TAMPA, Fla. — Plant parents, heads up — we’ve got an upcoming event you might dig.

It’s the University of South Florida Botanical Gardens Summer Plant Festival in Tampa. The festival is one of the Botanical Gardens' three major fundraisers each year.

And it’s where Spectrum News met their director Craig Huegel, planting in the fern area of the garden.

Huegel says he has always loved plants.

“My very first memory is messing around with some black raspberries in the back yard,” he said, explaining that his parents always gave him part of their Wisconsin garden plot for his own plants.

So it makes sense he’s the boss of all 18 acres on the corner of the USF campus off Bruce B. Downs Boulevard and East Fowler Avenue.

To help with the evolving green space, the USF Botanical Gardens offers their Summer Festival.

There is an outside area, as well as two greenhouses filled with plants — some grown from seed and others propagated.

There are native plants, loved by pollinators, as well as unique ones.

“Mostly what we’ve been trying to do is grow things, collect things for sale that aren’t available in most — if any — nurseries in the area,” said Huegel.

And the commonly known plants like a monstera adansonii — the climbing Swiss cheese plant — are handsomely priced.

(This plant weirdo has seen similarly sized plants for more than twice the USF Botanical Gardens prices.)

So people can come for the prices and plant species, and then hang out with some of their own.

“Well, plant people gravitate towards plant people,” said Heugel, with a chuckle. “So you’ll have somebody you can talk to about your passion or disease whatever it is it just makes it a lot more fun.”