Suzanne Jacobs — Incandescent Orchids, Orchids how not to kill them

Once more it is what's involved and I don't know, there's been a fair amount of doom and gloom around and everybody's had challenges. For me, the last little while has been just absolutely nuts. And I thought, you know what? Let's have something on a lighter note, on a brighter note on our show. So I thought I would speak to this lady and it shall all become clear to you why I want to speak to this lady. Who am I talking about? I'm talking about Suzanne Jacobs and she is from Incandescent Orchid. Hello Suzanne, good to chat with you. - Hello David, thank you so much for having me. - Always, always a pleasure. So now I've given enough of a mysterious introduction to you. Let's start off with a little bit about who Suzanne is. Give me a bit of history where you grew up, et cetera, et cetera. - Well, I've been in Edenvale my whole life. Between Edenvale and Campton. Born, bred, raised and probably destroyed. Yeah, I have, I went to school obviously, matriculated. I then, I couldn't follow what I wanted to do in life because my father decided it was not a place for a woman to be in. I wanted to become an aeronautical engineer. That so did not go down well. So I did the good old girl thing and I did the secretarial course which I detested and never used.

But it made everybody happy so that was great and I didn't have to pay for it, so yeah. I then sort of worked my way in the mining industry after doing logistics and all sorts of things. I have a logistical degree and I have just worked my way into stuff that I enjoy forever. I started a small on the side business doing transcribing and things for market research companies which I ran sort of alongside my career. And then in 2010 I decided I'd had enough of this nonsense and this whole corporate politic stuff. And I went to my own and I did transcribing and note-taking and moderating and whatever for various in research houses in the country which I still do. And I have a lot of passions which a lot of people will call a obsession and a problem. It's like an addiction. One of them in horses and one of them is orchids and I've collected them for many years, both of them. Yeah, and then I decided when COVID hits it was, my business went toilet woods like everybody else's did and the industry sort of crashed. So I put feelings out to see if people would be interested in orchids considering they're spending so much time at home they may as well make their homes pretty was the theory. And it's just flown from there.

I have a very nice successful orchid business alongside my horses and my transcribing. So yeah, I love it. It's just, that's pretty much me. - That is fantastic. I mean, if I think, as you said, you started off, you were doing mining and logistics. You say you went and you're doing transcribing which the fancy word for it these days and I had somebody on the show a couple of weeks ago and we were talking about this is this whole virtual assistant concept and you did that. But I mean, I understand because this is where the tie-in is now going to come in. I have a friend, not just a friend on Facebook. She's one of many, many friends because I'm very famous and very important. Let's just get that straight. But one of my friends on Facebook started talking about orchids and she started talking about where she got her orchids from, et cetera, et cetera. Now at that time, I'd been successfully murdering orchids for about three or four years. And it irritated the life out of me because I've got green fingers. I can just make just about anything grow with the exception of orchids. And I was like, no, no, no, no, no, no. And I said to her, where did you get it? And she said, I got it from this wonderful woman called Suzanne.

And I was like, okay, I want to find out who this Suzanne is and I want to talk to her. And I did. And we just seemed to get along. Maybe it's my Eastern boy roots and you're living in the Vale, but we seem to get along. And then I managed to get hold of you on the phone and I said to you, hello, my name's David. I am the orchid murderer. You are apparently the orchid whisperer. Let's see if we can come up with something. Long story short is I then added to, after I'd sent you some very sad pictures. I'm very embarrassed. I had to send you sad pictures of the remains of some of my orchids. - They were a little sad, yes.

- And then I bought some more from you. - Yes. - And I was very forward. And I said, you need to give me a guarantee that I won't murder them. And you said, you can't give me that guarantee, but you can certainly do your best to help me. And I've got some beautiful orchids. Now I still haven't learned all of the fancy names for them, but as I look around my office, there's some beautiful flowers and it makes me happy. And I'm very, very grateful for that. And that's what fascinated me. 'Cause as I got to talk to you more and more, I was like, sure, okay. So your traditional business went down the tubes at that time. And you suddenly decided I'm gonna take something that was largely a hobby and try and turn it into a little business. And you've done that, I think, very, very successfully. Where did your love of orchid start? Because you do talk a bit like a botanist when I ask you about orchid stuff. And then I have to say, no, no, no. It's the one with the thin leaves and the bump at the bottom or it's the one with the big leaves, you know. Where did it start? - Well, I actually don't know. I love everything nature, okay. I don't know where I came from because camping in my house was a sweet word.

