Speaker 1: Welcome everyone. We're so thrilled to have you here at
Speaker 1: NYBG for this very special occasion. Our garden is two
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty acres of living collections, from oaks to conifers,
Speaker 1: to the blooming peonies that are in flower right now,
Speaker 1: to of course roses. You can find it all here
Speaker 1: at NYBG, and through a very robust set of programs
Speaker 1: and outreach, we educate people of all ages through nature.
Speaker 1: I hope that you have an opportunity to explore the
Speaker 1: garden when you're here today, including of course the beautiful
Speaker 1: Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden, which just recently received a dozen
Speaker 1: new Martha Stewart roses in the garden. Yes, speaking of
Speaker 1: Martha Stewart, it is my honor to introduce her. Martha
Speaker 1: has been gardening since she was three years old, when
Speaker 1: she worked at her father's side in their small but
Speaker 1: productive backyard garden in Nutley, New Jersey. She is also
Speaker 1: the chief gardening officer for Miracle Grow. So please join
Speaker 1: me and welcoming Martha Stewart.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Jennifer. The garden here looks amazing,
Speaker 2: just so beautiful, and this episode is brought to you
Speaker 2: by our good friends at Miracle Grow, which is dedicated
Speaker 2: to helping gardeners of all experience and levels to grow
Speaker 2: with confidence. My guest today is new to gardening, but
Speaker 2: she is a well known presence in the world of
Speaker 2: acting and activism. Jamila Jamiel Is that your real name?
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, it is her real name. She had a
Speaker 3: career as a journalist and a DJ.
Speaker 4: You can call me anything you wanted.
Speaker 2: She moved to the United States from London in twenty
Speaker 2: sixteen to work as a screenwriter. And she does informed
Speaker 2: me that she actually worked with Snoop Dogg, my friend
Speaker 2: in his entourage.
Speaker 3: What were you doing for him?
Speaker 5: I was his press coordinator when I was twenty four.
Speaker 5: So we went on tour together around Europe and I
Speaker 5: would decide who got to ask him questions, and he
Speaker 5: gave me a stick that I could point at the press.
Speaker 5: And in that moment I knew I could never be
Speaker 5: king or queen because I was power mad.
Speaker 4: So yeah, that was fun.
Speaker 2: And so then one day, without any formal previous previous
Speaker 2: acting experience, she landed a role in the award winning
Speaker 2: fantasy comedy series The Good Place. Jamie al I is
Speaker 2: also an activist for women's body positivity. What do you
Speaker 2: mean it's act not fund to a garden. Look how
Speaker 2: she comes dressed.
Speaker 4: This is what I wear and I garden. Okay, look
Speaker 4: at these calloused hands.
Speaker 2: You have no bruises, nothing I have. Look at the
Speaker 2: wounds I have on my arm.
Speaker 4: From let's fight from the start.
Speaker 2: That ways from that was from pruning my rose bushes
Speaker 2: because Ryan McAllister, my famous gardener, who is sitting here
Speaker 2: in the audience right here, he had not previously pruned
Speaker 2: the road the deadwood out of the roses.
Speaker 3: And I went in there with a vengeance, just pissed
Speaker 3: off that nobody had.
Speaker 2: Nobody had prune the raiss and I forgot to wear gloves,
Speaker 2: and I just I am completely black and blue.
Speaker 4: Well, I pruned my own rose bush, you did. We
Speaker 4: all have our ways.
Speaker 2: Matha and Janilla actually asked if she could be a
Speaker 2: little raunchy today, and I said, go for it, because
Speaker 2: you know, it's kind of a sad world out there,
Speaker 2: and you might as well laugh. And so yes, go
Speaker 2: for it. You are charming in that dress. She has
Speaker 2: a dress that her boobs are hanging out of. And
Speaker 2: those of you who cannot who are listening and cannot
Speaker 2: see she is a most gorgeous creature. There's a Los Angeles.
Speaker 3: But no, you do not say no.
Speaker 4: Well, I'm back and forth, I'm all over the place.
Speaker 2: I live in the sky, and we're going to give
Speaker 2: her a beginner's guide to gardening.
Speaker 3: Please help me in welcoming Jamila Jamil.
Speaker 2: We are going to discuss gardening, Jamilla. But first I'm
Speaker 2: curious about your very interesting career. You had never formally
Speaker 2: acted when you were auditioned for the Good Place.
Speaker 4: I did, Yes, I did, and I got it.
Speaker 3: I had no.
Speaker 5: I carry the audacity of a straight white man within me,
Speaker 5: and I go for things that I'm unprepared for, underqualified for,
Speaker 5: and I think.
Speaker 4: Why not me? And it's not a mentality that I
Speaker 4: decory in straight white men. I think we need to
Speaker 4: adopt more of it.
Speaker 5: And I think one of the reasons that I said
Speaker 5: yes in under fifteen seconds to getting to meet you today,
Speaker 5: even though I know nothing about gardening, I was like,
Speaker 5: I'll learn how to garden, okay, is because your audacity,
Speaker 5: amongst the many other things about you, is the reason
Speaker 5: you're one of my heroes.
