Growing Greener
249 episodes - English - Latest episode: 12 days ago - ★★★★★ - 64 ratingsYour weekly half-hour program about environmentally informed gardening. Each week we bring you a different expert, a leading voice on gardening in partnership with Nature. Our goal is to make your landscape healthier, more beautiful, more sustainable, and more fun.
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Episodes
An Introduction to Veganic Gardening
May 03, 2023 10:00 - 29 minutes - 40.1 MBJohn Walker, a horticulturist who trained at the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew and a multi award winner environmental writer, shares advice on Veganic Gardening, an approach that combines organic practices with plant-based nurturing of the soil with resources found or grown on-site for maximum sustainability.
Shopping for Topsoil
April 26, 2023 10:00 - 29 minutes - 40.1 MBBuying topsoil is a quick and popular fix for many garden problems – but buyer beware says Dawn Pettinelli, Director of the University of Connecticut’s Soil & Nutrient Analysis Lab. There are no industry standards, not even a definition, of what makes a good topsoil. Dawn shares tips on making sure the topsoil you buy is non-toxic and of a quality that will benefit your plants.
A Rift in the Native Plant World
April 19, 2023 10:00 - 29 minutes - 40.1 MB“Gardeners are the worst threat to native plants.” Hostility toward horticulturists is common within the ecological restoration community. But, John Gedraitis of Van Berkum Nursery says, it’s an impediment to growers such as him who want to expand the availability of local ecotype plants, genetically adapted natives grown from locally collected wild seed.
“Plant Babies” vs. Science in the Garden
April 12, 2023 10:00 - 29 minutes - 40.1 MBElizabeth Licata, a passionate promoter of Garden Walk Buffalo, the nation’s largest free open garden tour, and a longtime contributor to the popular blog “Garden Rant” takes on gardener anthropomorphism, our appealing but destructive habit of ascribing human emotions and characteristics to plants.
Beyond Bold
April 05, 2023 10:00 - 29 minutes - 40.1 MBLandscape architects Wolfgang Oehme and James van Sweden electrified the gardening world in 1975 when they introduced a new horticultural richness and a concern for sustainability with their “New American Garden Style.” Eric Groft, current CEO of Oehme, van Sweden discusses the firm’s new book, “Beyond Bold,” describing how the successor generation has remained true to that legacy while pursuing new avenues of environmental sensitivity.
Finding New Allies in the Campaign to Save Our Ecosystems
March 29, 2023 10:00 - 29 minutes - 40.1 MBDr. Douglas Tallamy, the University of Delaware entomologist who has been awakening homeowners to the need to plant natives and join our plots together in a giant “homegrown national park,” has found a new audience. He has just released a young readers’ edition of his best-selling book, “Nature’s Best Hope.” Learn how you can enlist your children in the campaign to save our ecosystems.
A New Day for the Perfect Earth Project
March 22, 2023 10:00 - 29 minutes - 40.1 MBFounded in 2013 by internationally acclaimed garden designer Edwina von Gal, the Perfect Earth Project seeks to introduce landscape professionals to toxin-free, sustainable approaches to their craft, while reaching out to their customers to create a market for these skills. Listen to the Project’s new Executive Director Matt Jeffery discuss the many new programs the organization is pursuing.
Refugia Leads the Way
March 15, 2023 10:00 - 29 minutes - 40.1 MBJeff Lorenz, founder of the acclaimed Refugia Design Build, explains why the pandemic was a boom time for a landscaper committed to native plants, and how his firm’s “Ecological Greenway Network” is transforming neighborhoods
A New Classic
March 08, 2023 11:00 - 29 minutes - 40.1 MBNebraskan Benjamin Vogt, a leader in nature-based gardening, has just published Prairie Up, a book that is sure to become a go-to tool for those designing and installing landscapes rooted in our native grassland flora. With its many insights how the dynamics of native plants will shape a native landscape, Prairie Up offers invaluable lessons to nature-based gardeners everywhere
What's New in the Vegetable Garden?
