those aspects that our industry is looking for. That’s why I’m talking about you guys as the dream team.
Meagan Nace: So — it’s so funny you say that, because sometimes we do call ourselves that.
Ping Yu: [laughs] Oh, really?
Meagan Nace: We have a lot of fun. We have so much fun, I think.
Ping Yu: [laughs] I bet. Well, that’s the most important part of the job, and I can totally tell that you all are very passionate about horticulture. And I’m so glad that we’re having this conversation right now so that we can spread the plant power, the knowledge, the awareness — or raise the awareness for horticulture to a larger audience.
How Cultivate Comes Together
Ping Yu: So let’s talk about the planning. Cultivate is definitely one of the biggest events in the United States for our great surviving green industry, and you guys are the hidden heroes behind the scene. So when planning a major event like Cultivate, how early does the conversation start, and what does each one of you focus on? Can you just walk us through the kind of process of planning for Cultivate?
Meagan Nace: Well, that’s a loaded question. I’m not sure that planning for Cultivate ever stops. We’re already looking at 2027. [laughs] So we’ve got most of ‘26 locked and loaded on the education end, but we’re already thinking of, “Okay, what’s ’27 looking like?” So I guess to answer that, education planning’s year-round for Cultivate. A lot of times we’ll even secure some speakers and topics on the spot right after a session at that current Cultivate for the next year. So it’s kind of wild to think that amongst all of the other things that we do, we always are thinking about Cultivate. How can we make it better? How can we do more kind of thing.
So I guess overall from my perspective, and what I’m constantly thinking about too, is focusing on that big picture strategy. What are those bigger needs for the industry? What are the big topics kind of thing? And of course, the not-so-fun part of it is the budget piece, that, you know, I have to always go, “Oh, I don’t know if that’ll fit in the budget.” But we always like to test the boundaries to do as much as we can with what we have for our industry. ‘Cause like you said, that’s all of our passions, is how can we do more for our industry to help them do more and be successful.
Rachel is on our team, and Alejandra too. I’m kind of the person who they’re like, “Meagan, are you sure that we have time to do that? Are you sure? That’s a lot of work. Are you sure?” And I’m like, “I don’t know.” Rachel and Alejandra are really great at keeping me in check. Rachel is really great though at making sure we’re all on task and on track for Cultivate, anything in general, but Cultivate for sure. So I’ll let them talk a little bit more too about all of the things that they do, ’cause they do a ton for Cultivate.
Rachel Rawls: Yeah, I try my best. I think that’s where we really complement each other in that aspect of, like, Meagan’s got all the big vision, and it’s my job to execute a lot of those, which is really good, because sometimes when it comes to like the big picture stuff, for me, that’s the hard part. So yeah, we get so many good session proposals. Just to give you a little idea, we typically have about 160 education sessions happening across the four days. We usually get around 4 to 500 session proposals, and so we read those, we keep them in our files. And even if there’s something that we say like, “This is great, we can’t use it for ‘26 because — or for this year, you know, because we just don’t have room,” we lock in speakers sometimes, like, over a year in advance, and we have those really great sessions just on file, and we know that we’re gonna use those next year. So that’s something that I do.
I focus on building the actual program out, so the education lineup, that includes any of the topics and the speakers and the structure of any of the sessions. And we can talk about that later if you want, about how that’s changed a little bit over the last few years. But I’m also watching the industry trends and needs so that the program stays current and it stays relevant. For me, I have a strong passion for the grower-based education, so I focus a lot on the greenhouse and the nursery education tracks and the production tours that people see.
Alejandra?
Alejandra Feliciano: Well, I think just to add to what Meagan and Rachel said, we start planning for Cultivate as soon as it ends, like she said. And one of the things that we have is the feedback surveys from all of the sessions. So we look at that, and we see what worked and what people really resonated with, or what they may want more of. And then the other thing is that I would say that the programming that we do wants to always be directly connected to the feedback we receive from our members and what our members are saying that they need. So we really make big efforts to be connected to what’s happening in the industry now through our industry connector groups, and we have an industry connector group for each segment. So, like, for greenhouse, for nursery, for landscape, for interior landscapes, and we have a summit where we all get together and discuss what the education needs are in October. And after that, we also still maintain the communication each month. So we have monthly calls, and we ask, you know, “What is happening at your company? What’s happening in the industry right now? What do you guys need help with?” So that also helps shape, in terms of which proposals that we receive, which we think might be more relevant for that year or not.
