MARGARET ROACH A WAY TO GARDEN

The recently published book “Madoo: The Making of an American Garden,” reminded me of the power of certain key design strategies that can make all the difference—ones that proved to be formative elements in the highly distinctive garden that is... Read More ›

I’ve been digging into a diverse and compelling collection of essays in a recent book that’s centered on the subject of  flowers – everything from topics like their breeding, to which species we covet most of all, to some of... Read More ›

When today’s guest, Elise Howard, and I talked on the show in March, her new book “Plant This, Not That” was just out. The popular book offers basic guidelines for selecting and using native plants, and specific substitutes for non-natives... Read More ›

If you’ve ever posted a photo on the massive community science project called iNaturalist and wondered how such contributions get used in research …. well, today’s guest is here to tell us about one especially stunning example. It involves 1.6... Read More ›

Owls: They are birds we more often hear than see, exceptionally well-camouflaged creatures, many of whom move about in the hours of low light for an extra layer of stealth, making them seem even more mysterious. So what do you... Read More ›

The more that I see photographs of gravel gardens, and the more that I learn about this gardening style,  which besides its distinctive aesthetic appeal promises to be water-wise and weed-suppressing, the more I want to give it a try.... Read More ›

Finding our way toward a more ecologically vibrant garden can sometimes feel a bit challenging, and I’m always looking for resources to guide me along the way, and to share with you.   Last year I shared news about a... Read More ›

How confident are you about the use of color in your garden, and where do you draw your inspiration from for creating a pleasing palette? The topic of color is just one of the subjects Stephen Orr tackles in his... Read More ›

If we’re shopping for native plants with the most ecological impact—ones with the most pollinator appeal, for example—then simply choosing by the prettiest picture on a label or by a catalog photo won’t get you to your goal. It helps... Read More ›

Both gardeners and their plants have to be more resilient than ever these days in our changing climate, it seems. At the High Line in New York City, one of the best-known naturalistic gardens anywhere, that’s especially so, since it’s... Read More ›

I’m privileged to observe a fascinating diversity of animals outside where I live, but the term “Outsider Animals” was new to me—and it’s the title of a recent book by today’s guest, Marlene Zuk, a leading expert in behavioral evolution... Read More ›

I always say that birds taught me to garden, as I watched their behavior here at my place, and added more of the plants and features they seemed to like and use most, and I have been blessed to have... Read More ›

We talk about pollinator gardens,  and seek out the plants that provide that essential nourishment to bees and butterflies and moths, for example.  But insects do not live by pollen alone: To make our gardens places of life-sustaining habitat, we... Read More ›

I wish that when I was a college freshman, a course like Harvard’s seminar called “Tree” had been part of the curriculum, because since I learned about the class last year, I’ve never looked at a tree quite the same... Read More ›

You’ve seen and heard the list of no-no plants that were showy longtime nursery and garden standards, but have proven invasive and need to go. Yes, we can yank out the Bradford pears and butterfly bush and the rest of... Read More ›

When spring approaches and we get out into the garden again, it’s easy to get distracted by the to-do list, or just by the latest pretty thing that’s emerging after winter’s relative blank slate.  But there’s a whole other layer... Read More ›

Margaret Renkl’s newest book “The Weedy Garden: A Happy Habitat for Wild Friends,” is aimed at children, but it’s really for everyone, she says, and indeed we grownups, too, often need a reminder that our gardens are not just “our... Read More ›

When growing from seed, the long list of decisions starts with what turns out to be the simplest question of all: which variety of bean (or tomato, or zinnia, or basil) to order. But then things get more complicated: questions... Read More ›

What do you say we explore expanding our herb-gardening efforts to include some goodies to fill those jars in the spice rack, too? Most of us have probably grown cilantro, for instance, with its distinctive-tasting bright green foliage, but I... Read More ›

“The dream has always been a rainbow of peas,” Dylana Kapuler said to me more than a decade ago, and that dream continues to fuel a passion for breeding colorful, edible-podded peas at the organically managed Oregon-based seed company called... Read More ›

Goldenrods are powerhouses – keystone plants that serve as hosts for more than 100 species of butterflies and moths, and rich late-season sources of pollen and nectar for countless beneficial insects followed by sustenance in the form of seed for... Read More ›

IT WAS 1 degree Fahrenheit outside when I looked at my electronic weather station readout  this morning – a perfect time for some winter-defying tactics like talking tomatoes. Organic seed farmer and breeder Don Tipping of Siskiyou Seeds in Oregon... Read More ›

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... Read More ›

Until I met today’s guest, James Young, early in 2025, it hadn’t really registered in my brain that some of the familiar annuals I grow from seed, like cosmos and marigolds and even purple basil, could also double as dye... Read More ›

I’m letting myself be transported away from the winter scene outside my window, burying my nose not in the snow but instead in the spring-into-summer possibilities depicted in seed-catalog pages. I have familiar, favorite varieties I grow every year –... Read More ›

