Hey, sluts, I'm Jonathan.

I'm Jeanette.

We're two old high school friends, current.

Geriatric millennials who took different paths living in different gardening zones.

I'm 6 8.

And I'm 42D. Sorry, I mean 8B.

We eventually found ourselves in the same place.

On our knees in the dirt, obsessed.

With plants, ready to gush and bitch about gardens.

Think of us as your green besties.

We're here to talk about plants, but not in the usual pre te. Do this grow that way you may.

Know as much as we do.

Or you may not know the difference between chokeberry and chokecherry.

Coming to you from Salem, Oregon, in.

The usa and a rooftop in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, where plant slats wear plant slats.

I feel like it needs a little more light. Hey, sluts, let's start with our garden status updates. John, what's going on in your garden?

I guess I would have to say the most exciting thing that happened is the hascap berries have started to come to ripen. Do you know?

Hell yeah.

Do you know hascaps?

No. I have no idea.

Okay. I think they're also called honeyberries. They're. It's actually kind of interesting because they really were not a common berry in Canada. Maybe like five over like before five years ago. They are kind of like blueberries, but they're a little bit more elongated. But they're actually Japanese and Russian. And the Quebec government specifically has some sort of program where they're. They're trying to promote it to agricultural agricultures. Farmers. Also known as agriculture. Also known as farmers. I was thinking of the French word, I guess, because I, I guess I said Quebec. And then I thought of the program. They're so much better than blueberries because they don't need acidic soil. So anyways, I have a big. I have a. I have four tiny plants on my roof, but I had planted one a few years ago in my community garden space, and it's probably about five feet tall now, and it's gigantic. And I harvested thousands of berries from it. Like I, I actually wrapped it in a net to protect it from the birds and, and I kind of peeled back the net the other day and I just went, ah, so many, so many.

So how much space do you have in this community garden? Because I don't know why I'm thinking you have little planter box and that's it. Like a 4 by 3 foot.

No, it's, it's, it's like 6 meters by 3 meters. So that's what like, 10ft by 20. 10 by 20.

Okay. So pretty big. Yeah. Huge.

Yeah, it's like. It's pretty big, but it's nothing like, you know, when you speak to someone from the UK and they have an allotment garden, this is kind of like. I don't know if you watch. If you watch people on YouTube showing you their allotment garden, it's basically like an entire terrain all to them. You know, like, they have, like. They can put greenhouses in it. They have little, like, almost like cottages, it seems like, in it, but I don't think you're allowed to stay there. But they're gigantic. But these are, like, little, tiny, like, 3 meters by 6 meters, and it's already, like, overflowing. So I'm constantly being you know, alerted about my. My rhubarb that's sticking out and that kind of thing.

Okay. Because the community gardens I've seen here. I saw one in Wilsonville, and it was just like, everyone got a, like, standard raised bed size, and that was about it. It wasn't very exciting. And that.

Which is what, like, three feet by. By five, three by five kind of thing? Or like, probably like three by five.

Or like three by eight. Maybe they were a little bigger. But it was. It was not like, when you described that bush just now, I was like, how the hell do you fit that in with anything else? But now I get it. That's cool.

Yeah. You know, they're. They're pretty. They're pretty big. We also do have, like, raised bed planters for people who might have, like, you know, mobility issues or that need something a bit more like, raised and maybe are starting off. But the standard one is pretty big. Yeah, that's basically my. I think what I would say is my update. So I've made crumble with the Haskap. I did, like, Hascap has got rhubarb crumble, which is really nice.

Yum.

Oh, what's your garden update?

Everything's dead. And what is fertilizer? No, that's what I wrote on my notes. We had a couple of really hot days, and, like, really sunny, really hot. I'm, like, calling my husband from work. I'm like, throw this. The shade thing. Just throw it over everything. Don't worry. I'll put poles up later. So I would go out, and everything's just wilted and crying and. And I'm putting up, like, umbrellas, and I don't know why. The sun always surprises me every year. I'm like, oh, my God. Everything's burning.

Is it, like. Was that over? Was that an overreaction? Is everything okay now?

Yes, everything's fine. Well, most things are fine. Yeah, it was an overreaction. I did get some, you know, things to block some sun. The tomatoes are doing a lot better. It's cooled down a little bit.

It's okay for things to wilt too. You know, like when in the hot weather. That's. It's. That's. You have to. Because I also get the same thing. Like, especially cucumbers. I find cucumbers kind of like, go a bit, like, in the heat, and it doesn't mean that they're. They're too dry. It's just the way that they preserve the. Their water, humidity, and it's. They'll just pop right back up. Yeah, I don't know if that helps.