Ping Yu: Yeah, ‘cause I think AmericanHort is actually doing a very good job of meeting the industry needs. Just by having Alejandra, for instance, is a showcase of how much you care, because, believe it or not, our industry is really relying on a lot of Spanish speakers, or even growers. We just can’t live without them. And they need to be trained, and they need to be successful in their career as well. So they definitely need the resources to help them to be successful in their career down the road.
A Quick Detour: Strengths and Working Genius
Ping Yu: But while you guys were talking, I was wondering in my head — as a team, do you guys know your personality? Have you guys done any personality test, or — there’s a, the — it’s called a Six Working Genius test. Have you guys done any of those?
Meagan Nace: Oh, yeah. I’ve — yep, day one for everyone. So Rachel came on board — Rachel was up — okay, four years ago. So before Rachel, it was me doing education solo, and one of the things that I’ve always carried with me since high school, through FFA, all the things, was the Franklin, or the StrengthsFinder. So it’s funny because they say, like, your strengths don’t change as you get older. But yeah, so we look at our strengths a lot of times, not just from our experiences, but those StrengthsFinder strengths, and really lean into those anytime there’s, you know — every team butts heads. We butt heads a lot. Not a lot, but, like, small things where, you know, we’re like, “Hey, what about this? What about that?” So we always lean back into our strengths. Same with everybody on the team in AmericanHort.
And when Rachel came on board, I work a lot with Neil Glatt and some of the other speakers that I’m close to, not just from Cultivate or whatnot, and Neil really helped me as a new manager at the time working through, you know, what do we do? How do we use strengths as a team moving forward? So a lot of that has been so helpful.
Ping Yu: Yeah. So the reason why I’m asking that is, while you guys are talking, I can definitely say Meagan — well, not just because of her role, well, maybe just because her strengths and putting [laughs] her into the role in the beginning — but she’s definitely the visioner. She has a vision, and then, you know, the goal achiever. And then Rachel, you’re definitely the — the medium that you talked about, how you do those things — I’m like, “She is definitely one of the, you know, the six —” oh, gosh, what’s it called? Six Genius — oh, Working Genius. You’re definitely one of the tenacity. Getting the vision and then getting it down. Like, that’s how I say that you guys can work as a team is perfect, because working as a team, you always need somebody to have the vision and somebody who takes the vision and takes action and makes it happen. So that’s why I was like, “Oh, those three just work perfectly from different perspectives.” And I assume that you would have different strengths [laughs] and different personalities in that regard. [laughs] That’s why I just, out of curiosity, asked you the question, ‘cause that’s very fun.
Choosing What Makes the Cut
Ping Yu: Well, let’s circle back. Sorry about all that random question, but I think that would be fun. But circle back to Cultivate planning. When you guys meet — and of course you would have reached out to different speakers, and even with the proposal bank that you save for later use — what type of topics that you would think that must be included, versus, “Okay, this might be trending but may be short-lived, or may not be suitable for this year”? How do you make those decisions?
Meagan Nace: Yeah. So Alejandra kind of mentioned that we have a fall summit, and we can talk a little bit more about that later. But during that time, we really take leaders in the industry who — we work with a lot, and our team could not do what we do without these individuals. But we utilize some of the feedback from there to really prioritize and focus on those foundational issues that the industry’s seeing across the board, from greenhouse to retail, to even the interior landscape segment of our industry. You know, labor, profitability, production challenges, leadership, always huge. And within leadership, you know, is talent development, workforce development. So those are usually our big priorities, and each segment has those issues, and they each have different niches within that, or different tiny little problems that — now we have, instead of just one education program, that’s turned into seven different programs that might have that original foundational issue. So we like to look at it as, how can we fine-tune these programs to be very specific to those needs, and very sensitive to those needs? So from that, that’s kind of where we start.