Speaker 2: See you certain you are audacious in the first order,
Speaker 2: and you've worked with some really, really fantastic actors Ted Danson,
Speaker 2: fors Bill. How did that experience help you grow as
Speaker 2: a performer.
Speaker 5: I think learning on the job how to act from
Speaker 5: Ted Danson is more powerful than any drama school you
Speaker 5: could ever go to, because he's such a genius. All
Speaker 5: of them are so talented. But I really studied him
Speaker 5: and I really just ripped him off. I copied everything
Speaker 5: he did, and so if you didn't like my performance,
Speaker 5: that's really on Ted.
Speaker 4: I take no responsibilit but it made an.
Speaker 5: Actor out of me, and it was exciting to jump
Speaker 5: into something I had no idea how to do and
Speaker 5: learn that. You know, women are often discouraged from trying
Speaker 5: new things per chance we fail. And what you get
Speaker 5: to learn when you throw yourself in unpredictable environments as
Speaker 5: you're capable of so much more than you ever thought.
Speaker 4: And that's what I learned.
Speaker 5: I became from a bad actor to an above average actor,
Speaker 5: and that's really exciting.
Speaker 2: You now have your own comedy podcast, Wrong Turns, where
Speaker 2: you talk about cringe worthy moments. Yes, what is one
Speaker 2: of your most crims worthy moments?
Speaker 3: Can you?
Speaker 1: Chell us?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 4: Gosh, okay, how raunchy.
Speaker 3: Can I go about a minute?
Speaker 4: Okay, it doesn't really answer the question. But I had
Speaker 4: to DJ once.
Speaker 5: I used to be a DJ back in the day
Speaker 5: for ten years when I was cool, and I had
Speaker 5: to DJ in front of six thousand young farmers.
Speaker 4: Young farmers have a ball because.
Speaker 3: They're were in England, in the north.
Speaker 5: Of England, because they don't get to have weekends because
Speaker 5: they're out farming.
Speaker 4: I've seen all your phones come up, your bastards.
Speaker 5: And so I had to go on stage. They'd put
Speaker 5: the decks, the DJ decks, on top of the speakers,
Speaker 5: which is a wild decision to make because everything's going
Speaker 5: to jump around. And I learned that I was sensitive
Speaker 5: to orgasm while standing on these speakers, and I orgasmed
Speaker 5: in front of six thousand people. But also once you
Speaker 5: pop like a pringle, you can't stop. So it was
Speaker 5: about eighteen to twenty times and then I fainted and
Speaker 5: couldn't pee for twenty four hours.
Speaker 4: I'm so sorry, Martha Stewart.
Speaker 5: Of all of the questions that I ever wanted to answer,
Speaker 5: this is the very least.
Speaker 3: You don't have to be honest, you know, coming.
Speaker 4: From you that is deeply rich.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, if that wasn't enough, you also have you
Speaker 2: were playing ambassador quest Yes, Questa in the upcoming Pixar
Speaker 2: movie Ilio, which was out, which is out on June twentieth.
Speaker 2: Oh something, what else is happening on June twenty something?
Speaker 2: Big is happening?
Speaker 4: And I think about my movie.
Speaker 3: Are you having a premiere in New York?
Speaker 5: We are having a premiere in Los Angeles. Yeah, it's
Speaker 5: me and Zoe Saldana, who I love.
Speaker 2: I love her, soul love Lioness. Have you watched Lionis?
Speaker 2: Anybody that's that's Zoe? Oh my gosh, she is incredible.
Speaker 4: All right, what my chop liver?
Speaker 3: But no, I know.
Speaker 2: I'm just saying that you're so lucky to be both
Speaker 2: of you to be, and we're so lucky that both
Speaker 2: of you are in the same movie.
Speaker 3: Are you you as tough as she is?
Speaker 4: I hope I aspire to be as tough as both
Speaker 4: of you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, she's amazingly I love her. So what is Ilio about?
Speaker 5: Eleo is about a little boy who gets accidentally transported
Speaker 5: into space and has to convince members and ambassadors of
Speaker 5: the universe that he is the representative of the And
Speaker 5: it's all his trial and trials and tribulations, but the
Speaker 5: ultimate moral of the story is that.
Speaker 4: Anyone can make change.
Speaker 5: In this world, we've grown to look to icons to
Speaker 5: make change, and we think, oh, you have to have
Speaker 5: a certain amount of followers or a certain amount of money.
Speaker 5: But actually, we shouldn't be looking to celebrities. We shouldn't
Speaker 5: be looking to icons. We shouldn't be looking for singular
Speaker 5: humans to make change. We should all be making our
Speaker 5: own micro change and understand our influence and how much
Speaker 5: more powerful the world would be if we exacted that.
Speaker 2: Do you know what my favorite motto is, no, when
Speaker 2: you're through changing, you're through.
Speaker 3: Ah.
Speaker 4: So it fits your movie, Yeah it does.
Speaker 3: I love this.
Speaker 4: We haven't locked the edit. I might throw that in.
Speaker 3: I like that.
Speaker 2: So you're here at the beautiful new Botanical garden. You
Speaker 2: mentioned earlier that you're new to gardening. To quote you,
Speaker 2: I don't have a gardening domestic green thumb or bone
Speaker 2: in my body.
