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Plants Always Win

Plants Always Win

By: Sean Patchett and Erin Alladin
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About this listen

 A podcast where two Ontario gardeners dive down plant-fact rabbit-holes, answer audience questions, interview intriguing guests, and compete to bring you the most interesting stories and information. We care about ecologically sound gardening, strong human communities, and up-to-date science.Copyright 2025 Plants Always Win Biological Sciences Science
Episodes
  • Ep. 42 Landscape Design Fails

    Ep. 42 Landscape Design Fails
    Jan 20 2026

    As the 2026 growing season waves tantalizingly on the far horizon, we’d like to help you prepare for a disaster-free garden. To do that, we’re sharing a few key landscape design principles…along with a whole heap of stories about landscape design fails.

    No garden is truly no-maintenance, but while ordinary weeding and pruning is one thing, fighting endlessly against the effects of a bad design decision is something else entirely. We’re talking about hardscaping installed in the wrong spot, poorly selected plants, ever-spreading invasive species…The list goes on. Sean shares some zingers from his history of managing client landscapes, and Erin gets vulnerable with some stories of her own past mistakes. Tune in to find out what not to do…and to journey with our hosts through the steps you should take when designing a garden or landscape of your own.

    Check out our new website!

    Check out our web designer’s portfolio!

    Comments? Feedback? Want your garden question to be featured in a future Q&A segment?

    Email us, reach out over social media, or get Q&A priority by supporting us on Patreon.

    Discord: https://discord.gg/K6wF9dY4Ja
    Bluesky: @plantsalwayswin.com
    TikTok: @plantsalwayswinpodcast
    YouTube: @plantsalwayswinpodcast
    Website: www.plantsalwayswin.com

    Credits

    Website Design and Illustration by Sophia Alladin

    Intro and Outro Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/soundroll/when-my-ukulele-plays

    License code: GWOIMMBAS15FG6PH

    Timestamps

    00:15 Introduction
    00:55 What’s Growing On? The End of Erin’s Winter Garden
    04:27 What’s Growing On? Sean’s Winter Observations
    07:56 Water Break
    09:05 Myth Busting: The Low-Maintenance Garden
    12:34 Landscape Design Step 1: Dream and Observe
    15:44 Landscape Pre-Design: Know Your Needs
    17:21 Designing for Accessibility and Maintenance
    19:07 Considering Microclimates
    20:16 Landscape Design Step 2: Hardscaping
    22:25 Artificial Turf Legislation Fail
    27:14 Decisions about Paths
    28:00 Myth Busting: Permanence in Landscapes
    29:36 Landscape Design Step 3: Plant Selection
    31:00 Sean’s False Sorbaria sorbifolia Stories
    34:36 Erin’s Invasive-Plants-in-Woodland-Garden Story
    40:04 Landscape Design Step 4: Plan for Changes over Seasons and Years
    46:32 Retaining Wall Fail
    50:00 Maintenance Nightmare: Nothing But Stairs
    54:30 Compromise and Education are Important
    57:09 Staghorn Sumacs Always Win
    58:55 Outro and Contact Us
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    1 hr
  • Ep. 41 Thoughtful Foraging with Gabrielle Cerberville

    Ep. 41 Thoughtful Foraging with Gabrielle Cerberville
    Dec 19 2025

    If you’re looking to build a relationship with the land that feeds you, you can start by embracing the wisdom of the Internet’s Mushroom Auntie.

    Gabrielle Cerberville, a.k.a. your new Mushroom Auntie, a.k.a. The Chaotic Forager, has spent her academic life collecting degrees in music. If you catch her in the forest, however, she’s more likely to be collecting mushrooms and plants for cooking and preservation. She’s known online as a mycologist and foraging educator, and—more recently—as the author of the book Gathered: On Foraging, Feasting, and the Seasonal Life – An Illustrated Adventure in Wild Food, Self-Discovery, and Honoring Earth. Part memoir, part field guide, part cook book, and part guided nature meditation, Gathered is 100% an invitation to connect more deeply and authentically with the earth. This week, Gabrielle joins Erin and Sean to discuss its writing, the deeply collaborative process of its editing and fact-checking, and the interconnectedness of nature, food, politics, and community.

    Find Gabrielle online at:

    ChaoticForager.com

    Instagram: www.instagram.com/chaoticforager

    TikTok: www.tiktok.com/@chaoticforager

    YouTube: www.youtube.com/channel/UC0LqNI92KujRLCj-247ve3w

    Facebook: www.facebook.com/chaoticforager

    Purchase a copy of Gathered: www.harpercollins.com/products/gathered-gabrielle-cerberville?variant=43429934661666

    Comments? Feedback? Want your garden question to be featured in a future Q&A segment?

    Email us, reach out over social media, or get Q&A priority by supporting us on Patreon.

