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Narrator: Welcome to the Nobody Knows podcast with Callie Zamzow. Join us for conversations with local changemakers and hear the stories that don’t always get told. It’ll be honest, messy, and beautiful. Touching and humorous. Slow down for a glass and pull up a chair. This is the Nobody Knows podcast.

Callie Zamzow: Welcome to Nobody Knows. I'm your host, Callie Zamzow. And hoo boy, today I… I… I'm, like, tingling because I get to speak with somebody who I feel like I've known for a while.

Callie Zamzow: Before I go on to that, I want to talk a little bit, or just share an experience that I had at Outlaw Field, which is associated with the Idaho Botanical Gardens, and/or Garden. And I… I just want to share that there have been so many life experiences that have happened at concerts there. And so I was thinking about, like, I saw Cyndi Lauper there, I saw David Gray there, which was wonderful. I saw Bonnie Raitt. And my all-time favorite, And literally, he's my favorite musician, artist in general, is Paul Simon. And he was there, and I almost—through a, and I won't bore you with the details—but through a little bit of a ticket snafu, I almost lost the man who I ended up marrying over a ticket snafu with the Paul Simon concert. There's a lot to that. It's a kind of a sticky conversation, but… but I just… I think about how many things have happened there that have shaped my life. And so it's… it's really bringing me a lot of joy today to be able to have Erin Anderson with us. And welcome to the studio.

Erin Anderson: Thank you for having me.

Callie Zamzow: Oh my gosh, I—so you're the executive director of Idaho Botanical Gardens. God, I… I keep saying “s” does everyone—it's “gardens,” right?

Erin Anderson: Everybody says it. And it’s okay. 

Callie Zamzow: I think it's because it's like so, there’s—

Erin Anderson: It’s big.

Callie Zamzow: Yeah, absolutely. So I… it's—you're… you are also so much more than the Botanical Garden. I will admit to Googling you, and that you've done a lot of things, and you have a really rich history, as well as I was noticing that you… you graduated and then you kind of had a bit of a career, and then you went back to school.

Erin Anderson: Yes.

Callie Zamzow: So I'm just so curious. I'm curious about a lot of things about the Botanical Garden. I've got so many questions for you. Let's just start by having you tell us a little bit about you.

Erin Anderson: Great. I can do that. I… I consider myself native to Idaho. We moved to Idaho when I was very young and have really had so many life experiences here in my early, formative years. I went to Boise State University. I graduated from Boise High School. I always feel like that's very important to people in the Boise area, where we all talk about where we went to high school if you are from here. Then I went to Boise State University. I have two children who are not necessarily children anymore. They're adults—they’re 19 and 21. And, since the start of my career, I worked in nonprofit organizations. I really just love the ability to work within change-making in our community. And so I've worked for a few nonprofit organizations. I volunteered on quite a few boards or initiatives. And I have a deep love of learning. And so I went back to school. I got a master's degree in organizational leadership. I participated recently in a fellowship that was an international fellowship of women who are in leadership positions. And I think that because I have that deep desire to learn and grow and support our community, and also to model that not only for my children and my daughters, but for just, like, our community, that Boise is so amazing. But sometimes it can feel like we're in a bubble. And if we're not reaching and trying to expand our own personal experiences, I think that we get a little bit of a blinder—you know, our blinders on—because it's so great here, and it's very easy to get into that bubble and to not get out of it, because why would you ever need to leave or have those different kinds of experiences? But for me, that's been really important. We spend a lot of time in our family traveling, going to unique places. Because that also, you know, is just this education on life, but also you start talking about your career and looking at it through a lens of a different country, a different state, a different region, and really recognizing just the differences that are happening in the world on, you know, that grander scheme and how important it is. And, I've got a lot of education in my past. In botanical gardens, I do not come from a horticultural background. I got my undergrad in political science and started working in nonprofit organizations through a lot of experience in fundraising and some program development. I very early became an executive director at Boise Urban Garden School, and got experience being in that leadership position. But I didn't have a lot of knowledge on botanical gardens and what makes a botanical garden a really, truly special place until I started going and visiting other botanical gardens throughout the United States as well. So it's just that hunger for knowledge that I think has been a constant thread throughout my entire life here in Idaho.

