Growing Greener

Arya Natarajan of iNaturalist describes how that online platform's user community is playing a central role in monitoring changes in global biodiversity and the creation of climate resilient ecosystems

In "The Continuous Vegetable Garden" Charlie Nardozzi applies lessons learned from ecologically-informed gardening to bring vegetable and fruit gardening into a new, more sustainable, and less laborious era.

Emma Grover and Dr. Mauricio Diazgranados discuss a new program from the New York Botanical Garden to unite the thousands of botanical gardens worldwide in devoting their shared knowledge and resources for a coordinated, plant-based effort to combat the consequences of global climate change.

"Naturalism" is the dominant design style in ecological gardening, but what exactly is it? Is Naturalism just mimicry of nature, or does it allow for the designer to include aesthetic principles to please the human eye? Can it allow the gardener to enjoy favorite plants not indigenous to the area? Duncan Brine, co-proprietor with his wife Julia of design/build firm Garden Large explains how he has defined Naturalism to create some of the most celebrated new gardens of New York's Hudson River Valley.

Are you troubled about supporting industrial agriculture and its mistreatment of animals by purchasing by-products such as manures and blood meal to maintain your garden's fertility? British gardener John Walker, an award-winning environmental writer, shares the techniques he has used to make his garden cruelty free, self-sustaining, and sustainable in a conversation first shared in May of 2023.

Award-winning investigative journalist Carey Gillam exposed the corruption and suppression of evidence involved in the Environmental Protection Agency's original approval of the use of the herbicide Roundup and its active ingredient glyphosate on American gardens and farms. In today's conversation she details the on-going suppression of evidence of its harmful impact on human and environmental health and discusses how the case about Roundup currently before the Supreme Court is designed to deprive its victims of recourse, and why Donald Trump has made increasing its production a matter of national security.

In a conversation first shared in February of 2024, farmer and author Joseph Lofthouse describes how to foster "landraces," strains of vegetables and fruits adapted to the unique conditions in your garden.

James Hitchmough, an eminent British garden designer and former professor of horticultural ecology asserted on a previous episode that research confirms that gardens rich in alien plants support a greater diversity of insects. Today, Matthew Shepherd of the Xerces Society, an organization founded to promote insect and invertebrate conservation shares a different understanding of the science.

Dr. Jason Downing of Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden turns rare orchid propagation into an educational adventure for Miami area students, beautifies the cityscape, and rescues native Floridian species from the brink of extinction.

In this week's Growing Greener Heather McCargo, founder of the Wild Seed Project, describes its programs to encourage gardeners to grow native plants from wild-collected seeds to preserve genetic diversity in the garden and beyond, and how McCargo has embraced the evolution of her personal garden from meadow to biodiverse woodland.