Hey, plant lovers and plant killers. I'm Jonathan.

And I'm Jeanette.

We're two old high school friends, current geriatric millennials.

This is Plant Sluts, the podcast where plants meet pop culture, sex, gossip, and.

All the dirt in between.

Coming to you from a backyard in.

Salem, Oregon, and a rooftop in Montreal.

Quebec, where Plant Sluts.

We're Plant Sluts.

Oh, my God.

Hey, Sluts.

Hey, Sluts. Let's share our garden status updates. Jonathan, what's been going on in your garden?

Well, everything's frozen, except that I now have on my list of things to do because I haven't yet done it, is to sow some lettuce seeds, some onion and spinach. Once it starts to get warm enough in the greenhouse, it can start growing and I can harvest. I'll have that germinate inside, like the house, and then I'll bring it up in the. To the greenhouse probably in like a month, month and a half.

So your greenhouse will be ready to start growing things pretty early in February, March.

I think by end of February, it should be good. I mean, with the heater, the bitcoin miner that I have in there, and the heating mats and the. The soil heaters, like, it'll be fine. What's your garden update?

I haven't really done anything. I think I'm avoiding all the maintenance stuff you're supposed to do over winter. But I did listen to a podcast, let's argue about plants, and they were talking about seeds, but then they got off track, which I can relate to, and they talked about starting lavender cuttings in the winter, and I thought that was such a good idea because it's something you could do in the winter. And then I'll have a lot of cuttings ready for the spring. So I have this one lavender, the French lavender, that's has done really, really well compared to like, you know, the 10 or so that die. So that one that's gotten really big and bushy. I want to do some cuttings from and have it ready to plant everywhere in the spring.

And I guess winter is a good time because it's not as hot and dry so that they're more likely to survive. Is that the kind of the idea?

I think it's just that you can do it indoors, like next year. House plants, you don't necessarily need to, like, germinate or need a certain amount of light. When you do lavender cuttings, you keep the soil moist, but then you have to be careful because if it's too moist, then they're they'll rot like lavender does.

So it's basically just because there's nothing else to do.

Yeah, there's nothing else to do. And it will get me ready for the spring. So I not doing the cuttings in the spring and having, like, nothing to plant, and then I'm not going and buying more lavender like I do every year.

So it's, like, also a financial strategy.

Yeah, exactly. Time for try weed. Try weed.

I have to go get it.

This segment, we try things that you wouldn't use. Usually try, but we all know and say, oh, it's edible. We can eat it, we can try it. So we're trying it again today, and I see Jonathan just came back with his cup of a mug filled with what looks like leaves coming out of it or grass or.

Yeah, tell us. Okay. So the. The issue is, you know, in Montreal in the winter, there's really, like, not access to anything to forage.

Yeah.

Everything is covered in snow. Everything is dead. Like, we talked a little bit about what I could eat or what I could. I could harvest. I fell on pine. Pine needles. In my research amongst, like, coniferous plants, it seems like pine needles are the only ones that you could really harvest, like, any time during the year because, you know, there's, like, spruce, like, spruce tips are really popular, but that's really only in the spring. Spring, right.

Yeah.

And I think there are some other coniferous plants, like balsam fir, where you would harvest, you know, the. The juvenile pine cones. But another issue is that it's so cold right now. It's minus 22 degrees Celsius, which I looked it up. It's minus 8 Fahrenheit.

Okay.

And I did not want to go very far. Lichen is something that we've talked about. Could. Is possible.

Yeah.

But lichen doesn't really grow much on trees in the city that they live more on, like, trees in the forest. There was also rose hips is another thing that you could. That you could harvest. But I don't know, around me within, like, a quick, hurried walk where I would be able to find rose hips. And there's also things like rowan do, you know, like mountain ash? It's a tree has, like, kind of berries. Sometimes they're like orange berries, Sometimes they're like a deep kind of orangey red.

You did a spooky plant episode on that.

Exactly.

On our Instagram.

