Rooted in Tradition, Growing in Innovation: Rob Weins Horticulture Journey

Robert
00:00
Hi, everyone, and welcome to the I am landscape Growth podcast, where entrepreneurs help entrepreneurs grow faster, better, and stronger in the green industry. From leadership to sales to recruiting and operational excellence. We cover the topics holding entrepreneurs back and share how to get past those bottlenecks with the best in the industry. I’m your host, Rob Murray, co founder and CEO of Intrigue, a digital marketing company focused on helping landscape companies grow. So sit back and enjoy the show. All right. Hi, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the I am Landscape Growth podcast. Today we have an amazing guest, Rob Wein Junior, running Clearview horticultural products. And a really cool perspective, I think, from, in terms of how the industry is operating, you know, outside of, like, your typical landscape contractor. Also the growing chair for the BC Landscape Nursery Association.

Robert
00:55
Rob, thanks so much for coming on the show, man.

Rob
00:57
Thanks for having me.

Robert
00:59
So we always try to give the audience a little bit of context. You know, who are we speaking to and, you know, how did you end up running Clearview and end up, you know, in the association level, on the board, at the board level, as the growing chair? Like, what have you been doing over the last, you know, ten years plus as a kind of closed note summary, just so the audience has an idea of who we’re speaking today.

Rob
01:20
Sure. Yeah. So there’s. Well, there’s five of us running clear of you, and it’s a family business. I’ve been in and out of the business since I was a little kid. I’ve done a few other things, like in construction and stuff like that. But I’m actually a fifth generation clematis grower. Throughout the lineage, there’s been a few other crops that have been grown, but it started with Will Baron, and then his son, Charlie Barron. And then my grandpa, Fred Wine, and then my uncle and my dad, Rob Wine and Fred wine. And then now there’s me, Wes, and Dusty, which is the next generation.

Robert
02:01
That’s amazing. So how long since it started?

Rob
02:03
So. Well, the Clearview horticultural products was founded in 1970, but. So then there’s two generations before that. So I don’t know.

Robert
02:14
It’s been a while.

Rob
02:15
Yes, it’s been a long time.

Robert
02:18
Cool.

Rob
02:19
Yeah. There is one clematis named after my great grandpa. Great great grandpa, actually. But. But, yeah. So now we’re the largest producers of clematis in North America with the largest selection of clematis. And then we do all the other popular climbing plants. We do our own breeding. So I do a lot of the breeding now. My grandpa did the breeding, and then he passed and so we all know how to do it a little bit, but I’ve kind of taken that. That on. Excuse me.

Robert
02:54
So it’s like Jurassic park, but for clematis.

Rob
02:57
Jurassic park?

Robert
02:58
Yeah. You’re genetically, like, engineering these epic plants all over the world.

Rob
03:03
It’s mostly. It’s mostly classic breeding. So we don’t do, like, crazy, genetically modified stuff like that. It’s just. So you just take. Basically, it works kind of like humans. You take the male part and the female part and push them together.

Robert
03:25
Who would have thought it was so easy?

Rob
03:27
Yeah, it is. It is. You just bang them together and.

Robert
03:31
No pun intended.

Rob
03:32
Well, and then the ovary swells, and it’s more about just being organized and being patient, and then you got to do a lot of trials, but you can get a lot out of just classical breeding. Cool. Still, a lot of breeding is done that way. I’m looking at transgenetic breeding, but it’s a whole other ball of wax. I’m not sure it’s necessary because there’s so much good stuff that you can get out of classical breeding.

Robert
04:02
So then what got you involved with the BC landscape Nursery association?

Rob
04:07
Well, actually, just. I was always a member. Our family’s always been a member. My uncle was the president of the BC Landscape Nursery Association a long time ago, which I didn’t even really know at the time when I was getting into. He’s done many things. He was the president of the BC Agriculture Council, and he’s been chair for a few things, but it was just a. A friend farmer, that just said, hey, we’re looking for somebody to join the board. Why don’t you try second vice chair? And the good thing about that position is you don’t have to do anything.

Robert
04:44
Right. So it’s a gateway drug into getting on the board.

Rob
04:47
Yeah. You just see the inner workings, and you don’t have any responsibilities, and you can see if you like it. And I didn’t hate it. I did like it. And then. Yeah, then it came time to elect a grower, and there’s not a lot of guys that want to do the job necessarily. It’s kind of a little bit of a thankless job, perhaps, but it is rewarding. At the same time. You learn a lot and you get to network, meet people. So I’m honored to do it. Awesome. It was really just. Somebody suggested it to me, and I was like, okay, yeah, I’ll try it.

Robert
05:27
Give it a shot. Why not?