And trends matter. They’re huge. That’s, you know, at the end of the day, the customer is who we’re focused on, and how do we connect the growers to the customer? You know, there’s the retailers, there’s the landscape side of things. They’re kind of the clearing house for the industry, so how do we connect those segments and those different streams of the industry together? So that’s kinda like the big picture. And then from there, there’s always more. Rachel has some really good insight too, and Alejandra — what are those fine details that we look at?
Rachel Rawls: Yeah. I would say, like, one thing that we keep in mind is what is best for the attendees when they are — you know, spending so much money to come to these events. They’re spending all their time, you know, either taking PTO, or all the work that they’ve left is just piling back up at home. We try to make the best of their time that we can. So I would say things in theory are nice to listen to, but one of the reasons I think that they come to these events is that they want to hear things and information that is applicable, things that they can immediately go back to back home and immediately use in their operations. So that’s one of the lenses that I look through. It’s one of those things where, like, if it’s trending but it doesn’t change any decision-making or outcomes, it’s probably not gonna make the cut for education. But there are other things that are obviously trending. You know, you’ve got automation, sustainability, workforce development. It’s trendy, but it’s super useful immediately, so we always prioritize stuff like that. AI. [laughs] Yes. Big one.
Alejandra Feliciano: Yeah. And for Spanish programs, we actually have a Spanish advisory committee that also helps us understand what the priorities are for Spanish programs. So in the committee we have people from different types of businesses, like nursery owners — from a nursery owner to, you know, a head grower at a greenhouse. So we try to get multiple different perspectives to really understand what those education needs are and what our priorities should be.
Ping Yu: Yeah. So I know I mentioned a little bit beforehand, just to emphasize how big our industry is and how important every segment is, but can you give us a bigger picture of the education for Cultivate so that people would understand what kind of segments are included and can be incorporated into the green industry as a whole?
Meagan Nace: Yeah. So from that umbrella view, greenhouse, nursery, garden retail, interior landscape — those are, like, five core industry segments. And within those we know, and you know, like, everyone is starting to experience and kind of dive into, you know, what kind of careers are in horticulture. There’s a ton of them. There’s so many. So one of our challenges for Cultivate, because so many people come from all parts of the industry, at all levels, from owner CEOs to their team, who’s physically growing and doing the work in the greenhouses — so that’s our biggest challenge, is how do we create programming that covers all of that? So Cultivate is — our team, the rest of our team, always kind of laugh at us. They’re like, “Are you sure we need one more pest session? Are you sure we need —” I’m like, “Yes, we do.” The answer’s always yes, and we probably need five more of them, but we only have so many rooms and so much time in the day at Cultivate. So that’s kind of how we attack that.
And then we have what we call the management clinic sessions, which is any HR leadership for CEO level, but leadership for new managers and those young professionals in the industry, ‘cause that’s just as important, if not more so. So we’re tackling it from all angles per se.
Ping Yu: Yeah. So how many sessions do you guys normally have every year for Cultivate? Just for Cultivate.
Meagan Nace: Just for Cultivate — well, also another joke within our team, because they always say, “How about 100 sessions?” I’m like, “How about 160 sessions plus?” So [laughs] we will put sessions as needed if they are needed in nooks and crannies of that convention center, but we usually hover on average around 160 sessions.
Ping Yu: Wow, 160 sessions. That’s — yeah, a lot of moving pieces just in the whole process of making it happen.
Meagan Nace: Yeah.
Ping Yu: But what about the Spanish program? Does that provide similar topics to the regular session? How does that differ from, or fit in to, the already existing program that you guys have? ‘Cause before, we don’t have the Spanish program, and how do you guys make sure that it fits in into the whole educational planning?
