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 the age of increased disease transmission, or how to provide essential water in the coldest months, and of course, much-needed tactics for outsmarting the squirrels. Smart bird feeding and more bird-related wisdom was the topic of conversation I had in December 2022 with Julie Zickefoose, that I’m featuring in encore on the podcast. I’m always delighted to talk to Julie Zickefoose, who is a wildlife rehabilitator and artist and author of various books, including a favorite of mine, “Saving Jemima: Life and Love with a Hard-Luck Jay” (affiliate link).  Julie lives and gardens on an 80-acre wildlife sanctuary in the Appalachian foothills of Ohio. Plus: Enter to win a copy of “Saving Jemima” by commenting in the box at the bottom of the page. Read along as you listen to the Dec. 29, 2025 edition of my public-radio show and podcast using the player below. You can subscribe to all future editions on Apple Podcasts (iTunes) or Spotify or Stitcher (and […]

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THE EARLIEST REFERENCES to humans cultivating trees date back to maybe 6000 BC, 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, and our best practices of pruning and other how-to have evolved in each successive era to the methods we know today. I took a look backward in history, and also explored some current recommendations, with Melissa Finley, New York Botanical Garden’s Thain Curator of Woody Plants, and also curator of NYBG’s Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden. Woody plants are Melissa’s passion; she is a certified arborist, and was a forester with the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation before joining NYBG four years ago. Read along as you listen to the Dec. 22, 2025 edition of my public-radio show and podcast using the player below. You can subscribe to all future editions on Apple Podcasts (iTunes) or Spotify (and browse my archive of podcasts here). woody plant history and how-to, with melissa finley Download file | Play in new window | Duration: 00:26:43 Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify Margaret Roach: How are you in this craziest of winters so far, huh? [Laughter.] Up […]

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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 plants has grown fast, and with it have come more new words for our vocabulary. One phrase that I’ve heard a lot lately is “keystone plant”—an expression I probably didn’t even know five years ago—describing native species that are disproportionately important to local ecosystems, the sort of powerhouse plants of all. I wanted to learn more about just what keystone plants are, and which ones belong in my garden and why, and Uli Lorimer, director of horticulture at Native Plant Trust, helped explain all that to me. Uli, who has devoted his career to native plants,  also writes the “Ask the Gardener” column for “The Boston Globe.” Read along as you listen to the Dec. 15, 2025 edition of my public-radio show and podcast using the player below. You can subscribe to all future editions on Apple Podcasts (iTunes) or Spotify (and browse my archive of podcasts here). keystone plants with uli lorimer Download file | Play in new window | Duration: 00:26:25 Subscribe: Apple […]

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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 chrysanthemum took center floral stage from Thanksgiving to New Year’s, surprising as that might sound. Whether historic or cutting-edge modern, horticulturist Matt Mattus reminds us there are many choices of festive blooms, including various ones we can grow ourselves indoors, and he has tricks for perfecting even the most familiar of those – your amaryllis, for instance. Matt Mattus is a lifelong plant person – and that’s putting it mildly – and I can always count on him to be showcasing some drool-worthy flower on his Instagram feed, even in winter. That’s one of his exhibition mums, called ‘Fleur des Lis,’ above. You may recall a popular conversation I had about Christmas cactus with Matt, who is Senior Director of Horticulture for the American Horticultural Society. Matt gardens in Massachusetts, and is the author of various garden books, including “Mastering the Art of Vegetable Gardening” and “Mastering the Art of Flower Gardening.” He also provides consultation services both virtually and […]

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I CAN’T IMAGINE LIFE life without my admittedly oddball collection of houseplants, many of which have been with me for several decades already. So I was delighted recently to meet Rob Moffitt, whose Los Angeles-based botanical design studio (above) specializes in matching their clients with houseplants that are just the way I like them: Not just pretty, but possessing loads of personality. Often sculptural in stature, like living artworks. Capable of forging a connection to the person caring for them … and with the potential to endure, maybe even for a lifetime of companionship. In a recent conversation, Rob shared some favorites that you may wish to consider welcoming into your life, too, and where he finds them (hint: probably not at the big box store or supermarket). He also shared some of the tricks for how he shows them off to their best advantage. Rob is a former nurse turned plantsman. He founded his business called The Haus Plant five years ago, at first as a plant truck that he’d take to farmers’ markets. The last two and a half years, The Haus Plant has resided in a permanent home on West 3rd Street in the Miracle Mile neighborhood […]