Callie Zamzow: You were, like, 27 or something when you became the executive director of BUGS. I couldn't believe—I'm like, I was trying to think about what I was doing at 27. I wasn't doing that. So I'm—tell me about that. Like, what… what did that feel like? And… yeah, tell us about that.

Erin Anderson: I was very young. Also, I want to be clear, that position when I first took that job—it has blossomed into such an amazing organization. I was the first full-time executive director. I had a really great platform for success from the founder and the first executive director—who is separate from the founder—who was part-time, but I got paid $34,000 a year. I mean, I was like, this was definitely a job that I, you know, started, and it was a big job. But I didn't understand at the time how big the job was. So there's that. And we had made some goals right away of how we wanted to create some sustainability for the organization and partner with other organizations in the future, which eventually I was able to help the organization accomplish before I left. But it was… it was a really interesting time, I feel like, in Boise, where there was a lot of innovation, and there were a lot of young directors for nonprofits, that it felt like a very entrepreneurial time in the nonprofit sector. And I made a lot of really great friends who are, like, in my age demographic who were doing the same thing. And I think that is what helped get me through it. And from there, because Boise is the community that it is, I met so many amazing mentors that now are still in my life at the Idaho Botanical Garden [Callie: Yeah.]. And so it's… it's—it was—I feel like it was a wild time, and the things that I was doing that are so different than what I'm doing now—like, we have videos of me and my daughters, and I'm wearing a carrot costume, and I'm, like, interviewing people on the street as, like, a mascot. And now I look back at those photos and I just laugh, and I think, you know, I would… I would absolutely throw on another mascot costume. I am not—have not outgrown that. But it's just the things that you do in your late 20s and early 30s to help an organization grow that I now look back and I just, you know, sigh, and I laugh, and I think, oh boy, that was a different time.

Callie Zamzow: It is sort of surreal looking back on our prior selves sometimes, isn't it? Well, so speaking of looking back on prior selves—so I'm sure if somebody was listening today, and let's say that they've been in a career for a while and they want to go back to school like you did [Erin: Mhm] I mean, you—there was—how… what was the period of time between graduating—

Erin Anderson: Yeah, long time.

Callie Zamzow: Yeah. So that to me—like, I think people sometimes gloss over that. Like, oh, well, she went back to school, whatever. That takes a lot of courage to go back to school. That is… So tell us what your thought process was. Was that—was that really, really hard? Was it, like, how did it go? What… how did—what prompted you to do it? And then—and then how did it actually go, and how did… how did you have to show up and be courageous?

Erin Anderson: That's a great question. I—because I have this love of learning, I had participated in some, like, leadership development groups and was really looking for that next level of knowledge. And we were getting ready to come into some big changes at the Botanical Garden, and I knew enough to know that I didn't know what I didn't know about change management and moving into that next big step in an organization. And so I started looking for programs that would fill that need. And I landed with the organizational leadership program out of Gonzaga, and it was a hybrid program. But I'll tell you what, it is just as scary going back to school as it was going to school or getting your first job out of high school. Like, there were a lot of things that I remembered from being in school the first time that I carried with me, you know, even into the, like, application letter and thinking—like, very nervous—am I going to get accepted into the program? And then just getting back into the groove of learning. What I will say is, when you go back to school, it's so much easier than the first time. The first time I was working sometimes three jobs, trying to put myself through school. I was in my 20s, you know, and late teens, and that's a whole different time in your life. And when you decide to go back to school, there's just a certain level of stability that you already have, and knowledge of how to work within time-management skills, and the maturity level that was there. But I think that's what makes it so much more enriching, because you actually get to immerse yourself in the material that you're learning. And I experienced that also with my recent fellowship. It's just a different place where you're not figuring out, like, where your next packet of ramen is going to come from [Callie laughs.] and how you're going to pay your rent. So when you go back at an older age, those basic needs are already really taken care of, so you get to focus on the learning and the development. And because I'm working in a position and I was learning at the same time, I was able to put those things into action right away and utilize my organization as, like, a testing site for that learning. And that was really fun, and I was able to bring our team along on that journey, which I really liked. Yeah. So it was scary. And then after the first four months, it wasn't as scary as it, you know, was. I was, like, very obsessed with, like, am I going to get good grades? And as an adult learner, it's pretty much guaranteed you're going to get good grades, right? You know?

