Prop Culture

Tanya and Jos, no guest, lots of feelings. Tanya is healing her plants and starting to prep for Corsica. Jos is moving an entire anthurium collection out of a greenhouse he lost on two and a half months’ notice. Plant drama: an Indonesian Anthurium ‘Muchlis’ sold in the US for $3,000, and the post that followed. Tanya talked with Aina, an Indonesian-born chef in the San Francisco Bay Area, about g...

Brian Lagunas, aka Anthurium Papa, joins Tanya and Jos for an episode full of heart and a little chaos. News: The Crop Trust’s report on edible aroids and why collectors might be part of the backup plan; Costa Rica paying landowners to keep forests standing, and measuring recovery by sound; and the Desert Botanical Garden’s rescue center for confiscated plants. Interview: Brian’s path from a fatef...

Tanya and Jos are home from Miami, cold, jet-lagged, and still on speaking terms. This week they spill the tea on their first-ever IAS Tropical Plant Expo. In the news: Hold My Bud: oaks that got eaten by caterpillars one year open their buds about three days later the next. That's enough to starve the hatchlings, and enough to cancel out a decade of climate-driven early spring. Published in N...

Episode 20 and we finally have an aroid taxonomist in the room. Marco Cedeño Fonseca is a Costa Rican botanist who did his master's on Monstera at the University of Costa Rica and just finished his PhD at the Berlin Botanical Garden — as in, he got the title the day before we recorded and told us at the very end. News : the Thomas B. Croat Aroid Garden was inaugurated in Tabasco, Mexico. A 5-m...

Your plant isn't being dramatic when it stretches for the window — it's reading the light. This week Tanya and Jos get into a red-shade-cloth vanilla farm in Hawaii, the real science of phytochrome and shade avoidance, and why cannabis growers manipulate far-red light on purpose. Plus: an AI plant-photo fraud scandal shakes the collector community, a Hawaiian botanist free-solos volcanic cliffs to...

Tanya's back from Corsica (barely rested, extremely tanned in spirit) and Jos has news about the UK's Plant Heritage — a royal-patronage plant conservation charity with over 600 protected collections, four of which now belong to King Charles III himself. It kicks off a real conversation about colonial extraction in the plant world, plus an update on the Monstera Stan bracket tournament (RI...

Hosts this episode: Jos Vanden Abeele & Kaylee Ellen (Tanya Quintieri is off the grid in Corsica this week — back next episode.) No guest interview this time, so Jos and Kaylee fill the runtime with a stacked news round and two full plant-rating segments. Tanya's off soaking up Corsica, so it's just Jos and Kaylee this week — and they've brought a full plate of plant news. Top of t...

Episode 16 — and it's Hortikult's two-year anniversary, so we're celebrating by talking about paperwork. Our guest is Dr. Sarah Spaulding , evolutionary biologist, Tanya's co-chair on the IAS education committee, and the person behind BOTANOPHILE — the export business that gets rare plants from US growers into collections around the world. Sarah explains what that actually involves...

Derek Haynes — The Chocolate Botanist — joins us for one of our widest-ranging episodes yet: equal parts plant science, stand-up, and a conversation that genuinely mattered. We open with the news. Tanya reports from Japan, where a 26-year-old got arrested within 24 hours for swapping the price tag on a ~$1,700 Operculicaria (a slow-growing Madagascan caudex succulent that mimics a decades-old bons...

The day has finally come. We've summoned the Master of Moss Poles, none other than Jan, aka SydneyPlantGuy! But first things first: In this episode, we discuss the latest "news" on common houseplant mistakes, and we talk about attending plant shows. Then we interview Jan, and what an interview it was! Did you know that Jan can be spicy? In our Hot or Nah segment, we rate: Begonia U02...

International Children's Day  is celebrated worldwide on June 1, and on the second Sunday of June in the United States. The day holds special significance for Czechs. 80 years ago, on June 10, 1942, Nazis massacred hundreds of men, women, and children in the Czechoslovakian town of Lidice. Since Tanya lives in the Czech Republic, we decided to honor this day and 1) have her daughter (10) on th...

They say sh!t happens, right? Episode 12 has us handling a Take Two, because Tanya & Tech. Nonetheless, it's an enlightening episode! In the news segment, we cover the past two decades in houseplant collecting according to a Google Trends report (shoutout to affordablebiscuit on Reddit !). Also in the news: a fascinating report from Matador Network on America's rarest flower . The vide...

