When I was a kid I wanted to grow up to be a tree. I studied everything about plants. My mom had a window garden, and she worked from home so we went on hikes and camping a lot. I could identify almost all the local plants by the time I was ten, just self-taught out of books.
I took a liking to amphibious plants when I was in college, and made them the focus of my study. I also worked in a dispensary in San Francisco, which is where I learned hydroponics and how to grow things in artificial settings.