Growing Greener

If you are frustrated by the poor selection of native plants at local garden centers, check out Izel Native Plants. Listen as founders and owners Amanda McLean and Claudio Vasquez explain how they have made the wares of leading wholesale growers accessible to amateur gardeners, and how their company emphasizes education as much as sales.

Maya K. van Rossum shares what she observed at the recent trial in Montana, where 16 young natives of that state charged the legislature with deliberately violating the guarantee of "a clean and healthful environment…for present and future generations" in Montana's state constitution

Gardening is changing, and our understanding of the field must keep pace. Veteran horticulturist and longtime teacher Joe Seals rises to this challenge in his new book, "Back to the New Basics: A Practical Guide and New Reference Manual to the Ways, the Whys, and the New Sciences of Better, Easier Gardening." A great introduction for the novice and a quick update for experienced gardeners, this is an invaluable book.

This week, in a re-posting of a program first heard in August 2021, ecologist and author Tom Wessels discusses his "Forest Forensics," the system of simple visual clues you can use to read the history of your woodland acreage

As our climates grow warmer and frequently drier, gardeners need the drought and heat tolerance, and innate sustainability of our native grassland plants more than ever. In their new book, The Gardener's Guide to Prairie Plants, Neil Diboll and Hilary Cox have combined their decades of experience to produce an indispensable tool for beginners and veterans alike, with invaluable advice about how to create functioning grassland ecosystems inside and outside the prairie states.

"Grow Your Own" is a cornerstone of sustainability, but our vegetable gardens are being challenged by increasingly erratic weather as the climate changes. John Traunfeld, Program Director at the University of Maryland's Home & Garden Information Center shares his experiences in making food gardens more climate resilient, and how this can even draw our communities closer together.

Lead contamination is common in soils of many residential neighborhoods in urban, suburban, and even rural settings. Soil scientist Clay Robinson – "Dr. Dirt" – details where this problem is most likely, how to test your soil, and how appropriate gardening can provide protection.

Artist Robert Adzema discusses his history of creating ingenious and innovative sundials, and what sundials can teach the gardener about plants' primary fuel.

Dan Jaffe Wilder's response to the polluting sterility of the traditional lawn? Plant strawberries. And that's only one of many intriguing – and tested - proposals made by this talented native plants pioneer.

Robert Kourik, a pioneer of sustainable gardening, draws on his 45 years of experience with Permaculture to explore the strengths and weaknesses of this controversial gardening movement