Speaker 4: I didn't.
Speaker 2: They were going to tell you that you are garden curious, right, Yes,
Speaker 2: but I think you're curious about a lot of things,
Speaker 2: especially about vibrating stages. They say, if you want to
Speaker 2: be happy for a year. Do you have you heard
Speaker 2: this little saying? I read it on a stair down
Speaker 2: at a beautiful garden outside of Baltimore. It's called the
Speaker 2: LaDue Garden, a beautiful garden of topiary. And then he
Speaker 2: carved into his garden stairs this very nice little saying.
Speaker 2: If you want to be happy for a year, take
Speaker 2: a wife. If you want to be happy for ten years,
Speaker 2: I know I've changed the ten years to get a
Speaker 2: dog he has on his if he is on his stare.
Speaker 2: If you want to be happy for a month, to
Speaker 2: kill your hog. But it's so I guess he liked ham.
Speaker 2: But if you want to be happy for life, plant
Speaker 2: a garden, which is so nice.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Well, I have to learn about gardening now because I've
Speaker 5: decided to build a commune.
Speaker 4: It's a cult.
Speaker 5: In the middle of nowhere with all of my funniest friends.
Speaker 5: I'm looking at places in Europe and it's going to
Speaker 5: be called Jamilville.
Speaker 4: I'm not a narcissist.
Speaker 5: Calm down, and we're going to be able to farm
Speaker 5: our own land and create our own gardens and have
Speaker 5: our own way.
Speaker 3: Right here in Katonic.
Speaker 4: You can come amazing. Okay, Well.
Speaker 3: One and fifty six acres.
Speaker 2: My older friends are asking me to, you know, if
Speaker 2: they can just move in, and I'm saying no, I
Speaker 2: would much rather have a bunge of live the younger
Speaker 2: friends move in. You can all build your little your
Speaker 2: little ertz or something wherever you want to live in.
Speaker 4: I am that yesterday, maltha, yesterday.
Speaker 3: Okay, well, come on by it. And it's very good.
Speaker 2: We just had all the soil tested on the whole
Speaker 2: hundred and fifty six acres and the soil has tested
Speaker 2: immensely good.
Speaker 3: Wow, really good. I mean way higher, way higher than
Speaker 3: I thought.
Speaker 2: And and it's every single every single we did every
Speaker 2: ten acres and send the into our Where did we
Speaker 2: send that The soil test corneill? Yeah, cornill, and it's
Speaker 2: really good soil. So I think everybody could farm, everybody
Speaker 2: could build.
Speaker 3: And we have our own We have our own sawmill.
Speaker 3: You can cut your own boards.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, and bring Zoe Seldana and I have a
Speaker 2: lot of strong men working on the farm.
Speaker 3: You love all of them.
Speaker 5: They're really.
Speaker 3: Okay, all set.
Speaker 4: This is the best day ever.
Speaker 3: So gardening is truly my outlet.
Speaker 2: I mean I was in the garden this morning running
Speaker 2: around getting ready to have a big meeting at my
Speaker 2: farm tomorrow. And and we were looking and looking at everything,
Speaker 2: making sure everything was pick and span and weeded and edged.
Speaker 2: And the roads were dragged. You know what dragging a
Speaker 2: road means. No, so you have a special machine that
Speaker 2: drags the gravel on the roads.
Speaker 3: I don't have. I don't have paved roads on my property. Okay,
Speaker 3: I hate baving. So it's a nice It looks like a.
Speaker 4: Giant rake has gone through the soil.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, it's gravel.
Speaker 2: It's gravel roads, and it's nice soft gravel for my
Speaker 2: horse's hoofs.
Speaker 3: We have horses.
Speaker 4: You ride, I don't ride.
Speaker 3: You could learn, I will. You can learn.
Speaker 2: And you could also anything out of cloud the fields
Speaker 2: with the donkeys. The donkeys would love to work. Yeah,
Speaker 2: they've been begging to work. So it sounds like a
Speaker 2: gardening would be perfect for you. I think I was
Speaker 2: reading about all the incredible things you get to do
Speaker 2: for move your move for your mind, and tell us
Speaker 2: about move for your mind.
Speaker 5: I'm just trying to get diet culture out of every
Speaker 5: area of our lives.
Speaker 3: I can't.
Speaker 4: I'm sick of it. I'm done with it. I'm bored.
Speaker 5: Of it, and exercise is something that is pivotal for
Speaker 5: people's mental health, and they don't do it unless they
Speaker 5: think of it as something to do for weight loss,
Speaker 5: whereas moving your body for I think one hundred and
Speaker 5: fifteen minutes a week is similar to the impacts of
Speaker 5: an SSRI. And given that we're in a country that
Speaker 5: doesn't have free healthcare.
Speaker 3: Only one hundred and fifteen minutes.
Speaker 4: Only one hundred and fifty minutes, Oh all right.
Speaker 3: More than that, maybe I don't only have maybe I
Speaker 3: can rest a little bit.
Speaker 4: That's why you're so happy and peaceful.
