Brian Curee: 0:11

All right, well, welcome back to the Vero Beach Podcast. I'm Brian and I'm Shawna, and today we are sitting at the DIGG Gardens the DIGG Gardens office though we're not actually at the gardens At the HQ, the HQ, the HQ here I like that Right here in downtown Vero. This is a really cool building. We're with Spencer. Spencer, would you take about 30 seconds and tell everybody a little bit about yourself?

Spencer Porteous: 0:31

Hey, my name's . I'm the owner of DIGG Gardens, Moved to Vero back in 1998, back in the 1900s. I got here we opened up the Vero Beach Home Depot. It was a brand new home depot so I was the garden manager. I got to learn about Vero and meet a lot of the old school landscapers and garden enthusiasts in town and it's funny how many people that still come up to me and say hey, hey, Spence, and I have no idea who they are.

Shawna Curee: 1:01

I have no idea who they are, they just remember you.

Spencer Porteous: 1:03

They remember me from Home Depot, which is like 20-something years ago, so I know tons of hey brother. What's up man? How are you? You know, that's how I cut my teeth in the plant business.

Brian Curee: 1:13

You're talking about cutting your teeth. I noticed right behind you. We're sitting at his HR, his headquarters here, and there's a saw behind you which has got some pretty mean looking teeth on it. What kind of saw is that? It's a two-man saw.

Spencer Porteous: 1:23

This piece down here is missing, but that was my grandfather's old saw. Wow, he was a dairy farmer in the Adirondacks. That was his old saw up there. I think it's probably like from the 40s. I think, wow, seneca Falls, new York, is where they made it.

Shawna Curee: 1:40

That's amazing. That's so neat that you have that.

Spencer Porteous: 1:42

Yeah, I'm a big like sentimental guy so I have all kinds of little knickknacks and stuff like that.

Shawna Curee: 1:47

Yeah, you could really like offer tours here and like tell all your stories.

Spencer Porteous: 1:50

What's cool about my office I love the most? This is all the stuff that I can hang up that I can't hang up at the house because it doesn't go with the decor. Right as my wife, summer, she's awesome, but when it comes to my style, I can pick and choose. I have a few pieces but, like clearly a big giant old antique saw isn't going to look good, hanging in the living room.

Spencer Porteous: 2:13

It's not very welcoming, right, right. So I got a bunch of my old stuff. I mean, my jackalope I have, that's awesome. You know. It's half rabbit, half antelope, you know, my jackalope I have, you know, we couldn't find a place for that in the house, so it comes here.

Brian Curee: 2:30

See, we've been talking about it, maybe an office later. Now I can understand the reason like more of a purpose of why why?

Shawna Curee: 2:34

to have that office, only to have a place for all your stuff. For all your stuff, that's right.

Spencer Porteous: 2:39

You walk in you're like man, look at all my stuff. Yes, I know you guys can't see this on the podcast, but these are old photos of my grandparents and great grandparents at the hunting cabin and and the old rocking chair back there. That's my great great grandmothers. She immigrated from Scotland. That chair came over from Scotland, so that chair was built in the like 1700s.

Shawna Curee: 3:01

Wow.

Spencer Porteous: 3:02

Yeah.

Shawna Curee: 3:02

And do I see your baseball guy?

Spencer Porteous: 3:04

Yeah, well, those are my. Those are my big trophies. I found them when I was cleaning out the garage and you can't put those in the kitchen, but then that's my fancy football trophy.

Brian Curee: 3:14

I'm the champ from last year, so wow, amazing good job I'm really digging your office man I gotta put that in there?

Shawna Curee: 3:21

yes, that's not the first time you're gonna hear that probably won't be probably won't be spencer.

Brian Curee: 3:26

Well, man, we're so glad to have you on so glad to have you on the podcast.

Shawna Curee: 3:30

I meant to say that's not the last time. I said that's not the first time.

Brian Curee: 3:33

Hey, that's right, we'll leave it babe oh, that's not the first time.

Shawna Curee: 3:35

Hey, that's all right, we'll leave it. Babe, that's getting cut. Editor. That was good.

Brian Curee: 3:38

It just shows that you don't. You're not always, you don't always get it right, so it's fine.

Shawna Curee: 3:43

Yeah, it's true.

Brian Curee: 3:45

But we won't talk about that cause I know it will probably be a lot more on my side. So Spencer Shauna here has a plant obsession, Would you say you have. Okay, so let's start there.

Shawna Curee: 3:56

Yeah, let's start there.

Brian Curee: 3:57

How did your plant obsession start, Wow?

Spencer Porteous: 4:01

that's a good question. One of my earliest memories of gardening is up in the Adirondacks and with my great-grandmother that's her chair that we were talking about earlier. In the spring rhubarb would come up and boy, you have that ice. It's still cold. Because it's ice cold, it's still cold. And you take a bite of that and smack oh man, so tart. Gets you right behind the ears every time. And I would just remember I was kindergarten, maybe I don't know grandma like here you take a bite and she's like I don't like rhubarb. I asked her why she's growing she and she's like for you. So that's you know. And then I wouldn't eat my vegetables as a kid. That's how I got to eat carrots, because I grew the carrot.

