פודקאסטים בנושא Margaret Roach

Marianne Willburn appreciates the bold and often vertical element that some favorite tropical plants add to her temperate garden. But maybe best of all are the ones that also provide that something extra: ingredients for cooking, which is her other passion besides gardening. I talked to Marianne about growing tender edible ornamentals, from turmeri…

The days are longer and the light is strengthening—triggers that don't just start to wake up our plants, indoors and out, but also get us gardeners going. The signals have my propagation-mad friend Ken Druse starting more seeds each week and looking around the landscape and the houseplant-filled sunroom for some chances to make more plants, his fav…

Today’s guest says you can tell a lot about a tree by the company it keeps – from unseen microbes to fungi, countless insects and other arthropods, to vertebrates like birds, squirrels, and even porcupines. From soil life around their roots to the action up in their canopies, trees are swarming with life, and their diverse community of companions i…

Could your houseplants use a tuneup after a hard winter indoors? I know mine will need it, from re-potting, to light pruning, to full scale rejuvenation in some cases, so I wanted to get expert advice. Today's guest has been growing houseplants since age 5, and the last 25 years he's been doing that not just at home, but also in historic Longwood G…

Each year the powers that be in the horticulture industry declare what the trends are—what color is “in” and what design styles we’re all meant to adhere to, and what plant is hot—or not. Today’s guest and I beg to differ, and have decided to do some trend declarations of our own ... from big bold perennials to why you should learn to propagate and…

. It’s probably the question I am asked most: Gardeners want to go wilder and use more native plants to create habitat. But how do they figure out which plants, since it’s not one size fits all regions, or even different locations within a region...and choosing as we mostly do by hardiness zone isn’t going to get the ecological job done. Help! Benj…

Like any gardener looking ahead to another growing season, I’m deep into the seed catalogs, dreaming of things to come. But many seeds also offer us a window to look back in time by telling us their stories, which are also the stories of the people who grew them before us, and the places those people and seeds have journeyed from. I have a special …

Promises of less work with more garden productivity often raise my suspicions, perhaps sounding too good to be true—except when the subject is no-dig gardening. The no-dig method of caring for our vegetable beds, which today's guest, Charles Dowding, has popularized, is not just good for maximizing output while minimizing labor, but also of great b…

If you think you know what a cucumber is, think again. Spend even five minutes on the website of The Cucumber Shop, a passion project of today’s cucumber-mad guest Jay Tracy, and you will realize that you don’t. At all. The incredible diversity of cucumbers is our topic today. California-based Jay Tracy is a teacher, and a father of four teens—and …

With the surge in interest in lawn alternatives and other native choices for groundcover, the genus Carex is always mentioned high up on the list. But which of these grass light perennials, most of them labeled as best suited to shade, can actually substitute for lawn, and which sedges can serve other landscape roles? A four-year trial at Mt. Cuba …

Have you started browsing the incoming seed catalogs yet or clicking around their websites, looking to see if the 2023 lineups have been unveiled? Today's guest, Lane Selman is always on the lookout for exceptional varieties of edibles, particularly those with an Italian flair. I did some virtual seed shopping with her and learned about some distin…

It's that time of year when we look both ways. Not left and right, like we're crossing the road, but back and forward at the year just wound down, and ahead at the one coming into view. It's a moment of reflection, and perhaps resolutions for our gardens and our lives. I could think of no one I'd rather ponder that intersection with than Marc Hamer…

When shorter, colder days have us indoors more, a bit of botanical company can make it all a lot brighter. This edition of the podcast has suggestions for some winter solstice decorating, for bringing a bit of nature indoors for the offseason to reconnect us with the garden and provide some cheer. And not just the obvious holiday centerpiece or wre…

I put out my first bird feeder of the season on Thanksgiving and got the party started. But there's more to feeding the birds than just filling the feeders, like how to keep them safe in the age of increased disease transmission, or how to provide essential water in the coldest months, and of course, much0needed tactics for outsmarting the squirrel…

If I say garden maintenance, you probably think of work—of getting out the pruners and hedge trimmers and such, and subduing any overenthusiastic plants, getting them back into bounds. But what if we thought of maintenance as an expression of creativity, instead of merely restraint—as part of the art of garden-making? What if we figured it into our…

Winter cold has just finally descended here, and I am already missing the smells of the growing season—from the range of flowers to just brushing up against herbs out by the vegetable garden. Ken Druse is here today to encourage us to extend our season of scentual gardening – that’s S-C-E-N-T-ual as in fragrance, and as in the title of his book “Th…

‘Tis the season when I'm making more applesauce to freeze and baking pears for dessert (or for breakfast), so what sweeter topic for today's episode than fruit? Lee Reich, who has written several books on the subject, is here with some fascinating history of the origins of the fruits we love, and some how-to growing advice, too. Lee Reich, who gard…