Speaker 5: But you know, we have a country in a world
Speaker 5: where these things aren't accessible to people. And then we've
Speaker 5: also made exercise inaccessible. So I've been creating events around
Speaker 5: the world that are also around women's safety. Teaching self
Speaker 5: defense is a form of exercise. So you can kick
Speaker 5: the living shirt out of someone if you need to.
Speaker 4: That's a good place to wear words. So I'm allowed
Speaker 4: to say it.
Speaker 5: And where people don't feel like you have to be
Speaker 5: a certain size, a certain age, a certain level of
Speaker 5: ability to be able to just move your body joyously.
Speaker 5: It takes fifteen minutes and nine seconds to get them
Speaker 5: mental health benefits of exercise, and yet we think of
Speaker 5: it as this huge ordeal.
Speaker 4: But you have to dress up.
Speaker 5: For and take three hours out of your day, and
Speaker 5: you don't look at Martha and five hundred minutes a week.
Speaker 3: You know, gardening. Gardening is great exercise. Yeah, I mean I.
Speaker 2: Garden a lot and it's And when I was doing
Speaker 2: those roses the other day, I was out there for
Speaker 2: four hours. Every single muscle in my body ached, and
Speaker 2: all my arms were bleeding and my legs were bleeding.
Speaker 4: Sounds amazing.
Speaker 2: It's probably good for you. It's probably great for you.
Speaker 2: One of my passions. One of my passions, and you
Speaker 2: would see it if you come and visit. My farm
Speaker 2: is planting trees, and I like to plant trees from scratch.
Speaker 2: I get rooted cuttings, little things maybe they're this taller
Speaker 2: this tall, and they have roots on them. And there
Speaker 2: are many different kinds of trees, and I think the
Speaker 2: man who comes and takes care of certain aspects of
Speaker 2: the trees that I've planted.
Speaker 3: The last count was about sixteen thousand trees, So that's
Speaker 3: a lot.
Speaker 5: And for your mental health, do you find that that's
Speaker 5: that I can't meditate and I imagine something like gardening.
Speaker 4: There's a kind of sublimation, meditation to you.
Speaker 3: It really is. I would be in the in if
Speaker 3: I didn't.
Speaker 4: When you're angry, are you sort of with your rake?
Speaker 3: Just like?
Speaker 2: No, I'm never angry in the garden, right, I'm never
Speaker 2: angry that would impact the plants.
Speaker 4: This is something I've put.
Speaker 2: You can't be angry to your animals, and you can't
Speaker 2: be angry to your you know, no matter what the
Speaker 2: dogs do, no matter I don't get angry at it.
Speaker 5: I heard that plants consents when their caregiver is within
Speaker 5: something like two hundred yards.
Speaker 3: I think you're right.
Speaker 4: That's so beautiful to me.
Speaker 3: I think you're right.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So mine like sort of shrivel away when I'm coming,
Speaker 4: you know.
Speaker 2: And So I identify with trees, and I have my
Speaker 2: favorite tree and why I identify most with and we
Speaker 2: put it on my org chart when we first established
Speaker 2: my company. I am the beach tree, the mother of
Speaker 2: all trees. What would you identify with? Sorry, what kind
Speaker 2: of tree would you want to be?
Speaker 3: If you were a tree?
Speaker 4: Oh, I think a palm tree just completely useless.
Speaker 3: Oh they're not They're not useless.
Speaker 4: Well, they're not great for shake. Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 2: You knows of palm they're very, very voluptuous.
Speaker 4: No, you're right, I misjudged it, but voluptuous.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 3: I think palm trees are beautiful. I have lots of
Speaker 3: palm trees.
Speaker 4: Okay, fair enough, I take it back.
Speaker 5: I'm very sorry to all palm trees.
Speaker 3: So this is and so what do you want to learn?
Speaker 5: I want to learn about gardening. I want to learn
Speaker 5: how to create beauty. If I'm going to have Jamilville,
Speaker 5: I want it to be a beautiful place to be.
Speaker 3: So you need some tools. I need some tools.
Speaker 2: So we're going to bring up a garden bag, and
Speaker 2: I want to go through the tool bag with you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, would you please give that to Jamila and.
Speaker 2: You can go through that and I'll and you tell
Speaker 2: me what each tool is if you can guess.
Speaker 4: See just that there's a lot of knives.
Speaker 3: Well, let's pick them. You need knives if you're a gardener.
Speaker 4: All right, Let's start with a rake.
Speaker 3: But that's not a rake exactly.
Speaker 4: Sorry.
Speaker 2: That is a long handled cultivator. So that will loosen
Speaker 2: the soil around your plants. And you just have to
Speaker 2: be careful because those prongs are a little long, not
Speaker 2: to go too deeply.
Speaker 5: Well, anything's a dildo. I feel brave enough, Martha.
Speaker 3: Next tool these.
Speaker 2: But what's nice about that one is that it has
Speaker 2: a long handle, so you don't have to bend over.
Speaker 3: Oh yes, take that, take that out of its sheath.
Speaker 3: So do you have one of those?
Speaker 4: I do, But it's sort of more for murder.
Speaker 2: Well, actual use tomato knife, and that was only for
Speaker 2: slicing tomatoes or for you know, slicing vegetables.
