JERRY: I'm in Caboolture, just north of Brisbane.
It's considered to be the gateway to the Sunshine Coast.
And I'm catching up with a collector couple
with a passion for prickles and much, much more.
So, this is our greenhouse. Wow.
There's not a square inch not being used here.
I love the way you've filled it with plants.
Yes, we take advantage of every bit of space.
I love the way the hanging baskets are hanging off hanging baskets.
(ALL LAUGH)
How many plants would you have in here?
Over 600 the last time that we counted.
Jacob Wood and Jazmin Edwards
discovered their shared love of gardening almost accidentally -
buying a few house plants to breathe a bit of life
into their small apartment in Perth, a couple of years ago.
So while Jacob was at work, I went with a friend
and bought my first monstera and put it in our bedroom
on a little plant stand, and it kind of fed from there.
So what was your reaction? I didn't really like it.
You didn't like it at first?
I wasn't a fan of it - it had holes in it
and it was this odd-looking weird sort of tropical plant
that I just didn't think you'd put inside of your house.
But probably about a week later I was saying to Jaz,
"Can we go get another one?" so... (LAUGHS)
That's when we found out that that monstera in our bedroom
came in a 'Thai Constellation' variety
which had these white speckles
and looked really pretty and...
Is that the one behind you? That's the one here, yeah.
That's the plant that kind of started it all, with the interest.
It just looks beautiful. That's really the reason why.
You have to buy something when you look at it and it looks gorgeous -
you have to take it home.
Just got that right combination.
It's just got that right amount of oomph to it. (LAUGHS)
And is it easy to grow?
This is one part of the original plant that I got.
It's been propagated into four now,
and this is just one part of it.
So it's been very easy to grow, just like any monstera, I guess.
So how did you go about building the collection?
We just kept buying plants, and it got to the point
where we ended up challenging ourself
to go and pick up a new plant every day.
(LAUGHS) And where did you put them?
There was a lot of experimenting with moving things around.
and losing plants and heartbreak and finding new ones.
And then we found out the bathroom's a really good spot
because it had, like, a filtered window
and so it was really good.
We ended up filling the bathroom to the brim.
I think they were in the shower at one point.
Yeah, they were - we'd give them showers
because it was the best place to water as well.
So stand outside the shower with the shower hose,
just watering these plants in the shower.
This sounds like a really natural way to learn about plants.
Did it improve the liveability of your apartment,
make you better people?
I think we had a better connection too
because we had something to do together.
Now, Jacob, this plant gave you a sleepless night.
(LAUGHS) What is it, and why?
It did. It's a Philodendron Corsinianum.
I slept out at a nursery to get it.
It was actually one of the first hybridised philodendrons.
Just the shape of it, the way the leaves get this beautiful texture,
and the colour of it - I really, really wanted it.
So when I found out the nursery had one, I got there early in the night,
about 9 or 10 o'clock, pitched a tent... (LAUGHS)
And I slept out there.
But it wasn't until about an hour later
that somebody else rocked up and joined me,
and then a few other people through the night
who I ended up becoming really good friends with,
and getting a really good network of friends
through what I thought was just going to buy a plant.
That's a fantastic story. And is it easy to grow?
It is - it grows really tight and compact.
But it does grow quite large quite quickly.
Given the right conditions and the right humidity and light,
it really loves to grow.
I think the undersides of the leaves
are just as beautiful as the upper sides.
Me too.
Yeah, they get this really nice burgundy colour when they're new,
and they harden off to a green leaf
with this nice reddish tone through it.
So this is the jewel in your crown. Yeah.
Why is it so important? It's my Philodendron ilsemanii.
It means a lot to me because a friend actually gave it to me.
It's something I had my eye on for a long time
and she knew I really, really wanted one.
I like it because it's about four different plants in one.
You can see that every leaf's sort of different -
where this one's more green, and these are more speckled.
And sometimes they almost get
splashes of colour halfway down them.
So it's really, really a gorgeous plant.
And it's so many different plants in one, I find.
Is it fast-growing? It's, yeah, quite fast-growing.
For me, up in Queensland especially, I've heard that they can be slow
but we seem to be doing something right -
it's putting out a leaf every few weeks.
We've gone so far into the conversation
and I haven't heard the word 'anthurium' mentioned once.
Ah. (LAUGHS)
They're kind of a new thing.
It's another thing we didn't like at first.
Yeah, it's another thing that we weren't a big fan of at first.
I guess got into the rarer market of it
and saw how beautiful they could be.
We've got some nice bigger anthuriums
that now have efflorescences and they've got some seeds coming,
so we've successfully pollinated them.
And it'll be our first seed batch of our own plants.
They're one of the easier aroids to pollinate.
They are.
And especially do hybrids of. Yeah.
And seeing the cool hybrids that people come up with...
You get to name them as well. Yeah.
It's, um... Pretty special.
It's something you couldn't resist doing, isn't it?
Getting to know that you could make a plant
that could stay around beyond you,
and people could see what traits you chose
by crossing these different plants is something...it's really cool.
Now, these are mostly aroids in here,
but you've got a lot of other things too.
You've got cacti and ferns. We do.
We like a broad range of things.
We try to specialise in aroids,
but we can't help but get into some other things
when they catch our interest.
So how did this passion begin?
I always liked what I saw in Western movies, with the big cactus
and the candle sort of cactus with the arms sticking out.
I've always just liked the look of them
and kind of wanted to bring something like that
to a subtropical environment.
You have a lot of mammillarias growing here.
Now, they're easy to grow
as well as pretty to look at.
And they have great flowers too. Yeah, absolutely. They're gorgeous.
This one over here, in fact, is actually in flower at the moment.
It's got these beautiful magenta, almost, flowers,
and it creates an amazing crown
around the whole perimeter of the cacti.
Yeah. Stunning. But brief sometimes. Yeah.
And it's not that bad to touch, this one,
which is not something you can say for a lot of cacti.
You've also got some weird ones.
Now, these are not normal forms, are they?
They're what they call monstrose forms.
That's correct.
Do you like monsters in the garden? (LAUGHS) I think I sort of do.
This one's a gorgeous monstrose form here.
They get these nice crests and little tiny hairs
and it stays quite compact.
But monstrose really just means that
it's off the beaten path, sort of thing.
So you never know what to expect when you get a monstrose cactus,
and they're quite different.
How much time do you spend looking after these plants?
A few hours every day, usually. Yeah?
It's a never-ending job. Well, look, it's immaculate.
So you've had this in you all your lives,
and it wasn't until the right plant came into your life
that you realised that you are definitely horticulturalists.
(BOTH LAUGH)
And you only work to earn the cash to become gardeners.
I think so.
The best part is doing swaps so they don't cost you anything,
but it's too hard to give them up.
Finding that work-life balance? It is.
You come home after work and spend hours out in the garden,
and then, oop, I've got to go to work to pay for more plants.
Or what they need to grow.
I think it's brilliant to see
the younger generation embracing gardening.
From a chance discovery of a single plant,
Jazmin and Jacob have developed a hobby well beyond that,
into a passion.
And that is the power of gardening.