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 has increased in the year and a half since that chat. Whatever the precise number, suffice it to say that Alla is devoted to growing and propagating Clematis, especially small-flowered ones, and photographing them and using them in cut flower arrangements, too. They are a joy of her life, and were the subject of our conversation. Alla, with her dual passions for plants and photography, lives and gardens in northeastern Ukraine, in Kharkiv, where in the face of the reality of war the last three-and-a-half years she has ramped up a mail-order seed-selling business and written two e-books about her special love, Clematis. Alla was also the subject of the documentary film “Gardening in a War Zone,” produced in December 2023 by Rob Finch of the famed Floret Flowers farm in Washington State, who introduced me to Alla at that time to work on a “New York Times” garden column together. Plus: Comment in the box near the bottom […]

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ON THE WEEKEND of Aug. 8-9, 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, by learning more about some of their participatory programs that we gardeners can help with, including one called ADAPT, where gardeners trial varieties from the Seed Savers seed bank in their own gardens and provide feedback on their performance to help Seed Savers understand the adaptability of these varieties to different environments around the country. I talked to Mike Bollinger, Seed Savers’ executive director, and Sydney Weldon, their evaluations and trials manager, who leads the ADAPT program, a community-driven trialing initiative, that connects gardeners and farmers across the U.S. with unique open-pollinated crops from Seed Savers’ extensive seed bank. I suspect most every gardener knows Seed Savers for its seed catalog of irresistible open-pollinated varieties. But Mike and Sydney told me about other projects like ADAPT and more that we can all engage with. Read along as you listen to the Aug. 4, 2025 edition of my public-radio show and podcast using the player below. You can subscribe to all future […]

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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 that everyday terrain, and the creatures we share it with? In his new book called “Close to Home: The Wonder of Nature Just Outside Your Door” (affilate link) conservation biologist Thor Hanson encourages us to retrain our eyes and connect more intimately—and also to take actions that can enhance the biodiversity of the place we call home. Thor Hanson is a conservation biologist whose work has taken him around the globe to a wide diversity of habitats. He is a Guggenheim Fellow and a recipient of the John Burroughs Medal for distinguished natural history writing, and the author of multiple books—the latest of which is “Close to Home.” Plus: Comment in the box near the bottom of the page for a chance to win a copy of “Close to Home.” Read along as you listen to the July 28, 2025 edition of my public-radio show and podcast using the player below. You can subscribe to all future editions on Apple […]

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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 – in the hottest stretch of summer days when spring’s nonstop flower show is just a distant memory. Ken and I spoke recently about planning, and planting, for strong visual interest even in the dog days. Ken is author of 20 garden books, and gardens in a mostly shady spot in New Jersey, where foliage is a major driver that makes his extensive landscape design work. Whether for herbaceous plants closer to ground level or in his tree and shrub choices, he’s always on the lookout for the unusual selection of a particular plant that has that something extra: great leaves (like Ken’s red-leaf peach, above). Read along as you listen to the July 21, 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). foliage, the garden’s mainstay, with ken druse Download file | Play in new window | Duration: 00:27:38 Subscribe: Apple […]

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GEORGE SCHOELLKOPF 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 just purchased wasn’t a grand manor house, but a simple 18th-century farmhouse. Nevertheless, George brought the feel of an English garden to life at the place that became Hollister House, which today is a much-visited destination garden, and also the site of a rich offering of educational programs throughout the season, including the popular Garden Study Weekend early each September. In the gardens at Hollister House in Washington, Conn., he has contrasted the formal and informal, made room-like spaces to explore, and experimented with a wide-ranging palette of plants over the years. George will be talking about the making of Hollister House on Saturday, Sept. 6 at the annual Garden Study Weekend there, along with several other noted speakers on a diversity of topics. Some of the design ideas that went into the garden’s making were what we talked about together recently. Read along as you listen to the July 14, 2025 edition of my public-radio show and podcast using the player below. You can subscribe to […]

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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 the podcast with ornithologist Dr. John Marzluff—a conversation I want to reprise. Possessing large brains for their body size, a knack for social networking that requires no internet connection, and keen powers of observation, crows and ravens are among the big personalities of the bird word. They are also what Dr. Marzluff calls, “black-feathered practitioners of lifelong learning,” and from him I learned about the capacity of their avian brains and the range of things it allows them to do–from the funny to the daring, much of it almost unbelievable. Dr. Marzluff is a renowned ornithologist and urban ecologist, and professor emeritus of wildlife sciences at the University of Washington. He is author a number of books, including ones about his area of particular expertise, the corvids—crows, ravens, jays and their relatives.  Around the time that we recorded this conversation, I had just read the book he created in collaboration with illustrator Tony Angell called “Gifts of the Crow: How […]