Alejandra Feliciano: Generally, I would say that we try to mirror what’s being offered in English. And that’s one of our big goals, is to make all of the education that’s available in English accessible also to Spanish audience. So that’s the biggest thing. Aside from that, I think that there’s also a lot of interest in — one of the topics that has risen to the top is just leadership development, and just general professional growth is one of the things that our advisory group really said. It’s like, “How do we take this talent that maybe is really technical and really has a lot of experience, maybe growing, or a lot of experience in the landscaping industry, and they’re really capable, but how do they take that next step into their career?” And so we’ve been working on some programs to help support that as well.
Ping Yu: Yeah. No, that’s very essential. Like we said, our ultimate goal is to help everybody in our industry to survive within our industry. That’s part of the sustainability. I mean, we want them to be successful. We want them to have a good life, and they are just like everybody out there. They have their own family to support. They have their own life to live with. They just happen to be in our industry and doing all this great stuff to you who is listening right now.
Education That Never Stops
Ping Yu: So I know that AmericanHort has a lot of resources, and of course, Cultivate is just one of the big events where thousands of people from different places just gather together to enjoy, have a kind of, I would say, the green industry festival, [laughs] every year. But what other educational resources does AmericanHort provide? Can you just tell us a little bit about that so people — if people are not able to go to Cultivate and they wanna look for more resources that you guys provide — so they would know what to look for?
Meagan Nace: Yeah, great question. Kind of back to your question earlier, where you asked, what is the planning cycle for Cultivate? It’s year-round, but so is all the other education we do. We know that learning never stops, and it shouldn’t. Everyone should constantly be learning something new or building on what they know already, whether from a technical standpoint or, you know, if you now found yourself managing a team. There’s always something to learn. There’s always new ways to grow professionally as well. So that’s one of our challenges, is how do we help people? How do we help businesses, from a sustainable standpoint, continue in the industry?
So it’s year-round. We do a lot of webinars, or e-learning, whatever you wanna call it. Everyone calls them something different. And every one of our programs that we do — we started branding, and, you know, if you see something that says a Mastery Series, that’s a program that is a deep dive, kind of like think a master class. So deep dive on a specific topic that someone might not have time to go take a full-on college course yet, but they still need those basic principles, and they need that useful information to be able to do their job. So those Mastery Series are really helpful with that.
We have a grower certification now for a Technician level and Section Grower, and continuing to build out certifications across the industry segments as we go. And we just launched a new micro-credentialing or badging program — also however you wanna talk about it — because certification takes a while, as it should, and what’s that happy medium in between? You know, if you have a large team or even a small team that you’re trying to get that technical information — because we know not everyone came from a horticultural background, but they want to work in our industry. They want to be working with plants, around plants, ‘cause it’s a great job. So how do we help them get up to speed? How do we help the owners or the HR teams train their teams on that technical aspect? So we have that new badging program that helps, and it’s a very quick but trackable way for individuals to learn or continue their learning.
And we’re always adding to education, and the idea is that we have a complete ecosystem of educational products that meets our industry and individuals where they’re at in their career and in their stage of life. So that’s our ultimate goal. Sorry, I can talk all day about this, so I’m gonna kick it back to the team so they can stop me [laughs] and add in their flair on what they’re working on.
Rachel Rawls: Yeah. I wanna highlight just two programs before I pass it on to Alejandra. We recognize that, like I said earlier in the program, how expensive attending Cultivate is. Like, it’s hard if you are going by yourself, or even if your company has to budget all of that in — that’s a lot of money to commit to sometimes. So one of the things that we’ve been doing, and this happened since the COVID era was happening, we have been recording some of the sessions that were at Cultivate. We have this whole on-demand program, and so I think that really helps people. They can sort of attend with Cultivate in that way. They can watch a lot of the education that was happening, or even if you went to Cultivate and you didn’t get to attend — you know, we have, what, 160-something sessions, so that’s like 11 happening at the same time. So if you wanted to watch any of the extras that you couldn’t attend, you get to also see them that way.