And you want to harvest it during the winter because you need them to kind of overripen. And I think it's called, like, bled. So they have to kind of get, like, really soft and overripen. So this would be the time to, I guess, harvest those if the birds have. Haven't already gotten to them. So I have a very. Access to a very cool website, which is called, like, in English, the art. The Trees of Montreal, which is the city of Montreal, has an online database of all trees and species of trees in the city. So it's like an inventory of all of them and. And also, like, they have the conditions and. And, like, what the condition of the tree is and that. That whatnot. So I basically, from the comfort of my warm house, went on and was like, where are there pine trees around me in, like, a very quick walk. And so it seems like actually there's not that many pine trees, and I'm thinking it's not a good city tree. But in the park right next to my community garden, there's actually Austrian pine. And so that's what I went. I went over there to harvest.

I'm not a tree expert. A pine tree is the same as, like, most Christmas trees. That's what we're working with here. Okay.

No, no, no, no, no, no.

Okay.

Okay. So pine trees are long, like, very thin, long needles.

Oh, yeah.

That usually come out, I believe, in five fives from a little cuticle. And usually it's like five sticks. Needles, I guess you would call them, that stick out, and that's pine. So usually they look a little bit like, furrier, you know, than like, spruce, which is what I believe. I think it's spruce and fur. That are often Christmas trees. Those are, like, shorter needles. And I think that the needles are a lot, like, harder.

Yeah. And I've accidentally eaten one. I don't remember. It, like, fell into something and I got rid of. Really sick. So I was worried you were about to eat a Christmas tree leaf.

Oh, really? Well, people. Because people also eat spruce. Like, there's spruce beer and spruce soda. Hemlock you're not supposed to eat. So maybe it was a hemlock.

Poison hemlock.

Yeah. So what I did is I brought it home, I washed it because it's the city and there's probably lots of dust on it. Yeah. And I crunched them up. So I. I cut them off of the branch and I crushed them up with my hands and then poured some boiling water onto it. My ca is, like, so interested. Did you see that? She. She's, like, trying to smell it. She's like, what the is this?

She's like, I want some.

No, she does not. No. Okay. So I. I let it steep. It's been steeping for quite a while, so I'm expecting it to be pretty strong. And like, I don't know if you can see Jeanette, but it's, like, packed with pine needles, so I think.

Wait, are you going to, like, take the needles out? Like, they're just.

No, no, I was just going to drink with the needles.

I mean, I'm not in, like. Like a little diffuser thing, like, where you like, like.

But there's so many needles and they're so big.

It's just described. It's just like a cup. It's a mug stuffed with needles, like jam packed. I don't even see any water.

There's water in there. There's water. Well, I don't know.

All right, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. Is this what is recommended? How to drink it?

I was busy tonight. I have so much stuff to do. This is. This is. This is the best I could do.

Okay. It's gonna be super strong, I think. I don't know.

I'm not gonna be. I'm not, like, imagining that I'm gonna be enjoying this throughout the podcast. I just want to take a sip and see what.

Okay. Just one sip and you won't probably get any needles in your mouth. All right, Go for it.

It'll just tickle my lips.

Okay. He died.

I don't know, Janette. It's like. It's like. It's such an interesting taste. It's actually not bad. H. And it's not strong. It's not really as strong as I thought it would, considering how many there are in there. But it's also like. I imagine because it's winter, it's also not as strong. Cuz, like, in the spring would be when there's a lot more of the, like, SAP, you know, the. The like gummy kind of SAP. But it actually kind of tastes a bit sweet. Oddly. There's a sweetness to it. Maybe like even a bit like eucalyptusy.

Yeah, that's what I would think it would be like. I'm surprised you're continuing to sip it, so that must be good. I was kind of expecting like a poof sound right after you took your first sip. This is Australian spruce. Austrian spruce.

Austrian spruce.

Austrian spruce.

No, Austrian. Austrian pine.

Oh, my goodness. I really pay attention. Austrian pine. And it tastes pretty good, kind of sweet. And to go into our Apocalypse Gardening episode, to go back to that. So if you do end up needing to just make tea out of random tree leaves, it's not bad. And it's not poisonous.

We'll find out by the end of this episode.

Oh, nice. I love a cliffhanger.

It is not poisonous. And I have to say that you really should look at identification guides and not harvest anything that you're unsure of what the species is. So I was pretty confident because I did have on like, a map the GPS location of this, of this tree, and there were no other trees that looked similar around it, so that I was like, very sure. 100 sure this was the Austrian pine.