As I was growing up, there was no such thing as like peeing in the bush and having a tent. And it just, it just was not the thing to do. And for me, it's like, oh, anyway, we're the nearest closest living thing moves box or nays at me and I'm a happy person. So everything for me, as long as it's pretty and it's, I can make it happen, even if it's like a learning curve, I love it. And I found that I love fuchsias and I love orchids. And the thing is, I just, I sort of picked at them. You know, everybody starts with the woody's orchid, the phalaenopsis. Everybody starts with the one you can find. And funny enough, it is the easiest orchid to grow and it's the easiest orchid to murder, okay. - Oh, good, oh, good. So I don't feel too bad because that's what I did. I agree that the willies, the phalaenopsis ones and murdered them successfully. - Well, there you go. At least you're a success in that. You see that is good. But the reason being is because they're on a shelf, you buy them, they look all pretty. No one tells you how to water them. No one tells you not to get water in the wrong places. No one tells me where to put them, whether they shade, whether they sun, whether they, nobody tells you, you just buy these pretty flowers that are all beautiful and in bloom and have probably been in the refrigeration truck for the last month.

So they are all preserved and then they hit your environment and they go boom. And then sort of when they finish flowering, you can look at those green things until you bloom the face. They probably won't flower for another two years because no one told you how to then promote new growth because they are effectively refrigerated when they start hoofing them around the country to drop them at various places. So the climate is different. And yeah, I just, I started with those and I thought, oh, those are very pretty and I've murdered my fishy and I learned how to chain. I went to go and have a look and I learned how that, ooh, and then there's that one and then there's that one and then there's that one. And yeah, it kind of grew for me and ooh, that's a pretty one, ooh, that's a nice one. And yeah, then it became a really big problem. So I eventually had a bathroom where you couldn't bath, you had to shower because I discovered it was nice and humid and light and it had air flow and it was so pretty and it worked beautifully. So I collected, you know, as you do. And my whole bathroom, if you wanted a bath, you had to fight flowers for it. It was as easy as that. You sort of got tickled in the nose by a plant or a leaf or a flower or whatever.

And I collected a whole bunch of secondhand window frames, cottage pane window frames, which I stored here for a year. And my husband one morning just said, listen, I actually want a bath. This is enough. I'm like, well, they've sat here for a year. You want a bath, build my greenhouse. That weekend it was up, okay? And it's just grown from there. I've now extended it once and I'm extending it again. So yeah, it's kind of, it's like I say, it's a problem. But it's a pretty problem. So I'm okay with that. - But no, and it is. I mean, I actually said, you don't send my orchids because we're getting to all of what you do in just a little while. I said, I wanted to come and collect them. That's just part of my nature. I wanted to see who this sort of fairly nutty sounding woman was that I was buying orchids from, who I'd only met literally up until that point on the internet and via Facebook and via a friend of mine that said, no, no, she's legit. She's not going to take your money and go. She's not going to offer you millions from the US lottery or anything. And I was like, okay, cool. And I got to tell you that that greenhouse of yours is like a little piece of paradise. It's absolutely beautiful.

But when we come back now, I'd like to move on and find out, you know, 'cause somewhere along the line, you must've thought I can make this work, but you can't grow orchids specifically not in your little greenhouse place fast enough to sell them, I wouldn't think. So when we come back, let's talk more about that. My special guest is Suzanne Jacobs from Incandescent Orchid. This is what's involved. We'll be back in just a bit. And we're back with my special guest Suzanne from Incandescent Orchid. Okay, so in the story, you've got your greenhouse going and everything, the pandemic hit and most people just sort of fell about the place and totally understandably, your life was totally turned upside down. And you went, okay, people might want pretty things. Tell me about that process. - Well, you see, genetically, I'm very lucky. Okay, I have a very strong mother. Okay, one of those where your house burns down, you call the fire department and then you phone your husband and they go, why didn't you phone me? And you say, because I didn't need you, I needed a fire department. She's one of those. And I kind of inherited those genes and it's a kind of make do, get done, make plan. So when COVID hit and crumpled the world around me, obviously my transcribing business because it was all face to face in a room, most of it was in house or in a facility and it just, that just wasn't the thing.

