Growing Greener

For twenty years Cornell University horticulturists have been working on a blend of short-growing native grasses and wildflowers that could replace introduced turf grasses as the American lawn. Today Todd Bittner, Director of Natural Areas at the Cornell Botanic Gardens details how his team is preparing to release onto the market a mix that flourishes without irrigation after establishment, without fertilizer, and pesticides, which requires mowing just once or twice a year, and can be installed by seeding or as sod.

Can our personal spirituality provide a path to a different, more positive relationship with Nature? In this conversation, first broadcast in December of 2024, Brother James Lockman of the Catholic Church's Franciscan Order describes how the beauty of Nature inspired his spiritual journey and how that led him to a life dedicated to restoring damaged ecosystems.

Gardeners habitually distinguish between "bad bugs" who feed on their plants and the "good bugs," the predators who feed on those herbivores. As Aaron Anderson of the Xerces Society points out, you can't have one without the other and the goal should be encouraging a functioning, well-rounded insect community in your landscape.

Many British garden designers, and their admirers in the United States claim that plant biodiversity is the key to supporting the most diverse insect populations, and that introduced plant species are as effective or better than locally native ones. A garden up the block from me in Connecticut suggests the fallacy of that claim.

Shawn Maestretti, principal of Studio Petrichor, a celebrated landscape design and installation firm in Altadena, California, describes his "conversation" with pocket gophers, generally reviled as a pest in western gardens, and how he has come to respect not only this native creature's right to share the landscape but also the invaluable role it can play as a soil engineer.

"Rewilding (with Dahlias)" was the irresistible title that Jessica Williams chose for the Digging Deeper garden tour and talk she gave for the Garden Conservancy. On this week's Growing Greener Jessica shares how she does not fertilize, mulch, or irrigate her lush, colorful, and wildlife-rich garden, and how she enlisted the bees in her program to breed the black-leaved dahlias whose blossoms make her Odd Duck Farm a living jewel box.

Ecological gardeners and restorationists have long relied on seed collected from wild populations to supply the need for locally adapted, genetically diverse planting material. As the enthusiasm for native plants has exploded, though, this practice has begun to threaten the continued vitality of those wild populations. In this episode of Growing Greener, Uli Lorimer, Director of Horticulture at the Native Plant Trust describes Restoration Accelerator, that organization's initiative to coordinate a new and sustainable supply chain.

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 talented ecological gardener, discusses how Instagram has become her favored platform for communicating her experiences and reflections, and its unique capabilities.

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 most garden soils are lacking.

Tom Wessels, professor emeritus at Antioch University New England and a celebrated ecologist, author, and educator explains how gardeners can enrich their landscapes with microenvironments to hugely boost their biodiversity and resilience.