It does help, because I have to remind myself of that. Oh, and I had a lot of white fly still. That moved over to my. It moved over to my tomatoes.

Oh, yeah. Okay.

So I got some neem oil and sprayed them. And today I haven't seen any, so I might have gotten it early. I didn't release any bugs because I haven't been to the bug store lately. The ants have not been farming the aphids on the chamomile because of the. Okay, I say it wrong. I call it aphids.

You say wrong.

No, Well, I say aphids wrong.

Yeah, aphids.

But I also say diametrious earth wrong.

Okay. Yeah.

Do you know how to say it?

Diametrius.

That I say. I think we're both possibly.

I don't know. I think it's diametrius. I. I just. Like, I looked it up. It's diatomaceous earth.

Diatomaceous. I'm never gonna remember.

Diatomaceous. Diatomaceous. Diatomaceous earth. Repeat after me. 1, 2, 3. Dia.

Diatomatomatious earth. We got it.

Yes. Perfect. Just edited in.

Like, I always call it de because that's easier, but no one else does, so it doesn't make sense to say that on here. But the diatomaceous earth is still on the chamomile.

Oh, you did it.

Yeah, but they haven't. Thank you. They haven't been farming aphids. I saw a couple tried to get back on real quick. Like, as soon as there was, like, a little pathway for the ants, they were like, we're going back up. Which is fine. Like, my thoughts about things like eating my plants is like, they don't have grocery stores. I can go Buy a box of chamomile tea for $4 and enjoy it. What do the ants have? They have nothing.

Time to grab a mug, pick some herbs, and spill the tea. Jeanette, do you have any garden tea?

Yes, I do. And my tea kind of piggybacks off last week's tea. About the black walnut tree that I hate. I had to admit, I hate a tree. A lot of developments have happened.

Really?

First of all, it's not a black walnut tree.

Right? Okay.

So I. I went and told my husband. I was like, the black. Yeah, I talked all about that stupid black walnut tree. He's like, what? The black walnut trees, like, down the street. The one over our house is a maple tree.

Oh, my God.

Oh, they all look the same. So. But okay, but there is a black walnut in the vicinity that is bringing the little seeds and the. You know, there's walnuts always buried in the yard because of the squirrels. So there is one nearby. But it's not all the things we talked about as far as, like, it preventing growth nearby. I do not have to worry about that. But the maple tree that I hate now, now that I have to rename that the maple tree I hate that is leaning over our house. And no, I haven't contacted an arborist or tree people to come help because I'm always busy, but I will someday. I notice that now my pathway on the side of my house is covered in, like, bird, and the plants all have, like, white droppings on it. And I was like, so now we're also getting the leaves, the little helicopter seeds, the flowers and bird. And so I. I told my husband about it, and he's like, oh, yeah, there's a hawk's nest right up above. It's like, what are you talking about? He's like, didn't you see the eggshells? Oh, my God. So I. I couldn't see it at first, but this morning I saw. I looked up and there's chicken hawks. I think he said it was. And I could see the little chicken hawks in there.

Chicken hawk.

I don't know. Is that a thing? There was a lot of words for it.

I have no idea. I've never heard of that. Maybe it's a chicken's not a turkey vulture like in my turkey vulture. Chicken hawk. I don't know how far that goes.

Well, you know, I'm really good at knowing what things are, so. No, definitely hawks. And so he showed me. He, He. I saw them, like, flapping the little baby wings and. And then I felt like oh, I'm not gonna, like, you know, cut down your house. Not until you're older. I think that's my only tea. John, how about you?

I don't know if it really qualifies as garden tea, but I'm just gonna go ahead.

Sure.

A friend of mine sent a TikTok video talking about habit stacking on dates. So. Which is basically this idea that, you know, you just plan your dates around things that you already need to do. And so you would have a date come. You know, a date idea could be, let's go to the market and get food and then do meal prep for the week. Let's meet up at the garden and garden together.

Yeah.

And. And it kind of made me laugh a lot. But I started to realize that I kind of did do something like that. You know, I have gotten people that I'm dating to help me around the house and the garden. And, you know, I have gone on a couple dates with. With gardeners.

Oh.