You just can't do it. And obviously we being here in South Africa, we're not set up for a continuation business of online. Obviously now that's changed and business is picking up because everything's Zoom and Teams and all of that good stuff. But then it was foreign, it just wasn't done. So everything crashed and I'm like, hmm, food, clothing, school fees, we have a problem. Okay, so I thought, well, let's have a look and see if someone, I have so many orchids. I had duplicates, oops, of plants because I bought so many, I actually wasn't even sure if I had it or not. So it was pretty, so I bought another one. So yeah, I thought, right, I'm gonna sell my excess and see how this goes. And I put a feel as I'm saying, would anybody be interested in this? And I put it on Facebook and saying, here's my pretty flowers, anybody interested and it just exploded. I had millions of people phoning and WhatsApping and all over the place. And I thought, right, create myself a WhatsApp group for orchids, added everybody to the WhatsApp group. And then I went to my favorite grower who actually doesn't sell to the public, but he sold to me because I was, yeah, like I say, had a problem, right? So I may as well been a permanent buyer.

So I made an arrangement with him and said, right, if I come and I buy from you, would you give me a wholesale price? Would you give me a discount on some stuff? Would you, would you, would you? Which of course we negotiated and it's no fun, no problem, you know, as long as you let me know, bloody blah. So that was that and I left it. Then all these people attached and I thought, right, I'm gonna go and I'm going to go there and I'm gonna take pictures and put prices up and post it to this group and see what reaction I have from the people that are on my WhatsApp group. Well, from minute one, it was just order after order after order. So it was great. So you could go there and you take all the orders that are there, then you realize, okay, so if I now take all of these orders and I buy stock, I now have a sales and I have stuff I can sell until next week. Well, that was the theory anyway. So I did this and I brought all the stock home and by the time I hit my driveway, all that stock was sold. So I thought, okay, so we go back and I did it next week and I did it the weekend of that. And eight months later, every single week, I've done it and it's grown and grown and grown. And I put, you know, my sales up, look what I've sold for the week, isn't it pretty bloody blah on Facebook and a million more people contact me and I add them to my group and so my group has grown.

I think I've got about 200, just over 200 people on my group. And I've just, every week I go and I post up what they've got, what's in bloom, what's not in bloom, what it's gonna look like if it's not in bloom, I go and I research the flowers so they can see what it's gonna look like, if they're not sure. And it's just order after order after order. And that's how it's grown. And I've got two or three nice growers that I go to. And yeah, this is my weekly thing. So I dedicate two days of my life effectively in a week. I'd go in the, on Wednesday or Thursday, I go to the growers, I go place all my orders, buy all my stock. When I get back, I label up what belongs, I send everybody their slips, they do an EFT. And I package and career around the country. I even package, I've got three clients in Zimbabwe that I send to. And yeah, that's my thing. So on a Monday, it's packaging and box building and all the rest first and my, I dedicate two full days from early, early, like for good night when I'm back and finished allocating and making sure everything's in the right place and putting my stock aside. And then obviously in between with the spare days, I then myself couple of days, my other stock is then sold.

And of course, you know, being a problem, I have to of course buy myself another special one that no one else has. So every week I sort of buy myself a something, you know, whether it's something I have always wanted or something I've never seen before or the grower, it's never for sale at the grower, it's very funny. I go to the grower and I say to them, oh, I like that, it goes not for sale. I'm saying, yes, it is. And we negotiate with women on back and front and I generally get my own way and I come home with an orchid that nobody else has, which is great. So my collection is getting very special. So I'm very happy about that. I've also started propagating my own splitting and all sorts of funny things so that my own private stock is now growing so that my business can grow and I don't have to purchase as much stock. And you know, so it's kind of building from there, which is quite nice. - I think that's, it's absolutely amazing that you sort of saw this little gap and you took it. And when I saw what you were doing, I was like, that's one of those times when I wanna hit myself upside the head and go, why didn't I think of that? Obviously because I couldn't go orchids at that stage, but you know, that's another discussion entirely.