In his new book, Wild Plant Culture, restoration ecologist Jared Rosenbaum says something provocative about gardening with native plants. "It's time to expand our vision past supporting birds, butterflies, and bees, and fully integrate the most challenging animal of all, the human being, into our native plant gardens," he writes. So what all would …

We’ve all heard the environmentally conscious advice: The way we used to clean up our gardens – extra-tidy, but to within an inch of its life for every unseen beneficial creature out there trying to tuck in for winter – is not the best practice. I’m learning and evolving my approach as I go the last few years, reading up about guidance like “leave …

A new book I’m reading emphasizes the word watching in the expression bird watching. As in: Don’t be in such a hurry to merely note that you’ve seen a bird, but instead really have a close look at what it’s doing, and discover the facts of its life. The book is called "Slow Birding," and its author is here today to talk about how to be a slow birde…

One thing that Ken Druse and I are certain about when it comes to plants: that they will often surprise you, Some grow bigger or stay smaller than the catalog promised, and some are better- or worse-behaved, or tougher or more tender than expected. Some plants that have surprised us over the years, for better or worse, was the subject of a recent c…

If I say “English garden,” you probably conjure a mental picture of colorful mixed borders and garden rooms enclosed by hedging. But what's the essence of an American garden? That was what a new book called “American Roots” set out to explore, profiling 20 home gardens around the nation for design inspiration, and also for how-to advice geared to g…

Since I took a walk with today’s guest about 10 years ago, I’ve adopted a whole different way of looking at what I might have once seen as imperfections in plants. Now when I spy a squiggle in a columbine leaf or what looks like a green Ping-Pong ball on an oak, instead of thinking “What’s wrong with my plant!” I instead think “I wonder who made th…

Becoming a successful vegetable gardener involves a lot of trial and error. As the seasons pass we hopefully get better at it—harvesting not just food for the table, but food for thought too, insights gleaned along the way to guide us to improved outcomes in subsequent growing seasons. I don't know many more passionate vegetable gardeners than Joe …

A collection of historic apples that was threatened by disease is having a second act at the New England Botanic Garden at Tower Hill in Boylston, Mass., where a three-year-long restoration of their orchard of 119 antique varieties has just been completed. It's a story of going the distance to see those old varieties into the future in the age of c…

In emails received from many parts of the country, I’m hearing gardeners say the same thing: This year has been really hard. Count me in on those voicing that sentiment. Gardeners know first-hand that climate change isn’t something in the future, but something right here, every day, right now. So I was fascinated to start reading about the Climate …

Maybe like I do, you always mean to be better at seed saving, and it gets away from you. Well, right now is the perfect time with pen and paper or your cell phone in hand for making a list to look around the garden for what potential yields are coming up that you might want to grab at just the right stage to make more plants. Ken Druse is here to t…

Ecological horticulturist Andy Brand can't help himself. He just has to look closely at everything outdoors: every plant, every insect, every process that's unfolding. And he has to take camera phone pictures, too—lots and lots of pictures. These up-close observations aren't just visually compelling, though. They also pull him down a rabbit hole of…

I’ve never had a rock garden, I confess. But a new book about a modern and extreme form of the art caught my attention recently. It’s called “The Crevice Garden: How to Make the Perfect Home for Plants from Rocky Places,” and its authors are here today to talk about why you might want to make room for one, and the plants it can support. Colorado-ba…

Hot and dry: That’s the lament of gardeners in most regions in high summer, and also of many plants in their flower gardens. The author of a new book called “The Ultimate Flower Gardener’s Guide” is here to suggest which perennials can stand up best to the test, plus give us some lavender-growing advice – speaking of plants adapted to hot and dry. …

I call the phenomenon tomato troubles. You know, the yellow-spotted foliage that falls off, or the plant that produces all those misshapen fruits and yes, the attack of the hornworms, too, when you wake up to a lot of missing leaves one day. Or all of the above. Oops! August is a perfect time to check in with the tomato man himself, Craig LeHoullie…

I recently hosted a shade-gardening webinar featuring my friend, Ken Druse. The enthusiastic registration and the outpouring of audience questions that evening reminded me how popular a topic shade is, especially the challenge of dry shade, so I asked Ken to join me on the podcast to talk more about it. Ken is a familiar voice here at A Way To Gard…

I’ve been undertaking more native-plant-focused garden transformations in recent years, as I know many of you listening have, too. Today’s guest is a naturalist with a background in landscape architecture who’s been making wildish gardens for decades, both at home and in his public-garden career. Alan Branhagen is here to talk about some of his own…

You know how the vegetable garden goes. One day, there are just two green beans ready to pick, and then there are 62 all at once. Famine and then feast. Some of that can be moderated by growing different varieties with different days to maturity or with smaller succession sowings of each crop. But no matter how much planning, it's not a predictable…