Speaker 3: But I found it.
Speaker 2: Took it out in the garden because I was I
Speaker 2: was struggling and cutting the leaves off and a gov
Speaker 2: a govey plant, you know what, look like they're very
Speaker 2: big and prickly and dangerous. That cuts through agave leaves
Speaker 2: so perfectly, so you can prune right close to the
Speaker 2: center of the agave and a clean cut. And that
Speaker 2: is the best tool for that we have.
Speaker 3: We love that you.
Speaker 2: I gave one to every single person who works in
Speaker 2: my garden. So you're taking that, okay, I'm taking.
Speaker 4: You cut yourself all the time and get bruised.
Speaker 2: No, no, not not no, what that No? No, these
Speaker 2: are the rose thorns that cut my arm okay, so no,
Speaker 2: that was just the whole ster.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's the whole ster. Okay that you know what
Speaker 3: those are called.
Speaker 4: These are nail clippers.
Speaker 2: They're like nail clippers, Yeah, they are. Those are little
Speaker 2: hand pruners or secateurs.
Speaker 4: Okay, great, And these are for roses.
Speaker 2: Nose are for roses or for branch small branches. Don't
Speaker 2: try to use them on big branches unless you're very strong.
Speaker 2: But they're they're very nice and every gardener has to
Speaker 2: have those. And you can carry the little hole stra
Speaker 2: on your belt.
Speaker 4: Yes I will.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, great, ter all for you by the way.
Speaker 4: Amazing. But you know, going through t s A is
Speaker 4: going to be a treat.
Speaker 2: Get a special suitcase and and and just you know, oh.
Speaker 4: Yeah, this is a setup.
Speaker 2: Always.
Speaker 3: Selda carries one of those at all times. She plays
Speaker 3: a special agent.
Speaker 2: In in in her in her series and uh, the Lioness,
Speaker 2: and she has one of those and she has killed
Speaker 2: hundreds of people with it.
Speaker 5: But I'm sorry that Zoe's Aldana is not here today, all.
Speaker 2: Right, But but this is called a hory horry. What
Speaker 2: I'm wearing today, which is called which is also called.
Speaker 5: Dig dig dig i much prefer a hory hory.
Speaker 2: But you see one age serrated serrated.
Speaker 4: Yes, and it's called these measurements on the oh that.
Speaker 2: You can just poke it into the ground and pull
Speaker 2: back and you have a hole exactly the right depth
Speaker 2: for the certain sides of bulb that you're planting.
Speaker 4: Are certain seeds and bulbs like dependent on how deep?
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, many, absolutely, tulip bulbs and crocus bulbs.
Speaker 3: You have to know how deep.
Speaker 2: They are to be planted, okay and uh, and then
Speaker 2: you can do that easily with this.
Speaker 3: And you can also scarify.
Speaker 4: What does that mean?
Speaker 2: Well, when you're replanting, you take a plant out of
Speaker 2: the pot. If you ever do that, yes, actually, and
Speaker 2: the roots are all completely compressed the sides of the pot.
Speaker 2: Scarification is you draw that serrated edge down the edges
Speaker 2: the sides of the root.
Speaker 3: Ball and it loosens them up.
Speaker 4: Amazing.
Speaker 2: It's called scarification. And you can also do it on
Speaker 2: your own legs and ruin your legs.
Speaker 3: Scar it's scarry.
Speaker 5: Scarification sounds like something that women are currently doing.
Speaker 3: Okay, then, oh, those are good.
Speaker 2: Those are for cutting cutting flowers okay, yeah, or a
Speaker 2: little you can do little branches with that, but I
Speaker 2: suggest using that for cutting your beautiful flower blooms. Do
Speaker 2: you know the difference between a shovel and a spade.
Speaker 4: One is used for when you're burying someone you don't like.
Speaker 3: Yes, that's a shovel, right, because you have to dig.
Speaker 4: And a spade is for when you create flowers.
Speaker 3: That you do like. No, that's for edging. Okay, it's
Speaker 3: nice sharp cuts. Edging, Yes, edging, Yes.
Speaker 2: Come up, my dear. Okay, we didn't quite finish the
Speaker 2: tool bag. But do you like these tools? Like?
Speaker 4: Okay, you're asking me. I like these tools very much.
Speaker 2: There's another narrow that's a narrower trouble or a little digger. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: those are good.
Speaker 4: Yes, okay, fine, And Jennifer.
Speaker 3: You have all these too, don't you. We do, we do. Indeed,
Speaker 3: these are all excellent.
Speaker 1: We also I have a couple of other ones. They're
Speaker 1: not weapons, like, oh good, but things that I think
Speaker 1: are essential.
Speaker 2: That.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it makes it look a bit murdering, you know, with.
Speaker 3: The not they shouldn't be black, but they're they're perfect.
Speaker 2: You.
Speaker 1: So, I grew up in the desert, so sun protection,
Speaker 1: you're right when gardening essential usual And then you know
Speaker 1: you talked about cutting up your arms.
Speaker 4: Martha.
Speaker 1: I love these sleeves. They won't work for.
Speaker 2: Roses, they're not as good for roses, but they're great
Speaker 2: in the garden.
