Plants Always Win

This is the second instalment of our two-part Roses vs. Carnations Valentine’s Day special. After Sean eloquently shared his love for roses earlier this week, Erin barges in with the claim that roses are elitist and carnations are the flower of the people. Her focus is Dianthus caryophyllus, a cut-flower relative of some familiar garden flowers like pinks. She takes us back to the Carnation Revolution and other people’s uprisings in which carnations became important symbols, tells us what the name “pink” has to do with dianthus’ ruffled petals, and explores carnations’ aromatic uses. When Erin puts Sean on the spot to describe the science behind why putting food colouring in a carnation’s water source will dye it, he pulls it off admirably and gives us some bonus facts about mineral buildup on tap water-fed houseplants. The episode gathers steam with school carnation sales at Valentine’s Day (awkward), Mother’s Day symbology (touching), and the Vicorian language of flowers (not Erin’s favourite thing). Then it winds down with carnation care both in the garden and as cut flowers. Are you ready to join Carnation Nation? Or have roses won your heart? Cast your vote by tagging us on social media and using the hashtag #PAWFaceOff. Fact CheckWe promised to find out which was named first: pinking shears (which cut saw-toothed edges in fabric) or garden pinks (which have petals with saw-toothed edges). The answer is not clear-cut, but we highly recommend the Online Etymology Dictionary’s interesting entry about it: https://www.etymonline.com/word/pink (https://www.etymonline.com/word/pink) Comments? Feedback? Want your garden question to be featured in a future Q&A segment? Email us (mailto:[email protected]), reach out over social media, or get Q&A priority by supporting us on Patreon (http://patreon.com/PlantsAlwaysWinPodcast). Bluesky: @plantsalwayswin.com (https://bsky.app/profile/plantsalwayswin.com) TikTok: @plantsalwayswinpodcast (https://www.tiktok.com/@plantsalwayswinpodcast) YouTube:

This is a special two-part Plant Face-Off! We had so much to say about roses and carnations that we had to split the recording into two episodes. In this instalment, we start with some housekeeping, answering the listener question “What is Patreon?”, explaining why we’re phasing off the Meta platforms Facebook and Instagram, and reminding YOU to reach out if you’d like to join the conversation at our Plants Always Win Discord server.After that Sean takes us through history and around the world with the ever-sweet subject of roses. Learn about the surprising members of the rose family fruit tree, explore their history and symbolism, and learn how to take care of them in your garden—especially here in Ontario. Sean also answers some questions from the internet, such as “Can I regrow my rose bouquet?” “Are rose petals edible?”, and “How can I make my cut roses last?” But the face-off doesn’t end here. Come back later this week for Part II when Erin takes the floor with roses’ Valentine’s Day competitor, carnations. Then cast your vote by email on social media with the hashtag #PAWfaceoff. Comments? Feedback? Want your garden question to be featured in a future Q&A segment? Email us (mailto:[email protected]), reach out over social media, or get Q&A priority by supporting us on Patreon (http://patreon.com/PlantsAlwaysWinPodcast). Bluesky: @plantsalwayswin.com (https://bsky.app/profile/plantsalwayswin.com) TikTok: @plantsalwayswinpodcast (https://www.tiktok.com/@plantsalwayswinpodcast) YouTube: @plantsalwayswinpodcast (https://www.youtube.com/@PlantsAlwaysWinPodcast)Website: www.plantsalwayswin.com (http://www.plantsalwayswin.com) CreditsWebsite Design and Illustration by Sophia AlladinIntro and Outro Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/soundroll/when-my-ukulele-plays (https://click.pstmrk.it/3s/uppbeat.io%2Ft%2Fsoundroll%2Fwhen-my-ukulele-plays/vZub/6Aa1AQ/AQ/f58651af-7a63-4069-8f2f-b4d30f71c8a4/4/MDMaaK2LMO)

Have you learned to read your garden? This week we sit down with Lauren MacLean, a teacher, author, and podcaster from Richmond, British Columbia. She’s a big advocate for how outdoor classrooms help kids learn better, but a few years ago she had a learning experience of her own when her school built a new garden classroom. In this interview she shares with us her background as an outdoor educator and explains the magic of “sit spots” for creating a relationship with our environment—something we should all do in our own gardens. Lauren explains how even though she was new to gardening when her school dug into its new project, she was helped by the nature literacy she and her students already possessed. “Reading” the plants and the species who live in relationship to them is key.Throughout today’s conversation we celebrate the value of garden failures and what they can teach us and the children who follow our example. We extend grace to ourselves and all gardeners (and houseplant parents!) who struggle to help their plants thrive. Lauren also offers advice for teachers to keep their garden classrooms afloat when the first bloom of ambition fades, and celebrates the community connections they can forge. Finally, we wrap up by trouble-shooting problems like summer watering, wildlife interactions, and weed identification. If you want to learn more from Lauren about outdoor learning, check out…Lauren’s Courses: Nature’s Path: a Year of Monthly Sparks—monthly outdoor-learning professional development for educators and homeschooling familiesThrive Outside: Grow Your Teaching Space—a five-week program for teachers and homeschooling parents to grow their teaching into the outdoorsLauren’s Books: Me and My Sit Spot—a picture book about choosing and using a sit spotFinding Common Ground—a story set in an outdoor classroomSitting with Nature: An Educator’s Guide to Sit Spots—the book that brought Lauren and Erin together as author and editor, a resource that introduces why and how to use sit spots in the classroom (with lesson plans included!) Lauren’s Online:

