My name is David Kohler. It's my honor on behalf of all of us here at Kohler to welcome you to our village. We have an extraordinary set of panelists: Nina Coler, Richard Christensen, and Martha Stewart. I'm a bit terrified by the taste assembled. Let's start with a question for Martha: with all your passions from culinary to gardening, is there one that rises above?
Yeah. Because I'm planting a maze on my farm. I live on a farm outside NYC. I have horses, donkeys, peacocks, and a bear. We visited David's arboretum. It's beautiful. I like seeing other people's gardens. Trees are my hobby right now.
Because I think anyone that has a brand... We've known each other 20 years. The real genesis: during COVID, a farmer came to us about losing her farm. We started selling her vegetables, and it grew from 150 boxes to 600 boxes. Then a farmer with olive oil came, and we started making soap and candles. Now beauty is 90% of our revenue.
Yes, we had a great time. One farm became 150 farms. Then a farmer with olive oil led us to make soap and candles. That business is now 90% of revenue.
She was the first person I called. Each chapter is about a plant. I thought of wisteria and who is like wisteria: Martha. She told me about her dad's method of hitting the wisteria with a hammer to make it bloom.
My father would root wisteria from cuttings. He said if it's not blooming, hit the bark with a hammer. I did that and it bloomed wonderfully, then it died. I hit it too hard. But it's a long-lived plant.
We're building 12 fragrance gardens. A spice garden, night blooming garden, camellia garden. Martha introduced me to Nuccio's nursery, which was damaged in fires. I think planting a tree is the best gift.
I grow everything from scratch. Men at age 60 want instant big trees. I plant rooted cuttings. I've planted almost every tree on my 150 acres, including big cypress and metasequoias. They grow fast if you feed and water them.
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Kohler, D. (2025, November 20). Martha Stewart & David Kohler on Gardening, Bathing & Creative Living | Kohler Food & Wine [Interview transcript]. KOHLER. CEOInterviews.AI. https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1016282/
MLA
David Kohler. "Martha Stewart & David Kohler on Gardening, Bathing & Creative Living | Kohler Food & Wine." KOHLER, 20 Nov. 2025. Transcript, CEOInterviews.AI, https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1016282/.
BibTeX
@misc{kohler2025_1016282,
author = {David Kohler},
title = {Martha Stewart \& David Kohler on Gardening, Bathing \& Creative Living | Kohler Food \& Wine},
howpublished = {Interview transcript, KOHLER. CEOInterviews.AI},
year = {2025},
month = {nov},
url = {https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1016282/},
note = {Speaker-attributed transcript with timestamps}
}