But I mean, 200 people, I've seen, 'cause I'm not on that group. The first question is, am I as an adult male, am I weird because I like orchids or do you have an equal split between the ladies and the gents that are buying orchids from me? - I have plenty of men that buy orchids from me. I have them that buy for their wives and I have them that buy for themselves. I have them that have as much a problem as I do. I've got a client in Cape Town who has a serious orchid problem. If it's not orchids, the toyers. And he buys from me every single week. I mean, every week. And we're not talking one or two plants, we're talking boxes of plants every week. So I do have a lot of men that buy. And it's a case of, I don't think that they would openly, when they started enjoying flowers, I don't think they'd openly admit it. But I think now they're realizing it's not a stigma to like something pretty. It doesn't make you weird, it doesn't make you odd, it doesn't make you off. It just makes you appreciate that nature is so vast, so varied. The diversity in the plants is just, it's unfathomable. And they just, they enjoy the peace. I mean, the amount of stress that men, women, everybody, it's under at the moment.

For them to have the sit down and look at something pretty and have a cup of coffee space is very important. And why not with orchids?

- Yeah, well, look, that's what I've done. I mean, mine are, mine are, I work from home, you've got a home office here, and that's where mine are. So as I look around, which I'm doing now, I've got these beautiful orchids. I still don't understand the names of some of them, but I have got instructions on how to look after them. So, so far, so good. I've posted a couple of pictures of the ones that are in flower and they're flowering. Of course, for me, the proof of the pudding will be if once they finished flowering, I can keep them alive until they want to flower again. This is going to be a challenge. And I think that's part of it for me is that challenge. It's like, I'm one of those people, don't tell me I can't do it because I'm going to say to you, I can and I will and watch me. So yeah, but now somebody that's also like me and been a successful orchid murderer and feels incredibly guilty because orchids, a lot of people give orchids as gifts. Where is a good place to start? Is there such a thing as a beginner orchid? - Yes, all orchids are actually, they're not difficult. You do get the fancy shmancy that are very specific. Depends on where they are originating from. So if you've got something that lives in a tropical, humid, hot, dank, shady, you're going to battle to get that perfect environment all the time.

So those you kind of stay away from till you can build an environment to suit them. And then obviously you've got to treat them differently to the other orchids. So you've got to have them separated and that becomes then a bit of an iffy, right? But you can, I mean, look, the phenenopsis is, it's the common old garden, Willie's orchid, right? And the problem with people is because they don't know and it's not because they're ignorant so much as they have never been told. I don't like to use the word ignorant in its true sense where it's not a derogatory thing. People think ignorance is because you're stupid. It's not, it's because you just haven't been told. So for them, if you don't faff on an orchid, just 'cause they're delicate and people have told you they're so difficult to grow and blah, blah, blah. The more you faff, the more chance you have of murdering them. That's as easy as that. Orchids like less faff. - Okay, less faff is good. I can do less faff, yeah? - Yes, don't, oh, it needs water, blink, blink. Oh, it needs water, blink, blink. Then you've drowned it and you've murdered it. Oops, it's deep. Just ignore it. Water it on a schedule. You can always ask what the schedule is for each plant.

It depends on the heat, depends on the time of year. In summer, you obviously water more than you do in winter because well, it's no evaporation for starters or less evaporation, less heat. So there's less water loss. And also because that's cold, especially with the phenenopsis, you get what they call crown rot. If there's a little bit of water in the crown of that orchid, it will freeze and your plant will rot and it will die. That's just the way it is. It's just in case of being told how to. And then you just ignore them and enjoy the flowers. Fertilize it every now and again. Nothing overly dramatic. - Okay, now the next question that I'd like to ask, because when I got some from you, I got a couple from you. And well, I'll get into the state of them. - Apart from me actually. - Yes, I'll get into the state of them in just a bit. But right now this is what's involved. My special guest is Suzanne Jacobs of Incandescent Orchid. When we come back, I'll share some of my orchid woes with you. This is what's involved. And we're back with my special guest Suzanne Jacobs of Incandescent Orchid. Okay, so I got five. I was gonna not go and say I got five, 'cause it sounds a bit like an overachiever, but I bought five from you.