I was swiping on Tinder, and one person I came across was in Fredericton, New Brunswick, which is really far from Montreal. But his profile, he had, like, horses and, like, was working in a greenhouse. So I was like, okay, yeah, swipe right. I can't, like, swipe left on this person. And then we matched and we got to chatting and talking. And I think I was kind of in that moment, you know, where I, like, you say Jeanette, like, I did kind of have this level of freedom where I was like, hey, what would you say if I just took a flight to Fredericton and kind of helped you around the farm for a few days?

How far away is that?

It's like an hour and a half flight.

Okay.

Yeah. So he was like, okay, he was habit stacking. Yeah, he was habit stacking because I just kind of went there and spent four days feeding. Feeding the horses, filling up their water things, transplanting things into, like, from, you know, plugs into larger. Larger pots. Yeah, it was. It was actually like, a really amazing time, and I loved it. And we. We've since seen each other again. Like, he came to Montreal last summer and. And he cleaned. He, like, weeded my community garden plot, and he, like, weeded my backyard. And another thing is, like, this is what made me think about it is the other day I had, like, a landscaper come over for a date, and he helped dig up, like, a bunch of stuff around my mulberry tree. And then he, like, oh, my God. Critiques, let's say, like, my. My, like, garden, and then gave Me, compliments. And he was like, this is not the. And this is not the first time I received this compliment from a garden date. You know, he said, oh, like, congratulations. Like, your soil is really good here.

Oh, my God. Did you blush? You're blushing right now.

Yeah. Anyway, so it made me think about how, like, garden dating, you know, is. Is. Is possible. I've gotten, like. I've gotten free, like, oh, I have. One person I went on a date with told me that they have, like, a. You know, because they have a corporate account at one of the plant nurseries. And so every time I go there, I just give them his phone number. And so I get like, a 20 discount. And he doesn't know.

It's amazing.

He doesn't know, but I just give his phone number so that I can get the discount. Once someone had come over to my house, and he brought dragon fruit as a gift. Like, a little dragon fruit seedling as a gift. So, yeah, I mean, you can. You can get people to help you. This is. You know, if anyone's listening and you're just like, you just suffered from a breakup. You feel like your garden is overwhelming. Your house is overwhelming. Try to habit stack, you know, just, like, go onto Tinder and swipe. Swipe. You know, people who look like they can lift stuff.

Yeah. I mean, this is making me think maybe I should talk to Nathan about opening up our marriage. If I tell him, like, yeah, but they'll. They'll be the one I call to carry the compost into the backyard. Like, you don't have to do it. You know, he might. He might be down for that. That sounds amazing.

That's just. Yeah. You guys could be really modern. You guys can swipe together. It could be like a bonding. A couple's bonding experience. Experience.

He'll be like, she looks like she knows how to do the dishes. Oh, he looks like. Yeah, he can fold laundry and actually put it away when it's done. It'll become a passive.

Okay, yeah, Maybe not such a great couple's activity then.

He looks like he cleans the hair out of the sink after he shaves.

And, you know, like. And just to say there is a whole, like. Like, house sub culture or housework subculture where there are people who are turned on by being asked to do things around the house. I mean, that's not even getting into all of that. It keeps you hopeful, you know, if ever your marriage doesn't work out.

The Internet is amazing. Learning about all this, these specific. You never think about kinks Just lining up to your lifestyle of like what you need as someone who wants to clean the house and help me garden or has some dream, dream getaway garden with horses.

So now we're going to go into the plant spotlight for this episode. Jeanette, it's your turn. What plant are you bringing to us today?

Yeah, this episode I want to talk about the rarest of plant, the rose. It sounds very basic, but I have so much to talk about when it comes to roses. Last year we had or I had like Rose Summer 2024 and everything last year came back to rose. John, when you visited, we went to a rose garden together.

Yes, I remember that. That was really beautiful.

I remember specifically you smelling almost every single rose in the International Rose Test Garden.

Yeah, that sounds like me.

John came to visit and when I picked him up in Portland, we, I think it was that day. We just stopped at the Rose Test Garden, which is in Portland. It has more than 10,000 rose bushes. I look, looked this up. I didn't remember. It's about 7 acres with 610 different rose varieties. And I really love it because it's free to get into. It's really hard to park. But we somehow scored like a really good parking spot. I also had a bunch of other experiences. I think I went to like four or five rose gardens that summer. So it was really a lot. It was just my.

How many rose gardens could there be?

Well, because I also went down to the east coast down, I went over to the east coast and saw some more rose gardens. And every time I was like, I'm visiting another rose garden. And then finally I was back in Salem and found we had a rose garden here that I visited. But just to go back to the International Rose Test Garden. I don't know if everyone knows this or if you only know this if you live here, but Portland is also known as Rose City or City of Roses. And I looked up where that came from. There was a French dressmaker named Caroline Testout. What do you think? How do I say?