The other thing that I wanted to highlight that I am really proud of is our Grow Forward series. So a lot of the education that we do is very technical, so very related to your job, those types of skills that help you do your job better. But the Grow Forward series was started by the Generation Next Community Connectors, and they really wanted an education series that helped them personally. So it’s a lot of personal and professional development. So it’s more of those softer skills, and it’s been really great. We started that in 2024. We host six of them virtually throughout the year. We get a ton of engagement through those. People are just really interested in learning how to better themselves in our industry, and I love that.
Alejandra Feliciano: Yeah, and as you can imagine, my role is to make sure that all of these wonderful webinar series and events that we have outside of Cultivate are available in Spanish as well. So one really exciting thing that we started last year is a lot of these webinars that Rachel is mentioning, we’re offering them with live interpretation services in Spanish. So when you join a webinar, you can join the audio in Spanish or the audio in English, and it’s just available for a broader audience like that. And then for the badging program that Meagan had talked about, we also have been looking at all of those badges, whether it’s like getting skills in plant nutrition or pests or soils. Each individual badge is also available in Spanish as we’re continuing to build the program.
Ping Yu: Yeah, well, apparently you guys are busy throughout the year. I just can’t imagine how you manage to do all those programs all at once with three of you, because I attended Cultivate. I was looking for some of you. I just never had a chance to see you at Cultivate. I was like, “Oh my gosh, where are they?” And you guys are just running around making sure everything is okay, and I saw that’s already a huge job for a team of three, but you guys are also managing other programs. That’s just amazing. How do you guys do that?
Meagan Nace: Okay, so there are just three of us, and a lot of times Rachel and Alejandra are really great at telling me, “No, we don’t have time for this. Put it in the —” we have a massive document of ongoing ideas and whatnot that, you know, we’re like, “Oh, nope, doesn’t fit on the calendar.” We do have to sleep. We do have families, so it’s not a thing. But yeah, so we also have a really great network, and we hinted to this a little bit earlier too, of what we call community connectors. So they are industry leaders, all volunteer, 100% volunteer, who help us sometimes when we need it with programs, with finding speakers, with ideas and whatnot.
And then at Cultivate they help out a lot too. But one of the things that I find really interesting about Cultivate is, you know, you hear people saying, like, “I’ve been coming here since I was a kid,” because they’re a part of a multi-generational family, and that’s amazing. Some are like, “Yeah, this was our summer vacation. Like, we came to Columbus every year. But now as an adult I understand.” So it’s always fun to hear those stories. But we are so blessed to have a very large group of volunteers who are some from the industry, some not from the industry, just love the industry and are retired, that come year after year after year to Cultivate to help us with those education sessions to make sure that attendees and speakers are set and ready so they have a stress-free [laughs] session, or stress-free experience there at Cultivate. And without those individuals we could not [laughs] pull it off. So we are so lucky to have them, and I will say if someone’s coming to Cultivate and they happen to see them in the session room, please give them a high five or a thank you, ’cause they really are the secret sauce behind education at Cultivate, and everything at Cultivate.
Ping Yu: Yeah, I know, I personally know a lot of volunteers. [laughs] I’m pretty sure you were one of them at one point as well. Yeah, and I think one of the cool things about horticulture in general is that we do attract a lot of volunteers just because the nature of horticulture in general — we are just such a great industry, and just so welcoming. So everybody feels like, well, they can contribute something, and they are willing to contribute even if they are retired. They just still wanna pay it forward.
A Partner to Research and Extension
Ping Yu: So I know that a lot of those educational programs have a lot of good researchers and extension specialists and extension professionals, and even industry leaders, or people who are in this industry for years. So from the researcher and extension professional’s perspective, what’s your suggestion for getting involved with AmericanHort education?
Meagan Nace: Oh, reach out. [laughs] Let us know what you’re working on. We’re also — one thing that we haven’t said much about too is at AmericanHort, part of our team that we work with, so Jen Gray and Roni and Michael, they run HRI, so that’s the research side of AmericanHort. I am not gonna be the best to explain all of it. What they do is amazing and so needed for our industry, because without those advancements, without those researchers, we wouldn’t be where we are today, or we wouldn’t be able to continue to grow and innovate. So reach out to us, reach out to the HRI team as well. I know right now they are, like, elbows deep, or whatever deep you wanna say it, in grant proposals. That team is amazing, and they do that.