Rob
05:29
Sure.

Robert
05:30
That’s how most board terms start, I think, you know, a friend asks, like, all right, yeah, I’ll try it out. Why not? Okay, sweet. So theme of this podcast is all around growth constraints and what’s holding entrepreneurs back in the green industry. So, from your perspective at this stage of 2023, you know, the day of this recording or whatever, September 26, 2023, what do you see as, like, the number one growth constraint in the green industry right now?

Rob
05:56
Well, it’s gotta be labor.

Robert
06:00
Everybody says labor. I thought you’d say something.

Rob
06:03
So, you know, there’s a couple tricks. I think, you know, your time is another one, and that’s a different way of looking at it. But I don’t. You don’t hear time very much.

Robert
06:17
No, not once.

Rob
06:19
Yeah. So I know everybody. There’s skilled labor. I think you can find the skilled labor if you just keep trying and you keep looking, and if you pay the right amount. But the lower, less skilled labor is definitely a shortage. I think it’s getting better. Obviously, it was really bad with COVID but there seems to be this trend of the aging workforce. There’s less people that are willing to come in and do those jobs. It’s probably really tough for landscapers. I think, with, you know, with nursery people, we get foreign workers. So that’s. That’s been a big help. And that’s one thing the association has helped a lot with, is getting foreign workers in. But, yeah.

Robert
07:07
So is that. Is that. Is that the main way you’ve tackled the constraint?

Rob
07:12
Well, we. I think. I like to say that we have a really good culture, so weren’t affected, like a lot of people. We had a lot of same staff for 30 years.

Robert
07:22
That’s huge.

Rob
07:23
Yeah. And. But when COVID hit man, we put up ads for anybody that would walk to the door, like, no requirements whatsoever. With all these high school kids that were just slacking. I was, like, trying to keep them all separate, and they’re just talking and people that had no english skills, and it was just crazy. And. Yeah, and then we. We had. Well, the people that had foreign workers had problems, too, because there was problems getting them. Getting them in.

Robert
07:56
Sure. Yeah, yeah.

Rob
07:57
That’s one reason why you want to be careful about not going to all foreign workers, because it only takes one comment between the, you know, Trudeau and the mexican government or whatever, and all of a sudden, you can’t get your foreign workers. COVID comes back. So.

Robert
08:15
So you mentioned this. You mentioned this thing about time, though. You’re looking at labor, and then time is another thing. So just break that down. What do you mean? By that?

Rob
08:21
Well, yeah, I think you need really good people to free up your time because time is a, is a business constraint. Like, if you’re going to be a leader, you have to be working on leadership things all the time. You can’t get bogged down on all the stuff that’s imminent that comes up. A lot of the most important stuff is not the most imminent stuff. It’s the most important stuff. And as somebody that’s running a business, they want to get their hands in everything. And so you just get caught putting out fires and stuff instead of thinking, you know, can I get people to do some of these jobs that are bogging me down that I feel like only I can do as a leader because it’s so important.

Robert
09:11
Right. It’s also remarkably egotistical.

Rob
09:13
Yeah, it is. But, and it’s good to have a good handle on all the things that are important. And it’s dangerous to delegate things to people that can’t perform them.

Robert
09:23
Sure. Yeah. There’s real risk there, right?

Rob
09:26
Yeah. So.

Robert
09:27
So how did you elevate yourself out of that?

Rob
09:30
So there’s a couple ways. Looking for really good people, but creating really good systems, standard operating procedures, or whatever you want to call them, just rock solid standard operating procedures. And to control information really well, to have all the information come to you in an organized way so that you can run your business really efficiently.

Robert
09:54
Okay, so break down that. What is it? What does a solid, standard operating procedure, you know, look like? What does that like? How do I know I’ve got it when I’ve been working on it and I know it’s tight.

Rob
10:02
Yeah. So when you start doing sops, it could just take forever. You’ll be like, oh, my God. You decide to write a textbook.

Robert
10:10
Right.

Rob
10:11
And actually a friend at another nursery had a really good idea that I’m trying now, which is to get the people that are in charge of whatever department to write their own sops. And of course, you have to approve them. They’re going to understand them, they’re going to believe in them, and they’re going to be able to better enforce them.

Robert
10:35
Very cool.

Rob
10:36
And then it’ll save you the time with coming up with the Sops. Then they just give you sops. Yeah, this will work. That won’t work. And then give it back to them. And that will, that will really help you run your business.

Robert
10:53
Not to mention the fact free up your time because, like, who, what entrepreneur wants to go write a bunch of sops?

Rob
10:58
Yeah, that’s right.

Robert
11:00
Yeah.