Callie Zamzow: Right. And it's about getting the data—like, you're actually trying to learn the stuff where maybe the first time, where you're… you're learning how to do your laundry for the first time.

Erin Anderson: Yes. That's the big difference. That's the big difference.

Callie Zamzow: Yeah. Thank you for sharing that with us. I appreciate it. [Erin: Yea.] Let's—let's dive in here and talk a little bit about the Idaho Botanical Garden. Look, I said it without the “s.” Okay. So can you tell us the origin story?

Erin Anderson: Yeah. It's a really interesting and fascinating story. I mean, so going back further than the Botanical Garden, that area within the Old Penitentiary District—even before it was the Old Penitentiary, which they didn't call the Old Penitentiary then—before it was the penitentiary, it was a really sacred gathering ground for our Indigenous populations here in Idaho because of the geothermal water that's available at the site. So when you come out and you just look at the land, if you think back, you know, hundreds and hundreds of years ago and how that property was being utilized by our local tribes, it's just—it's really amazing, and it's really inspiring. From there, the state came in and built a penitentiary, and the penitentiary was built with sandstone that's located just behind the penitentiary in the foothills. And so it's very much an area that has been built and developed over the years as, like, creating a sense of place and space here in Boise and in Idaho. The penitentiary closed down in the early ’70s, which is all wild to me when you look at the conditions of that penitentiary. And there was a lot of turmoil. I mean, if you haven't had an opportunity to go visit the Old Penitentiary—they're updating a lot of their exhibits right now—but it's just really fascinating. And it's a really interesting look at just history and what was important in the social norms of the time, and just experiencing that over time. But when it closed down in the ’70s, there was this really large piece of property that was not being utilized. And the penitentiary was really unique in that they had fruit orchards. They had the largest flock of turkeys in the United States that was being farmed and raised at the Old Penitentiary site. Um there were education buildings. It was more than what you think when you talked about Outlaw Field—that was the activity yard for the prisoners. [Callie: Hm.] But in the early ’80s, our founding director, Dr. Christopher Davidson, had a deep passion for horticulture and for local plants and things that grow well in Boise and in Idaho. And he really wanted to develop a beautiful space. And this land was available, and originally there was talk that the land was going to become, like, a police-car training ground…for police officers to learn how to do, like, high-speed chases in that. And the neighbors shut that down. [Callie: And it's hard to imagine in that space doing that—that's interesting] and they were like, we like a botanical garden better. So the Botanical Garden started in 1984, and still continues to be, like, that culturally rich historical site. There are still so many remnants of the Old Penitentiary that are within our space. There are the two original turkey pads from these large flocks of turkey, and the turkey houses that are in our Dry Garden. When we started, it was a Rose Garden, there was an iris collection, our Meditation Garden, and our English Garden, and we have just grown and expanded since. We have 32 acres of property, 15 of which are currently developed. And that has just been, over the past 41 years, built over time with a lot of sweat and a lot of hard work and a little bit of money.

Callie Zamzow: Oh yeah, a little bit—well, yeah. And then the evolution of adding, then, like, Outlaw Field and all—I mean, it's really evolved. I mean, it's—yeah, it's not at all like—I remember going right when it first opened, and it doesn't even resemble itself now.

