One local man is getting adventurous in the greenhouse, collecting more than 80 plants you won't find in Wisconsin very often.

But, for Jeff Herdrich, owner of the Flower Farm in Eau Claire, it's not just a hobby, it's a full time relationship.

Herdrich refers to his unusual plants as pets and has spent the last 27 years gathering them.

Each one has a special memory and space in his heart and his greenhouse, where he grows everything from a palm tree to a pineapple, right here in Western Wisconsin.

"My favorite of the pets would be a staghorn fern and I'd have to tie that with a ponytail palm and those are two of the plants that we purchased the first year that we were married and we've had them since then, about 27 years," Herdrich said.

He says many of his pets come from warmer climates and he enjoys experimenting with them to figure out what will grow heartily here.