Prune For Growth

Winter hands us a quiet invitation: press pause, clear the clutter, and set the stage for stronger growth. We take you into the garden at dormancy and show how smart pruning—removing dead wood, thinning crowded branches, and opening the canopy—translates directly to better health, clearer focus, and sturdier relationships. When sap slows, a clean cut heals faster; when life slows, a firm boundary heals clearer. Both choices free resources for what truly matters.

We break down the plant science in plain language—airflow, transpiration, and photosynthesis—and connect it to the human energy budget. Too many branches create shade and disease; too many commitments create noise and burnout. By thinning intentionally, plants channel nutrients to fewer, stronger limbs and bigger fruit. People do the same: more attention for deep bonds, real projects, and restorative habits. Along the way, we talk about the trap of mistaking kindness for connection, how to spot toxic ties, and why pruning your circle can feel awkward at first but pays off in resilience.

There’s a mental health layer here too. Gardening naturally pulls us into a meditative state where time slides and stress eases. The quick wins are real and healthy: a cleaned bed, a shaped tree, a compost pile that turns waste into rich soil. Biodiversity improves, the system steadies, and strength returns—whether you’re tending a backyard orchard or your weekly schedule. We also share a personal reset story: cutting back work, space, and relationships to regain energy after a health scare, and how the “sparse” season led to better fruit down the line.

If this resonates, take a winter walk through your own canopy. Decide what stays, what goes, and what gets composted into something better. Then tell us what you’re pruning this season. Subscribe, share with a friend who needs permission to cut back, and leave a review to help more listeners find the show.

Intro for podcast

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Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Winter Focus
• 0:39 Why Prune During Dormancy
• 1:30 Garden Lessons For Personal Health
• 2:26 Pruning To Promote Plant Growth
• 3:33 From Trees To Relationships
• 6:44 Kindness, Boundaries, And Misread Signals
• 6:44 Disease Prevention In Gardens And Life
• 8:56 Airflow, Resources, And Focus
• 13:15 Mindfulness And The Zen Of Gardening
• 15:10 Nature Connection, Soil, And Biodiversity
• 18:35 Strength Through Thinning And A Personal Reset
• 21:19 Seasonal Reflection And Personal Pruning
• 23:32 Thanks, Subscribers, And Guest Invite