Yeah.

But yeah, I would say that you really should make sure that you, you don't harvest poisonous plants.

Yeah, that's a good tip. And, and you also, with what you're studying, kind of understand some of the features in plants to look for maybe more than just someone who's doing it for the first time as a hobby.

Yeah, I'm learning. I took a class last semester that was kind of an intro to horticulture and botany, which helped us use keys to identify exactly, like, what a species is.

Yeah, I think that's important. Speaking of tea, time to grab a mug, pick some herbs and spill the tea. Jonathan, I heard that you have more tea for us this episode.

So I have a friend who told me a story that I thought was quite interesting and funny, and so I thought that this would be a good medium to tell it.

Okay.

This friend was riding around, I believe, on his bicycle in the countryside. So he kind of lives in more of a rural area and was kind of feeling a little bit like, I guess, frisky, and went into the forest. I think he was like 14 or 15 years old at this point.

Okay.

He went into the forest and saw like a bunch of like, milkweed probably growing along the edge and decided that, like, he would touch himself with the milkweed.

Oh, okay, hold on, hold on, hold on. Touch himself. Cuz I just saw you touch your chest. Is that what you mean?

No. Okay, got it, got it. Yeah.

Wait, is this person into plants right now? Just as a side question, define into.

At this point, because we're.

Yeah.

Like, does he like plants or is he like a fetish?

Yeah, like really, really obsessed with plants. Because I'm, I'm, I'm just wondering if it turned into a relationship with, like, do you know them through plants?

No.

Okay.

No, I was just checking.

It's a slippery slope.

It is. And it's actually, it turns out it's like an itchy slope. Very uncomfortable. Because what he didn't realize and what I didn't know until I heard the story is that it can actually cause a lot of, like, irritation. Skin irritation.

Yeah.

It ended up causing, like, a really blistering rash all over his genitals. He had to go to the doctor and explain what happened, you know, because, like, the doctor needs to know, like, what is. What has caused this? You know, Is it like an sti? I don't know.

Yeah. Like, I fell on a showy milkweed bush when I was praying.

Yeah. And so that. That was just, like, an embarrassing story that for him and I. Yeah.

What I find really funny is that this person told the story to more people than just their doctor.

To what, another person? I guess.

You could not peel this story out of my cold, dead hands. Like, I would not tell the story of my teenage years riding past the forest, seeing some showy milkweed and, like, a monarch being like, oh, hell yeah. And going over to it and mating.

I guess milkweed does have, like, a nice feel to it.

Oh, does it?

Remember correctly, it has. It has, like, a bit of, like, a fur.

Like, I could see if you were like, lamb's ear. I'm like, okay, okay.

Oh, my God. Lamb's ear.

Lamb's ear. No. That'll be our next foraging try instead of eating it. Yeah. I'm just looking at it, and I don't really see anything in particular about the leaves that would stop me in my tracks.

I think it's, like, underneath if. Yeah, well. Well, yeah.

I mean, but that's me.

I'm not the kind of person that would do things like that in the woods. Like, I'm way too. I'm way too distracted, and I think it would scare me that someone could see me.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And why pay rent or mortgage? Like, that's. That's what all that money goes towards. To have a private space to do stuff with milkweed.

Right.

That's hilarious. If you have any garden tea, send us. Or really just stories of misadventures in your youth, send us an email@plantsletspod Gmail.com. This episode we're going to talk about tulips.

The classic spring ephemeral. I'm sorry, I had to use. You looked at me like. You're like. Don't use that word.

Like, what does ephemeral mean?

Ephemeral means it, like, comes and goes. So it's like a spring ephemeral. It means it comes in the spring. Spring, and then it dies and goes dormant for the rest of the season.

Oh, yeah.

So, Jeanette, why did you choose tulip for today?

Lately, I've been really obsessed with floral still life paintings from the Dutch Golden Age. I don't know if you can imagine it, but they have like dark backgrounds and it's basically just like flowers. And when you start looking closely, there's like little bees or snails or a dead frog. A lot of them have tulips. And I love these paintings mostly because they kind of satisfy that lust for looking at art and looking at plants.