Speaker 1: And it's great because it keeps it keeps your fingers
Speaker 1: free to move and.
Speaker 3: Dig in the dirt.
Speaker 4: Thank you, very sure, thank you.
Speaker 2: If you're gardening, Jamila, what are you going to plant first?
Speaker 3: What you want to plant?
Speaker 6: I mean, if weed were an option, but if not, roses,
Speaker 6: A big roses. Yeah, I love especially not the red rose,
Speaker 6: all of the other roses we can give you.
Speaker 3: We're going to give you a Martha rose, but plantt
Speaker 3: you're gonna die.
Speaker 4: Well, I'm moving in with you. Plant in my rose, yeah,
Speaker 4: with your with our rises. Martha.
Speaker 1: You love roses so much that, as we've mentioned, one
Speaker 1: was named for you, the Martha Stewart hybrid t Rose,
Speaker 1: and as we've mentioned, we have it here at the
Speaker 1: Botanical Garden.
Speaker 4: What was it that drew you to that particular rose?
Speaker 2: Well, I was given many roses to sniff and to
Speaker 2: look at and to use in arrangements, and I just
Speaker 2: what I really liked about it was for of all
Speaker 2: the color, it's a very beautiful, very sort of a
Speaker 2: varied pink, and it even veers a little bit in
Speaker 2: the center towards an orange pink. It's very pretty and
Speaker 2: uh and it has many many petals. I like the
Speaker 2: old fashioned roses, the damask roses that are that have
Speaker 2: if you count the petals, maybe a thousand pedals. So
Speaker 2: this Martha rose does not have a thousand pedals, but
Speaker 2: it has a lot and the scin is extraordinary. My
Speaker 2: friend Danielle out in California at Rose Story Farm sent
Speaker 2: me from Mother's Day.
Speaker 3: She sent me a big.
Speaker 2: Box of my roses cut flowers, and the whole house
Speaker 2: just smelled beautifully.
Speaker 3: And my cat sat under the roses. They liked it.
Speaker 3: And people came in the door and they said, what's
Speaker 3: that nice smell?
Speaker 1: Wow?
Speaker 2: And I think we have our star rose friends here,
Speaker 2: star roses are? Where are you?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 2: Hi?
Speaker 3: How are you so nice to see? Wait?
Speaker 4: So is this a new breed of rose?
Speaker 2: Here?
Speaker 3: Look how beautiful this is? Oh? Wow, isn't it great? Yeah?
Speaker 3: It's really beautiful.
Speaker 5: I always wondered when Andre three thousand had that famous lyric.
Speaker 5: You know, when you lean a little bit closer to
Speaker 5: a rose, you find that they always smell like pooh,
Speaker 5: pooh pooh.
Speaker 4: No, I think it's exact words. That's horrible, And this
Speaker 4: was the exact opposite of that.
Speaker 2: No, these are these are extraordinary, yes, so beautiful, such
Speaker 2: as not sickly fragrant. Sometimes a rose is sickly fragrant,
Speaker 2: and they're not these these these are a very very delightful.
Speaker 4: Scent, gorgeous.
Speaker 2: And if you come live live at my farm, we
Speaker 2: can get Jiggo Dan to come. And they're the perfumers,
Speaker 2: and they know how to capture the scent of a flower.
Speaker 3: They came one day with all their.
Speaker 2: Glass balls and they put them over the flower and
Speaker 2: they capture the scent and then the computer reads the
Speaker 2: scent and then they can make a perfume.
Speaker 4: She's inviting you to visit. But I love that.
Speaker 2: Yes, so so we can we can capture the scent
Speaker 2: of this rose.
Speaker 3: Did you ever do that here at the garden? You should?
Speaker 4: You should get that.
Speaker 1: We should, we should do that because we have some
Speaker 1: wonderfully fragrant roses and other flowers too. Absolutely, and we have, uh,
Speaker 1: we have done that with our peeny collection, actually with
Speaker 1: Caswo and may see they've captured the scent and we
Speaker 1: saw it in our shop. It's a beautiful perfume. And
Speaker 1: your rose garden is so famously gorgeous at Bedford Farm,
Speaker 1: so I'm interested. How did you design it? Was it
Speaker 1: by color, by variety?
Speaker 3: How did your Well?
Speaker 2: It started off. I had a great rose garden in
Speaker 2: East Hampton at my house on the Lily Pond plane,
Speaker 2: and when I bought the is only an acre property.
Speaker 2: And when I bought it, I thought, I'm going to
Speaker 2: plant roses because they grow really well out in East
Speaker 2: Hampton and with the ocean, the ocean breezes and the
Speaker 2: mild winters. So I planted about nine hundred roses. I
Speaker 2: searched the whole country and Canada for old fashioned roses,
Speaker 2: and I didn't read that one sentence in every single
Speaker 2: catalog once blooming, because many old roses only bloom once,
Speaker 2: so that was pretty stupid. And they bloom in June
Speaker 2: and then they don't bloom again until the next June,
Speaker 2: so that was a mistake.