John Testu.

Caroline Testu. She asked a rose breeder, Joseph. Go on.

John Joseph Pernod.

She asked Joe to name a rose after her. And so he created the Madame Caroline to stao rose in 1890. It was popular because it had like pink blooms and they ended up planting nearly half a million bushes of it, creating 200 miles of rose bordered streets by 1905. So that's where like City of Roses came from. And if you visit, you'll see a lot of murals of Roses on buildings. And our basketball arena used to be called. I think it was called Rose City before it became the Rose Garden. Yeah. Because it. Now it's like the name of a health insurance company, but it was a rose garden. And people who are from here or have been here a long time still call it that. That's what it was called when I first saw my. The Blazers games there back when Lillard was playing. Anyway, I don't know what you just said. I know, I know that. I. Sorry. In 1950. Sorry. 1915, Jesse A. Curry proposed a rose test garden as a wartime sanctuary for European roses. They basically wanted to make sure During World War I the Roses stayed safe. I mean, there was nothing else to worry about. The park bureau approved it in 1917. And then they became. They started arriving from England in 1918. And then designer Florence Holmes Gerk designed the rose test garden and Amphitheater in 1921, and then it opened in 1924. So that's how long that rose garden has been there.

That's a long way to travel from England to.

What I'm haven't mentioned is roses grow really well here, really easily. Roses here are like on the medians in like highways. So I think that is probably why they chose this area for the Rose test Garden. If you're into roses, I would definitely go. One cool thing about it is you can actually buy a lot of the roses there or they're. They're roses that are for sale not there, but you can like scan the QR code and go to a website. So if there's one you really like, you might be able to order. Kind of combined my two passions, which is gardening and shopping in one. In one little excursion in Salem. We also have a rose garden in Bush Pasture park and Bush Pasture Park. So I just found this out last summer because I've only lived in salem, I think two years, and it's a 90 acre city park. It has this big old house, it has a big greenhouse, but they also have a. A rose garden you can walkthrough and it's all free to see. So I looked up the Bush Pasture park rose garden and they began it in 1955. And it includes 80 beds, 98 rose varieties from the 50s through 2017. There's also a tartar old rose collection which has roses that were introduced before 1857. And so that's before the first ever hybrid tea rose.

So what does that, what does that mean? The original cultivar or the original rose that had been crossbred Exists in this park.

Yeah. I would think of it like an heirloom. It's probably original because of the way you propagate roses is from cutting. So I think you always keep a bit of the original plant, if I know what I'm talking about, which I don't usually. They were collected by someone named May and Ar Tartar from cemeteries and historic sites for 20 years. So they had this big collection of old roses, and they tried to get this garden started in New York City, and it was rejected. So then the collection was donated to the second best city in the country, Salem, Oregon, in 1960. Yeah.

It's what they predicted would be the second metropolis of the United States.

The garden was designed by Elizabeth Lord and Edith Shriver. And if you don't know their story.

I don't know their story.

You don't know the Salem witch trials? Lesbian tea.

What? Wait.

Oh, yeah. So it was designed by Elizabeth Lord and Edith Shriver. They were the first women in the Pacific Northwest to own and operate their own landscape architecture firm. And that's usually how they're described. I've gone to their. Their house and. Because you can visit their garden in their house that they lived in together, and you can walk their garden, and there's events that go on there, and it's. It's really cool. I went there with my grandmother last summer, and I've been there. I've been there since. And it's weird because you feel like you're walking to someone's house because the house isn't like this big property. It's just on a street with other houses. But it's actually like this historical site with a garden. But. Yeah, but they. They live together. They did landscaping and, like, it's obvious, like, their history is not written as a. As them being, like, partners or a couple. It's just like these two friends that lived together and had a landscape architecture firm. But I tried to. I, you know, I try to look into it. Ever since I've heard about it, I've tried to look more and more into it and see, like, wait, they were like, together, right? They were like a couple. Like, come on. But there's not a lot of information about that. It's not really. I go to their website. It's called. Their website is lordshriver.org and you can go to Lord and you can read their story, and it talks about them designing over 200 landscapes and gardens between 1929 and 1969. They were educators, writers, civic participants, world travelers, and they successfully Operated a business in a man's world. And so Elizabeth Lord was born in Salem, and her father was Oregon governor and a Supreme Court justice. And her mother was an active community member and gardener. And Edith was born in Kingston, New York, to a middle class family. So that's already scandalous. And then you know what?