And of the five, four were ones I'd never heard of in my life before. And my immediate response was, oh, I'm gonna kill those if I can't even keep a Phalaenopsis alive. Long story short is one, two, three. And the fourth one is about to start, which is the one that you say has a beautiful fragrance to it. So I'm waiting for that. But three of those have done exceptionally well. At least to me, it looks like they've done well 'cause they haven't fallen over yet. The Phalaenopsis is looking very sorry for itself. The one leaf has turned brown. The flowers that we're starting just went nah, not gonna do this. So what do I do? 'Cause you say I mustn't panic, but I'm looking at this and I'm panicking. I think it might need to go to Orchid Hospital. - Okay, so the first thing you do is you send me a photo so I can see how you've tried to murder it. Other than that, because I mounted yours. Yours are all mounted. They were all bounced from me. And I mounted them all onto wood. People have to realize that a good chunk of orchids, a good percentage are what they're called epiphytes.

Epiphytes are air plants. They don't need soil. They don't need anything. They need air. They need moisture and they need to live, okay? In the wild, your Phalaenopsis generally will grow upside down or at an angle. And the reason that is is so that they know they can't get water in their crown. So when it rains, the water just runs off and runs out. It doesn't sit in the crown and doesn't rot. - Okay. - So this is why you'll see our planted jaws or our mounted jaws at an angle. So if you just, oops, when you mounted it, it will just slip off the leaf and it'll be fine. Now, when the grower or your purchase place, wherever you buy it from, they've packed the thing full of moss, which is number one problem, okay? 'Cause then you'll reach rot. But they do this because they have to, they don't have time to water it every second or third day in the summer, okay? They have thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands and they shove them around the country in trucks and they shove them on a shelf, which they also don't water. So the more moisture they leave, the longer it takes to dry out. And that's a survival thing, that's fine. Moss is actually a killer, okay, for all kids. The fact that they are Phalaenopsis or smothered in them when you buy them, the first thing you do is rip it all out, wash all the roots, slip off any black or smushy looking things and either plant it into a coconut husk and bark mix or even just a small bark mix.

And you give them a chance to breathe, okay? Don't smother the roots. If they're growing out the pot, that's what they want to do. Don't go and cover it then with soil. You're going to kill your plant, you're gonna suffocate it. So your ones that are mounted have been taken out of a smushy environment, okay? And your Phalaenopsis is now bare rooted, okay? So you're going to need to water it more often. So you can actually water that Phalaenopsis on the root every single day because it's not going to sit in any water 'cause it's in the air. It will dry out and evaporate within 15 minutes. It'll be dry again, that's fine. Then you soak that whole piece again for a good 20 minutes and then take it out and leave it to dry and put it back where it is and enjoy it for three or four days, you know, and do it again. But you have to water it very often because they are bare rooted and because they don't have that moisture protection layer. You'll see I put a small amount of moss around your roots because I know that not everybody can soak their orchids every single day for 20 minutes, okay? So it's just not a reality. People work, people have lives, okay? It's all fine and right when you have nothing to do and you can sit and cuffle with your orchids every day.

But people don't, you just can't, you know? You've got to eat, you've got to work. So I put a little bit around that so that when you do soak it, the moss will then absorb some water but it's on top, not underneath. So it's not touching the crown, it's not touching anything where it's going to suffocate or hold any moisture. The moss is on top. The moss will then dry out after the root is absorbed enough for a day or two and you can do it again. So you're gonna need a little bit more water on your fell. - Okay, all right, photo to follow. But yes, we'll take that. So, I mean, some of those ones that you've given me is, and I was truly amazed because there's some of them, and I don't ask me for the fancy names 'cause I can't tell you, but there's some that are, it's a beautiful red, little flowers. There's, I think that's a lot of them. - That's a lot of them. - A lot of them. - Lava blood or lava burst depending on, yeah, the color, yes. - Yes, lava burst is the one. And they're beautiful. There's another one with dirty, great white flowers, which is also beautiful. - That's the one to wonderland, yes. - Yeah, so, you know, we're getting there and then the flowers are doing well and it's only the felinopsis, but if somebody's listening now and they go, okay, I've got a problem because my orchids are either dying like David's or I've now had this orchid for two years and it's done absolutely nothing.

