Latest Hothousepodcast Podcast Episodes
Horticulturati: The Phosphorus Paradox (Part 1)
Hothouse - May 07, 2023 20:58 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 32 ratingsOn this episode, we’re tackling Phosphorus – an element, crucial to life on earth, which exists in both abundance and scarcity. We cover how humans got hooked on P fertilizers, the political and environmental impacts of mining and pollution, and what might be done about it. Mentioned in this ...
Horticulturati: The Multilayered Magic of Sheet Mulch
Hothouse - March 25, 2023 14:36 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 32 ratingsOn this episode, we’re gettin’ down and dirty with sheet mulch. Sheet mulching is a no-till, no-dig gardening practice of removing unwanted vegetation and building fertile soil by layering organic matter and letting it compost in place. While the layers suppress weeds by blocking sunlight, subte...
Horticulturati: Fruit Tree Care with Susan Poizner
Hothouse - March 14, 2023 14:33 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 32 ratings"Fruit trees need hands-on care." That's the motto of our guest, Susan Poizner of OrchardPeople.com. Susan is an urban orchardist, teacher, journalist, and filmmaker. She is the author of Growing Urban Orchards (2014), cofounder of the Ben Nobelman Park Community Orchard in Toronto and the host ...
Horticulturati: The Art of Graphics with Lisa Nunamaker and Amy Fedele
Hothouse - December 23, 2022 15:51 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 32 ratingsIn this roundtable, we talk about drafting and drawing with Lisa Nunamaker, of Paper Garden Workshop, and Amy Fedele, of Pretty Purple Door, two fabulous garden educators who offer online courses in landscape graphics. Leah took courses from both instructors this year -- Lisa's Garden Graphics T...
Horticulturati: Thorny Common Names
Hothouse - November 03, 2022 13:48 - 56 minutes ★★★★★ - 32 ratingsA rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but some of the common names we use for plants downright stink! In this episode, we're diving into problematic colloquial names. Some common names are geographically misleading (“Jerusalem artichoke”); others are xenophobic, racist, or antisemitic (...
Seed Swap!
Hothouse - October 24, 2022 18:29 - 2 minutes ★★★★★ - 32 ratingsAttention plant lovers! Central Texas Seed Savers is hosting a Seed Swap at the Austin Central Library (710 W. Cesar Chavez St) on Saturday, October 29 from 11-1pm. This event is free and open to the public. Bring seeds to share! Or just come get some seeds! For more info, visit https://www.cen...
Horticulturati: Humble History of the Flowerpot
Hothouse - September 03, 2022 16:29 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 32 ratingsIn this episode, Colleen unearths as much as she can about the largely unwritten history of plant pots. When did humans start growing plants in containers? How did innovations in materials and technology lead to the domestication of plants, plant collecting, and the growth of the nursery ind...
Horticulturati: The Full Monty Don
Hothouse - August 05, 2022 16:41 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 32 ratingsWe're back with a salute to Monty Don, beloved British gardening expert, author, and fashion icon, whose infectious passion for plants is boosting our spirits through this bummer summer. Though little known in the US, jaunty Monty is a big celebrity across the pond, as the host of the BBC's G...
Horticulturati: Conservation Design
Hothouse - June 12, 2022 17:31 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 32 ratingsOn this episode, we dive into ecologist Douglas Tallamy's books Nature's Best Hope (2019) and The Living Landscape (2014, with Rick Darke). Tallamy's work takes native plant gardening and wildlife gardening to another level by focusing not just on species diversity, but on diversity of species i...
Horticulturati: Pocket Prairies with John Hart Asher
Hothouse - May 14, 2022 17:02 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 32 ratingsWe sat down at the picnic table with John Hart Asher, host of Central Texas Gardener and Cofounder/Senior Environmental Designer at Blackland Collaborative to talk about pocket prairies. What’s a pocket prairie? It’s a very small prairie. What’s a prairie? It’s a community of native grasses and...