Shawna Curee: 4:40

So then of course, you're going to try it.

Spencer Porteous: 4:42

Yeah. So then I tried it and I don't know, I always loved climbing trees and, you know, hunting and fishing and out and hiking in the woods and the St Lawrence River and the Adirondacks and Thousand Islands and it's always been a really a part of me. And then I took a bunch of botany classes in college and then my background is like environmental biology I was going to want to work for like South Florida water management or DP or something like that. So I came down to Florida is when I got out of school. I didn't intern anywhere because I was living in New York and I would come down to Florida in the summers and work.

Spencer Porteous: 5:13

It was definitely a challenge trying to find a job in that field. So to make ends meet, I got a job at the Home Depot pushing shopping carts. One of my mentors, jeff, is like he's like man, you got to come work in the garden. I'm like man, I don't know any of these plants. He's like I'll teach you everything and I would say 90, 95% of my plant knowledge is from somebody telling me because every plant has a story. I mean I would start plant geeking out here.

Spencer Porteous: 5:37

We could talk forever about this stuff, start thinking about it and you know it's a living organism, so you're kind of taking care of it, especially if it's a house plant, I mean that's that's harder to take care of than a cat or a dog if you don't get the right plant for the right spot. But we do a lot of work for the city of Vero Beach and we do trees every year for arbor day for the city and that's cool. I've lived here long enough to see some of these things. We're driving around town I'm like, oh man, I planted that or or.

Spencer Porteous: 6:06

I'm gonna go down this road and check on the these oak trees we planted at the cemetery. Like 12 years ago, we do a project with the city and we're a week from wednesday we're planting four more oaks on um victory boulevard down in McCanch Park. Did you guys know that story? No, Okay, this is the coolest.

Spencer Porteous: 6:21

After World War II, the Garden Club of Indian River County. After the war, the fallen soldiers Garden Club wanted to do something for them, so they renamed. They named it Victory Boulevard and they planted a laurel oak up and down the streets, on either side of the street for all the fallen soldiers. Oh, wow, the thing with laurel oaks is they only have like a 70 to 80, 85 year lifespan and then if they start going into decline they're not like a live oak that'll live two, three, 400 years. Nanette, with the city, she's a big plant geek too and she had the foresight to start this project years and years ago and we've been planting trees with for like the last 12 years I think, and we do either two, three or four trees every year and she takes the oldest one that's failing. They're taken down by the city and then the stumps are ground out and then we plant back in the same spot, like a big live oak.

Spencer Porteous: 7:10

That's cool. The ones we're doing have like a seven or eight inch caliper and they're like 24 to 26 footers. You know, we're not like some pencil tree. Yeah, so we've been doing that every year.

Brian Curee: 7:22

I want to go down there and look at it. Yeah, we're going to check that out.

Spencer Porteous: 7:24

You know, just carrying on the tradition of what the ladies at the Garden Club did after World War II. That's what Vero is.

Brian Curee: 7:31

They keep it going. That's what I love about when we get to interview people like yourself. Spencer is like we get to learn more and more about what makes Vero so special. Yeah.

Shawna Curee: 7:41

I didn't want to say anything else because I felt like I was a little bit close to crying.

Spencer Porteous: 7:45

Yeah.

Shawna Curee: 7:45

It's just, it's really.

Spencer Porteous: 7:47

You want to tell some crying stories about plants? Okay, no, no, no, I don't want to, because I'll start crying too.

Brian Curee: 7:54

So Shauna has always been really big into plants, house plants. We've always joke around and tell the old story Like when we first got married and we bought a house, like her apartment was just it was like a jungle. When I went in there and I think we had to take three pickup trucks full of plants that I moved from her place to our house and of course I didn't move them correctly. A lot of them died and I think she thinks I might've done it on purpose to kind of filter things out.

Brian Curee: 8:17

I did think maybe it's possible, but I'm like it was like a jungle in there. But when we moved back to Florida and we were in central Florida, I said we should get plants. Now that we're in Vero, we have a courtyard, so she loves plants. I am terrible with plants. I have one in my office. People always ask me on my videos, like is that a real plant? I plant, I'm like it is, like it's so nice. I'm like I've not watered it for two years, but that's because I don't even think about that. She just does it. So if it was, if it was up to me, the plant wouldn't be there anymore because it wouldn't be alive. But I love it, I love the plant, so it's going to be a massacre if I go first.

Brian Curee: 8:50

Yeah, I'm going to call you Spencer, I'm like, but you need to keep some life around you, so maybe you can pay them to come maintain them, but I definitely, I definitely love the atmosphere, having the plants. It feels so much more cozier.

Spencer Porteous: 9:46

Yeah, plants make the room.

Brian Curee: 9:48

It really does. It does, it changes everything. So you have this obsession of plants. Does your wife have an obsession for plants?