Erin Anderson: No, it doesn't. And that has just been through the sheer will of our community and of our staff. And there've been really great times with a lot of expansion, and there've been some pretty lean times. I like to lovingly say some parts and pieces of the Garden are built a little bit in a Frankenstein system—one piece at a time—and also some parts in the Garden, in the past, have been literally held together with duct tape and dental floss [Callie laughs.]. But we are getting so much better, and we're really looking at how we can continue to make investments in the space, because what you said at the beginning, Callie, is so important. And it's, like, the number one goal for our Garden is that we are a gathering space and we are welcoming for all. And when you talk to people who visit the Botanical Garden, of course they talk about the beauty, but really what they talk about is an experience that they had in that space with somebody that they love, or somebody that they grew to love. The amount of people who say that that was where my first date was, and then we decided to get married at the Garden… But you talk about families and generations who have been visiting the Garden. We have one family in particular—they have come to the Winter Garden event every single year since it started, which was about 28 years ago now. [Callie: Wow.] And so this is a place where people in our community create memories with the people that they love. And that's what we want to continue to offer in so many ways here in the Treasure Valley.

Callie Zamzow: It seems to me like you have—there's a balancing act a little bit, because you have, you know, your mission and you have your… the things that you want as far as the Garden is concerned. But then you also have, like, the commercial part where, you know, you're bringing concerts, and that—is that—I mean, those are two different worlds almost that you brought together almost seamlessly. It's beautiful the way that you've done it. How does that work on your end? How does that—how do you balance it? How does—I mean, do you have different departments for different things? Like, how do you do that?

Erin Anderson: We do. It's… it's interesting—we, which we'll talk about at some point, but we're going through a lot of growth right now. So we've been working with a lot of other botanical gardens, consultants, to look at what that next step is for the Garden. And what we have discovered—and we've known all along—we've said, well, the Idaho Botanical Garden, it's very special, the way that we operate. And people say, oh, sure it is. And then they look at our operating model and they're like, wow, you are very special. You're very different. And that came out of a place of the Garden, for 41 years, being very scrappy. And the way that we're able to expand and helping to meet the needs of the community. And so primarily, we do not receive any state or federal local funding in that way. We operate on all earned revenue. And the way that we operate—it's a mix of our events, it's a mix of our educational programs, our general visitorship, and then donations and our membership. But if it weren't for our events, we wouldn't be able to keep the gates open year-round. If it weren't for our events, then we wouldn't be able to offer or subsidize educational programming—That's for everybody. In order for us to deliver the really hands-on, inquiry-based STEAM education that we offer at the Garden, it costs three to four times what we're actually charging. And so we need to find a way to balance that. And that's through a lot of our events. But those events also, you know, dive into our mission, which is connecting people, plants, and nature. And it's a—it's a welcoming space for people to come and experience the Garden, and to get introduced to it. And we really try to introduce people to this beautiful space—to what does conservation look like in our state? We're at the base of the Boise Foothills. And people, when they're coming in for one of our large events, that's what they're able to experience—plants that grow well in our region. What an, you know, amazing opportunity to be within nature, but also surrounded by friends and family as you're listening to a concert, or you're coming to our Bug Day event, or even in the wintertime when you're coming out for our Winter Garden aGlow lights activities. So that's the reason that we continue to host the events. And it builds over time. And you'll notice ebbs and flows with the Botanical Garden—where there'll be a larger investment into the horticultural side and the Garden itself, and then we'll have to make a shift and do a reinvestment maybe into events, and then a shift to reinvest into our education programs. But to me, that's what makes it a really exciting place to be able to follow, because we're always changing, and we're changing with the community. And we're offering opportunities to gather and being nimble so that when there's something that our community is in need of, we're able to meet that need and help support our community in that way.

Callie Zamzow: And so speaking of that—so how… how do you stretch beyond—because you are—can you kind of talk to us a little bit about how you stretch beyond what you're doing actually at that physical location into the greater community?

