I’VE ANSWERED a lot of garden questions in my time as a garden journalist, but nobody has asked more of them than my latest podcast interview, who’s also the person I’ve known longer than anyone else on the planet. My baby sister, Marion Roach Smith, is an author and podcaster, a popular teacher of memoir writing, and like her older sister and the grandmother she is named for, a gardener in her own right. She’s also the person who coined the phrase “urgent garden question,” as in: “Margaret, I have an urgent garden question,” meaning that I needed to deliver on-demand answers to the sister on the other end of the phone line and fast—or else. She joined me to talk about hand-me-down plants we’ve shared and garden lessons we’ve learned, like how her 18 dahlia tubers eventually turn into 175 (including massive clumps like the one in the photo below), and how that’s too many. And maybe we even asked and answered some more urgent garden questions. Marion Roach Smith is the author of various books including “The Memoir Project: A Thoroughly Non-Standardized Text for Writing and Life” (affiliate link), which spawned a whole business at marionroach.com, teaching and […]

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AGAIN AND AGAIN, as I was reading the recent book “Bad Naturalist” by Paula Whyman, I kept thinking: Good thing I only have a couple of acres of land. Whyman tackled 200 acres on a Virginia mountaintop, dreaming of reshaping it, she writes, into “a native plant paradise, a model of conservation, a meadow that would inspire Julie Andrews to break into song.” But the natural world often has other things in mind than the ones on our to-do list, doesn’t it? On any scale, all the lessons nature delivers—lessons like ones about invasive plants, or about the unstoppable forward march of succession, about the impossibilities of enforcing concepts like control or perfection—are lessons hard-earned, and I talked with Paula, who shared some of her takeaways from years of ecological experiments on the land. Paula Whyman is an author, including of the award-winning book of short stories titled “You May See a Stranger.” These days she lives in the Blue Ridge foothills in Virginia on the piece of land that is the subject of her latest book, “Bad Naturalist: One Woman’s Ecological Education on a Wild Virginia Mountaintop” (affiliate link). Plus: Comment in the box near the bottom of the […]

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THE FIRST ISSUE of “American Gardener,” the newly redesigned member magazine of the American Horticultural Society, arrived recently, and in it are lots of good reads—including an article by Nancy Lawson, a.k.a. The Humane Gardener. She writes about the folly, and hazard, of falling prey to the promises of those mosquito-control services you’re probably seeing advertised about now—and where mosquitoes fit into the bigger environmental picture, anyhow. (Above, a 1905 illustration of mosquitoes in the Culex genus by E.A. Goeldi; image from Wikimedia Commons.) Nancy Lawson, whom you may know as “The Humane Gardener”—the title of one of her books—is a naturalist and habitat consultant based in Maryland. Nancy promotes animal-friendly planting strategies and challenges us to sharpen our awareness that we are not alone out there, but actually just one part of a much bigger picture. Nancy’s more recent book is called  “Wildscape.” Plus: Comment in the box near the bottom of the page to enter to win a copy of Nancy’s book “Wildscape” (affiliate link). Read along as you listen to the May 19, 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 […]

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WHEN I FIRST started gardening, it wasn’t unusual to hear other gardeners lamenting the shady areas of their landscapes – wishing for more, more, more sun. But my friend Ken Druse never looked at the lower-light areas that way – well, maybe when he wanted to make room for a few tomato plants each year, but otherwise not at all. Instead he collected botanical treasures of the woodland floor, and set about making shade gardens—and even writing a couple of books about the subject. Shade plants we have loved – and continue to love – is my topic today on the show, with Ken as my guest. Ken gardens in the shade in New Jersey, and before that he did so in the shade of a Brooklyn brownstone. Along the way, among the 20 books he has written, were “The Natural Shade Garden” in 1992 and in 2015  “The New Shade Garden: Creating a Lush Oasis in the Age of Climate Change.” Ken will be the guest expert on Thursday May 15, 2025, when I’m hosting an entire shade garden webinar, and meantime he’s here to talk about some of his favorite plants. Plus: Comment in the box near the […]

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WOODY PLANTS, especially trees, can be pure ecological powerhouses, but most of us don’t have room for an entire forest in our backyards. So on a garden scale, which shrubs in particular really get the job done best? Dan Wilder, a longtime native plant expert who is director of Applied Ecology for Norcross Wildlife Foundation in Massachusetts, shared some ideas about just that. Dan urges us to make room for more shrubs in our landscapes to support birds and caterpillars and other animals, while at the same time getting to enjoy their beauty in flower and fruit and even the showy fall color that some of his favorite species boast. In addition to his work at Norcross Wildlife Foundation in Wales, Mass., and its 8,000-acre sanctuary, Dan’s a board member of the Ecological Landscape Alliance and also co-author with Mark Richardson of the book “Native Plants for New England Gardens.” (Above, native steeplebush, Spiraea tomentosa.) Read along as you listen to the May 5, 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). powerhouse shrubs with dan […]