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:13

Well, hello, and welcome back to the Healthy Living Podcast. I'm your host, Joe Grumbine, and today we're gonna talk a little bit about some of the seasonal elements of gardening and therapeutic horticulture, like we do at Gardens of Hope. So it's uh winter's just begun, and this is the time of year that we do a lot of cleaning and pruning, and um this is a time when a lot of the plants go dormant, so it's a good time uh to do that. When a plant or a tree is active or evergreen, when you make a cut, a lot of times the sap will continue to flow, and that can be problematic, especially but with a deciduous tree or plant, when you cut a branch, the sap's not flowing anymore, so it's not likely to cause problems, disease, or even attract bugs. So one of the things that I like to do from the gardens are look at the lessons or the chores or the tasks that we need to do and contrast and compare to the human experience. Many times the things that we need to do in the garden can be directly connected to things that we do or need to do with ourselves for health, whether it's physical, mental, spiritual, or whatever. And so when we talk about pruning branches, there's a lot of connections to health, both in a metaphorical sense relating to personal well-being, and also a more tangible sense involving the health of plants and ecosystems. So just to begin, I think one of the most important things is when you start pruning away branches, um, it promotes growth, removes dead or diseased branches, allowing the plant to allocate reared sources better. So, for example, uh trees will often grow clusters of branches, and sometimes they'll cross each other, they'll grow back in towards the center of the tree. Um they'll they'll compete for the same light, and they take a lot of resources. So when you thin those out and you take uh, I don't know, maybe eight or ten branches and leave two, those two that are left are gonna get better light, they're gonna get better nutrition, um, better, better water, better everything. And if you have a fruit tree or or a plant that produces fruits or vegetables or herbs, uh they will generally produce better. Well, let's compare that to the human experience, you know. Um when we surround ourselves with too many people, we we have uh a group of of just a lot of people in our in our circle. How can you connect with them all? You know, how can you spend time with each of them? How can you give yourself what's required to make a good relationship? You can't. You know, you give everybody a tidbit and you connect on some level, probably you listen less uh attentively than you might. Um, there's so many things that you're not gonna do as well. And if you are honest and you give your attention and resources to those of in your life that you actually feel connected to, I think you're gonna find that your those relationships are gonna grow better and be more sustained. They're gonna be deeper, they're gonna be um more resilient. If there's ever a problem, you know, you have more connection, more uh what do they call that, emotional collateral to pull from. So I think that there's a definitely a direct correlation um in pruning when it comes to our lives, our social life, our um our life of relationships. And what does that mean? You know, maybe we're mindful of who where people fit into our life. I think a lot of times when somebody's nice to us or pleasant, we tend to elevate them to, you know, an inner circle status pretty quickly. At least I've been guilty of that in my life in a in a bad way. And I think part of it is because my nature is to be trusting and to say, well, if you're nice to me, that's because you care about me. And truth is more often than not, that's has no relationship at all. A lot of times people are nice to you. More often than not, people are nice to you because you have something they want, or they have some some uh way to gain from being in your presence or or um connected to you in some way. So a lot of times we mistake kindness for connection, and a lot of times people mistake our kindness for weakness, and I know that's happened to me many, many times, and then when you do end up pruning or disconnecting, immediately you become a bad guy, you become a villain, and you know what, you just need to be able to handle that, take it, because you know yourself and it is what it is. So the next piece of this puzzle is um disease prevention. So when you remove branches, especially where areas that are really thick, a lot of times you might have already some either disease or bug bugs or eggs. Um when branches are connected too closely, um, they create an environment where disease can grow. There's things can start to rot, there's less airflow, the light doesn't come in. There's all kinds of reasons for that. And um so when you when you thin out your branches, definitely definitely uh the disease is reduced. And I think again that correlates to your people. Um when you have a lot of people in your life, there's generally some poison pills or some toxic people in there that you might have let slip through, and the odds of them causing a problem are dramatically reduced when you start to be a little uh mindful of where you're spending your time, who you're spending your time with, who you're sharing um intimate secrets or or details of your life with. That's the kind of stuff that gets you burned and hurt is because you'll trust somebody with information that they had no right to. They don't care about you enough to say, well, you know, I can be entrusted with this information. So definitely um thinning the herd will remove not only from your plants, pathogens and pests, but from your life will definitely um remove people that are prone to cause you problems. Another element when you start thinking things is it improves air circulation. And, you know, again, plants will overproduce, they'll they'll make really thick areas of leaves and branches. And without air passing through, the normal process of transpiration slows down. Um it takes the air to evaporate the water off the surface of the leaves, which in turn creates a little bit of a vacuum, which in turn draws moisture from the roots along with nutrients, and that's the cycle. Well, the same thing happens when you have too many people in your life, you end up sort of choking out. You're you're not able to uh focus on activities the same because you're busy juggling um conversations, and they're probably going to be a lot more shallow than they might be. So you have less energy to put towards things like activities and hobbies or uh passion projects or or whatever it is you're working on because you're busy juggling all these people. So when you allow for uh thin this out a little bit, once again you are have more resources to allocate. And in turn, you're able to better process the information that comes to you, somewhat akin to airflow. I do think there's definitely a good correlation there. Again, when we talked about removing debris and branches and things like that, I was just talking about the absorption, um, nutrient absorption. But there's two things. One is um, you know, the airflow increases, so the roots can take up more both water, oxygen, and nutrients. But the second thing is when you remove a bunch of branches, you're taking branches that are shading other branches, and what remains becomes more accessible both to the light and the air. And so you have better photosynthesis that occurs because one thing's not shading another, and uh everything that's remaining is going to uh hit that sun a lot better. Well, the same thing again. With additional resources, you're going to be able to perform better, you're gonna be able to take that energy that you have and direct it in a way that's more meaningful because you're being thoughtful and meaningful with your energy. And so it's very similar to the last one, but definitely um definitely a a positive. Um, you know, this is something