Rob
11:00
My grandma said something, actually, that always stuck with me, that it’s that you need to run your business and don’t let your business run you. Yeah, that always kind of stuck with me, and I always think of systems and good people as the. As the main way to get out of that.

Robert
11:19
Right. So then we got an idea then. Rock solid sops are built from the ground up. You know, you’re getting the people that are closest to the problems, leading the problems to build out the systems and have them approved, obviously. So you have line of sight on what’s going on, and so that elevates yourself, you know, in terms of time. And then you’ve also got this idea of, you know, good people, strong culture. Like, what have you been able to do over the years to either find, keep, or identify good people, and then what do you do with them in terms of training, coaching, mentorship? Like, how does that work?

Rob
11:54
Well, I think you just keep searching, you keep putting out ads, and then you want to look at the people you do have. Employee retention is good, but excessive retention could be a bad thing if you’re keeping around jerks or slackers. Right now, I don’t know if you hear that enough.

Robert
12:13
Sure, we don’t hear it enough, but it’s true.

Rob
12:16
Sometimes you’ve got to fire people and remember the.

Robert
12:19
Remember the show. Cheers.

Rob
12:21
Yeah, yeah.

Robert
12:22
Remember George went hardly okay. Anyway, he was. It’s norm. Anyway, everybody would cheer norm when he came in the bar, and they were like, how do you. What are you drinking? He’s drinking so much. He was just like, you know, he’s alcoholic, clearly. And he said, well, actually, it makes me smarter. And they’re like, what are you talking about? He’s like, well, every time I drink, I kill dead cell or brain cells, but it’s the weak ones that die, so overall, I get smarter. And as much as it’s a horrible analogy, it’s type of, kind of true. Right. When you look at our teams, if we keep the people that are the ones holding us down, then it’s just, it’s. It’s anchor.

Robert
12:58
But if we got them go, the overall health of the organization kind of automatically improves, I think, to your point.

Rob
13:02
Yeah, yeah. And then there’s something to be said about utilizing your people properly. We had a business coach guy come in not that long ago, and the one thing that stuck with me was this thing called whole brain thinking. I don’t know if you’ve heard of it, but it’s.

Robert
13:24
I’ve heard of it, and I might have a definition, but it might not be similar to yours, but go for it.

Rob
13:27
There’s probably other ones, too, but there’s different thinking preferences. And so he would take each person in the leadership team, and he would look at your thinking preference, like conceptual.

Robert
13:42
Social, analytical, structural, or different aspects, something similar.

Rob
13:45
He broke it up, was there’s rational data crunching kind of preference thinking, and then there’s innovative thinking, which is what I am or how I lean. It’s what I like to do at it, but it’s just what I like to do. And then there’s the interpersonal, and then there’s the planning, and then. So you need all four of those to be a whole brain thinking leadership team.

Robert
14:16
That’s cool.

Rob
14:17
And so everybody has. You look at your own thinking preference, and then you add them all up, and then you can see where your leadership team is a little bit weak. And where were a little bit weak was interpersonal. It’s not that we’re jerks over here, but we just, that’s just not something. That’s not our preferred thinking preference. And the big takeaway was that you want to make sure people’s roles and responsibilities are lined up with their thinking preference, because if you’re doing what you love to do, then you’re gonna do a much better job. I’m a creative kind of guy. You know, I’m artistic. I play music. I like drawing pictures. But when I’m doing creative things around work, I am happy. So I want to put more hours in.

Rob
15:11
And where my brother, my little brother is, he’s a rational data crunching guy. So when I have something that’s data crunching, I give it to him, and it’s way more efficient, way faster, and.

Robert
15:24
He loves doing it. He’s having fun.

Rob
15:25
That’s right. So you can do that with your leadership team, but you can also do that with all your staff. So you can put the right person in the right job and define their roles and responsibilities around their thinking preference and then find out where the gaps or the blind spots are. Like, we should hire more people in to get better. Better culture. I mean, I think our culture is pretty good, but it could definitely better in a few areas.

Robert
15:52
And what was the name of the business coach? Remember?

Rob
15:55
It is. I don’t remember his last name. Yeah, it was Ian. We had a couple, actually. There’s Peter that did that. It’s called the Herman or dolphin. I can get it to you, but.

Robert
16:08
Yeah, well, that’s cool. If you want to get it to me? I’ll put it in the description of the actual thinking. Cool. So then the idea of like, well, I mean, it’s like organizational self awareness, like knowing whatever, knowing ourselves, knowing each other, and then understanding where we’re maybe too strong, where we got some gaps, and then bringing people into the organization to provide that holistic perspective so we’re not missing out on something when we’re looking at, you know, how we’re going to tackle a product, especially the leadership team. But in your point, anywhere in the organization. So, you know, you look at systems, standard operating procedures. We’ve got people and culture, you know, provided some really cool pieces that are tangible that someone hopefully can take away from this and use it.

