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Reflections on 2025 & Winter Trees
24 Plays59 minutes ago
Brett reflects on his favorite episodes of 2025 and leafless trees in winter.
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Transcript
Seasonal Planning: Solo or Collaboration?
00:00:20
Plant People
Greetings Hort Culture members. um So we're at that time of the year where everybody's schedules fill up and each of us tries to do either a solo episode or an episode with somebody else. And so hopefully if this is the first one you're hearing of this, you'll enjoy this series of a little mixing it up a little bit.
00:00:37
Plant People
I think not going to make any promises, but I think Alexis and Jessica are going to talk about some stuff as
Gratitude for Growth
00:00:46
Plant People
a duo. I think Ray might record something solo like this today. It'll be just me.
00:00:51
Plant People
Uh, and so it won't be, these won't be very long episodes, but we didn't want to leave you completely hanging during the holidays and say, I would start by saying thank you all for listening.
00:01:04
Plant People
The growth of the podcast across time has been pretty, um I'll say surprising. It's been steady growth. we're so We're getting more more listeners per episode now than we ever have.
00:01:16
Plant People
ah And it's just really, really cool to see people support this.
Mission Reflection: Making Complex Simple
00:01:21
Plant People
this because it's really fun. i think I will, I'll take the mantle of speaking for everyone on the podcast, but it it's a little bit of an opportunity to have some conversations that are kind of what we all got into extension for in the first place, which was taking some concepts that are either boring or complicated or whatever and talking about them in these human settings, um laughing together and learning together. And so,
00:01:48
Plant People
I won't go too far down the gratitude rabbit hole. Thanksgiving is over after all. But ah I just do want to say thank you to everybody for listening and tuning in, making it our personal mission in 2026 to actually get some
2025 Highlights and Personal Insights
00:02:03
Plant People
merch. I think we have the go ahead to go ahead and i get the go ahead to go ahead and get some of that.
00:02:09
Plant People
um And i I can't help but be a little retrospective. I don't tend to dwell too much on the past, but this time of year, I do like to think back on 2025 and what it brought and what it meant. And a couple of the episodes that I think, you know, if you missed them or maybe you're, you want to go back and listen to us talk again. had a couple of the highlights for me.
Maple Syrup Episode with John Duvall
00:02:29
Plant People
One of them was the maple syrup episode we did with John Duvall. He's works down at EKU, but he also works with the Kentucky Maple Syrup Association.
00:02:37
Plant People
It was just really cool to connect with him and see how much that industry has grown. number of years ago, we did an article about them for our newsletter, and it was kind of getting started. And to see the growth has been really, really impressive.
Public Service Chat with Interns Zoe and Khalees
00:02:50
Plant People
um Yeah, another one that I really enjoyed was talking with ah Zoe and Khalees, who were extension interns. I think they were in in Mercer County and and at Jessica's office, but i don't quote me on that.
00:03:02
Plant People
But to hear them talk a little bit about this public service mission and extension and working with kids and and adults and teaching and learning, and it was just really gratifying to hear people who at a different different stage of their lives, they're from a different you know era of time. I think they were like, it's still hard for me to adjust to people being born in the 2000s, but it's been going on for 25 years, so I guess I better get used to it.
00:03:27
Plant People
ah But hearing them talk about just how much they enjoyed that experience was really cool.
Plant-Insect Interactions with Jonathan Larson
00:03:32
Plant People
Another one, actually, I think it might've been the week before that ah we were we were on a roll was the plant insect interactions one. We talked with Jonathan Larson, the most famous example of that, or the one that people tend to know about is that er monarch caterpillars eat milkweed and they get the the milkweed toxin inside of them, which makes them not very palatable to others, to people that would, or things that would want to eat them. I guess people could be the ones eating them.
00:04:02
Plant People
And they, but there, we talked a lot ah more about, about a lot more than that. And just thinking about this co-evolution and co-development of species and ecosystems across time was pretty cool.
Giant Pumpkins with Joe Kuzman
00:04:15
Plant People
Another highlight, um, On the novelty, absurd side of the spectrum, which is where I try to live my life, is the giant pumpkins, discussions of giant pumpkins with Joe Kuzman, who was really ah ah gracious to join us and share his experience of growing some giant pumpkins. and um I've actually had a lot of conversations about giant pumpkins since then that I felt moderately more informed to join in on. I'm talking about the cost of the individual seeds and all that kind of fun stuff. um
00:04:46
Plant People
Had a couple of people ask me about growing giant pumpkins. i don't know if it was related to that episode or just, you know, pumpkin passion going
Gardening Personalities and Practices
00:04:54
Plant People
wild. Yeah. ah Another couple of episodes, a kind of a grouping of them that I thought was really good that you might want to go back and revisit was the Farmer's Market Personality and Garden Personality episodes.