March 01, 2023 11:00 - 29 minutes - 40.1 MBMy quest for tomatoes that will bear in my cool, cloudy climate led me to Dr. James Myers of Oregon State University. He shared with me the cultivars he had bred for that purpose, then described a program to produce vegetables better adapted to organic cultivation, and his collaboration with chefs
Are You Killing Your Garden With Kindness?
February 22, 2023 11:00 - 29 minutes - 40.1 MBHorticultural Educator Carol Reese explains why feeding your garden in springtime with a “complete” fertilizer can be a mistake, and describes a “lazy” style of gardening that can help heal the environment while drastically reducing your work.
The Contributions of a Modern Plant Explorer
February 15, 2023 11:00 - 29 minutes - 40.1 MBPlant explorers, once the rock stars of the horticultural world, have suffered a loss of status as gardeners turn to native plants. Listen to plant explorer extraordinaire Panayoti Kelaidis of the Denver Botanic Gardens discuss why his quest is still important to making our gardens more sustainable, as well as beautiful.
Become a Plant Explorer
February 08, 2023 11:00 - 29 minutes - 40.1 MBGratify your Indiana Jones fantasies by joining the Plant Conservation Volunteers. Your work will have you hiking into overlooked corners of the wild to monitor surviving populations of rare and endangered native plants, and work with landowners to combat threats.
Fighting Back Against Weed Ordinances
February 01, 2023 11:00 - 29 minutes - 40.1 MBAre your beloved native plants actually “noxious weeds”? Too often town or homeowner association officers say yes and invoke anti-weed ordinances to force gardeners back to old-fashioned lawns and foundation plantings. Listen to attorney and native plants advocate Rosanne Plante tell you how you can fight back, and win.
The Easy Way to Start Your Plants from Seed
January 25, 2023 11:00 - 29 minutes - 40.1 MBStarting plants from seed is economical and opens up a world of species and cultivars you’ll never find in the garden center. Seed starting is also easy and fun if you use the winter-sowing technique that Dolly Foster teaches.
What to Look For in the Garden this Year
January 18, 2023 11:00 - 29 minutes - 40.1 MBSince 1827, the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society has been leading the way in American gardening. Listen this week as its Vice President of Horticulture, Andrew Bunting, describes the trends to look for in 2023, and why sustainability concerns are at the top of the list.
Save the Snakes
January 11, 2023 11:00 - 29 minutes - 40.1 MBMichael Starkey understands that not everyone shares his enthusiasm for snakes, but as founder and Executive Director of Save the Snakes he believes that humans and snakes, even venomous snakes, can coexist. As a wildlife biologist, Michael shares techniques for making your landscape less – or more – attractive to snakes and how education can protect against snake bites and enhance your enjoyment of these amazing creatures
Return of an American Giant
January 04, 2023 11:00 - 29 minutes - 40.1 MBIn the early years of the 20th century an introduced fungal blight killed an estimated 4 billion American chestnut trees, effectively eliminating what had been a foundational species of eastern North American woodlands. Scientist Andrew Newhouse of the State University of New York explains how his university is preparing to release a race of American chestnuts genetically engineered to withstand the blight, so that this essential tree may flourish in the forest once again.
Gardening Without Pesticides in Toronto, Canada
December 28, 2022 11:00 - 29 minutes - 40.1 MBPopular gardener and garden blogger Helen Battersby of Toronto, Canada describes the impact of Ontario’s ban of pesticide use for ornamental purposes in this conversation from 2020
Looking to the European Garden Masters
December 21, 2022 11:00 - 29 minutes - 40.1 MBAward-winning garden designer and writer Tony Spencer introduces the New Perennial Movement that has brought a revolutionary naturalistic ethic to gardens worldwide
Synergy on the Brandywine
December 14, 2022 11:00 - 29 minutes - 40.1 MBCombining native plants gardening with land preservation and a museum of extraordinary regionally focused art has made the Brandywine Conservancy a unique celebration of the local landscape. Join Horticultural Coordinator Mark Gormel as he explains how this all begins with locally collected seeds, and how home gardeners can duplicate this in their own back yards.