Robert
16:50
One of the things, you know, you mentioned that your participation in the association was kind of like a, hey, let go check it out. But, you know, many years later, you’re still part of it. What is, what has it meant for you and Clearview being a part of, you know, the BC Landscape Nursery association and, like, what would you say to somebody if they’re not necessarily there now and what they might want to consider getting involved?

Rob
17:16
There’s just, there’s so many benefits to getting involved.

Robert
17:20
But how did it impact you personally?

Rob
17:22
How did it impact me? It’s, it’s brought me, it’s got me, I’ve got new ideas from it and I’ve met lots of new people and I’ve learned a lot about how the government works and how it doesn’t.

Robert
17:41
I’m joking. Sorry.

Rob
17:42
Doesn’t. Yeah.

Robert
17:44
What?

Rob
17:44
Sorry.

Robert
17:45
No, no, they’re great.

Rob
17:46
They’re great.

Robert
17:46
It’s great. We’re part of the association. We want to work well with them.

Rob
17:50
Yeah, yeah. I think it’s mainly about networking and just learning more about the industry. You do get to learn a lot about your competitors where you might find.

Robert
18:02
Some opportunities in like, a cooperative environment by, like, you know, kind of coopetition. So you’re talking to your competitors. People are sharing information or you’re learning about them through other sources and getting more knowledgeable about the industry. Like, what do you mean?

Rob
18:17
Yeah, I mean, it’s usually pretty, people are pretty transparent. And so I’ve met a lot of other growers and, you know, there’s some questions that you don’t want to broadcast to the world, but you make connections with other growers and you say, oh, how you tracking your saturated media extracts? And, you know, my lab results are different than mine. I think I’m doing something wrong. And you visit each other and you bounce ideas off each other and how you clean stuff, what chemicals are using, what bio controls.

Robert
18:51
Very cool.

Rob
18:52
Yeah, I actually got the whole model of our long term plan I got from somebody else in the industry on a tour. He said, standardize, automate, and optimize in that order. And it really stuck with me, because if you go to Europe, there’s a lot of automation, and you know how labor is going up, and that’s one of the secrets to labor, is investing in automation.

Robert
19:25
No doubt.

Rob
19:26
I’m sure there’s some ways you can do that in landscaping, too, but robotics is coming so far in AI and all that technology. But if you have 15 different greenhouses and 15 different spots with all different.

Robert
19:41
Houses, different types of plants, different everything.

Rob
19:45
Yeah. Then it becomes really difficult. So our whole long term plan over the last ten years has been to sell off all our properties, move it to. Well, we’re in two locations now, but were in six locations just a couple of years ago, and then standardize everything, make it all the same, and then automate everything and then optimize everything. So we’re just, oh, I love it.

Robert
20:09
Dude, that’s game changing. You get that from a rip off and duplicate tour. I mean, R and D tour.

Rob
20:14
Yeah, yeah. So it’s cool. It’s kind of all come together now. And so we think of our operation less like a farming operation and more like a plant. Factory.

Robert
20:26
Yeah, yeah.

Rob
20:27
And now instead of people going out to the greenhouse to work on the crops, all the crops are brought to the factory, like setting, where it can run through machines. Or if we don’t have that machine yet, it can run by people that are ergonomically sitting there. And then eventually we can swap those people out with machines when the ROI permits.

Robert
20:53
Yeah, that’s fascinating, though. Like, talk about a game changing experience, being part of an association when it impacts the ten year vision and long term plan of a business and the sale of real estate, like multiple plots of real estate, centralization of operations, like, that’s a significant change in operations.

Rob
21:11
Yeah, yeah, it’s a lot.

Robert
21:13
It sounds like you’ll be a member for life. Like they.

Rob
21:15
I think so. You know what? It’s. There’s also, like, the association is fighting for your values as a business member all the time. Like, it’s not a political organization, it’s not right wing, not left wing. It’s just a bunch of farmers that are good people, that are volunteering. Like, it’s a volunteered position.

Robert
21:42
Yeah.

Rob
21:44
And they genuinely care about farmers and the industry, and that’s why they’re there. And so how could you not support them? I think a lot of people don’t support the BCLNA, just don’t realize what they’re doing. You know, almost every aspect of what a farmer does, from, like, the soil to the water to the. To the weather to insurance. Like, you name it, the BCLA has its hand in everything, making sure that it’s conducive for a profitable company to operate.

