Plant Connection: A Plant Podcast to Reconnect You With Nature, One Plant At A Time

Black Gum (Nyssa sylvatica) has so many common names, you may well know it by a different one. And many of them aren’t obvious why they were chosen to describe the tree. But when you get down to the tree itself, it has a remarkable characteristic that makes its wood both unusable for normal lumber and incredibly useful for small items that need to withstand impact without splitting. Add its beautiful leaves and fall color and the tree’s ability to withstand a remarkable range of environmental conditions, and black gum is worth more than a look.

• How black gum contributed to Pepperidge Farm
• A remarkable variety of common names
• How cross grain makes the wood unsplittable
• What’s a meal gum?
• Black gum in the landscape

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Black cherry (Prunus serotina) looks unremarkable at first glance. Most people don’t plant it on purpose, and yet it's fed the hungry, medicated the sick, furnished the homes of presidents, and once cost the American horse industry $225 million in a matter of weeks. In this episode, we trace the long, fruitful relationship between people and this tree, from 4,500-year-old cave deposits to a 21st-century veterinary mystery.

• Thomas Moser’s attention to detail
• From food to medicine
• And from medicine to poison
• Why circumstances matter
• The illusion of duality

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Plant Connection - https://plant-connection.captivate.fm/

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Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/plant-connection-a-plant-podcast-to-reconnect-you/id1801774758

Honey locusts combine menacingly long thorns with sweet fruit and medicinal bark, a wise example of offering our gifts to the world while maintaining healthy boundaries to protect ourselves. People have been enjoying the wisdom of this relationship in myriad ways for centuries.

• George Washington’s honey locust hedge
• The sweet pulp of the seed pods
• Thorns have their uses
• The thornless variety
• What we can learn from this wise tree

If you enjoy this episode, please subscribe to Plant Connection on your favorite podcast platform so you don’t miss the next one.

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Root Stem Leaf - https://www.rootstemleaf.com/

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Plant Connection - https://plant-connection.captivate.fm/

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Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/plant-connection-a-plant-podcast-to-reconnect-you/id1801774758

Beech trees have been recording human history for centuries, from Daniel Boone's famous "bar tree" carving in 1760 to family names etched above a mountain cemetery. In this episode, we explore the American beech (Fagus grandifolia) and its European cousin (Fagus sylvatica), tracing the tree's ties to storytelling, food, medicine, and craftsmanship.

• Daniel Boone’s bear tree
• A family tradition around a beech tree
• Arborglyphs
• The beech tree and the written word
• A forgotten food

If you enjoy this episode, please subscribe to Plant Connection on your favorite podcast platform so you don’t miss the next one.

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Root Stem Leaf - https://www.rootstemleaf.com/

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Do you have a friend who is there for you when you are in pain? I’d argue that jewelweed symbolizes that relationship. In this episode, we look at jewelweed (Impatiens capensis), a plant you embodies the old maxim that the cure is found near the problem.

• A cure for skin irritations like poison ivy and insect bites
• The childhood joy of touch me not seeds
• What jewelweed has to teach us
• Growing jewelweed

If you enjoy this episode, please subscribe to Plant Connection on your favorite podcast platform so you don’t miss the next one.

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Root Stem Leaf - https://www.rootstemleaf.com/

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Plant Connection - https://plant-connection.captivate.fm/

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From liquid courage on the battlefield to cemetery meditation spots, this episode traces the many lives of one small, tenacious tree.

We start with a story from the Thirty Years' War, where Dutch soldiers reportedly sipped genever, a juniper flavored liqueur, before battle, possibly giving rise to the phrase "Dutch courage." From there, the episode follows juniper across centuries and continents:

• The genever connection — how this juniper spirit became the ancestor of gin, and why "Dutch courage" probably meant something closer to calm resolve than a whiskey-fueled dare
• Ancient Egypt — juniper oil and tar as ingredients in mummification, traded in from the eastern Mediterranean for their antifungal and antibacterial properties
• Pencils and fence posts — how Juniperus virginiana (eastern red cedar) earned its place in everyday American life thanks to rot- and splinter-resistant wood
• A conservation paradox — overharvested for the pencil industry a century ago, this same juniper is now overtaking Great Plains grasslands due to fire suppression, while holding steady elsewhere
• Native American uses — medicinal treatments for colds, asthma, rheumatism, and bleeding, plus use in cordage and spiritual cleansing
• A personal reflection — a walk through a historic cemetery and an encounter with a "thin place" beneath a juniper's branches, and what that Celtic concept of liminal space means
• European folklore — burning juniper branches to ward off evil spirits, witches, and bad luck
• Growing your own — tips on choosing varieties

If you enjoy this episode, please subscribe to Plant Connection on your favorite podcast platform so you don’t miss the next one.

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What if the cure for a paralyzed arm was... more pain? In this episode, we dig into the strange 1821 case of a young woman treated for paralysis with urtification (deliberate flogging with stinging nettle) and use it as a doorway into everything nettle has meant to humans across history: medicine, food, fiber, folklore, and a surprising lesson about boundaries and reciprocity with nature.

