MARGARET ROACH A WAY TO GARDEN

You’ve probably heard the expression No Mow May in recent years, a campaign borrowed from an effort in the UK meant to increase diversity by leaving lawns unmown for the one spring month, but is that the answer for US gardeners?  My guest today is Mary Phillips, head of native plant habitat strategy and certifications at the National Wildlife Federation, a conservation nonprofit founded in 1936 with chapters today in every state. Our topic is the lawn and how we can manage it in the smartest ways possible—and not just in the month of May.

It’s that time of year when we gardeners are shopping, shopping, shopping, often in hot pursuit of just the right plant that will make the design of a bed or the larger landscape hang together—that elusive missing ingredient. But what if the answer isn’t a plant sometimes, but a pot or a sculpture or some other non-living elements strategically placed?  Today’s guest, a ceramist specializing in art for the garden, has walked through many a landscape with prospective clients, helping to figure out the roles such pieces could play.  Stephen Procter is a Vermont-based ceramist who for about 20 years... Read More ›

I for one have a number of houseplants that would look a whole lot better right now if given a pinch or two or three, plus I could potentially enjoy the benefit of more plants from those trimmings, whether to keep or better yet to share. A new book by plant stylist Hilton Carter demystifies multiple methods of making more plants—including by various types of cuttings—and he’s here today to fill us in, including on why rooting in water is his favorite medium of all.  “The Propagation Handbook,” just out, is Hilton Carter’s fifth book, and you may know him... Read More ›

I confess to something of a weakness for Japanese maples, and I suspect I’m not alone. Now, thanks to breeding work by experts like today’s guests, there are more and more varieties being made available that are suited to a widening range of climate zones and garden conditions, meaning the circle of maple lovers can keep on growing.  Brothers Matt and Tim Nichols are the forces behind MrMaple.com, a North Carolina-based retail mail-order nursery with a staggering collection of about 1,500 different Japanese maple varieties to offer. They ship 100 trees a day year-round, as many as 700 plus a... Read More ›

You know how it goes, especially in those tempting first spring-like days: You’re barely out of bed before you’re out in the garden having at it. And then, by day’s end, your body’s screaming that maybe, just maybe, you overdid it a little.  Well, let’s slow down and get more mindful, and take better care of our most important gardening tool: our body. Let’s get GardenFit, with help from Season 2 of the public television program by that name, with help from its creator.  Madeline Hooper, a former public relations executive and passionate gardener, created the GardenFit program in 2022... Read More ›

Wait! Before you find yourself at the garden center grabbing up every irresistible thing that calls out to you, figuring you can somehow find a role for it in this season’s container designs, think again: What’s your plan for this year’s seasonal pots…or is there a plan? That’s our topic today with David Mattern, a horticulturist at the splendid Chanticleer garden in Pennsylvania, who has some container garden design advice to share. David has gardened for 10 years at Chanticleer in Wayne, Pa., where he oversees the vegetable garden and lends his creativity to other aspects of the world-class landscape–including Chanticleer’s many inspired vignettes... Read More ›

In a recent phone call, today’s guest, Tim Johnson, used the phrase “bio-productive gardens,” and it stopped me. What does he mean by that, I thought? And then he explained:  There are ways to manage our landscapes, he said, so that everything that flows through them – from rainwater to birds – leaves healthier than when it arrived. Tell me more, I replied, and so that’s my topic today with Tim, the new leader of the longtime conservation organization called Native Plant Trust. Tim Johnson is the new chief executive officer at Native Plant Trust, which was founded almost 125 years ago... Read More ›

Some people collect art, others collect vintage cars, or maybe stamps or coins. Darryl Cheng collects houseplants, and in his latest book, “The New Plant Collector,” Darryl suggests some gorgeous possibilities, with detailed guidelines for figuring out how to make a good match for your growing conditions before you invest. Ready to add some houseplants?  Darryl Cheng, better known as @houseplantjournal on Instagram, uses all the technical insights available to him to make the countless houseplants that share his Toronto home thrive. He’s the author of a previous book “The New Plant Parent,” and creates the popular website, houseplantjournal.com.

Early on in making my garden decades ago, I bought a nursery pot of bluestar, or Amsonia, at a native plant sale, and planted it in a border here. It has never asked anything of me, never had any pests or diseases, and just keeps delivering sky blue spring flowers and vivid gold fall color year in and year out, and looking pretty handsome in between.  My very unofficial results with my Amsonia would not surprise today’s guest, Sam Hoadley of Mt. Cuba native plant Center in Delaware, whose trial garden team there just completed a 10-year evaluation of a... Read More ›

When shopping the seed catalogs, I realize I’m probably more likely to consider a tomato or pepper I haven’t grown before, or some unusual annual flower, than to try some new-to-me herb. But what a shame.  I need to modify that behavior and spice things up a bit. I need to move beyond what today’s guest, Hudson Valley Seed Company’s co-founder K Greene, calls the “the must-have” more standard types of herbs, and give some garden space to ones he labels the “try these, too” kinds.  K Greene is co-founder with Doug Muller of Hudson Valley Seed in Accord, New York,... Read More ›

Maybe more than any other topic, the use of native plants has consistently figured among the top garden trends in recent years. Just how popular is the movement toward a more ecological focus in the way we design and care for our landscapes? And how does that effort keep moving forward and growing among those of us who are home gardeners when there can be obstacles, like how hard it can be to find locally appropriate plants at the garden center?  My guest today is Rebecca McMackin, an ecological horticulturist who creates and manages dynamic landscapes, including a new garden... Read More ›