Robert
22:23
Yeah, that’s cool, man. And then so, on the landscape side of things, being a grower and one of the largest in your niche in North America, what do you see as, like, a change in the industry with regard to input costs and regulations and how that’s going to impact your, you know, ten to $15 million landscape design, build, construction, maintenance company across Canada and the US? Like, what do you see coming right now?

Rob
22:51
Oh, well, I don’t know. I mean, 2024 is God knows what’s going to happen. I mean, inflation is up so much interest rates are up. I guess landscaping really depends on what the market’s like and how much infrastructure projects are going on. I’m not super optimistic about 2024, but I don’t know, I don’t have a crystal ball, personally. I’m not spending a lot of my personal cash. I’m kind of saving up. I want to buy an investment property or something, because I. I wouldn’t be surprised if housing prices fall a little bit in 2024. And maybe that’s not a good thing for landscape. Is that. Sorry, does that answer your question?

Robert
23:40
No, no. It could be. I’m talking more about from, like, you know, the macro industry level in terms of inputs. Like, if I’m buying plants and planting them, you know, on the ground level, you know, all these companies across Canada and the US, what can I expect in terms of pricing, access to stuff? Like, is there regulations coming that I don’t know about? Like, is there anything that’s telling a story now that people should either plan for or at least understand better?

Rob
24:07
Yeah, well, I mean, the cost of plants have gone up substantially. They go up with inflation, and freight’s a big part of it. Fertilizer costs. Fertilizers are oil based. Pesticides. They’ve all gone up a ton. The interest rates for farmers borrow a lot of money. That’s gone up. There’s significant price increases over the last two years. So. And I don’t know if that’s gonna. If that’s gonna stop. So already prices are really quite expensive.

Robert
24:47
Yeah.

Rob
24:49
I really don’t know.

Robert
24:51
So then when we talk about. We were just in our quick conversation before this, were talking a little bit about the technology of plants. Can you just help us understand what that means and what kind of disruption there’s coming to the green industry right now.

Rob
25:07
Yeah. So, yeah, we’re talking a little bit about it. AI and the Internet of things. So do you know about the Internet of things?

Robert
25:15
Yeah, everything’s connected, speaking to each other. We’re gathering information, being able to synthesize big data, all that.

Rob
25:20
That’s right. So sensors are hooking up to the Internet, which hooks up to AI, and that’s a game changer. I think the other thing that’s happening is with climate change, there’s a lot of pressure for renewable energy, and there’s. So the technology is changing and how greenhouses are growing plants. There’s one of a friend of mine, actually, it’s a competitor. They have a greenhouse that doesn’t vent the humidity. It recirculates. It has.

Robert
25:52
Oh, I love it. It’s like district heating for itself.

Rob
25:56
Yeah. It dehumidifies the air, and it has freezers that make it cooler, and I didn’t even know that existed. It seems like every time I go anywhere, I see something that’s just, like, mind blowing. Like this new. I was seeing a strawberry grower that had this machine that was driving in between strawberry rows and was shooting, like, a radiation that killed all the powdery mildew. I was like, I never even heard of that.

Robert
26:22
But not using pesticides.

Rob
26:23
Not using pesticides.

Robert
26:25
So. Okay. Can you maybe. Is this a myth? I heard that if you were to take, you know, a bushel of strawberries or whatever you get, or basket from the grocery store, squeeze the juice out, there’d be enough pesticide in that juice to be able to spray the next batch of strawberries because of the way that they’re. They absorb what is sprayed on them. Is there any merit to that at all?

Rob
26:46
I sure hope not. I I don’t really know to be.

Robert
26:49
So I got to do the test, is what you’re saying. I really got to just squeeze these things. I would get it tested.

Rob
26:53
I would. I would be very skeptical of that. There’s some crops that require a lot of pesticides, but there is a lot of guys that are using bio controls. Like, here. We use a lot of bio controls. I don’t know if you know much about bio controls.

Robert
27:10
Well, we have. We. We have a. A friend slash kind of client down in Windsor, crop defenders. Do you know those guys?

Rob
27:19
No.

Robert
27:20
So it’s all about bugs. It’s all about biocontrols using. Using bugs.

Rob
27:24
Oh, yeah. Yeah. And is there much of that going on in landscape, too? I know that.

Robert
27:29
No, it’s more, way more on the farming winery side. Yeah. Like, large production.

Rob
27:33
So in a lot of cases, it’s cheaper to use bio controls than pesticides. Yeah. Because they hang around a lot better. And so here we use a lot of bio controls. So we’ve reduced our pesticide amount a ton. And it was actually one of the reasons I got really interested in horticulture. I used to grow bugs. I started mass rearing bugs in my bedroom.