I put out my first bird feeder of the season around Thanksgiving or so each year and get the party started. But there’s more to feeding the birds than just filling the feeders, like how to keep them safe in... Read More ›

The earliest references to people cultivating trees date back to 6000 B.C., and there are records of tree-care tactics in the Bible, too, and from ancient Egypt. These person-to-tree interventions were the start of the science and art of arboriculture,... Read More ›

Not so many years ago, relative to the history of horticulture, even a now-ubiquitous phrase like “pollinator plant” wasn’t part of our everyday gardening language and mindset the way it is today. Our collective consciousness about the importance of native... Read More ›

If I say: quick, name a holiday flower, you might first answer poinsettia. But the poinsettia wasn’t always synonymous with this time of year, today’s guest tells me – like once upon a time more than a century ago the... Read More ›

I can’t imagine life without my admittedly oddball collection of houseplants, many of whom have been with me for several decades already. So I was delighted recently to meet today’s guest, Rob Moffitt, whose Los Angeles-based botanical design studio specializes... Read More ›

When I bought my place decades ago it was nestled in a tiny piece of former farmland with a little 1880s house and no garden. There were, however, five giant apple trees, at least a century old even then –... Read More ›

Once upon a time the seed catalogs came out around the start of the New Year, but these days the very first ones may arrive by Thanksgiving, and their listings may be posted online even earlier. So I guess what... Read More ›

Besides their native-heavier plant palette and looser style, ecologically designed landscapes have another difference: The way we maintain them is not the same as with more traditional, ornamentally-focused gardens. I’m asked again and again by gardeners who have planted a meadow-like... Read More ›

Today’s guest didn’t have to convince me to be wild about woodpeckers, because I already am—utterly so. These charismatic, hardworking birds make oversized ecological contributions to the environments they inhabit and to the other creatures that they share them with... Read More ›

Every gardener has certainly heard the rallying cry each recent autumn to “leave the leaves”, invoking us to go gentler with our cleanup to support a diversity of beneficial invertebrates who call the fallen leaves their home.  Now a recently... Read More ›

Kevin West begins his newest book, called “The Cook’s Garden,” like this:  “This is a book about flavor,” he writes. “It is a book about how to become a better cook by stepping into the garden.”  His is not just... Read More ›

Almost 10 years ago on this program, I talked about making sourdough starter with today’s guest, Sarah Owens, on the occasion of the publication her book called “Sourdough.” Now a 10th anniversary edition of the James Beard Award-winning book is about... Read More ›

Most of us have something to hide – in our gardens, that is, some view of something we’d like to erase. It could be the telephone pole across the street that we can see from certain spots, or the neighbor’s... Read More ›

The “what plant goes where?” aspect of gardening is the hardest part for a lot of us. And as we increasingly shift our plant palette and gardening style to more native and ecologically focused, decisions about design might seem even... Read More ›

In recent growing seasons, the “new normal” of a changing climate has sometimes been making me feel like my Northeastern garden has relocated farther to the South. So maybe that’s part of what caught my attention when I saw news... Read More ›

The fall bird migration is under way, and that means the cast of characters we’re seeing and hearing in the garden is changing quickly – as we say goodbye for now to some species, and keep a close eye out... Read More ›

In the age of climate change, my guest on today’s reprise edition of the podcast told me, we can expect “more poison ivy and meaner poison ivy,” and I’d say from what I see growing around me and the rashes... Read More ›

Today’s guest and I were sitting having a cup of tea together recently and talking abou guess what? Plants! What came up pretty fast was how lately we both sometimes cringe at the results to our online searches about one... Read More ›

Patrick McDuffee believes that everyone should have at least one scented geranium on their windowsill year-round, for an on-demand invigorating whiff of fragrance, or to admire its colorful flowers…or to make a homebrewed cup of herbal tea from its leaves.... Read More ›

The last time I spoke to Alla Olkhovska from her home and garden in Ukraine, she confessed to growing about 120 different types of Clematis—a number that after seeing her recently published e-book “Clematis Passports,” which profiles 140 kinds, I suspect... Read More ›

On the weekend of Aug. 8 and 9, the beloved Seed Savers Exchange will celebrate its 50th anniversary of preserving our seed heritage with festivities at its homebase in Decorah, Iowa. I wanted to celebrate Seed Savers here a little, too,... Read More ›

For each of us, it’s probably safe to bet that our most familiar piece of the natural world is the outdoor space right beside the place we live – our own yard. But how well do we really know even... Read More ›

There may be no moment in the year when my friend Ken Druse and I are more grateful for the range of textures and colors of foliage we made room for in our gardens than we are right now –... Read More ›

Today’s guest returned from a 1979 trip visiting English gardens inspired to do some garden-making of his own. His canvas was a northwestern Connecticut hillside and not the Cotswolds, and the home he’d just purchased wasn’t a grand manor house... Read More ›

A couple of ravens have been shouting at each other across the garden each day this spring-into-summer, and their loud-mouthed antics reminded me of a somewhat less bawdy conversation about crows and ravens that I had a decade ago on... Read More ›