Can they contact you? And will you be the orchid doctor, so to speak? - No problem, I'm happy to help anybody. Photos, I'll happily help them repot. They're welcome to come here and I'll help them pot it here. I'll help them mount it here if they are close enough. If they're not, I can do it over WhatsApp. I could do it over phone. Yeah, no problem with that at all. - Fantastic, yeah, 'cause I must say, you know, when you get them, you see them in pots and fantastic. Okay, so I was saying that some of the orchids, when you get them, particularly the felinopsis, these days you do get them in those clear plastic containers and now I understand why, because they need the light and that's why you can see the green roots. But so you'll help people, you'll mount them mine, you mount it for me, 'cause I've never seen them done like that and they look absolutely stunning when they're on this really sort of lovely knolled piece of wood and as you say, being epiphytes, they need some of the air as well. So very happy with that. Suzanne, so you said you'll be the doctor for them. We're gonna give out some details for you and I think we'll do that when we come back and we wrap it up with Suzanne Jacobs and we'll talk about what's next for Suzanne as well and where we can get hold of her and her incandescent orchids, this is what's involved.

And we're back with my special guest Suzanne Jacobs of incandescent orchid. Okay, so people that need to get hold of you, whether it is to buy orchids from you and I firmly believe in supporting small businesses. So if you are in the least bit interested in orchid, get hold of Suzanne. Where's the best place to find you? Would you say Facebook? - I'd love to say yes. I'd love to say I have all the time in the world to scour Facebook, but I'm terrible, I don't. You can contact me on Facebook. It might take me a day or so to get back to you. But if you're looking for something for yourself, for a gift, for your own birthday, present, whatever it might be and you want it sort of knoll, send me a WhatsApp, phone me, I'm around. I always have my phone, it's on 24/7/365. - Okay, so what is the number? Can we give the number out and don't blame me if you get strange people joining you? Okay, so give me that number. - That's all right. It's 083-234-5935.

- All right, so that's 083-234-5935.

That's if you want to get hold of Suzanne. And yeah, listen, take it from somebody who now chats to Suzanne every now and again. The best way is via WhatsApp. Just drop her WhatsApp, she'll get back to you. And then if you want to find out more, get onto that group because the group, I think the group needs to come with a warning though because suddenly you start seeing all of these beautiful flowers and you're like, no, but I want that one and I'd like that one. So I've had to like really wind my neck in and say to myself, I'll get more when I can prove that I can look after them. 'Cause I feel terrible when they die. But you literally will help people with any of the problems that they have. You helped me with some of my other orchids that were on their way out. I've still got one that's clinging to life thanks to you and your advice. So I'm very happy about that. So now you do orchids, orchids are growing. You said that you're wanting to expand your sort of orchid growing place a bit. I'm not sure where you're gonna do that. 'Cause unless you take over part of the house. - Well, yes, if that whole other section where the greenhouse is standing, that whole one side of the garden is now going to be greenhouse, that whole quiet area.

- Oh, okay, well that makes more sense. So you should be able to get a couple in there.

What is next though for Suzanne? I mean, your life is being turned upside down in terms of the pandemic and what you did. You've now started a business you had never really thought about previously doing something you love. Your other passion, which we're probably not even gonna get a chance to get into right now is horses and more specifically rescue horses. You've run around half the country rescuing horses. So what's next? I mean, where do you see things going? - Well, yeah, our business thankfully is picking up on the transcription side. So hopefully the sewers going to start leveling out. So there's that, so I've got to find time for that, which is great. The orchids are gonna carry on. And yeah, my rescue rehab and teaching children and people and whatever to ride is still on the go. I've actually just got two new horses. They arrived on Thursday night, thanks to Choice Carriers. They carried them from Durban for me and they are settling in beautifully. So that's also gonna still keep thriving and it's gonna keep growing. And yeah, it's gonna be teaching children and adults, but especially kids with the square box and the TV and the cell phone and all the stuff stuck inside and getting no sunshine and no dirty.