Speaker 4: Have you ever a mess of flower that you didn't like?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely, who's the one.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm famous for not liking red geraniums, and I
Speaker 2: don't like the smell of a red geranium. And I
Speaker 2: don't like the look of a red geranium. And I've
Speaker 2: never planted a rid geranium. But there are other gas
Speaker 2: that I like, but not the red germ.
Speaker 4: God, I would hate to be the red gerinum.
Speaker 3: So but but it was.
Speaker 2: But the rose garden, I mean, it takes a lot
Speaker 2: of maintenance. Uh, and you have to give it. Oh,
Speaker 2: you have to give it. Did you take baths and
Speaker 2: EPs and salts? So do you? No?
Speaker 3: Never? Never does. I would have thought you did that.
Speaker 4: No, no, no, I don't like to soak in my
Speaker 4: own filter.
Speaker 3: Oh you wash first, you wash first.
Speaker 4: I've got a job, but I don't have time to
Speaker 4: do that.
Speaker 2: I feed my plants a lot, and I give them
Speaker 2: other kinds of nutrients because and working with Miracle Grow.
Speaker 3: They have a whole.
Speaker 2: Bunch of scientists who I'm calling on a regular basis
Speaker 2: now because I like what they say. Is very important
Speaker 2: to know what each plant needs and wants, just like humans.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I've drowned a few plants unfortunately in the last
Speaker 5: not enough water, too much food, not enough food, the
Speaker 5: wrong food.
Speaker 3: There's so many things you can have your baby.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people are intimidated by feeding
Speaker 1: and watering. I understand that you have a clever phrase
Speaker 1: for how you approach feeding your plants.
Speaker 2: I do.
Speaker 3: And it's like, did you have a drink today? That's
Speaker 3: all I ask. They'll say, oh yeah, I'll.
Speaker 2: Order tomorrow, don't worry about it, and then I will
Speaker 2: not let them have anything else to drink or eat
Speaker 2: that whole day. If you haven't eaten or you know,
Speaker 2: and they get they get it, then plants need to
Speaker 2: eat and drink.
Speaker 3: Also, I sing to my plants.
Speaker 4: Do you have a sing to your plants?
Speaker 2: I'm not a good singer, nor I'm not a hummer either.
Speaker 2: I don't like I have there were there are people
Speaker 2: on my farm that hum a lot.
Speaker 4: Do you play music to your Apparently they like jazz?
Speaker 3: I don't know. Oh okay, I actually don't like jazz.
Speaker 3: I don't like it. I don't like sending to jazz.
Speaker 4: Yeah that's fat.
Speaker 3: My chiropractor plays jazz and I hate it.
Speaker 1: No jazz. And how do you prepare your soil for well,
Speaker 1: as I said, we just had the soil tested.
Speaker 3: We use a lot of homemade composts.
Speaker 2: We use a lot of there's this stuff in a
Speaker 2: bag called miracle rope, organic raised beds soil, and we've
Speaker 2: been using that.
Speaker 3: I started a new vegetable garden last.
Speaker 2: Year and we filled all the raised beds or how
Speaker 2: many raise beds are there? Fifty fifty raised beds and
Speaker 2: they're quite large. One of them is like twenty feet
Speaker 2: long and thirty feet long and they're big beds. And
Speaker 2: we filled it with the raised beds soil, and oh
Speaker 2: my gosh, I never had better vegetables in my life.
Speaker 2: And you know, it's a combination of raising the beds,
Speaker 2: spacing your plants correctly, feeding them correctly, and you learn,
Speaker 2: you and you ask. I ask so many questions all
Speaker 2: the time, and they're not questions like did you water
Speaker 2: or feed it? So what do you water and what
Speaker 2: do you feed for each kind of plant? And it's
Speaker 2: very important to do that, to learn as much as
Speaker 2: you can. If you're an aspiring gardener or a you know,
Speaker 2: like a middle middle gardener or an advanced gardener, you
Speaker 2: really have to continually learn. Right now, I'm having trouble
Speaker 2: with my citrus trees and I don't know why, but
Speaker 2: we're trying to figure that out. I have a whole
Speaker 2: greenhouse just devoted to citrus, so you don't have to
Speaker 2: buy your own lemons or orange. If you come live
Speaker 2: on the phone, I won't. You can just pick them
Speaker 2: and they're so good. There's a taste so much better
Speaker 2: than the Once.
Speaker 5: You buy, it completely changes your life eat eating fresh,
Speaker 5: healthy food. I think that, you know, the United States
Speaker 5: has got some tricky problems with the quality of the
Speaker 5: food that we eat.
Speaker 4: And when you go to.
Speaker 5: Europe and you buy into the fruit and the veget setables,
Speaker 5: it's a completely new experience. It's amazing that you can
Speaker 5: because I think people feel a bit hopeless. You know,
Speaker 5: there's only something like fifty two years of arable land
Speaker 5: left on mass in the United States. I like to
Speaker 5: bring the lolls and that will lead to like, you know,
Speaker 5: food and security, et cetera. So I think people don't
Speaker 5: bother to make the change that needs to be made.
Speaker 5: And yet here you are with hundreds of acres of
Speaker 5: completely arable, restorable.
Speaker 3: Soil.