And one thing at Cultivate that our team helps a little bit with, just on the back end and making sure everything is organized, is the Thrive Stage. It’s part of the Horticultural Research Institute, HRI. It’s part of their educational programming where they highlight the researchers that have had some of the funding through HRI over the past few years or whatnot, and you get to hear firsthand from them about their research and how it’s impacting the industry.
But also, one of the things that, coming from the research world and working with various teams and looking at it and focusing on the consumer end of it — one thing I will say is that always think about, when you’re looking at wanting to speak at Cultivate or whatnot, how does your research, or how does it apply to that practical side of things, the practical side of growing or whatnot? Like, that’s the golden nugget that everyone is always looking for. So that’s my two cents. 100%, always reach out to any of us on the team, because we are always looking for ideas and ways to expand and ways to share some of that awesome research that’s happening that no one knows about ‘cause it just hasn’t been shared out. So Rachel — we all work with a lot of amazing researchers, some present company included. But Rachel does a lot of work, especially in the grower side of things, and Alejandra as well on the research side. So do you ladies wanna take this question too?
Rachel Rawls: Yeah. You know, coming from Extension, I can say that I think one thing that Extension professionals do so well is just being able to make education usable, and explaining it in a way that — not talking down to anyone, but talking on the level of, you know, a grower, or giving that education in a way that they can use it immediately. And we love using Extension agents, Extension researchers in any of our education. We absolutely love it. I get a lot of emails asking, you know, like, “I want to present at Cultivate, or a smaller conference. I don’t know what you’re looking for. Can you help me?” And so that’s really what I tell them is, you know, when you’re thinking about a proposal you’d wanna write in the way of, like, what problem are you solving for the members and for the attendees? What would you suggest growers do differently, something that they can immediately try and operate, or do in their operation next week? I just always try and tell them, you know, think of things that are applicable, and we usually get really great sessions from Extension.
Ping Yu: Wow. I —
Alejandra Feliciano: Yeah, I think the number one word that resonates in my mind is we’re a partner to Extension and researchers, because we fulfill that outreach goal, and I’ll give you an example. I had a researcher that I worked with that — they were a plant pathologist, and they did research on clean surfaces and, like, different types of disinfectants. That was what their research was. And that type of research, really who’s going to be using it is those frontline workers, that really need to know, you know, how does that get applied? Which one’s the type of disinfectant that I should use, or what should I look out for? And through our programs, they’re able to reach that audience directly without having to go through so many intermediaries, because the recordings or the webinars that they do with us are accessible directly to those members.
And the other thing that I would say too is that, as far as for Spanish programs, we also have a lot of researchers that are Hispanic. And just partnering with them, I think that visibility, and them serving as a role model where we have researchers that are Hispanic also serving a Hispanic audience, has also a bigger impact.
Ping Yu: Yeah, representation matters [laughs] in any aspect. And, as an Extension specialist myself, I can’t agree more with what Rachel just said. Sometimes you really have to engage with the audience so that you can get your message delivered and received in a way that you wanted. Otherwise, it’s just nothing, no matter — well, we know there’s a lot of great research happening, but we as Extension professionals have to translate it into a language that can be adapted immediately by our audience. So I think that’s education where the communication skill is definitely one of the — well, what Meagan mentioned earlier, the golden nuggets that every presenter needs to have. And those are soft skills [laughs] that you guys have programmed to help with that too, so I think that’s great.
Sessions That Stick — and Favorite Plants
Ping Yu: But speaking of those sessions and presentations, you guys — I don’t know how many sessions you have been to — can you guys share one session, the topic that always resonates with you, and you still have those vivid memories of the session or the speaker or the topic? I know there’s gonna be a lot, but just choose one.
Rachel Rawls: Yeah, I can go. So I know from an attendee perspective, one of the things we look at, like, we get all the numbers back on how many people were at a session or anything, and there are always some that just — it’s standing room only, people are out the door trying to, like, peek their head in and listen. Those are always the pests and disease ones. Attendees love pests and disease. That problem is not going away anytime soon. We know we are always going to have pests and disease sessions at Cultivate. We really love those.