If you think that managing invasive plants in a garden is a challenge, imagine that on a larger scale—a much larger scale, like Angela Sirois-Pitel faces in the name of supporting native habitat on Nature Conservancy land. From barberries and multiflora rose bushes to the nasty annual grass called stiltgrass, Angela and her team have faced them all…

More than 20 years ago, artists Allyson Levy and Scott Serrano started a botanical garden in the backyard of their Hudson Valley, New York, home. Today, the Hortus Arboretum and Botanical Gardens has grown to 11 acres of diverse collections. One of the couple's passions is unusual edibles, and now they've written a book about their favorites. “Cold…

The lecture that he's been giving for a number of years is not so subtly called “Kill our Lawn.” Ecological horticulturist Dan Wilder knows that starting over and creating an entire native habitat instead of a lawn isn't for everyone. But Dan just wants to grab our attention and get us to start to make some changes at least in the way we care for t…

Today’s show is all about surprises—and the first one is my guest. He’s back: My old friend Ken Druse is here after too many months of absence, and our subject is the surprises our gardens have offered so far this spring, from extra-bountiful roses to not-so-welcome spongy moth caterpillars, aka gypsy moths. You all know Ken Druse, author of 20 gar…

While researching a story about the endangered status of native trillium in North America recently, I was happy to meet today’s guest, botanist Wesley Knapp. Our trillium conversations got me thinking about how headlines like the trillium one, highlighting reports of the accelerating threats of extinctions of plant or animal species, are so common …

How are we doing in the effort to reduce tick encounters, and the diseases that ticks carry and can transmit to humans? The results from a multi-year study in Dutchess County, New York, one of the areas in the United States with the highest rates of Lyme disease, shed some light on that question. One of the study’s directors is here today to talk a…

Today's guest, author Sy Montgomery, writes that “we are on the cusp of either destroying the sweet green earth, or revolutionizing the way we understand the rest of animate creation. “It's an important time to be writing about the connections we share with our fellow creatures," she adds, saying, "It's a great time to be alive." In 33 books for ad…

I get a lot of questions every year about mulch, about how to use it, when to use it, which kind to use. And today we'll talk about all that, but also even more important about what goes on in the soil beneath that mulch layer when you mulch with an organic material. My guest today to explain all that is Bill Fonteno, Professor Emeritus of Horticul…

With the explosion of interest in native plants in recent years, I know I'm not alone among gardeners who are scouring catalogs and specialty nurseries, looking for the right native to match every garden purpose, from trees on down to groundcovers. A new book by Uli Lorimer, director of horticulture at Native Plant Trust, has added some plants to m…

Today, we're going to do some gravel gardening—not merely applying a thin mulch-like top dressing of gravel to a garden bed, but planting right into a deliberate foundation of 4 or 5 inches of gravel. My guest is Jeff Epping, director of horticulture at Olbrich Botanical Gardens in Madison, Wisc., where he created his first gravel garden in 2009. W…

Have you ever grown a carnivorous plant—a Venus flytrap or sundew or pitcher plant, perhaps? I bet even a lot of keen gardeners haven't. Today's guest is going to encourage us to change that and maybe, as a start, adopt one that you can cultivate on your windowsill even. All in time for International Carnivorous Plant Day on Wednesday, May 4th, we'…

I’m thinking about Trilliums – prompted not just because these treasured spring ephemerals are coming into their season, but by the disturbing news in a report just published that found that 32 percent of all North American Trillium species or varieties are threatened with extinction. My guest is Amy Highland, the Director of Collections and Conser…

Finally, the first fresh flavors of spring are starting to show up at the farmer's markets, and before long in our gardens, with more to come every unfolding week. Chef and cookbook author Justin Chapple, who's also the “Food & Wine” culinary director at large, is here to help us with ideas to use the coming bounty, including easy but transformatio…

Even though I don't live anywhere near St. Louis, one of my most used and appreciated resources for plant information over many, many years has been the Missouri Botanical Garden, with its world-class offerings to gardeners both in person and online. One feature I look forward to each year is the garden's annual Plants of Merit list, and today we'r…

Do I need a soil test? And what kind of amendments should I be adding to my vegetable beds or containers to get things off to a good start? And how can I fine tune my composting this year to optimize results? Those are some of the timely questions I covered with Annie Novak, manager of the Edible Academy at the New York Botanical Garden. Annie is a…

I thought my obsession with Angelica blooms was a serious one until recently, when I met Sam Keitch of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, who takes it one step further. Sam has a passion for various other garden-worthy, umbel-shaped flowers—not just various angelicas, but other plants in the family related to carrots and parsley. Sam Keitch is…