A Mid Winter Don't Miss Event
December 07, 2022 11:00 - 29 minutes - 40.1 MBOne of the most important events of my gardening year is the extraordinary collection of gardeners, designers, and ecologists who assemble to exchange ideas every January at the New Directions in the American Landscape’s two-day annual symposium. Join executive director of NDAL, Sara Weaner, to learn about this year’s line-up of extraordinary speakers and topics. It’s a don’t miss opportunity
Coexisting With Black Bears
November 30, 2022 11:00 - 29 minutes - 40.1 MBOne of the great success stories of American wildlife, black bears are returning throughout their historic range and even moving into the suburbs. Confrontations with human inhabitants have fed calls for hunting seasons to curb their numbers. Wildlife ecologist Laura Simon explains why this is unlikely to resolve the problem, and shares proven strategies for reducing black bear problems
An Ancient Farming Practice Benefits the Contemporary Garden
November 23, 2022 11:00 - 29 minutes - 40.1 MBJoin Collin Thompson, the Farm Manager at Johnny’s Selected Seeds, as he discusses how planting “cover crops” in your garden can benefit not only the health of the soil and the plants you grow on it but also enhance pollinator populations and curb weeds, all while reducing your carbon footprint and fighting the spread of plant pests and diseases
Transplanting Hedgerows to the American Garden
November 16, 2022 11:00 - 29 minutes - 40.1 MBHedgerows, informal borders of intermingled shrubs and trees, are a familiar feature of the British countryside, serving not only to enclose farmers’ fields but also providing a refuge for wildlife and a source of foods for humans, birds, and pollinators alike. Dr. Annabel Renwick, the curator of native plants at the Sarah P. Duke Gardens in Durham, North Carolina, describes how she is using southeastern shrubs and trees to translate this environmentally beneficial, beautiful, and useful fe...
A Convincing Case for Rooftop Farms
November 09, 2022 11:00 - 29 minutes - 40.1 MBDr. Leigh Whittinghill of the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station is extending that storied institution’s research into a new landscape: the rooftops of Connecticut’s city neighborhoods. Enhancing city-dwellers’ diet can also benefit the local environment
Developing Meadow and Sustainable Lawn Solutions Coast to Coast
November 02, 2022 10:00 - 29 minutes - 40.1 MBMike Lizotte, the “Seedman” of American Meadows and High Country Gardens discusses his companies’ program to provide locally adapted wildflower and native grass seed mixes throughout the United States, and the growing enthusiasm among gardeners nationwide for environmentally beneficial plantings
The Mind of a Bee
October 26, 2022 10:00 - 29 minutes - 40.1 MBIn his fascinating new book, “The Mind of a Bee,” Dr. Lars Chittka explores not only bees’ ability to learn and process information, but also the evidence that individual bees possess distinctive personal psychologies. His research transformed my understanding of pollinators and enriched my garden experience.
Garden Help From the Cornell Lab of Ornithology
October 19, 2022 10:00 - 29 minutes - 40.1 MBOne of my favorite gardening tools is the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, the #1 resource for gardeners who want to know more about the birds in their landscapes. Join Dr. Emma Greig to explore the apps and online courses the Lab offers to help you identify and foster feathered visitors, and citizen science programs you can support to promote bird conservation.
Toni Gattone and Lifelong Gardening
October 12, 2022 10:00 - 29 minutes - 40.1 MBSenior and physically challenged gardeners have a special interest in sustainable landscapes, according to Toni Gattone, author of The Lifelong Gardener: Garden With Ease and Joy At Any Age. Join her for guidance on everything from saving your back by reducing resource inputs to ergonomically adapting favorite tools.
The Power of Reseeding Native Annuals
October 05, 2022 10:00 - 29 minutes - 40.1 MBNative garden designer and pollinator ecologist Alicia Houk details how incorporating reseeding native annuals makes your garden self-healing, weed-resistant, more colorful, and more wildlife friendly
A Modern-Day Garden Hero
September 28, 2022 10:00 - 29 minutes - 40.1 MBCathy Ludden epitomizes the role individual gardeners can play in transforming their local landscapes to meet our current environmental challenges. An avid student of native plants and wildlife, she has worked with great success at a personal, neighborhood, and county level to make her community biologically richer, ecologically healthier –and more beautiful.
