Sage Garden Greenhouse is set to highlight local entrepreneurs and plant enthusiasts at its first ever Autumn Breeze Pop Up Market on Saturday, September 21. The family-friendly event will take place from 11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. and is free to attend.

Local vendors will include Chris and Maria Holbrow from Forgotten Flavours, Harshul Monga from Taste of India Restaurant, Stephanie Hrymak with Deercapybara, featuring her homemade delicious Peruvian goodies, as well as Peter Ecker and his team from Cornerstone Deli.

Artisans selling honey and other foodstuffs, as well as locally made products and art, round out the market alongside workshops, activities, and special interest booths.

Local Plant Community

In the 25 years since Dave Hanson first opened Sage Garden, the greenhouse and its staff have had had opportunities to connect with thousands of customers, friends, and neighbours. Hanson says their focus has always been to be a positive support to the local community.

“We specialize in organic gardening and we are a full service framework,” says Hanson. “We want to help customers achieve the most success in organic gardening, only using organic inputs.”

This self-proclaimed “plant geek” says that people are usually impressed with Sage’s wide variety of plants and over 450 varietals of seeds first, and then notice the greenhouse’s practice of organic sustainability second.

As part of the greenhouse’s commitment to sustainability, Hanson says they’ve turned away from plastic pots and made it part of their ethos to offer more educational opportunities.

“Prior to 2020, we did on a regular basis have a lot of education events and workshops, and in the last five years there’s been less of that,” he says. “But we wanted to revisit what we’re doing in terms of special events and bring something special back for this fall.”

Hanson says he was inspired to host a fall event this year because of our region’s vibrant network of local artisans, vendors, producers, and growers. He wants to help the public put a face to the names they may see on their products in the garden store.

“The thing about Sage Gardens is we really do have a lot of people who are passionate about plants and know a lot and can do a lot of knowledge sharing,” he says. “We have access to a lot of locally applicable knowledge that is better than Google, with real southern Manitoba experience.”

Hands-on micro-workshops will take place throughout the day. Another feature will be the Prairie Exotics professional exotic animal reserve, with an entertainment and educational presentation between noon and 2:00 p.m.

Hanson is especially excited for the three unique plant vendors who will be on-site showcasing their private collections.

“Andrew’s Sticky Leaves will be here featuring carnivorous plants,” he says. “It’s such a specialized and cool thing to be doing and requires a lot of learning. I can’t wait to see what type of plants he’s going to bring and the kinds of knowledge he’s bringing, like how to keep specialty plants alive indoors through the winter.”

Another vendor is Prairie Originals, a local organization that grows their plants on-site.

“A lot of horticulture isn’t like that these days,” Hanson says. “I just really think it’s awesome to highlight partners like that and get to chat with others who are really into plants and know things that I don’t know.”

The third unique plant vendor is Niverville Tropics, an independent grower with more than 200 jungle and hot-weather climate plants in his personal collection.

Bringing the Jungle Home

Niverville Tropics is owned by Jeff Hrymak, whose day job is in insurance. He stumbled onto the hobby of growing tropical plants during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Hrymak was formerly into what he calls more “normal” hobbies, like weightlifting, fishing, and competitive barbecue grilling. When a period of mental health stress motivated him to look for more peaceful activities, though, he had a dream about growing plants.

The next day, he decided to give it a try.

“This is still a relatively new endeavour or hobby,” says Hyrmak. “I didn’t know anything about planting. And if you had told me ten years ago that I would have been into this, I would have been like, ‘No way.’”

 Fast-forward four years, Hrymak still doesn’t call himself an expert. He has, however, acquired a lot of knowledge in a short amount of time. He credits his progress to being willing to learn, engaging in trial and error, and meeting knowledgeable people in the plant community.

Hrymak has two rooms in his home dedicated to growing distinct tropical plants: a growing room, and another that he calls a relaxing room where the plants are arranged in a display. The collection mostly focuses on species of philodendrons, anthurium, monsteras, and alocasia plants, sourced both locally and online. Hrymak has also taught himself to propagate plants from his own cuttings.

He says that as long as a person has access to light, they can grow tropical plants. Adding specialized equipment isn’t necessary, although it can be beneficial to purchase plant lighting. He adds that it’s important to know which plants are pet- and child-friendly.

Another consideration is how much time to invest, because the watering schedule for a plant collection with a lot of variety can be intensive. Hrymak admits that it is possible to get emotionally attached to a plant, and he has had to deal with the disappointment of losing them.

But even though it may come with some investment, he is confident that the benefits of plant-growing outweigh the costs.

“To me, mentally, they’ve actually given back to me,” he says. “For mental health, it’s been a big escape. If it’s a stressful time, I can always just think about the plants and what they need in their routine and just kind of decompress.”

Especially in winter, during periods of low sunlight, it can be a struggle for people to maintain positive mental health. Taking a tropical winter vacation can help, but that isn’t feasible for everyone.

Hrymak found his own solution to beating the winter blues.

“I felt that if I can’t go to Mexico during the winter, if I can’t go somewhere tropical, then I need to bring Mexico here. I brought the jungle here! Yeah, so that was the whole purpose.”

Humans also reap physical benefits from having plants around the home, such as an increase in humidity during the dry winter months. The fresh oxygen released by the plants is rejuvenating and purifies air. Not to mention, the lighting that growers bring in for the plants may also end up helping the people around them.

Lastly, Hrymak has been blown away by the supportive community of people he’s met in the local gardening community.

“I probably wouldn’t have imagined in a million years how many people I would have connected with in this community that I would never have met otherwise,” he says. “It’s a very wide range of people, very welcoming. Like, there are people who are into heavy metal and they like plants!”

One of the first places Hrymak purchased a tropical plant was Sage Garden. They supported his purchase by providing information and access to education about plants when he needed it.

Now he’s thrilled to be asked to be part of their network of educators and give back to the local plant community.