Hothouse
by Leah Churner
Hothouse is a podcast about design, ecology, and the way we garden now. Host Leah Churner sits down with experts and enthusiasts to talk about permaculture, the urban landscape, and how plants sometimes give us the feels. A meeting of the minds for plant people and the horticulture-curious, Hothouse is a different kind of gardening show: less of the how-to and more of the who, what, where, when, and why.
Episodes
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Horticulturati: The Phosphorus Paradox (Part 1)
On 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...
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Horticulturati: The Multilayered Magic of Sheet Mulch
On 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,...
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Horticulturati: Fruit Tree Care with Susan Poizner
"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…
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Horticulturati: The Art of Graphics with Lisa Nunamaker and Amy Fedele
In 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...
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Horticulturati: Thorny Common Names
A 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...
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Seed Swap!
Attention 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...
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Horticulturati: Humble History of the Flowerpot
In 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…
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Horticulturati: The Full Monty Don
We'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...
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Horticulturati: Conservation Design
On 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...
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Horticulturati: Pocket Prairies with John Hart Asher
We 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...
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Horticulturati: Designing for Maintenance & "The Soul of a Farmer"
Happy 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...
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Horticulturati: Growing a Vision with Barton Springs Nursery
If 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 finally...
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Horticulturati: Garden Design Part II
A 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?...
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Horticulturati: Dividing & Multiplying Plants
When 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...
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Horticulturati: Cleveland and the Cuyahoga River Fires
Fresh 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,...
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Horticulturati: A Gardener's Guide to Honeybees (Part 2)
At 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...
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Horticulturati: Gardener's Guide to Honeybees (Part I of II)
Enter 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...
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Beyond Permaculture with Cassiopeia Farm
Welcome 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...
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The Horticulturati: Owl Hours
Springtime 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!...
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Horticulturati: Thawing Out
On 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…
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The Horticulturati: Five Seasons Total Landscaping
Autumn 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…
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Horticulturati: Garden Design
On 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...
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The Horticulturati: Armadillos!
Turtle 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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The Horticulturati: Crap(e) Myrtles & Cushaw Squash
Hothouse is returning from hiatus! From here on out this podcast feed will be all Hothouse, so if you want to keep hearing The Horticulturati, please subscribe to that feed HERE (for Apple Podcasts) or HERE (for Spotify). Crape myrtles are blooming all over the place and Leah is DISGUSTED. What's...
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Horticulturati: Metamorphosis & Victory Gardens
On this Horticulturati, we bring you stories of adaptation and change. Leah has been studying up on butterfly holometabolism -- that is, complete metamorphosis -- with assistance from her niece, nephew, and Vladimir Nabokov. Colleen describes the history of Victory Gardens, from World War I to…
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The Horticulturati: Music & Plants
Best wishes to everyone! Here is a little plantastic escapism to entertain you. [We recorded this episode on 2/28 and added a little corona check-in intro on 3/21. Episode begins around 4:19.] Can plants "hear" music? What would plant-generated music sound like? On this episode, Leah and Colleen...
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The Horticulturati: Time-Lapse Photography & Arboriculture
How did the invention of time-lapse photography revolutionize our understanding of plants? Leah checks in with Charles Darwin and Barbara Streisand on this subject. Colleen explains how to get certified as an arborist through the International Society of Arboriculture, and brings us up to speed…
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The Horticulturati: Xeriscape and the Hundredth Meridian
Shake off those umbrellas! On episode 2 of The Horticulturati, Austin-based garden designers Colleen Dieter and Leah Churner discuss Central Texas' mercurial climate. Specifically, the rain. And the lack thereof. Leah explains how longitude is destiny along the Hundredth Meridian (or is it the...
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Introducing The Horticulturati: New episode Feb 7!
Hi Hothouse listeners! Hothouse Season 2 is still in the works, but guess what! I'm launching a spinoff podcast: The Horticulturati! The Horticulturati is a biweekly gardening talkshow I'm cohosting with my friend, and repeat Hothouse guest, Colleen Dieter. We're a couple of "designing women"…
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Hothouse Season 2 Preview
The upcoming season of Hothouse is devoted to climate change. I'll be talking to activists, artists, farmers, and journalists about the new normal that we face in 2019. How is climate change already affecting our lives? What can we do to limit global warming? And how are each of us reckoning, in...