Robert
28:00
Your mom must have loved that.

Rob
28:02
Yeah. Yeah. And then I took over a closet. Yeah. Like a whole bunch of spiders in the house. I had this closet.

Robert
28:10
I was growing weed plants. So I think you’re better off.

Rob
28:13
It looked like a grow up I had in the house lit up, you know, air being pumped out of it. And, yeah, I would aspirate bugs with, like, a little vacuum. And I count myself. I’d package them and I’d sell them to a company called the bug factory.

Robert
28:32
Awesome.

Rob
28:33
Yeah. And then I started growing them in a big greenhouse. I moved out of the basement and started doing a whole bunch of it. And, yeah, I reared probably a dozen different insects. I used to go into the forests and try and find my own predators. Like new predators. Like, I was testing this one called disyphus discrepanc, which was never, it’s never been described before. So I was rearing it on a bunch of different media and giving it, like, doing agility tests and diapause tests.

Robert
29:09
How do you do that? How do you do an agility test on a bug?

Rob
29:13
Well, you just have, like, a piece of paper and you put a big circle and you put. Put the bug in the middle of it and you tap it on the butt and you time it. And I wanted to see how fast it ran compared to its other species within the same genus.

Robert
29:30
Yeah. Okay.

Rob
29:31
Yeah. To see if it was a better predator for. For our climate than this other species, disypus hesperus, which is the main one.

Robert
29:42
Right.

Rob
29:43
But, yeah, you know, I would rear all sorts of stuff, and I was really into it. It was a lot of fun. So it became so that. Yeah, then eventually I just brought them to the greenhouse, and then I was rearing them here at the greenhouse just so it’d be way cheaper to use it. And then the cost of biocontrols has come down quite a lot, and the technology has become way better. They have found ways to house the bugs and create, like, an entire ecosystem where, for example, you can have predatory mites that are in bags that feed on prey mites, and the prey mites feed on a mold and the mold feeds on an oat. And so you have all these different. Yeah, so they can continually release for weeks and weeks, and basically they rear themselves in these bags.

Rob
30:37
And so the technology is changing. So the bottom line is it’s cheaper than pesticides in many ways.

Robert
30:44
So is there a way for me to tell if I’m looking at where I’m sourcing my plants from, whether it’s a greenhouse or a grower or whatever that might be, you know, what should I be looking for if I want to get away from pesticides?

Rob
30:54
Well, it’s tough because the bio controls are very small. So I mean, you could, like, in.

Robert
30:59
Terms of industry, market penetration.

Rob
31:02
No, no, I’m sorry. Like, they’re.

Robert
31:04
Oh, no, they’re tiny. Like, physically, to see.

Rob
31:06
Because the other thing is you don’t want big bugs because the customers be like, there’s bugs on my.

Robert
31:14
No, of course. But like, if I’m sourcing and I’m looking at, like, let’s say I want to buy two, $3 million worth of plants in a year, what should I be looking for in a grower?

Rob
31:24
Well, you can get a grower to send you their pesticide records. Like, what have you put on it? Including bio controls. I mean, bio controls are kind of pesticides anyway, right?

Robert
31:34
Yeah, sure. By nature. Right.

Rob
31:35
They kill pests. But, you know, there’s other, there’s bio pesticides, too, which are fine for their fungi or bacteria based.

Robert
31:46
Yeah, yeah.

Rob
31:48
Or, or there’s soaps, there’s horticultural oils that aren’t, they’re non toxic, but they kill by desiccating the skin of the insect or, or by suffocation. Right. There’s no, there’s no poison involved. There’s not.

Robert
32:03
Yeah, that’s cool.

Rob
32:04
Like, a lot of the pesticides came from. You maybe know this from war, from World War one. World War two, yeah, they were trying to kill people. They’re killing people with them. And then they’re like, oh, there’s no more people. All the plants, where are we going to sell these to? So, yeah, so a lot of them are neurotoxin and there’s a whole bunch of nasty chemistries that slowly regulators have been getting rid of, like organophosphates. That’s accumulated in your body fat.

Robert
32:33
So what is it? Glyphosate. Glyphosate? Is that right?

Rob
32:40
Yeah. Glycofate is roundup.

Robert
32:43
Yeah. Yeah. And so. But like, is it still out there in the world or is it kind of gone?

Rob
32:49
Yeah, it’s definitely out there with, like, corn and soy and stuff like that. Unfortunately, as I understand it, I don’t have members that grow corn, so I can maybe crap on the corn growers, but. But they, from what I understand, not only do they spray their crop with it to kill the weeds, and then they have, like, the roundup ready genetically modified crop that doesn’t die, but they actually use it as a desiccant so that it’s easier to harvest. So they will spray it post harvest.