Spring-Flowering Bulbs: Beautiful and Sustainable
September 21, 2022 10:00 - 29 minutes - 40.1 MBInheritor of a century-old family tradition of supplying the best spring-flowering bulbs to American gardeners, Brent Heath details the important role that they can play in today’s sustainable gardens. Flourishing without the use of chemicals, these plants furnish reliable early spring color and food for early season pollinators; follow Brent’s growing tips and your bulbs will return year after year as the toughest of perennials.
Wild By Design
September 14, 2022 10:00 - 29 minutes - 40.1 MBFostering wildlife and native plants – making our landscapes contributors to the local ecosystem – has become a goal of so many gardeners. In her new book, “Wild By Design: The Rise of Ecological Restoration,” Laura J. Martin traces how this became so. Introducing a remarkable band of ecologically minded pioneers, many of them women, Martin describes how this consciousness spread through the land preservation and gardening communities, how the understanding of restoration has changed over ...
Dutch Gardeners Explore A New Relationship With Nature
September 07, 2022 10:00 - 29 minutes - 40.1 MBAmerican gardeners typically turn to England when looking for inspiration abroad, but they’ll find a far more imaginative approach to integrating nature with human needs in contemporary Dutch gardening. Carrie Preston, an American designer who has made a career there, takes us for a tour.
Planting Native Spring Ephemerals Instead of Dutch Bulbs
August 31, 2022 10:00 - 29 minutes - 40.1 MBGardeners are busy now planting Dutch bulbs for a spring show, but there is an environmentally more beneficial alternative: native spring ephemerals. Neil Diboll, founder and president of Prairie Nursery, shares how to use these early blooming natives to create truly perennial early spring color while also benefiting pollinators and other wildlife.
Rain Barrel Gardening
August 24, 2022 10:00 - 29 minutes - 40.1 MBToo often environmentally conscious gardeners look for the “silver bullet” for our sustainability and resource issues, rather than contenting ourselves with what Kathy Connolly describes as “two percent solutions.” Kathy, an in-demand natural garden designer and educator, is referring to small changes that cumulatively can have a big impact. Listen to her describe her use of rain barrels as a convenient, inexpensive way to conserve drinking water, reduce energy usage, and make gardening mo...
An Organic Makeover for Your Lawn
August 17, 2022 10:00 - 29 minutes - 40.1 MBLate summer through early fall, according to Shay Lunseth, is the ideal time to put your lawn on a more environmentally friendly path. Shay’s got advice about boosting the health of your grass without chemicals, reducing or ending inputs of fertilizer and water, and even making your lawn pollinator friendly
Fighting Global Warming with Biochar
August 10, 2022 10:00 - 29 minutes - 40.1 MBBiochar has been touted as a valuable soil amendment that fosters better plant growth and stretches fertilizer budgets. Will Hessert and Javaughn Henry have also found in it a means to sequester carbon and confront global climate change. Listen as Will describes how they are putting in place a project to convert municipal landscape waste into biochar on a grand scale
Starting Native Plants From Seed
August 03, 2022 10:00 - 29 minutes - 40.1 MBStarting native plants from locally sourced seed is the most economical and ecologically advantageous way to rewild domestic landscapes. In the past, though, this has been perceived as tricky and demanding, a process only for experts. Anna Fialkoff, Ecological Programs Manager of the Wild Seed Project in North Yarmouth, Maine, describes how her organization makes starting native plants from seed affordable and easy, even for novices
A Gardener’s Brawl Examined
July 27, 2022 10:00 - 29 minutes - 40.1 MBAdmirers of exotic garden plants have taken to claiming that their foreign-born treasures are just as good nutritionally for our North American pollinators. Proponents of native plants insist that their flora supplies a better diet. We ask Dr. Harland Patch of Pennsylvania State University for the facts
Drought-Proofing the Garden with Nancy DuBrule-Clemente
July 20, 2022 10:00 - 29 minutes - 40.1 MBManaging water is the crucial task of the summertime garden, especially as climate change boosts the heat and the frequency of droughts. Join Nancy DuBrule-Clemente, founder of the pioneering woman-owned landscape company and garden center, Natureworks, as she brings her organic gardening sensibility to bear on ways to reduce watering while weathering our warming summers.