Kids need to be dirty, I've discovered. Family believe that if children come home exhausted and full of mud, they've had a good day. So I'm gonna still expand obviously on that. I've been doing that on my own now for three years. So that's still going to be the thing. I'm not ever quitting on that, horses are my life. And kids, I love to see the change in the kids, especially kids with special needs or kids with attention order disorders or people that just stay back to school 'cause they can't focus, horse riding is awesome. It teaches them how to concentrate, how to bring everything together and it actually helps them in the school 'cause they learn to concentrate for periods of time. And I like to see that. So I mean, I'll see a child that comes and it's like, oh my goodness, just, oh, there's a butterfly. Oh, look, there's a leaf. Oh no, here's your horse, come down. And then within a couple of weeks, suddenly they're all together and they're all focused and it's good for the core. It's good for the body's exercise. It's good for the brain. It's great for focus and they aren't in the fresh air and you know, all of that. So for me, that's like a huge thing. That's obviously going, my walkers are gonna go, my business, I'm convinced it's gonna pick up.

It's gonna be great. So yeah, I'm gonna have a lot of busy goodies happening this year. - I think that's absolutely wonderful. And then your sense of passion and excitement is contagious. So that is so good to hear. Now, just as we wrap up, because I spotted something at your place the other day when I was there as well, is you don't just do orchids. You also do some other interesting, interesting things. So like, for example, staghorn ferns. So what other interesting bits and pieces do you do? - Well, air plants, staghorns, they all kind of seem to go together with the orchids. They grow in a very similar environment, especially in nature. So ferns of all sorts of description, air plants, the tilansias and things like that, and bromeliads. I do have fuchsias. I've also got some aloe vera's that are here. But yeah, I'm trying not to diversify too far because then I become a nursery and I don't really want to become a nursery. I want to become a specialist nursery, if you know what I mean. So I want to be able to focus on a specific environment plant, if you like. So fuchsias like the shade. They like the water. They like to have light, but no direct sun. So they're very much in a care way.

They very much like an orchid. So you can kind of combine them and people who love one generally will love the other. And they don't have to have a special environment for one and a special environment for another. And then it's just admin. So yeah, I just, I don't know. I like to keep a connected environment type plant, if that makes any sense to anybody, where you can actually have your orchids, your ferns, your staghorns and your fuchsias together in an environment. And they will all do fine. And they'll all have more or less the same sort of care. And you don't have to worry about, you know, two o'clock I have to walk to this one, but only one o'clock I have to walk to that one. And I don't want that to become admin because then it's not enjoyable. - Yeah, absolutely. - It's gonna be something you're going to enjoy. It's going to be good to keep alive. And you're going to just enjoy the flowers every time they come. - Fantastic stuff. Well, that wraps it up. You know, I said this was going to be fun and lighthearted and it is. And orchids bring great joy into so many people's love, certainly into my life. I mean, I just love being in my office with the orchids when they're in flower.

And it's just, it's having some greenery around, which is great. Suzanne, thank you so much. I know you're very busy, but thanks for taking the time out to have a chat with us. That number again is 0832345935.

WhatsApp is the best way, I think, to get hold of Suzanne. But Suzanne, all the best. Thank you. And stop sending me pretty photos of orchids, okay? 'Cause I'm going to have to sort of get another job within support that little habit. - I know they're feeling well. Unfortunately, a few clients of mine have said I'm a very bad influence, but it's a good thing. You know, it's not like it's that bad. It's a good thing. But thank you so much for having me and spending the time with me. That's awesome. And yeah, you see me pictures of if you need any help and I'm there for you. - Wonderful stuff. There we go, wraps it up. My special guest there from Incandescent Orchid is Suzanne Jacobs. That number one last time, 0832345935.

To each and every one of you, take care, stay safe, and thank you for listening.