This versus episode kicks off with a discussion about creating a safe space on social media for respectful, loving communication about everything plants and gardens, then digresses into a discussion of Latin pronunciations in botanical, liturgical, and classical settings. When we make it to the Plant Face-Off, Erin leads with peace lily, or Spathiphyllum spp. She explains why some plants in the Spathiphyllum genus have Big Spadix Energy, then explores the fascinating physical mechanism that makes biting a peace lily a bad idea. She explains how to approximate the conditions of its home in the understory of tropical rainforests and how to treat problems, then digs into why she and others are so darned allergic to its pollen. Finally, Erin and Sean dissect the infamous NASA Clean Air Study that still prompts publications to insist that peace lilies can purify your air of household toxins.In the second half of the episode, Sean confidently takes the stage to predict a win for his favourite plants, Phalaenopsis orchids, also known as moon orchids or moth orchids (for their moth-like flowers). He explains how they grow hanging in the air, attached to trees or stones, and describes the various options for propagating them. Next he covers such controversial topics as what media to grow orchids in, how to water them, and where to position them for the best kind of light. As someone who has rehabilitated many a box-store orchid, he is well equipped with advice on helping them re-bloom and thrive. Sean closes his segment with some history and surprising medical uses for Phalaenopsis.Who won the Plant Face-Off? Was it Erin with peace lilies or Sean with Phalaenopsis orchids? You decide! Send your vote by email or on Instagram, TikTok, or Facebook with the hashtag #PAWFaceOff.Instagram: @plantsalwayswinpodcast (https://www.instagram.com/plantsalwayswinpodcast/) Facebook: plantsalwayswinpodcast (https://www.facebook.com/plantsalwayswinpodcast) TikTok: @plantsalwayswinpodcast (https://www.tiktok.com/@plantsalwayswinpodcast) Website: www.plantsalwayswin.com (http://www.plantsalwayswin.com)

You might think a gardening podcast would focus on guests who have a lifetime of gardening expertise and plenty of credentials. But we want to emphasize that anyone can garden, and amateurs everywhere find niches to flourish in. That’s why we invited Amanda Jewell to share her adventures in learning to grow native plants from seed.Amanda is a vision therapist by trade. In her free time, she uses her postage-stamp urban yard in Northern Ontario to grow hundreds of native wildflowers every year. She describes for us the joy she felt the first time she discovered that her garden was supporting local insects and how the focus on bringing more wildlife to her yard drove her interest in native plants. She also explains how winter sowing has become such an effective technique for her, in spite of mishaps along the way, and how leaning in to nature’s lack of orderliness is both useful and liberating. We wrap up with conversation about finding community among gardeners and about resources and seed sources for listeners who want to try starting their own native plants. Amanda’s Shout-Outs:The Ottawa Wildflower Seed Library distributes free seeds to organizations and gardeners every winter: https://wildflowerseedlibrary.ca/ (https://wildflowerseedlibrary.ca/) The Butterflyway Project supports the creation of connected patches of butterfly habitat throughout neighbourhoods: https://davidsuzuki.org/take-action/act-locally/butterflyway/ (https://davidsuzuki.org/take-action/act-locally/butterflyway/) The Miskwaadesi native garden is a new garden in North Bay, Ontario created by the North Bay Indigenous Friendship Centre: https://www.miskwaadesi.ca/ (https://www.miskwaadesi.ca/) Timestamps00:51 Intro01:25 Gardening in Urban Northern Ontario03:20 Observe Before You Grow04:16 Becoming a Disney Princess for Hornets08:10 A Cheap, Low-Maintenance, Wildlife-Friendly Garden10:00 Growing Native Perennials Is Beginner Friendly!11:23 Why Some Seeds Need Cold Stratification13:57 What is Winter Sowing?15:22 Organization Not Necessary17:05 When to Open your Winter-Sowing Greenhouses

This versus episode is a battle of the native wildflower...