00:05:07
Plant People
So it was kind of each of us taking on, i think in some cases it was our actual personality. In some cases we were playing a role, you know, we're creative types around here. And just talking about the different ways that your personality might shape, you know, maybe you're more chaotic and expressive. And so you throw seeds everywhere and it's a you know mess. Maybe you're more regimented. and so you have a very minimalist, you know, straight line, straight rows, something like that.
00:05:35
Plant People
And similarly with the farmer's market, it's a this idea of knowing yourself, how yourself and how your strengths and weaknesses and tendencies fit within this practice of growing plants or selling plants. Um, it's just at the heart heart of, I think part of the hort of heart, the heart of hort, a culture, uh, this interaction between us and plants and our communities and ourselves. And, uh, I just thought it was kind of fun and it was, a
00:06:06
Plant People
good interaction between the the four of us talking about just our different experiences and paths to getting here to interacting
Celebrating 150 Episodes
00:06:13
Plant People
with it. And then the last one I'll mention is we did, we did do a retrospe this is a retrospective on a retrospective, but we talked about a hundred episodes.
00:06:21
Plant People
And that just brings me back to the idea of being grateful for people listening. Cause we are now, I don't know, 150 something episodes, maybe more. ah And I am appreciative of that.
00:06:34
Plant People
So um that that kind of is the recap portion.
The Beauty and Resilience of Winter Trees
00:06:38
Plant People
The other thing I wanted to do, i did um I don't get a chance to write stuff that's just kind of reflexive and creative as much as I used to, or yeah, as much as I used to and perhaps would like to.
00:06:50
Plant People
And so I wanted to take this opportunity to do that. And in doing that, um I wrote a little thing about, you guessed it, trees. And specifically this experience of walking around my neighborhood and seeing trees in the wintertime and some of the things that it made me think about.
00:07:10
Plant People
So I'll probably itt just end with the piece ending as it's written and fade out. So again, I'll just say thank you so much for your support. I think this is our...
00:07:22
Plant People
Let's see, 2320. I think this is our third year doing the podcast. We don't have any plans to stop. We want to keep bringing this to you all and and keep sharing time together, recording our voices for you to listen to.
00:07:34
Plant People
If you do have ideas, please do reach out to us on email. It's just hortculturepodcast at gmail.com. and We also have an Instagram page, but okay.
00:07:49
Plant People
I walk around my neighborhood and I look at all the trees. I can tell them all apart now, even when they've lost their leaves. I know where each one lives, and those that have been planted recently.
00:08:03
Plant People
Not all of them will make it, but some will. The big ones have made it. Over and over, dodging lightning strikes and gusts of wind and overzealous, underqualified amateur arborists.
00:08:17
Plant People
Some could use some pruning, at least to my eye. It's either saw and blade now or shade and gravity later. The trees don't seem to mind, but a windshield or gutter might.
00:08:30
Plant People
When the leaves are on the trees, it looks like everything went to plan. Dispersed green helmets over obscured heads, tied down to the earth by trunks of differing dramas, movement, and interest,
00:08:47
Plant People
If the branches have not been cut, you may not even see the trunk. The green veil hides everything inside. Who knows what's going on in there? A perfect place to hide or sit or rest or think.
00:09:04
Plant People
As the last lingering leaves fall, a lost blunt hope against a sharp cold, the long thread is revealed. It stretches across many seasons of prevailing winds, lost leaders, enterprising side branches, or maybe just a prognosticating pruner.
00:09:26
Plant People
This retroactive vision is a story told by a thousand points of intervention. It's a gestalt, a mural of change in the aggregate. these craggy twisted winter soulles i see before me now contrast jaggedly with perfect veneers of a vernal their non-linear structures are proof that the best laidid plans are the plans that work out and they rarely take the straightest path
00:09:56
Plant People
In the winter, even trees can't hide their history. Cancel hair and makeup, bring the camera close and focus on the scars and wrinkles and the sleepy, piercing eyes at the heart of the thing.
00:10:12
Plant People
Spring will bring a fresh start. A scaffolded, viridescent reinvention. A new chapter of a long book. Big branches are twigs plus decades, and twigs tomorrow might someday soar in triumphant leadership.
00:10:31
Plant People
Or they may wither and die, a good idea in theory. But more likely, they'll play in the background, neither star nor martyr, a harmonic choir to a melodic greater good.
00:10:46
Plant People
But before buds of flower and leaf swell and spread, before they breathe and grow toward light and good air, before we sit in their shade against the harsh summer sun, I look at these fractal, ramified creatures, all their twists and turns, and remember how the raw and scarred and flawed and twisting may not really be pretty.
00:11:14
Plant People
But it is true. And that is beautiful.