Erin Anderson: Yeah. Couple things that we do well: we're really great partners. And I want to brag on our team about that a little—that we know that in order for us to have the impact that we have, we have to partner with other organizations. So we partner with the Boise School District for a lot of our educational programming by being a site for field trips, but also some of the environmental education programs that they have. We partner with other educational groups. We're looking at how we can more deeply partner with the University of Idaho's Extension Office. We partner with other nonprofit organizations to host culturally rich events at our space in the month of September. We've partnered with the Hispanic Chamber so that we can host events that are relevant to the Latino and Latina population here in Idaho. We also provide opportunities for people to come and visit the space at little cost. We have a program in partnership with the libraries in our area that's a passport program. So if you don't have the funds to come and visit the Garden on a general admission, or even for some of our activities and/or events, you can go check out a membership from your local library. [Callie: That’s cool.] Which is amazing. And then we have other partnerships that people don't know about. We work very closely with the Women's Correctional Facility that's located directly across the street to do some workforce development and vocational training. We have about 12 women on a weekly basis who come to the Garden every single day, and they work within our horticulture program and our events program so that when they're released from the facility, they have a new career path to go into. And so—but we do that through partnership. And that's why we continue to want to partner with other groups in our community, because we know that our impact can be, you know, only so much on site. So how do we get out into the community and provide more?

Callie Zamzow: That's… that—yeah, that's pretty cool. I… I just, as a leader, I—I'm looking at you and I'm in awe of how you are leading. I also know that good leaders have amazing teams. So are you like me, and when I talk about my team, I get a little teary because I just do not even know how I would do any of it without them?

Erin Anderson: I say all the time that the Idaho Botanical Garden is the best place to work, period.

Erin Anderson: And it's because of our team. It is so challenging to be a leader, and I have been at the Garden for nine years in September. And wow, we have been through a lot. We have been through a pandemic. You know, when I first started, we were still being held together a little bit by some duct tape and dental floss. We had an operating budget half the size of where we're at now. We had half the employees. We didn't have opportunities for professional development. But we have been able to accomplish what we have because we have the best of the best. Our education director has a PhD in biology—I mean, just… she's amazing. Our visitor services senior director, who works with several of our departments—she has just been able to really take a look at what visitors are needing and what we offer at the Garden—And turn that on its head. Our development director—she's now our senior director of development—she's been with us for a long time. She started at our front desk [Callie: Oh, wow.] and she's grown with the organization. Our plant collections curator—he has been with the Garden for over 15 years and has been through so much. And just even creating opportunities for us to have accredited plant collections, which is a big thing when you work at a botanical garden. And we have a nationally accredited pycnanthemum collection. We just became an accredited arboretum. Our next step is to get a buckwheat accreditation. And it's because of all of those people. As a leader, you cannot afford to micromanage. You cannot do it all. You have to be a generalist. I look to our team all the time to say, I don't know—what do you think we should do here? I have to know enough about, you know, the direction that we're heading in and providing that strategy and that North Star. But I look at, how can I clear a pathway for you? How can I make sure that you're successful? And, like, one story that just really hits home right now is, we have one of our donor development department managers—she's within our development department—and she's been at the Garden for four years, and she just announced that she's leaving. And it was just so heartbreaking. But she's going to another botanical garden, in a step up in a position, and she's moving down to California. And I'm just so excited to see her growth. And I think that—right there—to me is leadership, where everybody on our team can really rally around her, and we're like, how can we help you be successful? And when we see what the next step is. And to me, that's what successful leadership looks like—is when you have people who are starting their career and they're able to advance somewhere, and they're going to a garden, and they're going to have four people who are reporting to them, and it's really going to be a stretch role for them in a really positive way. That, to me, is really exciting. And that's how we've been able to do what we've been able to accomplish at the Garden. It's because of our team. [Callie: Yeah.] 100%.

Callie Zamzow: It's incredible. So what's coming down the pike? What are you—a lot, I can imagine.

