Growing Greener

Too often we regard snow as merely an annoyance, but Kim Eierman, ecological garden designer and educator, makes the case for snow as a natural source of great and sometimes surprising benefits for t…

Hybrid fruit and vegetable seeds are like thoroughbred horses –  extraordinary performers but not resilient or good at coping with adverse conditions.  When they didn’t succeed in Joseph Lofthouse’s …

Why are invasive plants so effective in muscling out native species?  Research by Dr. Susan Kalisz of the University of Tennessee Knoxville details how the invaders commonly release chemicals into th…

Jim Sirch of Yale University’s Peabody Museum shares gardener-friendly resources and an easy, nearly foolproof method for starting natives from seeds, together with tips for finding locally collected…

Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, one of Frederick Law Olmsted’s greatest masterpieces, was failing by 1989 when Joseph Doccola signed on to restore its tree canopy. Over the next decade he replanted lost tr…

There are thousands, millions of weed seeds lying dormant in your garden soil – the “weed seed bank” – waiting for a chance to emerge and invade your plantings.  Listen as Dr. Bryan Brown of Cornell …

Robert Kourik, a pioneering gardener in Santa Rosa, California shares a new understanding of roots and how gardeners can better foster these hidden but foundational elements of their plants

As Director of Horticulture at Brooklyn Bridge Park, Rebecca McMackin played a leading role in transforming 85 acres of abandoned piers and pavement into a series of vibrant ecosystems that are a mod…

Invasive plants flourish in part because in their transition to North America they leave behind the co-evolved pests that help keep them in check in their homelands. Dr. Lisa Tewksbury, Director of t…

Join us for a replay of our 2020 interview with Dr. Elaine Ingham, internationally renowned expert on the soil food web about how to make your soil far more fertile and productive using only natural,…

Uli Lorimer, Director of Horticulture at the Native Plant Trust, discusses the role gardeners can play in maintaining biodiversity without sacrificing their favorite, non-native plants.

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…

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 b…

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…

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 bas…

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 Selv…

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 mi…

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…

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 1…