What is the Dutch Golden Age? Literally, like when they were possibly winning, like the colonial race?

The Dutch Golden Age is an art period when Vermeer was painting and like when the Girl with the Pearl Earring was painted and a lot of like, just advancement in art.

Okay.

Specifically in that region. You know the Dutch Golden Age.

Well, now you do.

Tulips were often featured in those paintings. And they were there to serve as a reminder that everything dies, which is also known as memento mori in art and in Catholicism. They're a reminder because they have that short lived bloom that only lasts like two weeks. So when person would look at a painting like that, they would kind of see that message through the painting. And often these paintings have other reminders of like life and death. Like I was saying, like the dead frog or there might be a skull or something that kind of gives you a message besides just looking pretty. Those paintings weren't necessarily to just show the great blooms, but we will talk about how people did paint tulips to kind of just show status, but it's also kind of giving you that message that's dark. It's also one of the first flowers of the year to appear, and I'm ready for spring. So I wanted to talk about tulips. Jonathan, do you grow any tulips or have you planted any tulip bulbs?

I have planted tulips. The problem is that they look nice the first time that you plant them, and then they just kind of get not so nice in. In the next years. I've appreciated some of the more subtle tulip, completely white ones, maybe lighter colors, that kind of thing.

Yeah, I planted some. Two years ago I planted some white tulips. I forget what they were called, but I also planted the queen of the night tulips, which are the very, very dark, almost black ones.

Dark, right?

Yeah. And they. They bloomed at different times, so it was kind of like the white ones popped up and then when they were done, the black ones popped up. Let's start with what a tulip flower actually is. So it is a bulb and it's not a seed grown Annual flower. Jonathan, can you tell us the difference between a bulb and a seed? On that slutty or reproductive level?

Seeds are formed by plant sex other than self pollinated plants. Like, they need to actually, you know, exchange their genetic information and then they form like offspring. Right. That's different from the parents. And so because of that, the seeds have greater genetic diversity than their parents. The bulbs that you would plant in the ground, those are actually like clones. So they're like genetically identical. It's not as good for plant diversity. I mean, there's all different kinds of things that we would refer to as bulbs, but there's actually like a difference. But for the tulip, the bulb is actually a leaf. So it's like an engorged leaf that kind of retracts back into the ground and that's where it stores all of its, like, carbohydrates and energy to then erupt, grow in the, the next year. Whereas if you grow it from seed. Right. It needs to accumulate that year by year, all of that energy, all those carbohydrates that might not flower very soon because it hasn't accumulated enough resources. But the bulb has, like all those resources already kind of stored inside of it.

Yeah. And that's the reason they're one of the first flowers to blossom in the spring. They're locking all that energy side waiting underground in dormancy. They need a couple weeks of cold temperatures, 35 to 48 degrees Fahrenheit, or 2 to 9 degrees Celsius to break the dormancy and trigger that internal chemistry that leads to flower formation. And then once the soil starts to warm, the bulbs move really fast. They bloom early because trees don't have the leaves yet, so there's a lot more sunlight.

That makes sense.

And then they're also really colorful and like, pretty because the pollinators are scarce. So they have to be super obvious about like, come pollinate with me, auntie, garden style. That's why I think we see a lot of really vibrant colors in tulips. So the bulb is why tulips and even daffodils and crocus seem to explode out of the ground in the spring suddenly. And we're all like, yay, warm weather.

Yeah, it's like such a nice sign.

Yeah.

And you also are able to kind of see microclimates, I find, in that way, because you might be walking in a place and you'll notice that there's like tulips coming up here, but they're not coming up over there. Or you can see it because, you know, you can see, like, where some tulips are flowering and the other ones are only just emerging. And you can kind of say, like, oh, it must be colder here than it is on that side of the road.

Yeah.

So I have a question. Do you know where they originate? Because I know the Netherlands is something that we think of as being the source of a lot of tulips.

They probably originate between modern day Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and far western China. I think that's where, like, the Ottoman Empire was at some point. And speaking of art, which I just have been lately, besides in the Dutch golden age, the tulip was featured in a lot of Ottoman Empire imagery, like pottery tombstones, prayer mats. And it's still featured a lot in those regions today. But tulips originated in areas with hills, mountains, and rocky valleys, which makes sense because their areas was sharply draining soil. And then the blooms spread around the caucuses. That's where many species tulips originate in horticulture.