Horticulturati: Designing for Maintenance & "The Soul of a Farmer"
Hothouse - January 07, 2022 16:42 - 39 minutes ★★★★★ - 32 ratingsHappy New Year! We’re back from vacation with a discussion of a book that is very much in the Horticulturati wheelhouse, The Know Maintenance Perennial Garden. Author Roy Diblik, a Wisconsin-based designer and plantsman, argues that anyone can build a “design-magazine-worthy garden at home” by...
Horticulturati: Growing a Vision with Barton Springs Nursery
Hothouse - November 30, 2021 18:35 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 32 ratingsIf you have a passion for plants, you probably love plant shopping. Our local garden centers are more than just a place to source nursery stock; they’re a designer’s trove of botanical information and inspiration. After untold hours spent perusing the grounds of Barton Springs Nursery, we finall...
Horticulturati: Garden Design Part II
Hothouse - October 29, 2021 10:00 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 32 ratingsA year ago, we recorded a long and rambly episode on garden design. Now we're making it an October tradition! Revisiting the subject, we realize our approaches to design have changed, but we're still hell-bent on questioning basic tenets. How important is color? Are foundation shrubs necessary? ...
Horticulturati: Dividing & Multiplying Plants
Hothouse - October 04, 2021 04:15 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 32 ratingsWhen you have too many plants, it's time to make more! That's gardener logic for you. Fall is a great time to divide perennials and save seeds - but how? We dig into these methods of backyard propagation and again give you permission to be ruthless and/or lazy in the garden. Go ham on that root ...
Horticulturati: Cleveland and the Cuyahoga River Fires
Hothouse - September 02, 2021 21:59 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 32 ratingsFresh off a hometown visit to Cleveland, Colleen brings us the story of the Cuyahoga: a river once so polluted with industrial sludge, it burned. At least thirteen times. While the largest and most damaging conflagration occurred in 1952, it was the 1969 river fire that made national headlines, ...
Horticulturati: A Gardener's Guide to Honeybees (Part 2)
Hothouse - August 17, 2021 04:00 - 56 minutes ★★★★★ - 32 ratingsAt long last, here's the second installment of our bee-stravaganza! Leah interviews beekeeper Tara Chapman, owner of Two Hives Honey, about the intricate connection between bees, plants, and weather. Then, your hosts discuss how to be a good steward to honeybees--and native bees and other pollin...
Horticulturati: Gardener's Guide to Honeybees (Part I of II)
Hothouse - July 19, 2021 17:30 - 50 minutes ★★★★★ - 32 ratingsEnter the hive with us for another classic critter topic: BEES! We recorded so much on bees that we have to split this bee-nanza into a two-parter! In part one, Leah suits up for a tour at Two Hives Honey in Manor, Texas, and investigates honeybee ecology. In part two, we’ll focus on how, as a g...
Beyond Permaculture with Cassiopeia Farm
Hothouse - June 03, 2021 21:41 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 32 ratingsWelcome to Hothouse Season 2! If you follow any flower farmers on Instagram, the romance may be all too tempting: picture yourself quitting the city, fixing up an old farmhouse, and spending your days harvesting flowers and arranging bouquets on a ten-acre homestead. Now imagine doing that in a ...
The Horticulturati: Owl Hours
Hothouse - April 23, 2021 16:31 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 32 ratingsSpringtime is owl time. Owlets be hatching. Fledglings be fledging. Owl cams be streaming. Enter, with us, the kingdom of the night, as we celebrate these mysterious and beautiful birds. Drop us a line at www.horticulturati.com or call the Hotline at 347-WAP-HORT. Please join our Patreon! ...
Horticulturati: Hot Takes on Cold Hardiness
Hothouse - April 06, 2021 18:14 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 32 ratingsWe're live from Zone 8b with a tell-all about the "epistemological quandary" that is the USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map. What is hardiness? How is it quantifiable? And how useful is the USDA's classification system for gardeners grappling with extreme weather? Listen to find out. First up, som...