• A 19th-century medical mystery — Surgeon's assistant John Piper treats a young woman's five-month arm paralysis with repeated nettle flagellation. By day's end, she regains the use of her arm.
• The science (and speculation) behind it — Counter-irritation, skin stimulation, and placebo as possible explanations, plus a personal parallel: treating frozen shoulder with acupuncture.
• 2,500 years of nettle medicine — From Pliny the Elder to Hippocrates' 61 listed uses, to modern topical treatments for arthritis, tendonitis, and sprains.
• Nettle as food — A documented survival food during the Irish Famine, the Soviet Famine, and WWII; also brewed as tea and used in soups.
• Nettle as fiber — Spun like flax or hemp, found in 5,000-year-old Danish burial shrouds, and used by Germany as a cotton substitute in both World Wars.
• Folklore from around the world — Roman soldiers and Roman Nettle in England, lightning protection in Italy, warding off evil spirits in Germany, a Cree legend on respect, and Celtic fairy guardians.
• Why it stings — The formic acid behind the burn, and the old folk remedy of rubbing dock leaves on the skin for relief.
• Growing nettle — Notes on it as an "edge species," where it thrives, and how to source untreated seeds if you want to grow it yourself.
• The bigger idea — Nettle as a "threshold guardian": it teaches that anything worth taking from nature comes with a gauntlet, and that healthy relationships, with plants or people, require reciprocity and boundaries.

If you enjoy this episode, please subscribe to Plant Connection on your favorite podcast platform so you don’t miss the next one.

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Root Stem Leaf - https://www.rootstemleaf.com/

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Episode Description

Ever wondered why greenhouses exist? Blame Tiberius. In this episode, Lisa traces the cucumber's remarkable journey from a Roman emperor's daily obsession that sparked an ancient horticultural invention, to its 5,000-year history across continents, to the pickle jar in your fridge today. Along the way: mysterious translucent stone, Egyptian cucumber wine, pound-a-piece cucumbers in Georgian England, and a gut-health bonus hiding in your favorite pickle.

In This Episode

• How the Roman emperor's insistence on daily cucumbers, even in winter on the Isle of Capri, led to the invention of the specularia, history's first greenhouse
• The mica-like translucent stone the Romans used instead of glass, and how movable, wheeled planting boxes let gardeners chase the sun
• Cultivation dating back to roughly 3300 BCE in the Indus Valley, plus a mention in the Bible during the Israelites' time in Egypt
• When a single cucumber could cost a pound, and why home gardens mattered
• Salt brine, garlic, and dill fermentation, and the gut-health benefits of lactobacillus
• 🌱 Growing tips for cucumbers

If you enjoy this episode, please subscribe to Plant Connection on your favorite podcast platform so you don’t miss the next one.

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Follow on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/rootstemleafblog/

Root Stem Leaf - https://www.rootstemleaf.com/

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Plant Connection - https://plant-connection.captivate.fm/

Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/6ZDb9ovKXRTomKYnyqF8Rv

Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/plant-connection-a-plant-podcast-to-reconnect-you/id1801774758

What do you say when a plant with a reputation for ancient healing magic turns out to be just what the old folks always said it was?

In this episode, we explore the Elder (or elderberry, as I’ve always known it). From its role in warning the people of the Netherlands of the Nazi invasion to thousands of years of healing tradition.

In this episode:

• The midwinterhoorn and its role in warning neighbors that the Nazis were invading the Netherlands
• The healing properties of elderberry
• Its role in history and religion
• How elderberry can fit in your own garden

If you enjoy this episode, please subscribe to Plant Connection on your favorite podcast platform so you don’t miss the next one.

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Follow on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/rootstemleafblog/

Root Stem Leaf - https://www.rootstemleaf.com/

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Plant Connection - https://plant-connection.captivate.fm/

Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/6ZDb9ovKXRTomKYnyqF8Rv

Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/plant-connection-a-plant-podcast-to-reconnect-you/id1801774758

What do a Civil War-era schoolteacher, ancient Druids, and Gothic cathedrals all have in common? The mighty oak tree.

In this episode, we explore the story of Mary Smith Peake, a free Black businesswoman in Hampton, Virginia, who in September 1861 began teaching formerly enslaved people to read and write beneath the branches of a southern live oak at a time when doing so had been illegal in Virginia for nearly 30 years. That same tree would later host the first local reading of the Emancipation Proclamation, earning it the name it carries to this day: the Emancipation Oak. The site eventually became the foundation of what is now Hampton University.

From there, we travel through centuries of oak mythology and symbolism — sacred groves, Greek oracles, Norse thunder gods, Druidic wisdom, and the surprising connection between oak forests and the soaring arches of Gothic cathedrals.

In this episode:

• Mary Peake's life and the contraband order that made her school possible
• Why oak trees have been gathering places and sacred sites across cultures worldwide
• The Cherokee relationship with red oak and its medicinal uses
• How to choose an oak for your own garden

If you enjoy this episode, please subscribe to Plant Connection on your favorite podcast platform so you don’t miss the next one.

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Follow on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/rootstemleafblog/

Root Stem Leaf - https://www.rootstemleaf.com/

LISTEN

Plant Connection - https://plant-connection.captivate.fm/

Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/6ZDb9ovKXRTomKYnyqF8Rv

Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/plant-connection-a-plant-podcast-to-reconnect-you/id1801774758