Robert
33:32
Right. Just to bring it down so they.

Rob
33:35
Can break it up. And so the amount is actually quite high. And, you know, I’m no toxicologist, but I try and avoid it if I can.

Robert
33:46
Yeah. Okay. So there’s some merit to what we’ve been hearing going around right now, which is insane. So all that being said, then, if you know, trying to bring it back to this consumer. So there’s a, you know, you got biocontrols, which is a big part of, you know, not necessarily ethical growing, but like, healthy growing. And you’re seeing it happen more and more because technology is getting better, which is great. What do you see as another technology that’s going to be like, you know, kind of throwing waves into the green industry people should be aware of?

Rob
34:15
You know, what I think is a big one is vertical farming. And cool.

Robert
34:20
Yes. Talk about that.

Rob
34:21
You’ve probably heard about vertical farming, eh?

Robert
34:23
Sure.

Rob
34:24
Well, the science is continuing to advance on it and the need for it. There’s a, there’s a farm called plenty farms, actually just went through a round of funding for another $400 million. And Walmart was. Was a big. Put a lot of money into it. But they have like an operation. It’s like the size of a Walmart or something. But because they can stack their crops so high, so many layers, they can produce like 700 acres of farmland.

Robert
34:59
In one, like 50,000 square foot warehouse.

Rob
35:03
Yeah. Because their crop times are so short. And then they can share the heat in there. It does take a lot of light, but as energy costs, if they come down, renewable energy costs, they save something like millions of gallons of water a week. And. And farmland takes up about 40% of the world’s surface right now. Check that but I think that’s about right. Like, it’s a massive amount of the earth’s surface. Are you googling it right now?

Robert
35:37
Yeah, I don’t have an assistant. I mean. Hey, Joe, can you google that for me? I’m not quite there yet.

Rob
35:47
Yeah, but so if you can. If you can have these vertical facilities in what they call food deserts or. Right in the.

Robert
35:58
Dude, you were tight. Yeah, yeah.

Rob
36:01
So, so, like, if you could imagine the. Imagine the amount of wildlife you could have the effect on the planet if everything was being grown in 1% of its footprint.

Robert
36:14
Yeah, that’s cool, right?

Rob
36:16
The government’s gonna fund this because of climate change, the amount of water that they’ll save. You know, we have water concerns, and then we can get food to people right in the middle of the city. You could build one of these things. So think about how you’re saving freight and transport.

Robert
36:31
Oh, yeah. Massive.

Rob
36:33
And then you’re. You could potentially build these things on Mars. I don’t know, there’s, you know, there’s no real limitation because they’re like this enclosed thing that’s super efficient. So I. Vertical farming. And then you’re able to automate it quite well because you have it all, like I said, standardized in one spot. So a lot of vertical farms have gone out of business, but some of them are expanding. The cost of energy, in some cases is going down. Led technology is getting better, and the need for vertical farming is increasing, I think.

Robert
37:11
Yeah, I think by definition, right. Well, especially, I mean, farmland’s being sold and being developed. Like, it’s not, we’re not growing farmland. Like, it’s not going to be more than 38% in ten years. It’s going to be less by definitively.

Rob
37:22
Okay, so the only limitation to that, I think, is tall crops, right? Because you can only stack so much corn, for instance. And so maybe we’ll figure out how to genetically modify shorter crops so we can stack more layers, or maybe we can build the buildings taller. But, yeah, I think that’s, that’s a pretty cool technology, is vertical farming.

Robert
37:45
So then to finish this up, then, like, help us understand the climbing plants and, like, the untapped potential of climbing plants. You mentioned that a little bit. What do you. What were you referring to?

Rob
37:55
Well, I mean, we grow climate plants, and. And so I think about it every once in a while, and it’s relevant to a landscape podcast. You know, in an urban environment, like in a city, there’s not a lot of space for greenery.

Robert
38:16
Sure. Yeah. Big trees, tough to get in between buildings when they’re tight, right?

Rob
38:20
Yeah, I mean, yeah, exactly. Trees have like these enormous roots. Trees are one way to do it, but if you quantify the amount of vertical spaces on the sides of buildings, it’s huge in a city. And there is some, there’s all these different specialized types of climbing adaptations, and so there’s a ton of different applications. And people are afraid because some plants, some common plants can destroy buildings. So there is some things that need to be worked out, but with the right plant selection. Parthenocissus, for instance, it’s like a Boston ivy is a beautiful one. There’s a hotel called Hotel Silvia. It’s a massive hotel. And the whole thing is covered. Yeah. If you google it’s gorgeous. And it has like a rainbow of colors. It changes throughout the year.