We know, we know what really was going on there.

Yeah. They like, come on and their bio just says. Realizing they had complementary skills and aesthetic ideals, they soon moved together to the Lord's family home in Salem, Oregon. Founded the Lord and Shriver landscape architecture firm in 1920 nine years later, in 1973, Elizabeth Lord said of the partnership, we joined forces desiring to try out a new venture of real garden designing and planting. Domestic and park planting. That's it. That's all it says about their story.

So awesome.

Yeah.

I mean, a race chair.

Yeah, for sure. I mean, it seems like it. Obviously you don't want to, like, rewrite history or just assume things, but it definitely feels like if I dived more into it or maybe found some literature we can find out or maybe. No. You know, it could be that they've never told anyone. So there is no evidence that they were a couple. But it's a very weird thing to, like, dance around when you're talking, like when you're in their garden and talking to the people that take care of it and you're just like, these two friends started a business and lived together their whole life.

Why is there only one bedroom?

Yeah. Oh, yeah. I haven't toured inside the house. I'm gonna check that out now. It's funny.

Yeah. Check to see how many bedrooms there are. That'll be the real. The real key.

Or like, this bedroom doesn't have any, like, wear on the floorboards compared to the one that.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Do you grow any roses, Tom?

No, I actually don't like roses.

No, it's fine.

I should have said that at the beginning. Please elaborate. I'm like. No, I'm just. I'm just, you know, my ex, when we were together, really wanted roses and I just always thought them to be kind of old fashioned. So I kind of asked any suggestion of growing roses.

But now that you've, like, healed from all of that and you visited the rose garden, have you ever thought of roses again?

No.

That's fine.

No to being healed, but also no to the roses. I don't know, I just feel like I just have so many other things.

Yeah.

That are more interesting.

Yeah.

That I'm growing. So if I Had more space, maybe it would be kind of cute to have a rose, like a rambling rose or something up a fence or something like that, But I just don't have that much space, so I. I prefer other things.

Yeah. Well, it's a good plant to grow outside your windows for, like, protection because it has all the thorns. So I've seen that a lot around here. People grow it right outside windows. You know, if you're. If you feel like you live somewhere where you would need, you know, bars on your windows or something. Like, having roses out right outside help prevent people from being able to maybe break in through the window. Do you want to tell us, like, the Latin names or any scientific stuff?

For sure. The rose, the ornamental rose that we all know it's in the genus Rosa, which also happens to be my grandmother's name, and it's in the family Rosaceae, not to be confused with rosacea.

Got it.

Which is a huge. A huge family. So basically it includes things like strawberries, raspberries, a lot of the blackberries, a lot of the fruits that have a kind of butt like an apple, you know, like the end of an apple, how it kind of looks like a little bit of a butthole. So most of the. The fruits that kind of have. That are. Are in the rose family or the rosacea family, but I believe it's also called rose family. It's kind of interchangeable at the family level. And rose hips are also a fruit, but those are also technically edible. And they kind of do look a little bit like apples or even like more. Maybe a little bit more like crab apples, but you can kind of see the resem. Semblance and how they all belong to the same family. So I also wanted to say that you said thorns earlier, but actually, technically they are prickles. And I think I had mentioned this in one of the other times that we talked, and I did a little bit more research to kind of get my. Because I knew that they were different, but I couldn't remember how. So prickles are actually outgrowths of the. Of the stem tissue. So they. They kind of stick out of the stem. And what it means is they have no kind of like, vascular. Vascular tissue, which means that there's no, like, water and nutrients circling through it, which is different from thorns, whereas thorns are part, like thorns usually come out of. I believe it would be buds. And in that. In that case, they have vascular tissue. And so that's one of the big differences between prickles and thorns.

So roses have prickles? Yes, and what has thorns?

Citrus. Oh, trees, I believe, have thorns.

Because I would assume then blackberries have prickles and are maybe in the rose family because they have a butthole.

Yeah, yeah, they are in the rose family. And I, I assume that those are prickles.

Yeah. Interesting. But we just call them kind of thorns colloquially.

Well, we shouldn't.

No, it's interesting like that the word thorn has become like, if you, if you said like the thorn of a rose, I feel like that's like a phrase, like everyone. Shakespeare might have written about it, you.