Erin Anderson: A lot. [Callie: I can imagine] We have so many things that we keep talking about at the Garden. We're, you know, of course, drinking through a fire hose. We're building our bikes as we're riding them. But we are getting ready to embark, in the next couple of months, on a really significant expansion plan at the Garden, in a project. So we have—I mentioned before, we have 32 acres of total space at the Garden. We have eight acres towards the Boise Foothills that are undeveloped, and ten acres at the front of the property that are minimally developed but are not within those 15 acres of cultivated space. And we are going to be breaking ground on those ten acres. We are going to be—there are going to be a lot of exciting projects that are coming with that. We're going to be micro-phasing, and we'll have a lot more information coming soon. But this has been a project that has been five years in the making, and it has been so inspiring to go through this process where we updated our master plan. And a master plan—it's a map of what is to come. It's a physical map—this is what will go where within a botanical garden. But it's also, like, a programmatic map. What community needs can we help address? And how can we create partnerships that are going to make this space even more of a resource for our community? So within that plan, we're partnering up with the Boise Farmers Market—we’ll be the new permanent home for the Boise Farmers Market. We have a great partnership with the City of Good to provide low-income families with fresh, healthy food. We are expanding our garden space. Eventually we'll have a new building. So it's, like, a lot. And we've never done anything of this size. We're currently running a capital campaign that's going to become very public in the next couple of months. And it's the biggest project that we've ever taken on in one bite at the Idaho Botanical Garden. And it's really fun to be thoughtful about what this new expansion looks like, but how it will have an impact on our current Garden spaces, and how we recognize the hard work and dedication that went into our current space, and how we really incorporate the new space and the existing space together. So it's… it's pretty fun. And I am learning so much about permitting and designs. And every day I'm looking up a new term. Last night we were talking about sprinkler irrigation couplers, and, you know, I'm like, wow, this is information that I've never known. And so I get to learn right along with our team.

Callie Zamzow: Isn't that funny? People ask me, like, what… what do I do? And, you know, you can give them the canned response, depending on the person input or what they're asking and what they really are looking for. But the people who are, like, really want to know what I do—those are the types of things that I'm learning about all—I mean, okay, now there's road construction in front of this particular property, and the government would like to take the property from us. So now we've got to figure out—you know, the last time we had something that I had to—I had to be deposed for the first time, which, by the way, I do not recommend. Not fun. And it wasn't even—it was, like, pretty straightforward. There wasn't anything, like, sketchy about it. It just was very nerve-wracking. But those are the kind of funny things—you're like, I didn't—if you told me in the beginning, listen, these are some of the things you're going to be doing—I'd have been like, I don't know… I don't know. [Erin: No I hear that.] But it's—yeah, it's amazing how leadership—like, well, then at the same time you're probably, on occasion, you know, as we're walking through, you see a weed, you're going to pick a weed too. So it's like—

Erin Anderson: That's exactly it—if anybody would have said when I started in 2016, here's the things that you're going to experience, there's no way I could have prepared for it. We've had some very, like, public things happen. Of course we've had, you know, the pandemic—how that changed things. We had a cybersecurity incident that was incredibly challenging, that we call the Great Purge of 2024. [Callie: There's always a name right.]—now feeling comfortable talking about. But when you think about what your role is as a leader, I think the most exciting part for me, in my role as the executive director is—for good or bad—I never know what to expect. You could be moving forward in one direction and you get knocked over to the side a little bit, and you have to redirect. And I think that right there is the fun and excitement of being in a leadership position. And sometimes it's… it's exhausting, and you think, could I just have all three things that I wanted to have happen in a row happen in a row? But that's not the way that life works. And so what do we do? We communicate, we communicate, we communicate with our team. We communicate with the public. We don't provide too much information. We don't provide too little information. It's this very fine line that you, you know, are walking as a leader. But yeah, I've been in so many situations that I thought—I never expected that this is what I was going to be doing today, but here I am. [Callie: Yeah.] and I’m doing it. 

Callie Zamzow: Yeah. Our Zamzows home office got flooded at the beginning—I guess it was the tail end of last year. There was road construction happening and some mishap, and it happened in the middle of the night, and we—the office is kind of below street level, so the break happened at street level—and so it poured for, like, five hours. It gushed water into—and so there's a store there, it's our home office, and it's our whole distribution center for the entire company. And it flooded three feet up, and it completely destroyed—everybody had to be moved out. All of our stuff had to be moved out. They had to, like, remove the walls up halfway through and rebuild those. And it was—and of course, we were all displaced. We were in all these different—shoes— all these different places for each one of us to move. So we were completely disjointed for about two months. And… and that experience alone was—I was like, okay, this, to me, is like—this is leadership in a nutshell. [Erin: It is.] One day you go to bed, everything's fine. The next day you wake up, all hell’s broken loose. 