Watching birds lifts my spirits, as it has for decades, and who couldn’t use their spirits lifted right about now? But there’s another much bigger potential benefit, which is that sharing my sightings helps scientists understand what’s going on with bird populations in a changing world.  One of my favorite citizen-science efforts, a global project called The Great Backyard Bird Count, is coming up Feb. 16-19, and its project manager is here today with tips on using the latest technology like the Merlin app, along with our old-school observational powers to improve our bird ID skills.  Becca Rodomsky-Bish manages the... Read More ›

What's not to love about zinnias? Organic seed farmer and breeder Don Tipping of Siskiyou Seeds and I both vote an emphatic “yes” in favor of making zinnias a part of every garden year. But what goes into creating the diversity of zinnia colors and forms and sizes? And what are some new looking ones that you might want to try in 2024?  Don Tipping founded Siskiyou Seeds, a family run farm-based seed company, in 1997. His farm with a view is located at 2,000 feet of elevation in the Siskiyou Mountains of southwest Oregon, and has close to 1,000 varieties of vegetables, herbs, and flowers in its collection. As if that were not enough, Don creates a YouTube channel of how-to videos and a long-running blog, and hosts multiple on-farm trainings for gardeners and farmers each year. We talked about the beloved annual flower, the zinnia.

As she often does, naturalist and nature writer Nancy Lawson—perhaps known better to some of you as the Humane Gardener after the title of her first book—caught my attention the other day.  “My yard isn’t overgrown and neither is yours,” Nancy wrote in a post on Instagram. What she went on to say is that words like overgrown are the kind that are often applied negatively to landscapes that don’t fit the manicured model, the one dominated by the mindset of the Great American Lawn. But Nancy Lawson takes exception countering with the thought that most landscapes are in fact... Read More ›

David Culp is a self-professed Galanthophile—a lover, and passionate longtime collector, of snowdrops in all their various incarnations.  He is also a host of the annual Galanthus Gala symposium, which happens the first weekend of March in Downingtown, Pa., and virtually online, too, for those of us who want to join in without even leaving home—as I did last year, and will again this time around.  David Culp, author of “A Year at Brandywine Cottage” and also “The Layered Garden,” gardens on 2 acres in Downingtown, where among many botanical treasures he grows more than 200 cultivars of Galanthus, or snowdrops—proof positive that he is indeed a true Galanthophile.

If you think nothing’s on the to-do list in winter, fellow gardeners—that we’re all meant to be dormant like the cannas in the cellar and the herbaceous perennials outside in the flower beds—well, think again.  Most of us in colder zones, especially, may not be actively prepping or planting outdoors at the moment, of course. But even just within the realm of seed-related activities alone, there’s plenty wanting our attention.  That’s what today’s guest, Ken Druse, and I realized when we got to talking seeds the other day on the phone, and one thing led to another, and even though it’s not yet full-on seed-starting time we found ourselves with a list of tasks – and no, not the task of seed shopping!  Ken Druse is an old friend; the author of 20 gardening books, and my collaborator on our Virtual Garden Club online class series...and he’s currently sorting through leftover seeds and also a pile of seed catalogs over at his New Jersey home.  Seedy tasks for winter days is our subject today.

Every year when I get to the sweet pea listings in the seed catalogs, I think this is the year, the year I'll organize some supports in the garden for them, and indulge in their unmatched extravagance of color and fragrance.  Today's guest doesn't hesitate one second or have to think twice about sweet peas ever, which are always on the list in his Massachusetts garden, grown both as cut flowers and elements of beds and borders.  Matt Mattus, author of “Mastering the Art of Flower Gardening,” and also of “Mastering the Art of Vegetable Gardening,” gardens at his Worcester, Mass., home. Matt is the third generation of his family to live and garden there, in the same house with its two-acre landscape. He's had a career as a graphic artist and toy designer at Hasbro for many years, but for at least as long he's been passionately designing garden scenes and experimenting with one genus or another in his garden and greenhouse, where he can't resist the impulse to try every last species or variety of something that he can get his hands on.

Like everyone around this time of year, I get into a “looking back while looking ahead” combined mindset. Today I want to do just that, but with a sort of ecological filter, taking stock of how things in the garden fared in the bigger environmental picture and what opportunities lie ahead for me to read nature's signals even more closely, and be an ever better steward of the place.  Who better to talk about that with than my guest, Uli Lorimer, director of horticulture at Native Plant Trust, the nation's oldest plant-conservation organization.  Uli Lorimer, author of “The Northeast Native Plant Primer,” has made native plants his life's work. In 2019, he became director of horticulture at Native Plant Trust, which was founded in 1900 as the New England Wild Flower Society. Previously he was a longtime curator of the Native Flora Garden at Brooklyn Botanic Garden.

Ho-ho-ho: It's seed season, among other festive reasons to celebrate in December. Today I invited a similarly seed-obsessed friend, Jennifer Jewell, to help me curate some seed-catalog recommendations you might not otherwise browse, and to talk seeds in general.  Jennifer’s latest book is “What We Sow: On the Personal, Ecological, and Cultural Significance of Seeds,” and she is the creator of the popular “Cultivating Place” podcast. We talked about how to choose a seed catalog, why regionality matters, and more.

You no doubt have seen news that the USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map was just updated, and that half the country once again got reclassified a half-zone warmer—just as many of us did after the previous update of the map, in 2012. But what does it all mean to gardeners practically speaking? Dr. Todd Rounsaville is a USDA research scientist and horticulturist who was involved in the years-long project that led to the creation of the new map, and he helped me drill in to what it reveals, and to other factors affecting plant hardiness. Todd, who heads the U.S. National Arboretum Germplasm Program, acted as chairman of the technical review team for the 2023 USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map, a group of about 40 people across country.