Speaker 5: I have it, but it's possible, you know, It's just
Speaker 5: it takes diligence and care.
Speaker 3: It does.
Speaker 2: I have a vegetable greenhouse from which we eat all
Speaker 2: winter long, so I grow my own vegetables. I make
Speaker 2: a delicious green juice every morning out of the things
Speaker 2: that we grow, the spinach and the parsley, and.
Speaker 3: Now cucumbers we finally got.
Speaker 2: We've got five cucumbers the other day, newly planted. I'm
Speaker 2: so happy about that. They're so good in the green
Speaker 2: juice and celery. So those are the kinds of things
Speaker 2: that I think are extremely important for all of us.
Speaker 2: Are to increase longevity. And you talk about mental health
Speaker 2: a lot, and our mental health and our acuity and
Speaker 2: are just our energy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And to teach children. We have a place here
Speaker 1: in the garden called the edible a cat.
Speaker 3: I love it.
Speaker 1: And it's a wonderful yes, thank you. It's a wonderful
Speaker 1: vegetable environment. And what's so incredible about it is that
Speaker 1: the kids that come in to work in the garden,
Speaker 1: you see them pull a carrot out of the ground
Speaker 1: and you can see in real time them making that
Speaker 1: connection between what they're doing and the food they eat
Speaker 1: and feeling a more ownership and connection to its.
Speaker 5: Real totally, and I think we're the most disconnected that
Speaker 5: we've ever been.
Speaker 4: And practices like this.
Speaker 5: And actually, you know, you know, one of the things
Speaker 5: that I think makes people quite lax when it comes
Speaker 5: to looking after the environment, is spending no time connecting
Speaker 5: with it, and so there's such an importance I think,
Speaker 5: to actually immersing yourself in it and kind of becoming
Speaker 5: one with it so that you can tangibly understand. You
Speaker 5: can't download empathy into someone else's mind. It kind of
Speaker 5: it's grown through experience.
Speaker 3: We have one apartment before you move to my farm.
Speaker 2: No, you have to take the course here at the
Speaker 2: New York the Channical.
Speaker 4: I will with the children.
Speaker 3: You can start there.
Speaker 2: But they have a very good program of an educational
Speaker 2: program here. And we have one of your graduates working
Speaker 2: at the farm now, wonderful.
Speaker 3: He's so nice and he lives nearby.
Speaker 2: And he's such a very avid gardener and very energetic,
Speaker 2: and he learns a lot here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we have a full range of programs from the
Speaker 1: School of Professional Horticulture, which I think he came from,
Speaker 1: which is for people who are entering the profession, to
Speaker 1: people who are more casual learners who just want to
Speaker 1: learn how to garden better in their backyards.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's so great that you offer those kinds of
Speaker 2: programs because we need it.
Speaker 3: The world needs it.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, and I need it.
Speaker 3: So who thinks that Jamila is ready for a garden?
Speaker 5: You lie, you filthy liars.
Speaker 3: So you're gonna see, I'm going to give you this rose,
Speaker 3: but what are you going to do with it? You
Speaker 3: don't have a garden yet.
Speaker 4: I don't have a garden yet, But you know what,
Speaker 4: I'm going to go.
Speaker 5: And buy a plot of land today and I'm going
Speaker 5: to start all.
Speaker 2: Right, Okay, please, and thank you so much for coming
Speaker 2: to the show and taking.
Speaker 3: Time out of your very busy schedule.
Speaker 5: I've literally never said yes to anything faster than I
Speaker 5: said yes.
Speaker 2: I am thrilled that you did that, and I'm very
Speaker 2: excited to see your new show and to listen to
Speaker 2: your podcast.
Speaker 4: Sure, I mean it is unbelievably filthy.
Speaker 5: The story I told at the beginning of this is
Speaker 5: just the tip of the iceberg of what you're going
Speaker 5: to hear. Do not listen to it with your children.
Speaker 5: Definitely listen to it while gardening. Maybe play it to
Speaker 5: your plants and see what.
Speaker 2: Happens and and be dead the next sporting.
Speaker 1: We also have a podcast here at NYBG you called
Speaker 1: Plant People, and we don't have those kinds of stories.
Speaker 1: So if you just want to sort of yeah, but
Speaker 1: my launches.
Speaker 2: Today Comedians, Wrong Turns, that's Jamila's Podcasts.
Speaker 4: With Jamina Jamil and it's wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 3: And I cannot wait for Ilio. I cannot wait.
Speaker 2: And thank you so much Jennifer Bernstein for letting us
Speaker 2: have this wonderful podcast live at the New York Botanical Gardener.
Speaker 3: And thanks Miracle Bro.
Speaker 4: I'm Martha, Martha.
Speaker 5: I would be remiss to not just say thank you
Speaker 5: so much for the example you have set for specifically
Speaker 5: women everywhere outside of what a domestic goddess you are.
Speaker 5: Your resilience and your audacity and the way you speak
Speaker 5: your mind has been something you have forced into culture
Speaker 5: and paved away for the women like me.
Speaker 3: So thank you, and
Speaker 2: Thanks all of you for coming here today and until
Speaker 2: our next podcast, go out into your garden and wed
Speaker 2: sweedy time now