When you say something is like a species tulip, for instance, you're talking about, like, the original varieties of a certain species that haven't been, like, hybridized or bred into, like, more ornamental varieties.

The tulips that we typically buy and see in our, like, suburban or whatever yards are hybrids. Like, if you searched it to, like, buy species tulips, you're talking about a more perennial tulip. Like, you mentioned how your tulips just kind of got dimmer and dimmer every year.

Yeah.

Because they were a hybrid species, will keep growing year on year, increasing in their vigor and spreading naturally. I saw a lot of pictures of them with pointy petals, and maybe they open up wider than the other tulips, the hybrids. And there's about 76 species in southwestern Europe, North Africa, central Asia.

So the species tulips, those aren't the ones that the Dutch pioneered or became, like, obsessed with back in the day?

No, the Dutch were definitely obsessing over the hybrid versions. You may have heard of tulipomania. Have you heard of tulipomania?

I can't say that I have heard or know what that word means, but I can guess. Yeah, I think you're about to tell me.

Yeah. Thank you. I did a lot of research. Tulipomania was a time during the 17th century where the Dutch people were obsessed with tulips, specifically the hybrid bulbs, which were technically broken bulbs or bulbs with a tulip breaking virus on them. They were flamed, feathered, had multicolored streaks on the petals.

So that is Actually caused by a virus.

Yeah, there was a virus spread by aphids that infected the bulbs and would cause the cultivar to break its lock on a single color. So it would have intricate bars and stripes and different colors on the petals. Semper Augustus was the most legendary and expensive. And that's the red and white streak tulip. If you have been looking at Dutch still life paintings from the 17th century, you definitely have seen it.

Of course. Of course.

And that's the one that really went for the big money back then.

So finally we have a virus that people actually want and that's fun and that improves our lives.

Well, yeah, but it did weaken the plants long term, but the humans kept propagating them anyway for the esthetics. And even modern commercial tulips are bred for how they look and not longevity to, you know, keep the garden centers open. Right now, the US and Great Britain and other countries prohibit the sale of broken bulbs or bulbs known to be infected by tulip breaking virus. Tulips arrived in the Dutch Republic in the early 1600s as this exotic luxury import from the Ottoman Empire. And they were really rare and the flower was like unfamiliar. And it made it status coded. And this tulipomania was like a perfect storm of the region having wealth from this new global trade. It was filled with people comfortable with speculation, like shipping bros. Spice trade Bros. Insurance bros. And speaking of bros, any finance bro listeners might have learned about tulipomania during their MBA education because it's often called the first recorded speculative bubble. And not because people were dumb, but it was a speculative bubble because prices detached from the practical value of a tulip bulb.

Interesting.

They were kind of traded for resale.

So it was like the first crisis in capitalism in some way, like a real unhinged market, not unlike what we're feeling today.

Yeah, nothing like today. In the 1620s, the entire supply of the Semper Augustus bulb, that white one with the red streaks, was in the hands of one owner. And they saw the price rise from a thousand guilders per bulb in 1623 to 3000 guilders in 1625, which is like going from $10,000 to $30,000.

That's for one bulb.

One bulb. And the best tulips eventually cost upward of a million in today's money. And because it made commercial sense for a grower to buy that one bulb for, you know, the equivalent of 10,000 or $30,000, because they'd be taking that risk that the bulbs would retain the price. And then if one bulb Produced three offsets a year for three years. In theory, he'd have nine bulbs, you know, to sell. And that would be an amazing return on investment.

And an offset would be like one other bulb that emerges out of like, the main bulb.

Yeah. So you're imagining if you bought a bulb for 10,000 and then it. You think, well, it'll reproduce and become three bulbs. You've just tripled your money.

Right.

I know if I lived back then, my husband would be coming home with secret bulbs in his pockets, being like, no, you don't get it. These are going to make us rich. The story of tulipomania versus what really happened can kind of be confusing because really the prices for these bulbs were for elite ultra rare bulbs. And it wasn't the everyday person buying these bulbs. Most people were trading, like, modest varieties. So there was this idea that everyone went bankrupt over the flowers, but that's exaggerated. But the top of the market was really unhinged.