Know, so there's also spine. So a spine is also different. So there's a thorn, spine, prickle. I'm not so sure what the difference is between a thorn and a spine, but they all have to do with what kind of tissue it is made out of. And so, like, I think the biggest thing is you can remove a prickle and it won't damage the plant because it doesn't open the plant up to disease. But if you were to cut off, for instance, like a thorn, it does expose the tissue. That could make it more vulnerable to getting like, disease or something like that. That's probably like an important distinction. And why, why you'd make the distinction between whether or not it has vascular tissue or not, that's the science corner fact for the day.

And now we can correct people all the time. So that's fun too.

It's my favorite thing to do.

So if you have roses, one thing you want to know is how to take care of them. And the biggest thing you do as a gardener with roses is deadhead. You can actually volunteer to deadhead. At the International Rose Test Garden in Portland, they're looking for volunteers. And here in Salem at Bush Pasture park, they teach. Take volunteers. Some people freaking love deadheading roses.

People with like, anger issues.

But to deadhead rose, that means taking off the flower, like after the bloom is spent and it's wilted, or all the leaves are off or all the petals have fallen and you want to deadhead it in a specific way. So when you look down the stem, you find the first set of five leaves. That's where you're going to cut right above that at a 45 degree angle. Yeah.

So that means wherever the three leaflets are, those are, belong to the stem that belongs to the spent flower.

So if you'd like, we can get into the. The folklore, the symbols, the magic.

Yeah, I want to know more about the magic. I'm sure there's like a lot of stuff because roses have such a Long history with humans.

They're so old fashioned. I think the reason you don't like them being old fashioned and I do is because, you know, you're old fashioned. Yeah, I mean, like, I'm in my grandmother era. Everything in my house has a floral pattern on it. I collect antiques. So what color do you want the meaning for?

Yellow.

So I think we all kind of know, like, if you get a bouquet. Is this common for you too? Like if you get a bouquet of yellow roses, it's for friends. Like, it's not romantic. You haven't heard that, huh? I wonder if.

No, I've never heard of that. Have you gotten yellow roses before?

No, but I've just always known that, like, giving someone red roses means one thing and pink roses means another. It could be just like where I grew up or being a girl, you kind of learn these things that all started in, like, Victorian England. The kind of like having very different meanings for each color. You wouldn't want to bring a romantic partner a yellow rose. That's friend zoning someone via rose. A black rose, if you can guess, means death. Dark crimson is for mourning. If you're looking for that perfect funeral rose for someone. But more importantly than the colors, what are the possible powers of roses? Right.

Yeah.

Beauty, obviously. Any beauty spells divination. You can scatter rose petals around your home to alleviate stress and household problems that have surfaced and are upsetting. I don't know, I'd be pretty upset if there was a ton of rose petals all over my house. Especially because the aphids.

Every time I see like a trail of roses in a movie, like, as if it's something romantic in my head, I'm just like, no. Imagine having to, like, I don't know, like, sweep that up. Like when they, they're kind of a bit wet and humid. Like, they probably don't sweep that well. Your vacuum's gonna, like, crush them.

Yeah.

And get wet. And the floor, it's just like, it's just terrible. I don't know anyone. I. Please, nobody do this to me.

I mean, the earwigs alone. If I took my roses in and did that, because I, I, when I take the petals and put them in a basket, it's like earwigs just like run around and get out. They're awful. They're everywhere. Someone told me to get chickens, but I feel like that would bring its own problems. Chickens to eat the earwigs, then what will kill the chickens? So in the Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs by Scott Cunningham, our foremost herbalist I don't think he was an herbalist. I think he just wrote books. The gender of a rose is feminine. The planet. Can you guess?

No.

Venus.

I'm thinking of Tuxedo Mask for some reason, like, from Sailor Moon. I was like, what planet is Tuxedo Mask from?

I think he's from the Earth, Venus and the elements. Water. So I'm doing another water plant. Before we started today, though, I have to tell you, I used this rose grounding spray that I got at a metaphysical fair, like, two weeks ago in Salem, and it. It looks like it has glitter in it. So I went to this little, like, it's above this, like, New Age shop. They had a little fair in the Reed Ballroom in Salem, and there's a bunch of. I wasn't sure what to expect. I was actually looking for zodiac jewelry for birthday presents for my nieces and my sister. And so. But it was free, so I was like. It would be fun. So I dragged my husband, Nathan with me. And it was a lot of, like, tarot card readers, astrologers, Reiki healers, not a lot of products. So I was. I was itching for the real shopping or nothing. I wanted. There's some, like, tarot cards in on.

That that all people want to do is just buy things.