Erin: Yep. You’re talking to insurance agents. You're doing policy filing—I mean, all the things. And you're just like, I don't know how to do this. But then you figure it out. [Callie: Yeah.] You just always figure it out. 

Callie Zamzow: That’s exactly right. Okay, so just really curious about the fact—because you're involved—it's not—you're not just involved with the Botanical Garden. You also have a bunch of things within the community. How do you personally kind of stay rooted and… and also energized, I should add, when you… when you are doing so many things?

Erin Anderson: I think energized—I stay energized because the things that I'm doing, I'm incredibly passionate about, and I want to stay connected. I sit on the board for the Boise Metro Chamber, and that's really important to me to be able to represent not only nonprofits but small businesses in our community. And the amount of work that the Chamber is doing—it's really energizing to see how we're growing as a community. I have recently signed on to help support the coming levy—levy that the City is working to pass in partnership with a lot of nonprofits here in our community for clean water and open space. That's something that I'm very passionate about. The challenge is, it would be nice to say yes to everything. But I just—I can't. And so really where I'm aligning with is, where is my passion? We are starting a nonprofit organization that's statewide for cultural arts groups, so that we can have one voice as it relates to legislation, as it relates to community-building within the arts community throughout the entire state, so that we can have that voice to show the economic impacts that cultural arts have in the community. So I pick things that I'm really passionate about. And what energizes me about that is meeting new people, hearing new ideas, and then also knowing when it's time to step away and then to pass that on to the next group that can continue to move projects and, you know, just initiatives forward. But I do like to stay connected. My partner is very connected because of his position at the City. And I just—I don't know how fulfilled I would feel in my life if I weren't doing that. And I also, as I mentioned before, I have two very bright girls and women—young women. And I want them to see what Boise is about, because that's what Boise is about—it's about getting involved in your community, being supportive. We are all building this together. And I want my children and, you know, the younger population, and, you know, boys and girls, to see, like, we make change by jumping in and raising our hand. And you can't always raise your hand, because then you're going to be running around like a crazy person—like sometimes I am. But when it's something I'm really passionate about, I stay energized by saying, yeah, put me in. I want to—I want to be supportive of this effort because it's really important to me and it's important to the future generations of Idaho.

Callie Zamzow: Awesome. Erin, I could just listen to you all day. This is really inspiring. It is time for us to give a little shout-out to our sponsor. To get your garden thriving, help with a stubborn brown spot, or better nutrition for your pet, visit zamzows.com or any of our convenient Treasure Valley locations—my little plug for the family biz. Okay, so here is the next part of our podcast here, where we call it “Sharing Is Caring.” So it's, you know, it's kind of a little lightning round of questions for you here. So are you ready?

Erin Anderson: I am.

Callie Zamzow: Okay. So, how about a book that you often recommend?

Erin Anderson: Braiding Sweetgrass. It's a really amazing book. I'm terrible at remembering authors' names. It is about connection to the land and tells really, really beautiful stories through the author, who is a Native American individual in the book. She's living on the East Coast, but it tells the stories of the land and food and how to stay connected to it. The other thing I really love about it is, as a very busy person—mom, you know, executive director—it's a book that you can put up, pick up, you can read a story, you can put it down for two weeks, you can pick it back up. But it's just beautifully written, and it touches a piece of my heart that is really important to me, which is nature and food and plants and horticulture and botany. So I recommend that to everybody. It's a fabulous book.

Callie Zamzow: Awesome. I just wrote it down. Looking forward to reading it. Okay, how about a favorite spot to recharge? I love going to the Garden—that's, of course. But we have very easy access to the Boise Foothills, and that's where I really like to go and recharge. I have two dogs, and I think in order for me to feel recharged, they have to get out some energy. And so I love hiking up in the Boise Foothills. That's my favorite place.

Callie Zamzow: It's a great place. All right, how about a garden tip?

