Activist Takes Her Love of Plants to a Whole New Level

By
Ava K
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In the past couple of years, potted plants have taken over social media. It seems as though everyone has a Monstera Deliciosa or a Chinese Money Plant on their work desk or living room window. And this trend makes a lot of sense – more and more people live in urban areas with very little nature around them, and our long work hours mean having a pet is simply too hard. So how do we get some nature into our homes without taking on too much responsibility? In a pot! But no matter how big of a plant person you are – there’s nobody that’s more devoted to plants than Summer Rayne Oaks.

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I'm finally back home from @logeesplants where we did our first group Botanical Field Trip, which went so smoothly thanks to the entire team there—and not to mention the beautiful fall weather 🍂we somehow managed to have yesterday! 🌤Oh to get to see the leaves 🍁change—what a delight!⁣⁣⁣⁣ ⁣⁣⁣⁣ Thanks to everyone who joined in on both the private and public event. I hope you got much out of the day, including good friends and good information. Thanks for taking part in the whole day with us! ⁣⁣ ⁣⁣ Next trip for the #HowToMakeAPlantLoveYou Book Tour 📗 will be coming to Massachusetts in mid-Nov, so stay tuned here and homesteadbrooklyn.com/workshops for details. 📸 @hgtv

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Summer is a model, Youtuber, and environmentalist with a life-long love of plants, especially potted plants. Her goal in life is to celebrate nature and introduce it to our modern, urban lifestyle.

Summer (yes, that is the name her parents gave her) has always loved nature, and she even studied biology and botany in university. She wanted to continue her education and become a scientist, but she soon realized her real goal in life was to educate the general public. She’s been working with scientists, nursery owners, and activists to help spread the gospel of the urban jungle.

And the most insane detail is her own plants– Summer has over 1,000 of them in her small Brooklyn apartment! Talk about an urban jungle!

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This section of my home is the most challenging area to green up since it's so much in the interior of my space, with only the faintest residual light from my windows—and whatever light comes from my lighting fixtures. (Side note: I'm shopping around for the perfect light for this area, but have yet to identify one that won't be too intrusive).⁣ ⁣ I've found the Epipremnum aureum—the greenest of varieties; and even more so—Scindapsus pictus, are the ones that not only fare the best, but actually grow. I tried the new cultivar S. pictus 'Silvery Anne' as well as E. aureum 'N'Joy' and 'Marble Queen', but those struggle. Aglaonema and Dracaena (both cultivar-specific), as well as Apidistra and Zamioculcas zamiifolia also seem to excel where others can't. Right now I'm also trialing a Chamaedorea metallica.⁣ ⁣ I'm curious what species and cultivars of plants have grown the best for you in those light-challenged areas of the home?

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A #tbt when we paid a visit to one of my favorite family-owned and operated growers @stevesleavesinc … I began purchasing from Steve about six years ago because I was looking for interesting Peperomia, and Steve has some of the best selections around. As a matter of fact, he keeps a collection of over 2,500 plant species and cultivars—and is known also for his begonias. Growers like him should be celebrated and supported because they keep the houseplant market interesting—and keep important plants in cultivation.⁣ ⁣ Though Steve was a little reluctant to be on camera, he mustered up enough interest to share his passion on 'Plant One On Me'. We also were able to do the first ☝🏽 @stevesleavesinc unboxing on @YouTube (Ep 38-49), 🌿which hopefully helped show the world some of the amazing selections he has to offer (shout out to #KippeeTheHen) who helped on one of the unboxings. Rest in peace my little burd. 🐔

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This is the green wall that was assembled—now 7 years ago—in my former workroom, now bedroom.⁣ ⁣ Back in 2009, I started a company called Source4Style, which helped connect designers to more sustainable textile suppliers across the world. Designers were having trouble searching for better, more environmentally and socially conscious materials to create their collections 👗👚, so I really wanted to figure out how to take those pain points away.⁣ ⁣ I partnered up with one of my friends, Benita, and we ran the company out of this room for almost two years—until we won the Cartier Business Awards for North America and raised a round of venture capital—a crazy feat in and of itself considering that women-led businesses were only getting around 7% of venture dollars during that time…a statistic that hasn’t budged very much in the past decade. (A point of discussion for another time!) … My business partner, Benita, went on to run the company (it sold earlier this year), so it lives on, albeit in a different form. ⁣ ⁣ But during the time of running the company, this room was filled with textile swatches 🧵and fabrics from over two dozen countries—Cambodia to India; Peru to the United States; Madagascar to Mozambique. If you swipe to the other pictures, you’ll see images of the old room and from the Cartier competition! ⁣ ⁣ I had always wanted a green wall in this room because the lighting was SO good, but the idea got postponed until 2012. That’s when I got a little of my life back (running a start-up company from your home is an all-consuming endeavor, as you can imagine). Source4Style got a new office space, and I began exploring concepts around other sustainable systems—like 🍅food—and taking the global sourcing concepts that I gleaned from Source4Style and applying them into really hyper local food systems…all while building out the green wall 🌿with Mingo Designs. ⁣ ⁣ The sub-irrigated green wall was a really early concept, so it’s not perfect and it’s evolved in its approach, but I’ve gotten a lot of people ask about it over the last 7 years, so you’ll find more of a how to on Ep 028 of ‘Plant One On Me’ @YouTube, in case you’re curious.

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