    Discord: https://discord.gg/K6wF9dY4Ja
    Bluesky: @plantsalwayswin.com
    TikTok: @plantsalwayswinpodcast
    YouTube: @plantsalwayswinpodcast
    Website: www.plantsalwayswin.com

    Citations

    Can you forage on Crown land in Canada?

    Using wood from Crown land for personal use. (2025, May 26). ontario.ca. https://www.ontario.ca/page/using-wood-crown-land-personal-use

    Credits

    Website Design and Illustration by Sophia Alladin

    Intro and Outro Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/soundroll/when-my-ukulele-plays

    License code: GWOIMMBAS15FG6PH

    Timestamps

    00:14 Introduction
    01:10 Gabrielle Cerberville, Your Internet Mushroom Auntie
    03:20 The Chaotic Forager and ADHD
    05:16 The Myth of Being a Self-Taught Forager
    08:29 Community Sufficiency, Not Self-Sufficiency
    11:55 Gabrielle’s Music Education
    14:35 Marrying Music and Foraging: The Deep Ecology Project
    19:01 How Gabrielle Develops Recipes with Foraged Foods
    21:40 Foraging and Seasonality
    23:30 The Honourable Harvest
    26:37 Building a Relationship with the Land
    31:04 Foraging on Public Land (Food Is Political)
    40:48 The Process Behind Gathered
    48:51 Gabrielle’s Shout-Outs
    53:45 Outro and Contact Us
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    56 mins
  • Ep. 40 Nut Trees and Connection with Elspeth Hay

    Ep. 40 Nut Trees and Connection with Elspeth Hay
    Dec 2 2025
    Feeding humanity doesn’t need to come at the Earth’s expense. Elspeth Hay is here to talk nut trees, ecosystems, and humans as keystone species. In 2019, Elspeth was a local food writer who felt despondent about humans’ need to tear up nature in order to feed ourselves. When she discovered that acorns are edible—that they had, in fact, once been a central pillar of an abundant North American food system—she was electrified. This week she joins Erin to talk about the book that resulted from her all-consuming research into that subject, Feed Us with Trees: Nut Trees and the Future of Food. If you have ever felt like human beings are rootless and adrift without our own habitat or wild food that can sustain us, this conversation will open your eyes and seize your heart. Erin and Elspeth discuss the oak savannas and chestnut trees that, managed by Indigenous peoples’ understanding of succession ecology, once fed the human and more-than-human life of a continent. They look at the still-living food culture of chestnuts in Switzerland, grieve over the politics that deliberately erased abundance at home, and embrace hope at the re-emergence of traditional land management practices in agroforestry and restoration agriculture. Join us in re-discovering our habitat and home. Who knows—maybe acorns will change your life, too. Find Elspeth Hay Online Website: https://elspethhay.com/Instagram: @elspethhayThe Local Food Report: https://www.capeandislands.org/podcast/the-local-food-reportFeed Us with Trees: https://newsociety.com/book/feed-us-with-trees/?aff=65 Comments? Feedback? Want your garden question to be featured in a future Q&A segment? Email us, reach out over social media, or get Q&A priority by supporting us on Patreon. Discord: https://discord.gg/K6wF9dY4JaBluesky: @plantsalwayswin.comTikTok: @plantsalwayswinpodcastYouTube: @plantsalwayswinpodcastWebsite: www.plantsalwayswin.com CreditsWebsite Design and Illustration by Sophia Alladin Intro and Outro Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/soundroll/when-my-ukulele-plays License code: GWOIMMBAS15FG6PH Timestamps 00:14 Introduction01:00 Feed Us with Trees: Nut Trees and The Future of Food 01:48 Elspeth’s Career in Food and the Environment02:41 The Lightbulb Moment: Humans Can Eat Acorns03:27 It Never Made Sense to Me That We Didn’t Have a Habitat07:39 The Chestnut Huts of Switzerland: A Living Food Culture09:46 Our Grief and Homesickness for Connection to Place and Species10:43 The Land of Opportunity Myth13:07 Oak Savannas and Chestnut Groves: Pillars of an Indigenous Food System14:39 Food is Politics: The Deliberate Dismantling of Abundance in North America19:40 Trespass Laws Were Created to Control Formerly Enslaved Foragers22:00 How Capitalism Makes Food Political23:47 The Movement to Revive Perennial Food Ecosystems26:50 Ecological Succession and Embracing Traditional Land Management30:41 Oaks as the Tree of Life, Biodiversity Champions32:00 Nature Preserves Are the Wrong Approach. The Land Needs Us.34:17 Hazelnut Basketry and Kuruk Culture to Elspeth and Erin’s Willow Basketry37:42 The New Forest in England: An Unenclosed English Farm40:20 Elspeth’s Recommended Resources41:50 Elspeth’s Shout-Outs44:26 Parting Words of Wisdom45:12 Outro and Contact Us
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    47 mins
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