What if the trees around us aren't just scenery, but living witnesses to history?

What an interesting reframe that would be, right?

The tree in your front yard witnesses you go to work and come home from work and play with your kids

and mow your lawn every day, day in and day out.

And many trees around the country have witnessed incredible moments in history, both positive and negative.

Today I'm joined by botanist, writer, storyteller, and one of my favorite plant ladies,

Beranda Montgomery. You might remember her from a couple of years ago on the podcast.

Beranda is the author of When Trees Testify, a new book that explores how trees can carry

memory, trauma, and most importantly,

wisdom across generations. She's also the author of one of our favorite books on our reading

lists, lessons from plants. This conversation is really eye-opening from ancient oaks to

apple trees and willows. After this episode, you're going to completely change how you see plants and our shared

past. Welcome to the Growing Joy with Plants podcast, where we not only learn how to care for

plants successfully, but how to simply and affordably use our plant babies to cultivate more joy in our lives by doing so.

I'm Maria, former plant killer turned happy plant lady, author of Growing Joy, The Plant Lover's Guide to

Cultivating Happiness, speaker, podcaster, and most importantly, your new best plant friend.

On Growing Joy with Plants, you'll find conversations about house plant care, gardening tutorials, and wellness through the lens of plants.

Plant care is self-care on growing joy.

Hello, hello, plant friends. Welcome. I'm Maria, your host of the podcast and best plant friend. If you're new here, welcome. If you are a returning guest, welcome home. So excited to welcome back my friend, Beranda, who was on the show a couple of years ago for her book Lessons from Plants and now for her new book, When Trees Testify, for a really interesting conversation. Before we

dive in, I just want to let you know our growing joy in 2026 two class experience is open for

enrollment. It's two separate classes in two different Sundays in February where we reflect and

release on 2025 via the lens of nature and then how we set ourselves up for

...