So it wasn't like every single tulip that was like this. But the Semper Augustus that you mentioned was kind of like the Birkin bag of bulbs.

That's right, girl. But here's where it gets interesting. Most of the trading actually happened in winter when bulbs were underground. So people weren't even buying flowers. They were buying, like, the promise of a bulb. People would sign contracts to buy bulbs where they haven't even seen the color, but they are believing that it will.

Be this specific bulb that is unhinged.

Thinking about this today, especially if you've grown tulips, this seems really dumb to put all your money into tulip bulbs because, like, now we know, like, it can rot in wet weather. There's viruses, squirrels eat them. And if you even grow your tulip and allow it to produce seed, the bulb is also weakened. So I think there was just a lot of hype around these bulbs and not necessarily by experienced gardeners because these were very new. So it's like you got to buy this bulb and you're like, cool. Like, it was like me last year when I bought $50 worth of bulbs. Like, I didn't know what I was doing, but I, you know, figured, how hard could it be? And then I had like two tulips.

It didn't cost you like your entire life savings.

I know, and I still regret that. $50, you know, the market got really high for bulbs, but then there was a crash in early 1637. Basically, buyers just stopped showing up at the auctions and the confidence in the price evaporated. So the prices fell rapidly.

So it's kind of like the Beanie Baby phenomenon. They just all of a sudden stop buying them and then suddenly your Princess Diana bear is buried at the bottom of your closet and forgotten to time.

Exactly. That's what happened. And unlike the later moralistic storytelling, total ruin didn't happen. There wasn't like mass starvation or a national economic collapse or society ending chaos. There was a writer later that kind of used it as a cautionary tale about greed.

Interesting.

So this whole tulipa media is just kind of like. It's kind of like that crypto that heats your greenhouse. John.

I don't know if I like that comparison.

Well, let's say if you're not using it to heat your greenhouse, like people buying Crypto now or NFTs, you're investing on this promise of something being worth something. But it's, it doesn't have any actual value. So it looks irrational now, especially since we've been gardening and growing tulips for so long. But at the time it just seemed like a high risk investment and some people went for it. But it wasn't just about the flowers. Tulipomania is really famous because it was learning like for the first time that markets just run on belief and humans just make all this shit up.

Yes, yes. The market exists because we operate along these like, conventions of, of like transactions.

Like money isn't really a thing unless we make it one.

And that's why you should send all of your money to us. Please send it to gmail dot com.

I don't know how to send money to an email, but just try. There were also tulip crazes though in the 7th century France and 18th century Ottoman Empire. So tulips tend to like, you know, excite entire regions, like in the same.

Way that milkweed might excite someone.

I don't know if they were that exciting. Not to bum everyone out, but the iconic Semper Augustus tulip, famous for the red and white kind of feathered virus induced pattern, no longer exists. No, because the virus that created its look weakened the bulbs over generations, causing them to die out shortly after that. Dutch tulipomania. But there are modern, healthier varieties with similar appearances that you can get.

Moment of silence for Semper Augustus, please let us remember.

I don't think there's music in a moment of silence.

Oh shit. Jeanette. Fuck that. Tell me about the astrological chart for, for this flower.

Oh yeah, yeah, I looked it up and tulips are feminine. They're an Earth sign. And their ruling planet is Venus, which makes them a Taurus. Bitch. Do you know any Tauruses?

No, not really, actually.

Okay. They're ruled by Venus, so they share Venus's characteristics of elegance, artistry, hedonism, love of luxury, comfort.

Oh, yeah.

But Taurian women are also bullheaded, but it's just because they love doing their job. And Taurus women kind of get mistaken for being stubborn because they want to do things correctly. They're not going to obey someone unless they actively consider you to be their superior. And they can be really good musicians, photographers, authors, and gardeners.

And they can be very exceptional flowers, I guess, as well.

Exactly. Yes. Or maybe they'll be really good at growing tulips. If you're a Taurus woman and you grow tulips really well, please get in touch and tell us your. Your stories. So I don't have any Taurus in my birth chart. I don't even know how I kept any of these tulips alive. But, Jonathan, your true note is in Taurus.

