Growing Greener

Garden Journaling 2.0

That classic horticultural memoir, the published journal of a gardener's daily activities, has taken on a new life with the advent of online media; Claire Davis, a very t

How to Make Wood Chips a Basis for Soil Health

Brian Vagg of the Compost Academy discusses how wood chips, if properly managed, can be a cheap and reliable means for supplying the organic matter – and microbes – that

Creating Microenvironments to Boost Your Garden's Biodiversity and Resilience

Tom Wessels, professor emeritus at Antioch University New England and a celebrated ecologist, author, and educator explains how gardeners can enrich their landscapes with

Ground-Breaking New Takes on Trees from the Oldest Arboretum in the United States

Ned Friedman, Director of Harvard's Arnold Arboretum discusses that institution's programs to preserve the DNA of tree species and populations threatened with extinction

Welcoming Peter Rabbit back into the Garden

Amy Free, rabbit-lover and anthrozoologist, awakens Tom Christopher to the beauties and ecological importance of rabbits and shares how to host them without sacrificing y

Exploring – and Updating – Nature's Calendar

Theresa Crimmins, Director of the USA National Phenology Network, explains why knowing the timing of natural events such as the annual bloom of different flowers and the

The Garden Conservancy: Your Passport to Garden Visits and Education Nationwide

Horatio Joyce, the Garden Conservancy's Director of Public Programs & Education details the rich opportunities his organization provides to tour remarkable gardens in eve

Are There Microplastics in the Compost You've been Buying?

Rutger Myers of Eco-Cycle, a leader in promoting community composting programs for 50 years, discusses studies that indicate microplastics may be finding their way into t

Do "Designed Ecosystems" Function Like Natural Plant Communities?

A school of European and English garden designers, and now American ones too, claim their "designed ecosystems" of plants gathered from all over the world provide similar

The Facts about Fireflies

Texan Ben Pfeiffer discusses his personal crusade for fireflies and the remarkable facts about their strange and colorful life cycles in this return visit to a conversati

New Cultural Perspectives on Ecological Gardening and How Your Lawn Can Transform Itself into a Native Meadow

Sara Weaner Cooper describes how New Directions in the American Landscape is incorporating indigenous American approaches into Ecological Gardening and how by adjusting t

Tim Clymer Uses Climate Battery Greenhouses to Farm Sub-Tropical Fruits in Pennsylvania

By storing excess heat from sunny days in the soil below his greenhouses, Tim Clymer keeps them warm on winter nights for a fraction the cost of conventional propane heat

An Ecological Perspective on Tick-Borne Diseases

Dr. Rick Ostfeld of the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies shares thirty years of research on the ecology of tick-borne diseases in North America, detailing why landscap

Citizen Scientists of iNaturalist Playing Crucial Role in Preservation of Biodiversity

Arya Natarajan of iNaturalist describes how that online platform's user community is playing a central role in monitoring changes in global biodiversity and the creation

Charlie Nardozzi's New Book – an Ecological Update for the Kitchen Garden

In "The Continuous Vegetable Garden" Charlie Nardozzi applies lessons learned from ecologically-informed gardening to bring vegetable and fruit gardening into a new, more

The Nurturing Nature Initiative – Botanical Gardens Unite To Address Climate Change

Emma Grover and Dr. Mauricio Diazgranados discuss a new program from the New York Botanical Garden to unite the thousands of botanical gardens worldwide in devoting their

What is Naturalism?

"Naturalism" is the dominant design style in ecological gardening, but what exactly is it?  Is Naturalism just mimicry of nature, or does it allow for the designer to inc

"Veganic" Gardening

Are you troubled about supporting industrial agriculture and its mistreatment of animals by purchasing by-products such as manures and blood meal to maintain your garden'

A New Chapter in the Roundup Debacle

Award-winning investigative journalist Carey Gillam exposed the corruption and suppression of evidence involved in the Environmental Protection Agency's original approval

Landraces – Customizing Vegetable and Fruit Cultivars to Flourish in Your Garden

In a conversation first shared in February of 2024, farmer and author Joseph Lofthouse describes how to foster  "landraces," strains of vegetables and fruits adapted to t