Spencer Porteous: 9:55

This is a two-part answer. When we first met, no, we'd be driving around and, like, I had my old Jeep and we'd go for little drives, put some James Taylor on and go cruising up and down the beach, jungle trails and stuff. Oh yeah, you know, and I would be. Oh man, look at that jacaranda, look how big, you know. Oh, it's well. And you know she's like would you keep your eyes on the road and this and that? And I'm like, oh, we planted that. Like so when we drive around town, I'm like you planted those trees, you know.

Brian Curee: 10:22

I know.

Spencer Porteous: 10:23

And we had a few houseplants here and there. So she was a school teacher and then COVID hit. So what happened? She's like I don't want to go back teaching. When COVID just started they're like oh, everything's cool, just go back teaching. She had a little booth in Antique Wildwood, the antique mall. We would go junking and estate sailing and she was buying furniture and like kind of the my decor we have in here is what I would pick. And we had a little shop in there. You know it was doing pretty good. I she goes. Well, if we do, I want to, I want to carry house plants too. So I'm like okay. So I'm like, well, I'm like you really want to start with the plants. She's like yes, because I've been buying and selling plants in florida, you know, since 93, so I know where to get everything.

Brian Curee: 11:08

I can get the best stuff all right great, so Shauna's like drooling over here she's like all right, I'm looking at my calendar. She's like grabbing your card off your desk. When can I take?

Shawna Curee: 11:17

another vacation day.

Spencer Porteous: 11:19

So I ended up getting a bunch of plants and she opened a shop on Etsy Houseplants and COVID. Oh my gosh, yes, people just started going crazy with the collection. So I had to get more and more crazy, crazy stuff and we started shipping plants around the country. Wow, so we took that funding. And then do you guys know what the Eureka palms are? It's a multi-trunk palm tree, one of the best-selling palm trees. For privacy, I got a really good deal on those, started selling those cheap, and I had an honor system at the store, put the money in the drop box because we were out landscaping. Nobody was at the store yet. So between the Etsy money and the Ricopalms, we were able to open DIGG Gardens, wow, wow.

Shawna Curee: 11:56

That's so cool. That's amazing. I love that story.

Brian Curee: 11:59

That's what led you guys into opening DIGG Gardens. The retail, oh the retail, yeah, because it was DIGG Gardens, and DIGG is an acronym.

Spencer Porteous: 12:06

It stands for Design, Install, Garden and gifts. So the dream was always there.

Shawna Curee: 12:11

That's how we got the name. I saw that on your website today. I thought that was cool. So, spencer, looking back, did you imagine that it was going to grow into what it is today?

Spencer Porteous: 12:24

Wow, you guys are asking some really good questions. Kind of I don't think it's finished to where it's supposed to be. Yet you own a small business. I don't think you're ever finished of where you think it'll be and my approach is too is like, if a door opens, like I'm going to walk through it, because what's the worst thing that could happen? It doesn't work, and so I'll just, you know, walk back up.

Shawna Curee: 12:39

Okay, now I'm in the same spot.

Spencer Porteous: 12:40

You got to have faith, but it's. It's so hard when you're a small business owner because there's nobody really cheering you on. You don't have a boss saying hey, that's a great job today, here, here's a good. Oh, I just got a five on my review, or whatever. Hey, thanks for staying late tonight. Hey thanks for getting there early. Thanks for running down to Homestead and getting a load of trees.

Brian Curee: 12:59

And you know there ain't nobody saying thanks.

Shawna Curee: 13:00

I see all the hard work you're putting in yeah like, hey, way to go buddy.

Spencer Porteous: 13:09

You know, keep it up, you know. So you and you know I do it all for them. That's cool and our customers they get it. We're not for everybody, but we find our people, you know. You know, we're kind of like licorice. You know, not everybody likes licorice, but the people that really do really like it.

Shawna Curee: 13:22

Really like it. Yeah, yeah, I like licorice.

Spencer Porteous: 13:25

Yeah, so that's kind of you know, I love that, spencer.

Brian Curee: 13:29

As we get ready to wrap up this episode, I want to ask you one more question what's something that you've learned about yourself since becoming a small business owner?

Spencer Porteous: 13:36

Wow, man you just keep firing these questions. This is like some good stuff, yeah, we like good questions.

Brian Curee: 13:42

We need some like sound effects. Yeah, okay.

Spencer Porteous: 13:45

What I've learned about myself is that I don't have to do it all by myself. I don't you. I don't you find your people, Like everybody that's on our team now. I'll just hire kind people and if you like plants, I'll teach you everything I know. No, I don't think I ever thought that I could, you know, do all this Like I wanted to. I can't. I could do whatever I want.

Shawna Curee: 14:02

I love that attitude, as long as it's not illegal.

Spencer Porteous: 14:04

Right, right, right you can still do it, you just don't want to get caught. Yeah, that's right. Oh, that's good, that's great this has been a great first episode.

Brian Curee: 14:13

I can't wait to get into episode two. We're going to talk a little bit more about the behind the scenes. If you're enjoying the podcast, make sure you click that review button. We would love to hear your thoughts and with that, see you next time, neighbor.