Whoa. I have no idea what that means.

I know.

I know what is my true node.

So I just wanted to bring it back to us because it's fun.

Yeah, I want to talk about us.

Yeah, exactly. You have an Aries sun, Libra moon, and Cancer rising. We've already established this, I'm sure, in some episode.

Right.

You have your true node in taurus in the 10th house.

Okay.

This kind of means you have a life shift from being emotionally intense towards grounded visibility in the outer world. Having your true node in Taurus means you need the lessons of steadiness, patience, trusting what you build over time.

Okay.

And as an Aries sun, it might feel counterintuitive because you would prefer quick movement, fresh starts, but growth will happen when you slow down and let things mature.

Okay.

Also, your true node is in the 10th house, which means that the growth is happening publicly. So it would relate to your career or your reputation or this podcast. Yeah. Like slow growth. You will become known for being reliable, a calm authority or practical leader, and you'll gain respect through consistency and not a big spectacle. But then it also means that your south node, which is opposite, is in Scorpio in the fourth house.

Right.

So you might come from a pattern of, like, you started off with a lot of emotional intensity or complicated home dynamics.

Okay. Yes.

So you know how to survive in those extremes. And the challenge for you in life, like, your life path, is not to get stuck in that and to grow and. And choose peace. Over drama and security, over that emotional entanglement.

My therapist is right. I feel like this is stuff that. That gets talked about in therapy, to be honest.

Have your therapist, like, listen to this part of the podcast and be like. Like, do you include astrology in your sessions?

Because you should.

There is a psychic therapist in Salem. I've driven past it. It just says psychic therapist. And I'm always like, I need to stop there. I need a therapist. But I also want a little extra something.

Please do it a little psychic. Please do it. Do it for this podcast.

Having to sit and meet a new person seems terrifying, but maybe I will one day.

That probably indicates that you need therapy and psychic therapy. Oh.

So I've been dying to know, Jonathan, is the tulip, in your opinion, classy or trashy?

I'm glad you asked because I always love giving my opinions on things you might not like. The fact that I think generally a tulip is kind of trashy. Yeah. And it has to do with that, like, matant. Like, anti. Thing. Yeah. Like, it just feels too, like, trying to make an effort of planting stuff.

You know, and now knowing that you have to plant them so often, it's like, very try hard. And they tend to be really, like, yellow, pink, like these very, like.

Yeah.

Like Easter colors that are just, like, over the top. Unless you can find some of those, like, interesting varieties.

Maybe the ones that I did plant, I really liked. They were white, almost, like green. Like, they were very subtle, and I really liked that because it wasn't trying to be. And those, I think, are classy. And especially, like you're saying, I think that when you go into, like, species tulips, they look really, really classy because they're not as. Assuming they're smaller. They invite you kind of, like, in to, like, look at them. Whereas, like, a tulip kind of looks like a regular tulip, like a, you know, a hybrid tulip. It's like you're meant to see it from far. You know, it's like it's. It really does, like, pop out at you.

Smacks you across the face.

Exactly. Yeah. It smacks you in the ass while you walk past it. Yeah. But, yeah, so I would say generally it's trashy, but there are, like, more classy varieties that I would. I would opt for.

Well, thanks for getting slutty with us.

If you like this episode, send it to your plant friends. Email us with plants you think are slutty enough to be covered on the show, and we'll try our best to do that.

Make sure to subscribe and rate on Spotify, Apple podcasts wherever you listen. And thank you to everyone that already.

Did does subscribe and share this with a friend so our study garden can grow.

Bye sluts.

Bye sluts.

Before we start the episode, the other part of the episode, your. Does your friend listen to this?

Yeah.

Do you think I was too mean about it? Like making fun of them or it was like light teasing?

No, no, no. Okay.

Because it was, it was like, it was fucking ridiculous. That was a fucking ridiculous story. Like what the fuck you stopping? You stop and masturbate with showing milkweed. What the fuck? Sorry. I don't know what it's like to be a 15 year old boy.

It's hard. I mean it's difficult.

I mean but I. There's just so many. Okay. There's so many things.

Wow.

Okay. That's.

Okay. Okay.