Erin Anderson: The biggest garden tip for Idaho is right plant, right place. At the Idaho Botanical Garden, we always talk about what grows well here in our region. And I'll tell you what—it's not plants that require a lot of water and a lot of maintenance in those ways. So that's my biggest tip—it's right plant, right place, understanding what's going to grow well here. And you're going to find those products at local nurseries like Zamzows. Absolutely. I'm going to put a plug in—places that are connected to our community and understand what the needs are in our ecosystem here—the sagebrush ecosystem. So I think that's—that's my number one tip.

Callie Zamzow: Okay, I'm going to throw an audible here. This is not a prepared question. I just—understanding that your kids have flown the nest. My daughter's about to fly the nest. What's a tip you can give me?

Erin Anderson: They…I have two daughters, so I don't know what to say for families who have sons. I think that's a whole other, you know, other ball there that I don't know a lot of. But the thing that's been the most important is just open communication with my girls. I love that if there's something that's going on in their lives, they feel comfortable to call me. And sometimes I have to take a couple deep breaths. They have an amazing stepmother also, and a great dad. But their stepmom and I are very connected, and so we typically will take a deep breath when something maybe has gone awry, or something's going positive. We come to terms with it before we react, and then we provide the advice that needs to be offered at that time. But I just think it's that open communication, because as they're going out into the world, you just never know what they're going to experience. And sometimes it's things that we don't want for them, but we have to be able to be calm and rational in that situation. 

Callie Zamzow: It's a nail-biter, I tell you what.

Erin Anderson: Yes, it is. But they will do well.

Callie Zamzow: Well, thank you. Thank you for that. I appreciate it on a personal note. It's now time for us to ask you the question that we ask everybody at the end of the podcast, which is: what is something that nobody knows?

Erin Anderson: Oh boy, there's so many things. Probably something that nobody knows—I talked about this a little bit earlier just as we were coming in and chatting—is, I can absolutely hop on a stage with thousands of people and make announcements for an Outlaw Field concert. But when I'm one-on-one with a video camera, or sometimes even in a podcast, I have a lot of nervous energy. But I think that surprises people, because I appear to be so extroverted. But really, I am an introverted extrovert who gets nervous with the mic in front of me. [Callie laughs.]

Callie Zamzow: I feel that. I—believe it or not, I feel that. [Erin: Yeah.] Well, thank you for that honest response. That's—that's lovely. So it's time for the tip of the week. And I think it's the middle part of August, and what I'm thinking as I'm looking around the valley is that a lot of people's hanging baskets are starting to look a little bedraggled and kind of, you know, not looking as hot as they used to—mostly because of the heat, but also because you can actually give them a little bit of a boost of nutrients and bring them back to life. And you will have beautiful hanging baskets going into fall. You don't have to just throw them away like a lot of people do when the heat comes. So the product in question is called Thrive Bloom, and you just spray it on—you spray it on the leaves, and you do it when it's cool. Obviously, you don't want to burn the leaves, so you spray it on when it's cool, and it will actually absorb into the leaves, and it's like a quick pop to the health of the plant, and you will find that the blooms come out again, and you'll have baskets that look like they're brand new—in fact, better than new. Erin, this has been a great conversation. I appreciate so much that you—that you came here, that you shared with us your thoughts and things that are happening with the Botanical Garden. And thank you on behalf of the community for everything that you're doing for all of us.

Erin Anderson: Well, thank you. And I just appreciate speaking with other women in leadership and our local companies, and, you know, your association—of course, your family business with Zamzows—has made such an impact in our community in so many ways. And I mean that, like, from the deepest part of my heart. And it's amazing when you see companies that are giving back and investing in our community. And I just think that that is something that y'all have done for generations. And we appreciate you.

Callie Zamzow: Well, thanks. That's a— that's a lovely way to end this podcast. [Erin: You’re welcome.] I hope you'll come back.

Erin Anderson: I would love it.

Callie Zamzow: Awesome. All right. Well, if you enjoyed today's episode, be sure to follow the podcast, leave a review, and share with a friend. And, of course, go to the Idaho Botanical Garden when you get a chance. It's wonderful. And you'll see it with new eyes, maybe, after this podcast. Thanks, everybody, and we'll catch you next time.

[Music fades out.]