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I LOOK FORWARD to spring for many reasons, not the least of which is the emergence and bloom time of the trilliums. There’s a saying that good things come in threes, and trilliums are certainly proof of that. This spring I got to talk about trilliums, including the range of unexpected fragrances they possess, with Uli Lorimer of Native Plant Trust in Massachusetts, where they’re about to celebrate their 10th annual Trillium Week, and the organization is celebrating its 125th anniversary, too. We also talked about showing off tiny spring treasures like some of the miniature trilliums, or bluets (Houstonia) on what he calls “mossy patches” for a beautiful combination. Uli is director of horticulture at Native Plant Trust, the nation’s oldest plant conservation organization, founded in 1900 as the New England Wild Flower Society. Uli, who is also the author of the “Northeast Native Plant Primer,” was the longtime curator of the Native Flora Garden at Brooklyn Botanic Garden before joining Native Plant Trust in 2019. Read along as you listen to the April 28, 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 […]

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SO YOU THINK you’re  familiar with marigolds and zinnias? Well, it’s time to take another look, I think, as I have been longingly in the seed list from Oregon-based Peace Seedlings. Among their offerings are multi-toned zinnias in shades you won’t have seen before, with names like ‘Day Glow Mix,’ and ‘Rainbow Eyes.’ And there’s a selection of not just at any little old marigold, like the ones in the garden center cellpacks—but instead extravagant 3- and 4- and even 6-foot-high plants loaded with flowers for cutting, or shrubby ones like ‘Red Metamorph’ that could form a beautiful garden hedge if planted in a row, or even a 10-footer that’s also known as Mexican tarragon, whose leaves are harvested as a culinary herb. Who knew? Dylana Kapuler and her partner, Mario DiBenedetto, founded Peace Seedlings in 2009, after helping Dylana’s parents, Alan and Linda Kapuler, with their longtime seed-breeding project called Peace Seeds. They have built on the legacy of Alan’s decades of organic seed breeding, and I was so glad to speak with them from Corvallis, Ore., to talk about some of that continuing work. Read along as you listen to the April 21, 2025 edition of my public-radio […]

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IT’S HARD TO THINK of a brighter botanical bright spot than the one that Coleus creates—whether in a container design, or planted in a garden bed. And it’s hard to think of a more Coleus-filled place than Rosy Dawn Gardens, a Michigan-based mail-order nursery that for 23 years has specialized in Coleus, Coleus and more Coleus – with a collection at the moment of 200-plus varieties. Not just upright ones, but mounding and trailing varieties, too, and in every imaginable leaf color and pattern—and shape, size and texture of foliage. Pam Quackenbush, with her husband, Glenn, owns and operates Rosy Dawn. I reached out to Pam, who began collecting Coleus in the 1990s, for a bit of a guided tour through the diversity of the species, and some practical tips on growing them and more. (That’s Pam’s favorite, ‘Allison,’ above.) Read along as you listen to the April 14, 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). coleus with pam of rosy dawn gardens Download file | Play in new window | Duration: 00:27:11 Subscribe: Apple Podcasts |Spotify   Margaret Roach: […]

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I CAN ALMOST taste it now: the flavors of the first spring crops, whether homegrown, or from your CSA share, or even ethically foraged…with the promise of a whole growing season of the freshest, tastiest produce to come. It’s the perfect time to think about adding some new recipes to our repertory that can really show them off, and who better to ask for inspiration on that score than Amy Chaplin, whose approach to cooking is nature-inspired and whole-foods based. It’s the 10th anniversary of Amy’s James Beard award-winning cookbook, “At Home in the Whole Food Kitchen” (affiliate link), and a special updated edition is about to be released to celebrate. Amy has worked in the food world around the globe for three decades, as a cookbook author, vegetarian chef, teacher and recipe developer. She is a native of Australia who now lives and gardens in the Hudson Valley of New York State, and I asked her help to get us all ready for making the most creative and delicious use of the botanical bounty that’s ahead of us. Plus: Comment in the box near the bottom of the page to enter to win a copy of the new book. […]

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MORE ISN’T ALWAYS better, of course, but in the case of the gardens profiled in the new book “Garden to the Max,” it definitely is, whether more color, more texture, more drama or all of the above, and then some, smartly used for maximum impact. The many faces of maximalist gardening, plus perhaps some inspiration for turning up the volume in your own landscape, was what I talked about with the book’s author, Teresa Woodard, who gardens near Columbus, Ohio. With photographer Bob Stefko, Teresa has created “Garden to the Max: Joyful, Visionary, Maximalist Design” (affiliate link), which looks at 20 gardens around the country–from a 700-square-foot patio to a multi-acre estate–each created by extreme plant lovers with a maximalist approach to garden-making, no matter the size of their space. Plus: Enter to win a copy of the new book by commenting in the box near the bottom of the page. Read along as you listen to the March 31, 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). maximalist gardening, with teresa woodard Download file | Play in […]

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