Robert
39:16
And, oh, in Vancouver.

Rob
39:17
In Vancouver, yeah. And you’ll find it all over the place, but.

Robert
39:22
Oh, that’s super cool.

Rob
39:23
Yeah, yeah. And it kind of auto crops around the window because it has these suctioning cup climbing adaptation and so it doesn’t want to grow too far from the building. And is there podcasters that can see the video or is it just an audio?

Robert
39:42
Well, it’s going to be a video as well, so I just want to share the screen.

Rob
39:45
Okay, cool. Yeah.

Robert
39:47
This is what you’re referring to, right?

Rob
39:49
Yeah. And so that’s one of the popular ones.

Robert
39:51
That it is gorgeous.

Rob
39:54
Yeah, exactly. So picture that on all the buildings and then compare that to traditional green walls and how much money they cost. You know, we’re actually putting soil in the wall and then you got to figure out how to irrigate the thing.

Robert
40:10
Yeah, yeah.

Rob
40:11
Out all the time with mold, all.

Robert
40:14
The that comes with it.

Rob
40:15
There’s, there’s. It’s so expensive, it’s gotta be 1% of the cost to use climbing plants. And there’s so many different types of climbing plants. And if you think of what it.

Robert
40:25
Does for cooling, air quality.

Rob
40:29
Yeah, yeah. It will heat in the winter or help retain some heat or cool in the summer. Yeah. It just helps decrease the temperature of the city too, because you get that, I forget what they call it, heat island effect, where the sun is just bouncing all around, like in New York. Really hot.

Robert
40:49
Yeah. And it smells really good.

Rob
40:51
Yeah, yeah. And so there’s. Yeah, and there’s beautiful, stunning climbing plants too, that will help pollinators that have tons of flowers. Mattis is one that has a whole bunch of options there.

Robert
41:06
So if I’m a landscaper and I’m looking to do this kind of stuff, and I want to get a hold of Rob wine. Junior, how do I get ahold of you?

Rob
41:14
Well, just call clearview or. I don’t know. I mean, I guess. I don’t know. What’s the best way you could just call our office. Clearview horticultural products. Ask for Robbie wine. Because my dad’s Rob.

Robert
41:29
Right. Okay.

Rob
41:30
Well, is also fun.

Robert
41:32
Cool. Well, Robbie.

Rob
41:35
Yeah, I get. Customers are just wondering about like how to prune their clematis or whatever in their garden. I’m happy to talk to anybody at any time or call the association and get involved there.

Robert
41:47
Very cool.

Rob
41:48
If you’re in DC, join it, or join the whatever Ontario landscape clna, show up to some meetings and get connected.

Robert
42:00
And then who knows, maybe your ten year long term strategy of your business will be completely transformed.

Rob
42:05
It’s all about perspective change. You hear one good idea from somebody and it changes your business forever.

Robert
42:11
Very cool. So I was going to ask, what is the one resource author, speaker podcast that you’ve listened to or listening to that you’d recommend to others in terms of, like, their leadership growth, or how to scale a business, or getting through growth constraints?

Rob
42:29
Well, I listen to mostly science y stuff because that’s what I’m mostly interested in. But in terms of. For leadership, I mean, I read the economist. I really like the economist because it seems unbiased to me. And on the first few pages, it tells you everything that’s going on in the world that weekend, and everything in politics, everything in business. And so I really recommend that. And then there’s a whole bunch of podcasts I listen to. Freakonomics or. Yeah, yeah. And then, yeah, it’s mostly just science y books. I don’t listen to any leadership stuff. Sorry.

Robert
43:08
No, it’s all good, man. I appreciate it. I mean, that was kind of what, I mean, the perspective that you bring, though, I mean, as much as we talked about growth constraints, that kind of stuff, which is pretty consistent with what we do with everything on this podcast, you know, to help people understand the nature of plants and like, what’s going on with regard to, you know, pesticides, lack thereof, biocontrols, you know, the opportunity, especially in urban environments, to use climbing plants. You know, understanding the industry from a different perspective, you know, it’s really valuable. So I really appreciate you doing this, Robbie.

Rob
43:34
Yeah, thanks for having me on. It was a lot of fun.

Robert
43:37

Cool. And everybody, thanks for listening to another episode of the I am Landscape Growth podcast. The I am landscape growth podcast is brought to you by intrigue, where passionate marketing meets predictable results for entrepreneurs. Remember to like and subscribe the podcast so you don’t miss the next episode. And if you would like to be a guest on the podcast, please visit intriguemedia.com and click on podcasts.