Well, I wouldn't want to sit in, like, a market and, like, get my tarot cards read, you know, Even though I have. But. So what we ended up doing was Nathan is a scorpio, but he's a weird scorpio where he doesn't really fit into the traditional Scorpio or what I think of as the Scorpio tendencies. So I was like, you should get your chart read. And so I saw someone who, like, had a price out, and I was like, here, sit here. Do you want to get your chart read? Okay, here. You sit here. And so he got his chart done, and I didn't want to, like, watch and listen because it felt a little overbearing. I'm already forcing him to get his chart read, his natal chart. And so I, like, kept walking around this small space, like, looking at the. The, you know, what everyone's selling. And I stumbled upon this rose grounding cleansing spray. I think the person selling it said that they. Their energy in it. Oh, no. It's a beautiful, beautiful blend of rose intention and reiki energy.

Okay.

It can be used during ceremony, meditation, or simply clear the energy in your space or around yourself. When using this spray, simply set the intention to remove any unwanted energy, purifying and cleansing the space around you and return the space to a grounded and centered space. And the ingredients are distilled water, rose oil, and maca powder, which I think is what gives it this glittery shine. I'm not sure what maca powder is.

M A C A C A mm. Oh, yeah. It's like a type of root that's often used in supplements.

Okay, so this was actually.

I believe it's like, gives people energy or something like this.

Oh, this was intuitive Green witch. I didn't buy it for the Reiki energy. I'm gonna be honest. I really like the smell of rose, and I like. And it was very affordable. It was, like $7. And so I really liked the idea of a rose room spray. But, you know, bonus that it has intention and reiki energy in it. Like, that's not gonna hurt anything.

You don't know what kind of energy they put into that.

No, it's true.

They didn't say it was, like, evil, dark, black rose energy.

There was this lady because, like, when you go to these craft fairs, like, any kind of fair, they always talk to you, right? Like, the people you walk by stare at you, and they're like, hi. And you're like, okay. And they explain their products.

I don't go to fairs for that reason.

And so this one lady was selling incense, and she was telling me about this one, and I don't. I didn't want any, but she was like, this one is for, like, sexual something, like release. And she's like, I really had to put in a lot of energy for this. I had to dance. And she kept telling me everything she was doing to, like, give this incense her energies. And I was like, oh, my God. The last thing I want is this lady's, like, sexual release. Dance energy anywhere near me.

You, like, can't get her out of your head. When you're, like, making love to your husband that night with the incense wafting into the room, you're like, oh, no, she's ruined it.

She's dancing again. This is so interesting.

Maybe this person, like, maybe when you're spraying it inside your house, it's like, this person is now prisoner within your house. And it's like the beginning of a really horrid story of them being like, I put myself in this space. I'm stuck in the basement of Jeanette's house. How do I get out? And then there's, like, the dancing sexual lady.

I'm never going to a metaphysical place again. Yeah. And Nathan, getting his. His natal chart read, took Forever. It really did. And at the end, I'm like, what? What did you learn? What happened? He was like, I don't know. It's like, okay. Did anything resonate? Yeah, kinda classic. Like, specifically, like, did she write anything down? No. Okay. So, yeah.

Did you get him to pay you back to be like, okay, well, if I don't get anything, any information, it wasn't worth the investment.

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I wanted to know why you're a squ. Scorpio. I got my tarot cards read next to him because I was just like, standing there and it was like 10 bucks. So I was like, okay. And it said that I was gonna give birth to something and refine it, like, grains of sand.

That's all about this podcast, right? This is your baby that you're birthing?

I think so so far. Last night I was in labor for six hours.

I do have in my fridge right now rosehip jam that a friend of mine brought back from Serbia, because I was told in Serbia it's a quite a common jam and it's actually quite nice. And I eat it knowing that I'm having, like, lots of vitamin C. Yeah.

I don't have a lot of experience with rose hips because not all roses produce rose hips or they don't all produce rosehip that's suitable for consumption. So usually you'll. So you can get rose hips from wild and old garden roses, and the plant has to be pollinated, and it depends on the rose species. Dog rose or rose canina has high.

Vitamin C. We have a lot of dog roses growing wild here. You can tell that they're dog roses because the hips are a little bit oblong, so they're a bit longer and like, kind of torpedo, like, and those. That's. That's characteristic of a dog rose.

Yeah. Nowadays, modern hybrid roses are bred more for their big, showy flower blooms and their scent, so they're not bred for the hips as much. So you. You might not get a rose hip on your, like, garden rose or to be small and underdeveloped, but you can't deadhead if you want rose hips. So if, you know you have a rose bush or that has rose hips, don't deadhead it.