Horticulturati: Thawing Out
Hothouse - March 02, 2021 02:36 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 32 ratingsOn this Horticulturati, we return from hiatus with tales of the Snowpocalypse -- or Snowmageddon, Snowvid, whatever you want to call it -- to document the record-breaking winter weather that broke Texas' electric grid and ushered in a scary new climate reality for the plants and people of the L...
Virtual Flora & “Tree Lady” Margaret Hoffmann
Hothouse - December 23, 2020 22:03 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 32 ratingsOn this episode, we discuss virtual foliage, time travel, and big trees. Colleen looks into how video games might play a role in curing plant blindness, and Leah shines a light on the remarkable life and legacy of Margaret Hoffmann (1925-2012), whose 1970s “Think Trees” campaign introduced Aust...
Virtual Flora & “Tree Lady” Margret Hofmann
Hothouse - December 23, 2020 22:03 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 32 ratingsOn this episode, we discuss virtual foliage, time travel, and big trees. Colleen looks into how video games might play a role in curing plant blindness, and Leah shines a light on the remarkable life and legacy of Margret Hofmann (1925-2012), whose 1970s “Think Trees” campaign introduced Austin...
Horticulturati: Virtual Flora & “Tree Lady” Margret Hofmann
Hothouse - December 23, 2020 22:03 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 32 ratingsOn this episode, we discuss virtual foliage, time travel, and big trees. Colleen looks into how video games might play a role in curing plant blindness, and Leah shines a light on the remarkable life and legacy of Margret Hofmann (1925-2012), whose 1970s “Think Trees” campaign introduced Austin...
The Horticulturati: Kate the Chemist on Chemicals in the Garden
Hothouse - December 14, 2020 20:47 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 32 ratingsFertilizers...oxidizers...explosions! We’re still trying to wrap our brains around Ammonium Nitrate over here, so we called on science superstar Dr. Kate Biberdorf, aka Kate the Chemist, to help us out. What is Ammonium Nitrate, and why is this volatile chemical so ubiquitous? What are the condi...
The Horticulturati: Five Seasons Total Landscaping
Hothouse - November 29, 2020 18:10 - 52 minutes ★★★★★ - 32 ratingsAutumn has come to Texas at long last! To celebrate, we watched the documentary Five Seasons: The Gardens of Piet Oudolf (2017) by Thomas Piper, and we're now officially card-carrying Piet stans sporting Dutch accents, asymmetrical haircuts, and scythes. We discuss Oudolf’s “mathematics” of de...
Horticulturati/One To Grow On crossover
Hothouse - November 07, 2020 17:25 - 58 minutes ★★★★★ - 32 ratingsCrossover alert! This Horticulturati episode is a twofer. In part one, we check in about the busy fall planting season over chocolate bread and mulled wine. After many months of Zooming, we’re back to in-person, social-distance recording from Colleen’s backyard! As we test out our new remote pod...
Horticulturati: Garden Design
Hothouse - October 07, 2020 15:52 - 2 hours ★★★★★ - 32 ratingsOn this mega-episode of the Horticulturati, we’re tackling garden design--our approaches, our anxieties, and our gripes about “expert” sources of mystifying advice and misleading photography. Garden design books are rife with the jargon of art theory. How well does this translate to the living m...
The Horticulturati: Ammonium nitrate
Hothouse - September 19, 2020 23:37 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 32 ratingsWhy are we putting explosives on our plants? On this episode, Colleen charts the history of ammonium nitrate, the synthetic fertilizer that propelled the rise of industrial agriculture in the 20th century--cheap to manufacture, but spectacularly costly in terms of lives lost. This highly explosi...
The Horticulturati: Armadillos!
Hothouse - August 23, 2020 18:53 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 32 ratingsTurtle rabbit. Shell possum. Roadkill. Whatever you call it, the nine-banded armadillo is a mysterious, ancient, and unfairly maligned mammal. Find out everything you ever wanted to know (and more) about this Texas icon. Leah traces the armadillo’s bizarre migratory history, its role in medical ...
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