We’re always pretty nerdy on Plants Always Win, but in this interview episode Alex Meinders helps us take it to a whole new level. He’s a wildlife biologist and videogame enthusiast whose passion project is the YouTube and TikTok channel Geek Ecology. He uses his real-world science know-how to analyze the biology and ecology of Pokémon—yes, those quirky monsters from the cartoon, card game, and video games. This week Alex speculates with us about the plant-inspired class of grass-type Pokémon. We consider their place in the food web (are they animals or vegetables?), their evolutionary history (what environmental pressure caused them to look like plants?) and their methods of reproduction (do they create clones by seed and genetic diversity by egg?). If you’re worried about missing out on real-world plant talk, never fear! We dig into some fascinating plants along the way, including the parasitic corpse flower, the piratical ghost pipe, and mandrakes, which really do look like that.  Find Alex on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/@geekecology), TikTok (https://www.tiktok.com/@geekecology), and Twitter (https://x.com/geek_ecology) at @GeekEcology.Fact Check:We promised some fact-checking during the episode! Here are the results: Alex brought up the subject of a tissue-culture mammoth meatball that made news headlines. This was created in 2023 by Australian company Vow as a way to bring attention to their cultivated meat products. It turns out the meatball was not eaten since no one knows how our immune systems will react to protein from 10,000-year-old DNA. If someone wanted to eat it, the company would need to re-do the process with closer attention paid to the needs of regulators. But it’s a great story (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/mar/28/meatball-mammoth-created-cultivated-meat-firm?CMP=share_btn_url)!The Pokémon Grimer was part of Generation 1 (https://pokemon.fandom.com/wiki/Generation_I), which came out in Japan in 1996. Points to Sean for remembering that accurately.It was actually four different fish who beat Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire, since, for health reasons, their owner swapped in a different one every twelve hours. But, yes,

In this Versus episode, it’s the battle of herbs and spices. Get your fill of these fascinating aromatic plants that have flavoured our food and changed our history since paleolithic times...

In this interview episode, Sean chats with Paul Zammit about the life of a garden communicator. Paul has had a long career in horticulture and is presently a professor of Horticulture and Environmental Studies at Niagara College as well as CBC’s Ontario Today gardening expert—although “expert” is a term he would like to contest. After all, we never stop learning, and that’s especially true in the garden. Paul and Sean talk about selfish gardening (taking space from nature for ourselves) compared to building a biodiverse space that wildlife can enjoy alongside us—even if that means broadening our definition of beauty. They lament the spread of incomplete and untrue gardening tips online, although they’re still excited about the information-sharing power of social media. And although they’d happily talk forever, they force themselves to wrap up the conversation by answering some listener questions about insect-afflicted ash trees and re-blooming orchids. Find Paul on Instagram at @paulsplantpix (https://www.instagram.com/paulsplantpix/)  Paul Zammit is a professor at  Niagara College’s School of Environment and Horticulture (https://www.niagaracollege.ca/environment/). He can be found giving garden advice on CBC’s Ontario Today program (https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/audio/9.6511177) He occasionally co-leads international tours (https://www.facebook.com/p/Great-Garden-Tours-with-Marjorie-Mason-Jeff-Mason-and-Paul-Zammit-100057629281767/) of public and private gardens. Comments? Feedback? Want your garden question to be featured in a future Q&A segment? Email us (mailto:[email protected]), reach out over social media, or get Q&A priority by supporting us on Patreon (http://patreon.com/PlantsAlwaysWinPodcast). Instagram: @plantsalwayswinpodcast (https://www.instagram.com/plantsalwayswinpodcast/) Facebook: plantsalwayswinpodcast (https://www.facebook.com/plantsalwayswinpodcast)

In this “versus” episode, Erin and Sean face off with two big holiday plants: Poinsettias and Amaryllis. Erin comes in swinging with the fraught history of settler (Poinsettia) and Indigenous (cuetlaxochitl) names for her plant, but Sean pushes back with the romantic (or is it?) mythology behind amaryllis. Both contenders shatter misconceptions (Poinsettias are not toxic! Some amaryllis are imposters!) and share care tips for keeping these festive flora in good shape during the holidays and year round. A few tangents slip in about specialist insects that thrive on toxic plants and the way plants interpret light and darkness. And of course we get a plant rant about florists and nurseries using spray paint and glitter. The episode wraps up with a listener question about how late she can plant an evergreen tree. Who won the Plant Face-Off? Was it Erin with poinsettias or Sean with amaryllis? You decide! Send your vote by email or on Instagram, TikTok, or Facebook with the hashtag #PAWFaceOff. Comments? Feedback? Want your garden question to be featured in a future Q&A segment? Email us (mailto:[email protected]), reach out over social media, or get Q&A priority by supporting us on Patreon (http://patreon.com/PlantsAlwaysWinPodcast). Instagram: @plantsalwayswinpodcast (https://www.instagram.com/plantsalwayswinpodcast/) Facebook: plantsalwayswinpodcast (https://www.facebook.com/plantsalwayswinpodcast) TikTok: @plantsalwayswinpodcast (https://www.tiktok.com/@plantsalwayswinpodcast) Website: www.plantsalwayswin.com (http://www.plantsalwayswin.com) CreditsWebsite Design and Illustration