Growing Greener

Trevor Smith has won awards with his expert design that brings damaged landscapes back to a fuller function. He's applied that experience to his second passion: educating young people, home gardeners and professionals about how they too can heal the landscape.

Jacob Suissa and Ben Goulet-Scott, two young PhD botanists, have launched an educational non-profit. "Let's Botanize," that demonstrates online and for free how accessible and fun plant science can be.

Kat Tancock and Domini Clark, founders and editors of Rewilding Magazine (available for free online) explore the restoration of local habitats and ecosystems worldwide, with reports from Asia, Africa, and Australia as well as Europe, Canada, and the United States.   A rare, truly international perspective.

Drs. Michael Balick and Gregory Plunkett of the New York Botanical Garden share results of their research in the Pacific nation of Vanuatu, where local informants have shared with them a calendar based on clues from indigenous plants – a calendar that governs residents interactions with nature and which is automatically adjusting to the dislocations of climate change

Ecological landscape designer and educator Kathleen Connolly takes a deep dive into her new approach to putting the garden to bed in fall.   Leave the leaves but keep the beauty.

They sound great – something you apply to a seed or plant and which spreads throughout the organism to provide protection against any insect attack.   The reality, though, as described by Sharon Selvaggio,   Pesticide Program Specialist at the Xerces Society, reveals the way these highly toxic chemicals cause indiscriminate death and persist in the soil for years.

Landscape architect Marissa Angell has worked with premier firms on high profile projects, but today she's sharing her personal experience with tips for an overlooked demographic: the more than 15 million, largely younger gardeners who rent rather than own.

A hot topic in gardening circles is the relative value of exotic versus native plants for supporting native insect populations, a foundation of the food chain for birds and other wildlife.   Listen to Dr. Douglas Tallamy, best-selling author and professor of insect ecology at the University of Delaware, explain what the data actually reveals.

American gardening, which had been for the most part a lesser copy of European landscapes, began an exciting new chapter with the explosion of innovative, regionally adapted gardening styles in the 1980's.   No one played a larger role in this than the late David Salman of Santa Fe, New Mexico.   Linda Churchill, Director of Horticulture at the Santa Fe Botanical Garden discusses Salman's contribu...

Ecological garden designer Christine Cook discusses the beauties and benefits of dragonflies, and how you can make your garden a haven for these exquisite creatures.

Dr. Luis Mata of the University of Melbourne Australia details how the installation of just 12 native plant species turned a small urban greenspace almost overnight into a hotspot for native insect biodiversity

As "chief seed sower" at Devine Native Plantings, LLC, Jean Devine takes time out from habitat revitalization to mentor students in "Biodiversity Builders," a paid, six-week program that introduces participants to working in partnership with nature while also building a business

Compact, beautiful, and trouble-free, the pawpaw is the northernmost representative of a tropical fruit family, a North American native tree that bears large fruits with a delicious, exotic flavor over an extended season, while also supporting a host of native butterflies and moths.   Sheri Crabtree of Kentucky State University's Pawpaw Program explains why this gem never made it into commercial f...

Naturalist, gardener, and journalist Nancy Lawson talks about her new book, "Wildscape,"   which introduces readers to details of how very differently wildlife perceives our gardens, and the extraordinary relationships between plants and animals we can observe in our own backyards.

When our native flowering dogwood tree was laid waste by an imported fungus in the 1970's, the east Asian kousa dogwood was widely planted as a disease-resistant replacement.   After 50 years, however, it has turned invasive.   Dr. Bethany Bradley of the University of Massachusetts Amherst explains that such a "lag period" is common among introduced plants and why this makes plant introduction a v...

Policy makers have promoted tree planting as a way to sequester carbon and fight climate change, but grassland advocates say that native prairie is more effective in some circumstances and provides unique ecological benefits.   Dr. Jessica Gutknecht of the University of Minnesota examines the opportunities and limitations of this approach, and the potential impact of backyard prairies such as her...

Gardening consumes an enormous amount of plastics, 1.66 billion pounds annually in the U.S. according to the most recent figures, most of it in the form of single-use, unrecyclable pots.   Ecological landscape designer Marie Chieppo has made it her mission to change this.   Learn about how her work is promoting recycling, changes in design to use less plastic, and a switch where possible to biodeg...

His participation in a Bioblitz introduced Brian Stewart to the fascination of the local insect life.   A dozen years later he had photographed some 400 species in his own back yard, including many strange and beautiful creatures.   Brian shares his story and tips for insect identification in this program first broadcast in November of 2019

If you are frustrated by the poor selection of native plants at local garden centers, check out Izel Native Plants.   Listen as founders and owners Amanda McLean and Claudio Vasquez explain how they have made the wares of leading wholesale growers accessible to amateur gardeners, and how their company emphasizes education as much as sales.

Maya K. van Rossum shares what she observed at the recent trial in Montana, where 16 young natives of that state charged the legislature with deliberately violating the guarantee of "a clean and healthful environment…for present and future generations" in Montana's state constitution

Gardening is changing, and our understanding of the field must keep pace. Veteran horticulturist and longtime teacher Joe Seals rises to this challenge in his new book, "Back to the New Basics: A Practical Guide and New Reference Manual to the Ways, the Whys, and the New Sciences of Better, Easier Gardening." A great introduction for the novice and a quick update for experienced gardeners, this is...

This week, in a re-posting of a program first heard in August 2021, ecologist and author Tom Wessels discusses his "Forest Forensics," the system of simple visual clues you can use to read the history of your woodland acreage

As our climates grow warmer and frequently drier, gardeners need the drought and heat tolerance, and innate sustainability of our native grassland plants more than ever.   In their new book, The Gardener's Guide to Prairie Plants , Neil Diboll and Hilary Cox have combined their decades of experience to produce an indispensable tool for beginners and veterans alike, with invaluable advice about how...

"Grow Your Own" is a cornerstone of sustainability, but our vegetable gardens are being challenged by increasingly erratic weather as the climate changes.   John Traunfeld, Program Director at the University of Maryland's Home & Garden Information Center shares his experiences in making food gardens more climate resilient, and how this can even draw our communities closer together.

Lead contamination is common in soils of many residential neighborhoods in urban, suburban, and even rural settings.   Soil scientist Clay Robinson – "Dr. Dirt" – details where this problem is most likely, how to test your soil, and how appropriate gardening can provide protection.