You know, when. When I was a kid, I'm like, remembering that my brother and I made rose jelly from my aunt's rose petals one year when we were really young. And I really, really liked it. I remember with butter on toast, with butter and rose jelly. I remember being obsessed with it that. That year.

How do you make jelly like that?

I can't remember, but I believe it was just that. But I had either boiled the petals or else I in the sugar, you know, I had. When I heated up the sugar, I put a bunch of the petals in and then, and then strained them out. But I remember using like those ready made kind of like liquid pectin packets because those make it so simple and so easy.

That actually sounds really good.

Yeah, I mean I would recommend was really good.

This summer I was convinced I was gonna do enfleurage.

Excuse me?

Enfleurage. Is that, Is that.

What is that?

Do you know what that is?

Something to do with the flower petals? I don't know.

Oh, you don't know what it is? Okay, so.

No, I don't know what it is.

Okay. I thought you were just making fun of me trying to pronounce something. Fre.

That too. But no, I don't know what it is.

Yeah, I was like I, you know, I saw like a video or a tick tock or reel or something and it's the old French way of distilling the scent of a flower through pressing it in fats. And I don't have animal fats around, I'm vegetarian. And it's weird. But you can also do it in like shea butter or coconut butter. And what you do is you press it down in a big tray, press the fat. You could use butter, large Crisco. Yeah. And. And then you take the petals from the flower and just press them in in a row, leave it somewhere dark and in within like 24 to 48 hours. You have to take it out, remove the flowers and put more. And you can repeat that process for. I believe it's like. It depends on the how fragrant your flower is, but it could be like two weeks to a month repeating it. And then whatever you pressed it into will retain the smell. And so I tried it with shea butter this spring with my roses and with my mock orange and it did not work.

I love mock orange smells.

It didn't work.

I love mock orange.

It didn't work. Just like last year when I tried to make rose oil, it didn't work. Well, it got moldy. I think I left it somewhere one day and I opened it up and you know, I had been changing the flowers for like three days and then there was just mold on the shea butter. So I decided that enfleurage is not for me. I thought I was going to be a very fancy garden French peasant, but no, it didn't work. But I think you can give it a try. I might have left it out in the light, and that's why it didn't work.

That's really interesting because. Because fats don't get moldy. Right. But I guess. I guess the flour, the flowers could.

Yeah. I don't know. But what it was.

Why would it be on the fat?

It was just like a white. Yeah, it was like, white. Some white thing build up. It wasn't like a green mold. It was just some white buildup. And I was like, no, I don't. I don't want to use this.

Well, sometimes when you mix fat with, it turns white. Oh, I wonder if that's. I wonder if that's what that was. Like, just a bit of blooming on the fat.

Yeah. Maybe it wasn't mold. Oh, that's possible.

I'm sorry.

Last year, I tried to make oil.

Infused with rose, and that didn't work.

It didn't. I used grapeseed oil, and the grapeseed was so overpowering that I never really got to the. The rose smell. And so for that, you're supposed to keep the rose petals in the oil, and then you store it, you strain it, and then you do it again with new rose petals, and you strain it and. And you keep the oil sealed. And I think a little bit is the. My ADHD tendency to get bored of something. So I only did it, like two or three times, and then I was like, oh, I don't remember. Like, it didn't work. I don't know. Go, it's done. I'm doing something else now. I'm on another project now I'm doing on Flourish. But right now, I do have my newest project that I've been doing. I did it with lemon balm as well, is I'm doing a tincture, a rose tincture. And I feel like I'm gonna be better at this than I was at enfleurage or rose oil, because you just put it in Everclear, which is alcohol, very strong proof alcohol. You could use vodka, too, and let it sit for weeks and shake it once a week. I can do that. I can do that. And I'm not planning to consume this. This is. I want to do this because I. What you can do once you have the scent infused in the alcohol is you can distill it to. To just have the perfume or the scent. Will I go to the step of distillation? Yeah, probably not, but maybe.

How do you distill it? Like, is that. Do you need a special device or you can do it on the stovetop or something.

I do think you need a special device.

You haven't looked into that?

I have. At this point, you're like, I briefly looked into it. I want to see if this step even works before I purchase anything. I might buy a distiller.

Join our Patreon to be able to buy Jeanette a distiller that I'll use.

Once and get bored of. Thanks for getting slutty with us. If you liked this episode, send it to your plant friends. Email [email protected] with plants you think are slutty enough to be covered on the show. And please rate star and share with a friend so our slutty garden can grow.

Bye sluts.