DIGG Gardens - Part 2: Where There’s Dirt, There’s Money - Vero Beach Podcast - Meet Your Neighbors. Support Local. ™

Episode Transcript
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Brian Curee (00:00):
Welcome back to the Vero Beach Podcast.
We are on part two here, wherewe're interviewing Spencer from
DIGG Gardens, and during thisepisode we're going to talk
about the behind the scenes.
So, spencer, can you give ussome insight into the DIGG
experience?
What is it like on a typicalday or a week running the DIGG
Gardens?
Wow?

Spencer Porteous (00:19):
It's pretty interesting.
It's exciting.
Every single day is different.
Every single day we have adirection where we're going to
go.
You know we set goals, weekly,monthly, yearly, like where
we're going to go.
So we kind of have guardrailsof, okay, we're going in this
direction.
Some days you're cruising rightalong with the cruise control

(00:40):
on Everything's cool.
Other days you're just bouncinglike rail the rail, like boom,
boom, boom.
Oh.
Like today we go to plant sometrees.
Oh, the, the baby skid steer isconking out.
So you know, it's probably afuel filter.
We had to load it up and takeit down to get checked out, just
in case, and get service.
So now we don't have themachine.

(01:00):
Now what are we gonna do?
Oh, we'll go back to the shopand get the big machine.
But oh, we don't have thetrailer because the trailer had
just taken the machine down.
So, okay, we'll wait on thosetwo trees and we'll come back
tomorrow.
So how can we keep busy tofinish everything we can today?
And that was just that one job.
You know, it's every day likeI'll be driving to work and be
like, okay, I'm going to do this, this, this and this.
Then the phone rings.

(01:21):
You know, the AC doesn't workat the shop, or you know, oh,
the plant truck that wassupposed to be here this morning
isn't here, so you're waitingon plant trucks.
Or you know there's always aflat tire.
Oh, my God, I can't do it.
Knock on wood.
Knock on wood If you have onecar and you get maybe what like
one flat a year, just forexample.

Shawna Curee (01:51):
Yes, well, we have with all the trucks and
trailers and everybody's carsand equipment.

we have close to 100 tires, so divided by 52
weeks, that's like two flats aweek.
Oh, my goodness, you know tostart to get to the shop, you
know.
And then the batteries.
You know, batteries for allthis stuff.

I love that you're pointing this all out because
you know you guys have a plan,you have guardrails like this is
where we're going, this is thedirection we want to go, but all
this stuff happens that you donot have control over.
I'm sure weather never hasanything to do with it.
But all these things that canchange your entire day.
How do you do it without losingyour mind and how do you

(02:25):
empower your team to be like,hey, this is part of it.
I could see it could becomeoverwhelming and maybe
frustrating to people, but it'sthings.

That's just out of your control.
So how do you?
How do you do that?
The main thing is to have allof the correct stuff to fix
everything.
You know we're up in winterbeach, so we're right by Moody
tires, which is you guys need tocheck them out, that's a family
owned business.
And Pat started it.
Now his sons have taken it overand they've been there forever.
Those guys are the best.
We have spare tires for all thetrucks and trailers, and then

(02:50):
we have extra extras too.

That's perfect.

Every day is a super challenge and there's
always stuff is going to happen.
But you just, you can't let itbother you, you can't.
If you did, if I let everythingbother me like this, oh my gosh
, I wouldn't be doing this.
It's hard owning your ownbusiness.
People are like, oh man, nicetruck.
Oh, look, they're killing it.
Oh man, I see your truckseverywhere.
You guys own some hey, bigmoney.

(03:17):
It's like if you don't own asmall business.
You have no idea.

It's a lot different and I think that we've
.
We talk about that often, aboutthe illusion the social media
gives of what it's like to be anentrepreneur or a small
business owner, but you don'treally.
You don't see what's reallygoing on behind the scenes.
What would you say is somethingthat most people don't know
about what goes on every day thebuying and selling and the
sourcing of stuff.

There's different grades of plants
Really Buying and selling andthe sourcing of stuff there's
different grades of plants.
Really there's Florida fancy,there's like A grade and then
there's floral grade Because,like all the plants in
production that go to theflorists and the grocery stores,
that's a different grade ofplants.

What I didn't know that.

And then there's like commercial grade,
like a new target's going in andthey're just slapping stuff in,
okay, like they're justslapping stuff in, okay, and
then Like they're landscaping,you mean, right, okay.
And then there's likeindustrial grade plants too,
like the turnpike, you see, orthe road construction and stuff.
For trees to go on a job, it hasto be a Florida number one tree
.
It's got to have a centralleader going up straight through

(04:18):
.
It can't have a you know, afork in it, because if it has a
fork in it then it could splitin a storm.
So the commercial, so that thecity has codes that you have to
go by.
The county has a different setof codes that you go by.
That is so interesting Like withthe caliper, how big the tree
is the trunk, the caliper, theoverall height, the spread of

(04:39):
the tree.
You know, when you do jobs thatare getting inspected then you
have to hit the specs.
So that's stressy Wow.

Oh, I bet.

And they had you know 200 of them.
Then, oh, I got this on thisjob and you call them.
Oh, we're out.
What?
Yeah, yeah, someone from Texasjust bought them all.

Oh my gosh.

What's happened with the Texas freeze,
not last year, but the yearbefore, and then the
back-to-back hurricanes on theWest Coast and they're building
the big like Pulte Homes and DRHorton all that expansion going
on too.
They're buying thousands oftrees, thousands of plants.
This is the hardest time to buyplants like I've ever seen.
I deal with a lot of mom andpop growers because, like in

(05:20):
small business, there's smallbusiness growers, sure, and then
there's corporate growers too,okay, and I'm like buying from
family farms that now I'mdealing with people's kids and
then, like grandkids now, sure,wow.
So I've been, you know, haverelationships with, with my
vendors for, you know, 25, 30years now.