For me personally — and it’s helped a little bit now that we have more people on the team — we are able to say like, “Okay, I’m gonna go peek my, poke my head in very quickly for the session for 10 minutes, and, like, you stay at the desk. I’ll be right back.” I love going to the professional, like, development leadershippy sessions, and so I’ll give a shout-out. I’m a big Neil Glatt fan, so usually anything he talks about at Cultivate, I’m always like — we put his sessions, like, right by our desk, and I can just poke my head in and listen for a few minutes. I’m always inspired by those.
Alejandra Feliciano: Yeah, and I, as far as topics that resonate, I would say for the Spanish sessions, it’s always things that bring people together. You know, how can you have that cross-communication so that you can overcome language barriers? I would say anytime there’s a session that helps give some techniques for collaboration in that sense, that’s really well-attended, I would say.
Meagan Nace: [laughs] I can’t answer your question correctly because I cannot choose one.
Ping Yu: I know, I know. It’s a tricky question, especially for you.
Meagan Nace: We have internal arguments sometimes on, you know, what was the best session or whatnot, and of course there’s data that you can utilize that goes along with that that’ll answer that question. But it kind of goes back to how different and vast our industry really is, so that’s such a tough question. Obviously, I’m going to say, in general, that profitability and workforce challenges — like, those sessions, they’re so universal. If we can help businesses at any level run stronger, smarter, better — like, that’s kind of my — like, my personal favorite is to see how people take that information and build their businesses or build their teams to do more. Rachel lives in grower land at Cultivate, as we would say. I love, love, love retail. I love the consumer side of it from my experience in past life, so any kind of retail-centric, any kind of consumer trends.
Of course, we all love Katie Dubow and the Garden Media Group and their trends report, and every year you’re like, “Are they — is it gonna be true?” They do so much research, and they scour so many things, so many parts of the industry and consumer behaviors, that every year you’re like, “Oh my gosh, that totally just happened. We should have listened to that.” [laughs] So that one’s always a huge session at Cultivate.
And then one that I always — there’s always one or two sessions that we plan, the speaker’s great, we know they’re gonna rock it, and you just never know because you don’t know who’s gonna go to what session. ‘Cause there’s so many people, there’s so many sessions. We just haven’t figured out that technology of, like, which session are you going to so we can, like, pre-interview you or whatnot. But last year, the one session — it surprised me but not — was discovering your why, for managers of, like, why is it that you’re doing this? It’s helping people not be burnt out of the hamster wheel that they feel like they’re in, and there were some people who left that session in tears — not, like, sad tears, like hopeful, happy tears — and there were several of them that came back mid-year and was like, “The things that I learned and took away from this session has saved my business and my teams.” So that one is one that we actually are gonna do again this year because of the impact that it had. So that’s — I’m gonna go with, for 2026, that might be my favorite session, so I’ll try. But see, now if any of the other speakers are listening to this, please know that it’s not because I don’t love all of your sessions. I do.
Ping Yu: No, wait, wait, wait, wait — totally get it. You get me, because it —
Meagan Nace: No, no, I’m not.
Ping Yu: So sometimes I ask people about, what’s your favorite plant? And people are just laughing at me, “Ping, you’re asking the wrong question.” I said, “Yeah, I know.” But then, what about, what’s your favorite plant today? So this is just basically a similar question, because we as horticulturalists, we just love a whole lot of different stuff, because everything is just awesome. And I just feel like this is a good example of some of the topics that you resonate with, because you cannot attend all of them, and there’s just too much that you [laughs] love about. That’s just your favorite topic today, Meagan, so you’re not going to offend anybody.
Rachel Rawls: [laughs] Ask us what our favorite plants are before we leave.
Ping Yu: Okay, yeah. What’s your favorite plant today?
Rachel Rawls: Oh, my favorite plant today — I am a classic Southern girly, so oakleaf hydrangeas will win every time.
Ping Yu: Okay. Alejandra?