Jos returns from judging the first-ever Sensoria Expo in Hangzhou and reports back on what plant collecting looks like at China-scale. Plus: a sobering study on collapsing orchid pollination, the Alocasia 'Pink Bull' mislabel, two hot variegated Anthuriums, and weird plants featuring praying-hand pea flowers. CONNECT Substack: ⁠ ⁠https://propculture.substack.com/⁠ Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠https://www...

Tanya, Jos & Kaylee unpack a Facebook plant-DNA conspiracy, the wild trickery orchids use to scam pollinators (yes, including sex), Tanya's hot take on why rotating houseplants is bullshit, and weird-plant ratings featuring an elephant's foot. CONNECT Substack: ⁠ https://propculture.substack.com/ Instagram: ⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/prop.culture.podcast Website: ⁠ https://hortikult.c...

We kick off with the latest in plant trademark drama : Proven Winners' newly branded "Mythic Phoebus," which, under the trade name, is a variegated Alocasia (likely Alocasia Dora or similar). We dig into why a grower would trademark both a fake genus and a fake species name, what it means for the collector community, and why renaming common aroids as "boutique" plants is a...

In this episode of Prop Culture, hosts Tanya and Jos welcome Kaylee Ellen as their new co-host, a much-loved plant YouTuber known by many. The trio discusses plant naming controversies, including trademarked cultivar names and shops rebranding plants for profit. They cover news about a tech billionaire planning a futuristic succulent dome in Somerset and share which plant genera they'd avoid b...

Tanya is officially back in Europe, but her "Queendom" is in a state of emergency. Between dry rot and a thrips infestation on her Thai Constellation, she’s facing the reality of leaving her collection in the hands of a "non-plant" husband for seven months. In this chaotic and hilarious episode, Tanya and Jos are joined by a Mystery Guest —a well-known figure in the plant community who is currentl...

In this episode, Tanya and Jos bridge the gap between the royal gardens of England and the bustling plant markets of Bangkok. We look into the high-maintenance "Plant Shuffle" of King Charles III, discuss the evolving trend of physical plant journaling in a digital age, and get an update on the European collector scene with the upcoming My Botanica events. The highlight of the show is an...

In this special "Podcastathon" edition of Prop Culture , Tanya is joined by Ashley (@ATLPlantRoom) , the Marketing Chair for the International Aroid Society (IAS) . Together, they pull back the curtain on what it means to be part of the world’s leading organization dedicated to the Araceae family. From its "book club" origins in 1977 to its current role as the official internat...

In this episode, Tanya and Jos bridge the gap between historic botanical discoveries and the modern digital landscape. Jos shares the incredible story of a South African plant rediscovered after 200 years, along with the "Daffodil Fever" of the Victorian era. Tanya updates us on the "generational cold snap" in Florida and how it’s affecting both commercial crops and private collections. The conver...

In this episode, Tanya and Jos explore the cutting edge of plant science and the "wild west" of online plant selling. We start with some major news regarding the EU’s New Genomic Techniques (NGT) and what "designer plants" might look like in the future. We also dive into the drama of Reddit, discussing the audacity of a buyer asking for a free replacement plant four months afte...

After a chaotic start involving a "brain cell frying" recording mishap, Tanya and Jos are back for the second episode of Season 2. We dive into the legacy of the late orchid legend Paul Gripp , discuss the evolution of "rare" versus "collector" plants, and Tanya makes a confession about a certain "betrayal" regarding the IAS Tropical Plant Expo . In the seco...

Happy New Year and Welcome to Season 2! We made it back. Tanya is (mostly) healthy, Jos is caffeinated, and we are starting 2026 with a guest we’ve been dreaming of hosting since Day 1: Dr. Thomas Croat. The Man Behind the Name You likely know Dr. Croat as the “Godfather of Aroids”—the man who has described over 1,300 species and collected more plants than probably anyone in history. But in Episod...

Episode 9: A Variegated State of Mind (Season Finale) It is the last episode of the year! We are wrapping up the season with a packed episode, spilling some plant tea, diving deep into the science of variegation, and rating some truly bizarre plants. We start by debunking a questionable article about "windowless rooms" (sorry, Enid!) and clearing up the confusion behind the mysterious &q...

In Episode 08, Jos and Tanya brave the winter blues (and Christmas trees) to tackle the heavy hitters: Is the plant community finally "woke" yet? We discuss the 2024 vote by 100 scientists to remove racial slurs from Latin names and why common names like "Wandering Dude" might only be a superficial fix. We are also joined by the wonderful Memo (aka Houseplanty Goodness ) to dis...