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A BIG OLD copper beech tree is a focal point of my garden, and each time I look out the window at it admiringly these days, I feel the same love and gratitude I always have for its grandeur, but also a deepening twinge of worry. These are increasingly tough times for beeches, both European ones like my copper beech, and on a far bigger environmental scale, the precious native beech trees of our Eastern North American forests. I’m joined for this podcast by Beth Brantley of Bartlett Tree Research Laboratories, who’s speaking July 18 on the future of beeches at the annual in-person and virtual Woody Plant Conference at Scott Arboretum at Swarthmore College. Beth, whose doctorate is in plant pathology, is the Northeast Research Scientist with Bartlett Tree Research Laboratories, providing support to Bartlett Tree Experts’ regional offices; conducting arbor culture research; and sharing her knowledge through teaching and presentations. Beech leaf disease, one of the newer challenges facing beech trees today, is a particular interest of Beth’s, and she told me more about that and other pest and pathogen pressures facing these important trees. (Above, striping from beech leaf disease evident in beech leaves; photo from Bartlett […]

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WE’RE GOING TO do some pruning, but not the same old straight-forward kind. Instead we’re going to talk topiary, and its transformative powers—not just on the plant that is the subject that’s getting clipped, or on the garden that the living sculpture will eventually adorn, but potentially on the creator, too. Topiary artist Mike Gibson and I talked about the horticulture and the artistry in what he does, and also about the therapeutic properties of making topiary. Mike Gibson has been engaging with plants since his childhood in Ohio. Starting in late 2021, he contributed to the restoration of Pearl Fryar’s famed topiary creations at the Pearl Fryar Topiary Garden in South Carolina. Mike now lives in Columbia, S.C., where he operates Gibson Works LLC. He was one of the experts profiled in Amy Stewart’s 2024 book “The Tree Collectors,” has been featured on the HGTV show “Clipped,” and is a popular lecturer and teacher of all things topiary. Read along as you listen to the June 23, 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). […]

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SOME OF US plant a row of particular annuals with the intention to cut them for bouquets in their moment of bloom, and some of us think bigger and have a whole cutting garden within our landscape. I feel like ceramic artist and passionate gardener Frances Palmer thinks biggest of all and that every plant in her extensive gardens—not just the tulips, zinnias or dahlias that you might expect, but even the herbs and her flowering vines and branches of ornamental trees and shrubs—are all fair game for having their moment in a vase someday at her place. Expanding your interpretation of the phrase “cutting garden” was the topic of our recent conversation,  with plant ideas and tips for success. Connecticut based Frances Palmer is a well-known ceramist and gardener, author of the 2020 book, “Life in the Studio: Inspiration and Lessons on Creativity,” and creator of a popular Instagram account, too. Her newest book is “Life with Flowers: Inspiration and Lessons from the Garden” (affiliate links). Plus: Comment in the box near the bottom of the page for a chance to win a copy of her latest book. Read along as you listen to the June 16, 2025 edition […]

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WE MAY KNOW ONE when we see it, but what word best describes an ecological landscape? Compared to traditional, more formal gardens, such native-plant-forward designs are variously labeled as looser, or naturalistic, or wildish—all perfectly accurate. Is there perhaps a word, though, that really gets at both the visual and functional aspects that these beautiful, biodiversity-supporting plantings embody – a word that can help us set the intention for the plants we choose and where we place them? “Abundant” is the descriptor of choice and a primary design goal for today’s guest, landscape designer Kelly Norris, author most recently of the book “Your Natural Garden” (affiliate link). Kelly, the former director of horticulture and education at the Greater Des Moines Botanical Garden for eight years, is the founder of The Public Horticulture Company, a Des Moines-based ecological landscape firm. His motto is “just keep planting,” which indeed adds up to abundance … if we follow some general guidelines on what key players we make room for. Plus: Comment in the box near the bottom of the page for a chance to win a copy of Kelly’s book “Your Natural Garden.” Read along as you listen to the June 9, 2025 […]

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