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Houseplant Confidential with Jane Perrone
On this episode, we're taking an intimate look at the the most domesticated plants of all: houseplants. My guest, Jane Perrone, is a London-based journalist and the host-producer of the indoor gardening podcast On The Ledge. We'll discuss Jane's background, some myths and misconceptions of...
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Gone to Seed | Colleen Dieter
Colleen Dieter, co-founder of the the Central Texas Seed Library, talks about how saving, swapping, and sharing seeds can help us build community, reclaim lost agricultural knowledge, and preserve crucial genetic diversity in our global food supply. Thanks to Colleen and a group of other...
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Nothing Natural About Capitalism (Part 2 of 2) with Ryan Rosshirt
In Part 2 of the series "Nothing Natural About Capitalism," Leah talks to Austin-based activist Ryan Rosshirt about permaculture design and the challenge of building a society that supports meaningful work. Like so many Americans, Ryan was jolted into political action by the rise of Donald Trump....
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Nothing Natural About Capitalism (Part 1 of 2)
Capitalism: Can't live with it, can't live without it! Or can we? And what is the connection between capitalism and what we eat, how we work, and who bears the impacts of climate change? For a lot of us, the ecological consequences of our economic system are clear: factory farming, algae blooms,...
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Conservation & Identity | Park Ranger LaJuan Tucker
On this episode, we'll examine the relationship between natural history and social history. Join Leah as she sits down with park ranger LaJuan Tucker to talk about the conservation of urban wildlife, and how changing societal attitudes determine how we relate to our landscapes. LaJuan will…
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From Amaranth to Zinnias | Farmer-Florist Gretchen O'Neil
Farmer-florist Gretchen O'Neil dishes the dirt on growing cut flowers. Gretchen is the founder of Petals, Ink, a floral design studio, mobile flower truck, and women-run farm in Manor, Texas. She'll tell us about the highs and lows of the farming life -- extraordinary beauty and terrible...
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Fungal Vision | Daniel Reyes
On this episode, we venture into the strange and mysterious kingdom of fungi. Join Leah as she sits down to talk mushrooms with mycologist Daniel Reyes, the founder of MycoAlliance, a science and education company that offers classes in mushroom propagation and conducts research at an…
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Myths and Misconceptions | Linda Lehmusvirta
Leah sits down with Linda Lehmusvirta, the producer of KLRU's Central Texas Gardener, to find out what goes on behind the scenes of this long-running, award-winning public television show. Linda's been producing CTG since the beginning, in the 1980s, when it began as a live call-in show.…
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Healing Spaces | Jenny Peterson, The Cancer Survivor's Garden Companion
Join your host, Leah Churner, as she sits down with Jenny Peterson, author of The Cancer Survivor's Garden Companion (St. Lynn's Press, 2016) to talk about the therapeutic power of gardening. As a landscape designer, urban farmer, and breast-cancer survivor, Jenny has unique insight on the…
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Gardening is a Political Act | Colleen Dieter
Welcome to the first episode of Hothouse, a podcast about design, ecology, and the way we garden now. Join your host, Leah Churner, as she sits down with organic gardening aficionado Colleen Dieter of Red Wheelbarrow Landscape Consulting (www.atxgardens.com) to talk about the joys of seed saving,...
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The Gloves are Coming Off
Introducing Hothouse, a new podcast about design, ecology, and the way we garden now. Hosted by Leah Churner, a landscape designer in Austin, Texas, Hothouse is a meeting of the minds for plant people and the horticulture-curious. Listen for long-form, wide-ranging conversations about the...
About this show
Hothouse is a podcast about design, ecology, and the way we garden now. Host Leah Churner sits down with experts and enthusiasts to talk about permaculture, the urban landscape, and how plants sometimes give us the feels. A meeting of the minds for plant people and the horticulture-curious, Hothouse is a different kind of gardening show: less of the how-to and more of the who, what, where, when, and why.
Hosted by
Leah Churner