Alejandra Feliciano: Oh.
Meagan Nace: You take it, ‘cause I’m still undecided.
Ping Yu: I know. I can read your face expression. I’m like, I’m going to circle back to Meagan.
Alejandra Feliciano: I live in the Pacific Northwest, and right now my witch hazel’s blooming, so I would say that is my favorite plant right now. It smells amazing, and it’s always pollinated by these little insects, which is really cool.
Ping Yu: Okay. Have you decided, Meagan?
Meagan Nace: I mean, I’ll go back to the OG, the original plant that made me fall in love with plants, was — it’s a peony. Just, you know, growing up in rural Midwest, every farm has the row of peonies. And when they’re in bloom, and they’re all in bloom, it is the most beautiful thing in smell that you can imagine. So I will go to that, but I have many other favorites. I know. Like you said, depending on the situation.
All right. Wait. Since Alejandra — she made me think of the one that, since it smells so good — my parents, if they’re listening, they’re gonna hate this when I say it, but my favorite one for, like, scent is Edgeworthia paper bush. I bought one — Mom and Dad, if you’re listening, I’m sorry — I bought one in, like, 2016 that was, like, in a little small, like, five-gallon bucket. Planted it in the worst spot possible at their house and was like, “You’re gonna love this. It’s not gonna get very big.” It’s probably, like, 15 feet wide at the moment, and it has definitely overtaken their front porch, but the smell is amazing, and it’s absolutely perfect.
Ping Yu: Yeah. I know. Well, all of the plants that you guys just mentioned, I love them all. And the peony — my God, I just finished one episode on peony, so [laughs] — and I just wanna shout out there with plant: every time you just grab a plant from the garden center, just think about there are just so many things behind the scene about the plant historically, culturally, and a lot of great things going on. With peony, they have just tons of poets and literature, books. It just all centered with the one plant. So it’s just how wonderful our horticulture world is. I just love it.
Where to Find AmericanHort
Ping Yu: With that in mind, if people want to stay tuned of all those wonderful programs and resources that AmericanHort has, where do you guys recommend them go looking for those kind of information?
Meagan Nace: First place to start is always the AmericanHort website, so americanhort.org. All new education is posted there. Not just what we’re doing as an education team, but our advocacy team is killing it in helping and protecting and defending our industry and really advancing it on that end of it. And then as well as the HRI team, and all of the research and what they’re doing and working on — it’s all there on the AmericanHort website. And cultivateevent.org is the official Cultivate website for all things Cultivate, but you can get to that too — everything through the AmericanHort website.
Rachel Rawls: We’re also active on all of social media, all of those major platforms. So we’ve got LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and X. We are on all of those. That is a great place for members and non-members to get all of the updates.
Ping Yu: Yeah.
Alejandra Feliciano: Yeah. For Spanish language resources, they can visit our online learning center and search for content presented in Spanish. And we welcome feedback. So if you have any ideas for Spanish programming, or any other kind of programming, let us know what you need, and our team is happy to help.
Ping Yu: Yeah. Reach out. Okay. I’ll make sure that I put all those links on the show notes so people can get all that information very easy. But thank you, ladies, for taking time out of your busy schedule to talk with us today. It’s just such a wonderful conversation that we had with the dream team. And thank you for making it happen for our industry. We just cannot survive without you guys. You guys are really the true hidden heroes, and that needs to be highlighted in one way or another.
Meagan Nace: Yeah.
Ping Yu: So thank you.
Meagan Nace: Thank you for having us. Yes. This was so much fun.
Ping Yu: Thank you so much.
Closing
Ping Yu: Conversation like this only happens when you support the show. For more information and to find ways to support us, please go to bandbpod.com — bandbpod.com. If you like what you are hearing, spread the word and share this podcast with the people you love. Make sure you hit that subscription button and give a review for the podcast. And as always, go check out the show notes to learn more about this topic and other topics we featured on the show at bandbpod.com. Thank you for listening. Till the next time, stay healthy and go plants.
Transcript produced for Blooms and Beyond / UGA Center for Urban Agriculture