Growing your own cannabis is one of the quickest and most impactful ways of deepen your understanding of this unique plant.

For this web series Leafly visited five different gardens to get a behind the scenes look at how the professionals are growing cannabis. We’ll bring you to indoor facilities in California, Colorado, Oregon, and Washington to study the steps successful growers use to produce some of the finest flowers in the country.

A great garden starts with great genetics. So to kick things off, we stopped by Exotic Genetix in Tacoma, Wash., to learn about selecting the best genetics to start your garden. Mike, Exotic’s founder and breeder, gives us the low down on how he likes to get his plants started and some of the differences between starting from clone or seed.