Garden Futurist

Read the companion article here.

Pollination ecologist Dr. Stephen Buchmann has been studying bee biology for more than four decades.

His new book is What a Bee Knows Exploring the Thoughts, Memories, and Personalities of Bees.

“In every possible way, my life has been a wonderful and fascinating journey into the private lives of bees while discovering some of their innermost mysteries.”

This episode is cohosted by special guest Aaron Anderson whose recent article for Pacific Horticulture “I Did My Graduate Research in a Garden Ecology Lab, This is What Gardeners Want to Know” is now available.

Sponsored by Bartlett Tree Experts 

What happens when a landscape architecture firm started by an ecologist becomes a force for community change? Garden Futurist talks to Kate Hayes from Miridae about building immersive nature experiences that support plant communities, wildlife, and neighborhoods by embracing community science and gardening.

Are you designing gardens that change the world? Show us Your Solutions

Pacific Horticulture’s DESIGN FUTURIST AWARD elevates the beauty of garden designs that are climate resilient, steward biodiversity, and connect people with nature.

This episode was sponsored by: Barlett Tree Experts

Alessandro Ossola is a scientist who gets very excited about the challenge of climate change allowing for an opportunity, and he describes it as an historic opportunity for all of us, scientists, gardeners and all types of decision-makers, to really challenge the status-quo and come up with innovative solutions.

“Where we can change the narrative though, is we’ve always seen cities, this is true globally, as the foci of extinctions. Both for animals and plants. I really want to change that narrative. I see the city itself as an opportunity to help horticulture, but also biological conservation.”

-Alessandro Ossola, PhD, University of California, Davis, CA

Read the transcript here.

“Going from the mow and blow to a more horticulturally knowledgeable approach to maintaining the landscape. And that that’s a big change. That’s a really big change, but basically we’re increasing the canopy cover and we’re cooling, we’re greening, we’re storing more carbon. We’re providing all these benefits, and one of the biggest being the wildlife. All the nature that’s coming to this habitat. So that would be my vision for a future that it’s more of a climate-ready landscape, less of the unused grass." 

Dr. Greg McPherson, research forester with the USDA Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station, emeritus, in Davis, California.

#ShareTheShade | #LifeNotLawn

This episode was sponsored by: Bartlett Tree Experts

Read the Transcript Article here, which includes links to resources and images from the panel’s presentations. 

This episode was sponsored by: Bartlett Tree Experts

Welcome to Part Two of our special two-part episode of Garden Futurist, called “What Climate Is This?”, with Bart O’Brien, Adrienne St. Clair, Kathleen Norris Brenzel, Glenn Griffith, Ryan Longman, and Dan McKenney.  It is part of our series, “Multidisciplinary Approaches to Resilient Landscapes.”

If you live in the Pacific region, you know that seasons in your garden look different from the rest of North America. There are many potentially important factors and multiple systems for mapping zones in our region. Ecoregions, microclimates, hardiness, rainfall, soil types, elevation, chill hours, ecology. It goes on and on. You have likely observed that the Pacific Ocean annually influences weather patterns from the coast all the way to the mountains.

In an already complex region, climate scientists tell us that extreme changes are underway now. We held a conversation recently with a panel of experts working within the fields of climate science, ecoregion, and hardiness mapping. As we listen to the panelists, we are going to attempt to frame this conversation through a horticultural lens.

Read the Transcript Article here, which includes links to resources and images from the panel's presentations.

This episode was sponsored by: Bartlett Tree Experts

Welcome to a special two-part episode of Garden Futurist, called “What Climate Is This?”, with Bart O'Brien, Adrienne St. Clair, Kathleen Norris Brenzel, Glenn Griffith, Ryan Longman, and Dan McKenney.  It is part of our series, “Multidisciplinary Approaches to Resilient Landscapes.”

If you live in the Pacific region, you know that seasons in your garden look different from the rest of North America. There are many potentially important factors and multiple systems for mapping zones in our region. Ecoregions, microclimates, hardiness, rainfall, soil types, elevation, chill hours, ecology. It goes on and on. You have likely observed that the Pacific Ocean annually influences weather patterns from the coast all the way to the mountains.

In an already complex region, climate scientists tell us that extreme changes are underway now. We held a conversation recently with a panel of experts working within the fields of climate science, ecoregion, and hardiness mapping. As we listen to the panelists, we are going to attempt to frame this conversation through a horticultural lens.  

Read the Transcript Article Here.

This episode was sponsored by: Bartlett Tree Experts

Guests David Montgomery and Anne Biklé talk with Garden Futurist about how they have used soil science, history, and storytelling to explore the interconnections between farming practices, how soil health affects the health of crops, how the health of crops influences the health of livestock, and how all of these things affect human health.

David Montgomery is a professor at University of Washington, a MacArthur Fellow, and an authority on geomorphology and Anne Biklé is a biologist and environmental planner. They are known for previous books such as The Hidden Half of Nature and for a new book What Your Food Ate.

Read the Transcript Article Here.

This episode was sponsored by: Bartlett Tree Experts

This episode is a little different from our usual format. This conversation with Michael Boland, Chief Park Officer at Presidio Trust in San Francisco, will fill you in on a really exciting in-person event Pacific Horticulture held back in August, when we walked the newly opened Tunnel Tops landscape.

“We are finally, finally embracing the Anthropocene…we have to free our minds and accept that nature is not what we were taught it was and that if we are really concerned about biodiversity and about addressing the climate crisis, that we need to think in a completely different way about where nature lives and what it looks like.”

Read the transcript article here.

This episode was sponsored by: Bartlett Tree Experts

Emmanuel Didier, Principal and Creative Director at Didier Design Studio is a leading figure in public garden design. He speaks to Garden Futurist about representing the steppe biomes of the world as a permanent public garden exhibit and how he works to build ecologically functioning landscapes that also reflect people culturally. Listen to this fresh take on new aesthetics and techniques that will apply to your garden.