that frankly is a mental health benefit to pruning, and this is uh more on a physical, tangible level. When you get into gardening activities, you'll get yourself into a meditative state. I know I don't know how many times, like if I go out there and I start trimming or working on planting, weeding, whatever it is, I end up having to really be mindful of the time because I will lose myself. Um, it becomes almost a zen process, you know. You just you're just getting into it. You're watching, you're sculpting, you're creating, you're you're making positive change, you're actually interacting, sharing your energy with these plants or the trees or whatever it is. And it definitely is a sort of a meditative practice and it reduces stress and promotes relaxation. I think that's really important. You know, anytime that time seems to go by fast, you'll notice uh you feel better. Whatever it is you're doing, you know, if time is dragging along, you're probably in some kind of stress because your body is um telling you, hey man, I'm not into this. Uh why is it taking so long? But when you're into something, um it's generally going to be good for you when you lose sight of what time it is and that sort of thing. Another piece of gardening, I've talked about this many times before, um you get an immediate sense of accomplishment. So there are so few examples of uh immediate gratification in life that's healthy. So most of the time when you get that, it's a result of um eating something or consuming a drug or or you know having sex or maybe making some kind of a connection or a conquest. Um, but so many times the immediate gratification is ultimately short-lived and negative in the long run. Not in not always, and certainly this is one of those examples. So you get a sense of accomplishment anytime you're gardening, whether you're planting, you go from something, a blank slate to whatever it is you planted, or weeding, or you go from a messy mangled-up bed to something that's clean and fresh, or you go pruning, or you go from something overgrown and and unhealthy to cleaned up and and fresh. You know, you just get that immediate sense of accomplishment, of achievement, and you get that sort of you know, quick dopamine hit that again, more often than not, doesn't come from healthy things, but in this case it does. Um you know, when you spend time outside, you establish a connection with nature. And there's something about that, kind of intangible, but I can guarantee you, you know, every morning when I get up, one of the first things I do when I'm ready to go outside is I go for a walk with my dogs, and I just take a walk around my property. And more often than not, before I even get halfway around, I get lost in some activity. But there's a connection there, and when I go and take that walk, a lot of times I'm making that connection. I'm looking at something I did before, seeing how it's doing, I'm checking on something that maybe was struggling, or making a modification or a change, or watering something that needed it, or whatever it is, but there's a there's a connection there. And I guarantee you, when you feel connected to nature, there's definitely um an enhancement of your well-being, your health. Um, you know, and there's a lot of things like environmental health, um, you know, biodiversity. When you start to prune trees and shrubs, you can definitely increase um the amount of types that you have, which ultimately improves the ecosystem. More animals come in, um, and you end up with a better balance, you end up with a better sense of community, and there's definitely a connection to that. You also improve the soil, you know. If if if you're gardening using uh uh organic techniques and you're composting what you cut, especially leaves they decompose real quickly, uh, you're actually going to uh improve the soil. You're gonna create more compost, and that just makes everything better. You're also gonna improve the health of your plant because of its strength. So, what happens a lot of times is uh especially fruit trees, they'll overproduce and they'll make too much fruit, they'll make too many branches, and if you leave them alone, the fruit ends up being really small. Branches end up breaking because they get get too much weight, wind runs through, tears them apart because they're the wind, it catches too much wind. Um, there's so many reasons why overgrown plants are weaker than ones that are pruned. So when you prune a plant, what you leave behind generally grows stronger, um, and it leads to the overall strength and health of the plant. Well, again, the same thing attribute to you when you thin out the people. I I know that since I was diagnosed with cancer, and I did combo, and I did a number of things that caused me to thin out things in my life. And I removed a lot of things. I got rid of my warehouse and office, moved my business back home, got rid of my employees, um, disconnected from many relationships. I'd say probably maybe 60% of the relationships I had, I disconnected from because I recognized I stopped making excuses. And I recognized that I was propping up relationships that just didn't deserve it, and that I was keeping people in my life that were taking and not giving back. And when I removed that, I had so much more energy to give to the things I wanted, and I found as a result I became stronger, and my overwhelm overall well-being improved, and so that definitely made a difference. Um at the end of the day, when you have healthy plants, you improve the whole environment, you improve the air quality, you improve the aesthetics, um, you get better shading, more even shading, and it will ultimately um just create an overall better environment, healthier, and again, the same thing correlates, um. I think the act of pruning symbolically represents personal growth and the shedding of unproductive negative aspects of life, not just people, habits, um, it could be items, it could be maybe a job, um, kind of decluttering your mental space. And I think that just like uh plants and trees can thrive after pruning. You know, when you first get cut, you look kind of funny. You know, the tree looks a little barren, it looks a little thin, a little sparse. But what happens very quickly within a season, everything comes back stronger than ever. I think the same thing happens with us, you know, when you remove people and things from your life, I think a lot of times you feel a little awkward. I think um I think you feel odd, out of sorts, out of place, but very quickly, if you stay with it, I think you find that uh you come back better than ever. I think that you you find that um I think you find that you're a better person when you do this for so many reasons in so many ways. And I think we we touched on it. Um I think if you think about all these elements that I talked about, you'll see that uh the concept is sound and how it translates to you is going to be uh an unique experience because again, we're all um unique individuals. The things that we need to prune from our lives are not the same. Um, but when we become mindful of that, maybe especially at this time of the year where you know you have more time to think about things, it's dark longer. Um, you have less time to work, so you want to be a little more thoughtful about what you're doing when you're working. So on that note, um I want to thank everybody for the listeners for making this podcast possible, the subscribers that help me pay for everything. And um if you're interested in being a guest, hit me up. Uh, anybody who's got anything to say about health and healthy living, uh I want to hear from you. I that's what makes this show kind of amazing. I have guests reach out to me and and always tell me about some little element about the show that's unique and special. I think it has more to do with the people and the stories and the different facets that we bring to the table. So, on that note, I want to thank you once again, and we will see you next time.