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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 – all overgrown, but still willing to bear fruit despite their age and years of neglect. I’m very attached to them, even though I still don’t know their names, which was why I wanted to talk to today’s guest, Jamie Hanson, the orchard manager for Seed Savers Exchange in Iowa, who knows a thing or two about heritage apples. Seed Savers has a major collection, and each year it distributes scion wood and rootstock for grafting new trees from the historic ones in its collection, and teaches a series of virtual courses on every step of how to do that and grow ones of your own and care for them. We’ll also learn how old apple trees like mine can now be identified through the relatively new process of DNA testing. In her role as orchard manager for Seed Savers Exchange in Decorah, Iowa, Jamie oversees more than 1,000 apples in the collection there, in two 8-acre orchards. Jamie’s interest in […]

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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 I am saying is: It’s not too early to start talking about seed shopping … and it’s never too early to start scouting out new seed sources that you might not know about! My guest to get seed season started is the adventurous seed shopper Joseph Tychonievich, who has called himself a “plant-crazed garden nerd,” and we connected on the podcast to share some of our favorite places to track down unusual goodies of all kinds, from alpines to native perennials. Joseph is a writer, a plant breeder and of course a gardener, based in South Bend, Ind.—and the author of the books “Rock Gardening: Reimagining a Classic Style,” plus a graphic novel on growing food called “The Comic Book Guide to Growing Food.” You may recall past conversations we’ve had on the show about other passions of his such as snapdragons, and gladiolus and more. (Photo above, Joseph grew Lewisia ‘Tutti Frutti’ from Jelitto Perennial Seed.) Read along as […]

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TIME FOR A LESSON in winter sowing—sowing seeds in fall and early winter outside in a protected spot, a sort of easy DIY home nursery for making more plants. What we’ll learn to propagate that way in this reprise edition from the A Way to Garden podcast archive are specifically seeds of native plants, both meadow perennials like asters and Joe-Pye weed, and also various shrubs and even trees. Our guide is Heather McCargo, who founded the nonprofit Wild Seed Project in Maine in 2014 and has been growing natives from seed for nearly 40 years. Native plants’ wild populations have shrunk alarmingly in that time. The mission of Heather’s Wild Seed Project is to inspire and teach more of us to grow natives and use them to repopulate the landscape, whether in our home gardens or maybe a community project like a park or school or beyond. Today she’ll show us how. (Wild Seed Project how-to artwork, above, by Jada Fitch.) Read along as you listen to the Sept. 20, 2021 edition of my public-radio show and podcast using the player below. You can subscribe to all future editions on Apple Podcasts (iTunes) or Spotify or Stitcher (and browse my […]

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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 area or some other habitat-inspired, naturalistic feature about how to handle its aftercare: about what to do when the picture changes a couple of years down the road and thereafter—when the balance of the plants in their design starts to shift, and there’s too much or too little of something for their liking, or when some unwanted weedy elements find their way in. I sought some hands-on advice from Dan Wilder, who manages native plantings professionally on thousands of acres of conserved natural lands, and also on his own home-garden scale. Dan Wilder is a longtime native plant expert, and the director of Applied Ecology for the nonprofit Norcross Wildlife Foundation in Massachusetts, an 8,000-acre sanctuary. He is also a board member of the Ecological Landscape Alliance, a leader in promoting sustainable approaches to the landscape to professionals and gardeners alike.  With Mark Richardson, Dan co-authored the book “Native Plants for New England Gardens.” Note: I inserted some subheadings below so you can zero in […]

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PAUL BANNICK 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. And the more you learn about them, the more astonishing they become. Paul’ Bannick‘s new book is “Woodpecker: A Year in the Life of North American Woodpeckers” (affiliate link) and he’s an award-winning author and wildlife photographer based in Seattle who is focused on the natural history of North America, and in particular on the conservation of birds and their habitat. He’s written several previous books about owls, a special passion of his, and now one on woodpeckers. (Above, the northern red-shafted flicker; photo from the book.) Plus: Comment in the box near the bottom of the page for a chance to win his new book. Read along as you listen to the Oct. 27, 2025 edition of my public-radio show and podcast using the player below. You can subscribe to all future editions on Apple Podcasts (iTunes) or Spotify (and browse my archive of podcasts here). woodpeckers, with paul bannick Download file | Play in new window | Duration: 00:27:51 \ Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify […]

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