Orlagh and Cat
62 episodes listed below
Slow nature talk for everyday noticing.
Beneath the Canopy Nature Connection follows Kat and Orla as they trade small nature updates, practical invitations, and relaxed deep dives into the living world. The show moves from sea swimming, grass, moss, light, darkness, frogs, trees, and gardens into broader reflections on mood, memory, tradition, and attention.
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Beneath the Canopy Nature Connection is built around the idea that ordinary contact with nature can still be meaningful. Kat and Orla make that case through conversation, not grand instruction. Their episodes often begin with a simple weekly check-in. One week it is a cold camping trip. Another brings sea swimming, a charity dawn walk, polytunnel planting, or the sight of spring bulbs outside the door. These personal openings give the show its grounded feel. The deeper sections then move into a chosen theme, but the route is rarely rigid. Grass leads to bare feet, childhood habits, fresh-cut scent, and the way plants respond to pressure or damage. Smell leads to gorse, moss, coffee, rhubarb, candles, fake pine, and the strange power of changing air. Light leads to ponds, rivers, sparkling water, moonlit forest walks, bats, and the altered senses that come with darkness. Trees bring folklore, Celtic tradition, hawthorn, holy wells, and playful stories about wishes and offerings. The show is especially strong when it connects sensory detail to practical invitations. It does not demand wilderness access or athletic performance. A listener can take from it a slower walk, a pause at a patch of grass, a visit to the sea, or a fresh reason to notice the season changing. The conversation also returns to mental health, community, parenting, work-from-home loneliness, and the relief of having somewhere outside ordinary routine to go. There is light promotion for forest bathing and family nature events, but the main appeal is the steady companionship of two people thinking aloud about the outdoors. It is casual and sometimes repetitive in a useful way. Ideas are explained, restated, and softened into plain English. The result is a nature show for people who want permission to pay attention, not pressure to become perfect outdoorspeople.
Made for: Best for listeners who like gentle outdoor reflection, seasonal self-care, forest bathing, folklore, gardens, and sensory nature practices. It also suits people looking for low-pressure ways to reconnect with nearby green spaces.
What sets it apart: The show stands out through its practical, lived-in duo format: each topic begins with ordinary weekly experience before widening into nature knowledge, tradition, and small invitations. It feels companionable and local rather than glossy or instructional.
Beneath the Canopy is your weekly invitation to slow down, take a deep breath, and reconnect with the natural world. Hosted by Forest Bathing guides Orlagh and Cat, each episode offers gentle, grounded ways to weave nature connection into your everyday life.They talk about everything nature: from forest bathing and seasonal self-care to Celtic traditions, foraging, mental health, and sustainability. Orlagh and Cat explore how nature connection can support you in your everyday life. Their motto is “Some is better than none.” Whether you have five minutes or fifty, they share practical tips, mindful exercises, and heartfelt reflections to help...
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Kat and Orla make everyday encounters with trees, grass, light and scent into practical invitations to pay closer attention outdoors.
Beneath the Canopy Nature Connection turns close observation into an approachable two-host conversation. Kat and Orla begin with recent encounters outdoors, then follow a sensory or seasonal theme through personal experience and practical suggestions.
Oak trees turn up in Kat's polytunnel; you might start suspecting the squirrels run a nursery.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A calm, practical episode about camping, training, and paying closer attention to the outdoors.
The episode is at its strongest when it settles into the small, familiar realities of camping in May: cold nights, rain, a pub stop before the tent, and the simple relief of not having midges or ticks to worry about.
A cold swim and fresh-cut grass become a vivid lesson in attention.
A weekly nature-connection practice becomes a quietly physical study of how the body and grass register the living world. Orla's return to sea swimming gives the episode its brisk opening charge: after managing only 90 seconds in the water at Dun Laoghaire in January, she…
A sunrise walk opens into a personal conversation about smell and everyday nature connection.
Beneath the Canopy keeps its focus on smell, moving from the 5 a.m. Crack of Dawn walk at Avondale Forest Park into a chain of remembered scents, from fake pine spray in a bathroom to gorse, coffee, moss, rhubarb, and geranium oil.
Hawthorn is framed through folklore, seasonal detail, and caution, with a practical family event at the end.
Orla and Kat move through hawthorn, ancestor knowledge, and the small practical details that keep the tree grounded in everyday life. Shli na sinseir is presented as the way of the ancestors, while Aoife Laudan, described as a Dinefassa, opens out the idea that ancestral…
Oak trees in a polytunnel, moonlit forest bathing, and rain heard differently in the dark.
Beneath the Canopy moves from oak trees growing in a polytunnel to light on ponds, rivers, and the sea, then on to moonlit forest bathing and the sharper sound of rain in the dark.
A grounded conversation about barefoot walking and what shoes change.
Beneath the Canopy starts with daffodils, a wet February, and the feeling that March is beginning to turn. Orla and Kat then settle into barefoot walking in the forest, reflexology, and the simple difference it makes when feet are no longer shut away in shoes.
Fast takes from the fandom pressure cooker.
Slow audio from wherever the path leads.
Practical voices from the Great Loop.
Warm Lutheran sermons for honest faith.
Travel stories with the logistics left in.
Pittsburgh lives, told long.
Kat and Orla start with May arriving and the first camping trips of the season.
Beneath the Canopy's "Green green grass" centers on Orla and Kat talking about grass as a living, flowering plant, not just a mowed surface in Ireland or elsewhere.
Kat and Orla open by asking how each connected to nature this week.
The hosts discuss planning summer holidays with a focus on outdoor activities in northwest England, particularly the seaside, while reflecting on childhood connections to nature.
Hosts discuss integrating nature into daily life through gardening and seasonal activities, promoting wellness and nature connection.
Orla and Kat start with Shli na sinseir.
Kat and Orla open with their weekly nature check-in.
Orla and Kat open with daffodils by the front door.