Learning to See With Botanical Art
July 13, 2022 10:00 - 29 minutes - 40.1 MBLooking at plants is one thing; learning to truly see them is another. Carrie Roy, Acting Curator of Art, introduces us to one of the world’s great collections of plant portraits, the Hunt Institute For Botanical Documentation in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and shares how the artist’s vision can delight and inform gardeners, changing the very way we see
Rebecca McMackin Bids Good-Bye to Brooklyn Bridge Park
July 06, 2022 10:00 - 29 minutes - 40.1 MBRebecca McMackin, a visionary horticulturist, has spent the last decade supervising the transformation of Brooklyn Bridge Park, 85 acres of abandoned shipping piers, into a complex of functioning ecosystems that serve as havens for wildlife and an accessible means for city dwellers to reconnect with nature. Now she’s moving on to new adventures. In our conversation she reflects on the accomplishments of Brooklyn Bridge Park’s remarkable horticultural staff, the acute need for such landscap...
Introducing Rewilding Magazine
June 29, 2022 03:00 - 29 minutes - 40.1 MBBorn in North America in the 1980’s, “Rewilding” has taken off in Europe, where it’s inspiring a return of broad tracts of marginal farmlands to functioning wild ecosystems. In this episode Canadian journalists Kat Tancock and Domini Clark discuss their new online magazine, “Rewilding,” which introduces readers to the basics of this fascinating worldwide movement, while helping them to apply its dynamics to their own back yards
Creating an Eco-Friendly Native Lawn
June 22, 2022 00:00 - 29 minutes - 40.1 MBKrissy Boys, Natural Areas Horticulturist of the Cornell Botanic Gardens, describes her chance encounter with a naturally compact grass native across North America, and how that led her to create a biodiverse, wildlife friendly, and largely self-sustaining lawn of native grasses and perennials
The Real Story About Roundup
June 15, 2022 10:00 - 29 minutes - 40.1 MBVeteran investigative journalist Carey Gillam introduces her award-winning book, “Whitewash: The Story of a Weed Killer, Cancer, and the Corruption of Science,” sharing its account of the collaboration between chemical manufacturer Monsanto and governmental agencies to cover up the disastrous health hazards of the omnipresent weed killer, Roundup
Ending the Landscape Impasse
June 08, 2022 10:00 - 29 minutes - 40.1 MBDan Mabe, founder of AGZA, the American Green Zone Alliance, has taken on one of the bitterest impasses of contemporary suburbia. So many residents hate the noise and fumes of gas-powered landscape equipment, and its unsustainable thirst for fossil fuels. Landscape maintenance contractors reply that they cannot provide the services their customers demand at a price they will pay without it. AGZA has developed analytical tools that can help owners reduce the carbon footprint of their lands...
The Surprising Downside of #NoMowMay
June 01, 2022 10:00 - 29 minutes - 40.1 MB#NoMowMay is an international movement that has been gaining widespread popularity in the United States. Its goal is to persuade gardeners to stop mowing their grass during the month of May so that lawn weeds such as dandelions and white clover may flower and provide early spring pollen and nectar for insect pollinators. A laudable impulse, but Dr. Sheila Colla of York University and her colleagues biologist Heather Holm and native plants stalwart Lorraine Johnson have published an article ...
Saving Nature One Yard At A Time
May 25, 2022 10:00 - 29 minutes - 40.1 MBIf each of us enriched our personal landscape with native plants, making it hospitable to pollinators, birds, and other wildlife, what an immense cumulative impact we would have! In Saving Nature One Yard At A Time, veteran naturalists and gardeners David Deardorff and Kathryn Wadsworth show us just how we can accomplish that, while also joining together to boost the ecological health of our communities as well. Framed as a series of stories profiling individual animals and plants, this bo...