Yeah, that's so beautiful.

Yeah, the real hard to find plants is you ask
like I'll go to my guys, andthey're like I don't know, let
me ask somebody, and thenthey'll go to their, the friends
, the growers, friends, and thensometimes it goes like two or
three layers, four layers deepfriend of a friend of a friend
of.
Oh yeah, I got them.
That's crazy, you know, that'sjust buying the plants.

(06:03):
And you know, it's not likebuying two by fours.
These things are alive and thennot.
A lot of them are like oh well,we don't ship, you know.
So you either got to go pick upor get another kit, a common
carrier.

There's so much more involved.
Uh, even just going to like thedifferent ratings of plants, I
would never even thought of that.

I've never heard of that?

Yeah, I didn't know that this is very, very, very,
very insightful.

I do a great job buying.
I love it.
I love the thrill of the hunt,you know.
I can get that.
I'm going to get a good deal,so I keep our costs low there.
So with our pricing we'recheaper than the chain stores.

Okay, so how on top of trends do you try to stay
when it comes to houseplants?
And what I mean by that is,I've been into houseplants since
I was a little kid, but duringCOVID I got into joining
Facebook groups that arehouseplant specific, which is,
people can be maniacs maniacs,yes, but it's so dangerous

(06:55):
because, then you start seeingeveryone's plans and you start a
wish list.
So I have seen this big, let'ssay evolution around Monstera
Albo being $2,000 to now they're$40 at Costco.

Yes.

And how much do you try to capitalize on
something that's trending likethat?

That's a real dangerous game to get in as
being a retailer, because ifyou're always chasing a trend,
Then the trend stops yeah.
And then all your eggs are inone basket, or all the trends
don't hit, or you catch thetrend too late.

Which I think about that, like people who were
selling these plants forthousands of dollars, now
everyone can get them everywhere.
It's like probably a complete,like disruption to their income
stream.

I'm just going to talk like some lingo in the
biz.

Oh yeah, let's hear it.

So the smart thing to do, and what we do is
like we carry.
As far as houseplants go, youhave to have 80% spinach, you
got to have the spinach, you gotto have the lettuce like at a
salad bar.

Yeah.

All the basics .
You go to a salad bar.
Here's your different types oflettuce.
Yeah, there's probably like 25or 30 plants that sell because
they're really cool, they'resuper easy to take care of and
if you're just getting intoplants, you want to have stuff
that you succeed, to buildconfidence, to start getting
crazier and crazier stuff.

Absolutely.

We're going on a big plant run to Apopka.
That's one of the biggestfoliage greenhouse places in the
country.
So we're going up thereThursday to pick up a load of
fresh houseplants.
So we get the bread and butter.
But the fun part is looking atthe availability, oh yeah, and
I'm like oh man, what's that?
I think we got like seven oreight things coming in that I

(08:41):
have no idea what they are.
Really I've never seen them inperson.
When you do your orders withyour guys, you put your orders
in and the stuff for the shop,and then I always am like what
else you got?
What else is looking good?

I love too that you're pointing out.
I just watched this on.
It was like an entrepreneurshow, when you're talking about
looking at the plants like, hey,we're going to get this, this,
this, but then you're gettingtheir advice and what they have.

So the grower starts going oh man, you, oh man
, you got to see this cropthat's come like, and they get
jacked up about it.
So the grower's excited aboutit.
And then the plants come to theshop.
I see it and I'm like, oh man,that's nice.
Like for me to say, oh man,that's nice.
Like it's a no brainer, thecustomer is just going to be
completely blown away.

That's a really important element there to have
as a business owner is whatyou're doing is not just like
well, no, I know what are thebest Like we're just going to go
that, that, that and then justclose everything else off.
Being open to say tell me whatall you got, Like what else
looks good, To invite them, themin to bringing in the right
plants and stuff.
I love hearing that.
I love that.

And the right customer and the right customer
yeah.

So my last question for this part is your website.
It described DIGG as aninclusive space to find comfort
and happiness.
What does that look like?

When you walk into the store, what Summer's
done with the gift shop.
It just sets the tone for thewhole experience.
It's a super kind, safe placeto come in and it's just not a
bunch of gifty gift crap, thethought that she puts into this
stuff and it's all handmade,local, artisan stuff.
We have lines from smallbusiness owners from around,

(10:17):
like whenever we go on vacationwe're always going to gift shops
and talking to other businessowners and finding new product
that way as well.
It's just so thoughtful, kindstuff.
Like we have people like justbreak down and cry in our store
sometimes, like reading some ofthe stuff.
We've had people like wheresomeone has passed and they just
wanted to come in and just beat our shop.

Wow, that's so special.

We're going to get there.
We're going to have to getthere.
We're going to definitely gocheck it out.
Tell me again what's theaddress and what's the best way
for people that's listening tofind out.
I guess you have a website theycan go check out as well.

You can follow us on Instagram or Facebook at
digggardens.
com.
It's three G's in a row.
Yes, got it.
If I were to do this over again, it would only be DIGG
Vanguardians Cause, yeah, Ialways have to say it's three
G's in a row.

I'm so glad you said that, cause I didn't put it
together yet.

Three G's, so remember that.

Now, that's who you are, so it's too late to go
back.
Hey, we dig it, we dig it, wedig it.
There it is again.

Get one in every episode.
This has been a great episodeagain.
Make sure you guys leave areview if you are enjoying the
podcast and if you have anyquestions you can click that
text us a link.
There's a text us link in theshow notes.
Just click that and you cansend us any questions see you
next time, neighbor.

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DIGG Gardens - Part 2: Where There’s Dirt, There’s Money

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