Growing Together: A Gardening Podcast · Forum Communications Co.

Deck your halls with knowledge about Christmas trees and poinsettias

·52 min·5 clips

John Lamb and Don Kinsler open on a wintery holiday mood. Snow sits on the ground in Fargo, the rabbits are easier to track, and the conversation starts with protecting plants before turning toward seasonal plants. Christmas trees come first. Don explains them as a crop, not something to feel sad about cutting down, and compares harvesting them to harvesting wheat to make bread. They are grown for this. A six- to eight-foot tree can take about 10 years to produce, and that long runway means shaping, shearing, acreage, and a steady cycle of replanting each year to keep the farm going. That planning is the hard part. The show spends time on the grower’s perspective, including the need to think ahead almost 10 years about what customers may want and whether the trend toward artificial trees will continue. The trees are still useful while they grow. Don notes that they produce oxygen, provide habitat for wildlife, and do the normal work plants do while they are in the field. The mood stays gentle. Rather than treating cutting a tree as something to feel guilty about, the hosts frame it as harvesting a crop, which keeps the holiday topic grounded and practical. Poinsettias enter at the edge of the conversation. The closing stretch invites listeners to write in about indoor plants they are keeping through the season, including poinsettias they have managed to grow year after year and even coax into blooming again. That listener angle matters. It keeps the episode from becoming a one-note seasonal lecture and gives the show room to be neighborly, curious, and a little amused. The advice stays usable. You come away with a clearer sense of how holiday plants fit into a working garden calendar, and with a reminder that even festive purchases have roots in planning and patience. The hosts leave the door open. Anyone with a tree, a poinsettia, or a winter yard to look after will hear something familiar and useful.

As heard by us

A plainspoken holiday gardening chat about Christmas trees, poinsettias, and the long view behind seasonal plants.

This holiday gardening episode stays close to the work itself. It treats Christmas trees as a field crop, then circles back to poinsettias and other indoor plants at the end.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

Before you trim the tree, hear how Christmas trees are grown, shaped, and harvested like a real crop.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from Growing Together: A Gardening Podcast