fall cleanup with ecology in mind, with doug tallamy

The harvest video was on Hudson Valley Seed’s Instagram account, and one of that New York-based organic seed company’s co-founders, K Greene, talked with me about growing shallots and their more commonly grown cousin, garlic. He also shared some other ideas for succession sowing of edibles whose planting time still lies ahead—whether for fall harvest or to over-winter and enjoying in the year ahead. Read along as you listen to the Aug. 7, 2023 edition of my public-radio show and podcast using the player below. You can subscribe to all future editions on Apple Podcasts (iTunes) o

We all want eye-catching plants—but we also want (and need) plants with a purpose.Ken and I invite you to a free webinar showcasing the real standouts they recommend that combine both form and function in sometimes unexpected ways.To just

ONE OF THE FIRST FRUITS that Josh Kilmer-Purcell and Brent Ridge planted when they took ownership of historic Beekman 1802 farm in Sharon Springs, New York: gooseberries.  Now the city-turned-country pair are having a bumper gooseberry year—and Josh joined me on the radio to talk about that and other aspects of “The Heirloom Life,” the subject of the duo’s breakfast slide lecture in my town August 17 to help celebrate my next garden Open Day. I’ve pre-ordered a couple of copies of the “Beekman 1802 Heirloom Dessert Cookbook” (due out in September) to share with some lucky winners, so read on for a chance to win–and some gooseberry lore, recipes and more.

I doubt that Broken Arrow, founded by Dick and Sally Jaynes in 1984 in Hamden, Connecticut, needs much introduction—especially lately, as they were just featured in a “New York Times” piece by my former colleague Anne Raver. As Anne mentioned in that article, Adam (now 33 years old) used to buy plants at Broken Arrow as a teen-ager; now he’s their Propagation and Plant Development Manager.In the latter role, he’s the kind of particular guy who goes looking for a winterberry holly that shows off even without its fruit on (gold-splashed foliage, anyone?); who has such a passion for witch hazels that the nursery now offers 45 cultivars; who tracked down a pink-flowered Stewartia and….but let him tell you:The Q&A With Adam WheelerQ. So what does it take to catch the eye of the guy whose job is to go around looking for new things to add into Broken Arrow’s already very sophisticated product mix? You must see a l

If you said Heuchera, you’re right. Perhaps you’re going to reshuffle some shady beds this spring, and know that Heuchera, with their great foliage, can help make garden pictures work–but wonder which ones, and how best to use them. I invited George Coombs, trial garden manager at the must-visit Mt. Cuba Center in Delaware, with 50 acres of native-plant display gardens and 500 acres of natural land, back to the radio show to help make the best choices and grow them to perfection.George knows from Heuchera, having trialed 83 varieties side by side (the exhaustive results are in this pdf). “I say to people, ‘I’m doing Consumer Reports for plants,'” he explains. Though there are countless varieties on the market, many are duplicative in appearance or just not distinctive. “I can honestly say that when it

Research from the nearby Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, New York, reveals how acorns initiate a complex series of ecological chain reactions. And not just the obvious ways, like feeding turkeys or chipmunks or deer, but in influencing Gypsy moth outbreaks and tick-borne disease risk, and even the reproductive success of ground-nesting songbirds.Dr. Rick Ostfeld, a disease ecologist from Cary Institute, helped me understand what–both seen and unseen–is going on with those tiny acorns and their mighty, wide-ranging influences. Read along as you listen to the Oct. 19, 2015 edition of my public-radio show and podcast using the player below. You can subscribe to all future editions on iTunes or Stitcher (and browse my archive of podcasts here).my q&a on acorns’

A little about Michael:“That’s Michael Dodge,” I say, when I show people around the fall garden, as we pass a large group of show-offy, yellow-fruited Viburnum I enjoy all fall into winter. V. dilatatum ‘Michael Dodge’ is truly a standout plant.But the original Michael Dodge, the one that great shrub was named to honor, is a well-

Kate Spring, and her husband, Edge Fuentes, founded Good Heart Farmstead in Vermont in 2013, which serves up to 100 customers each season who subscribe to their CSA share program. Their farm is a hybrid business structure called an L3C, a low-profit, limited-liability company, where part of the mission is to support Vermonters in need of food access.Kate’s also a writer and the only person I know with her very own brand new yurt, which I couldn’t wait to hear about after having seen it be constructed on her Instagram.Read along as you listen to the December 14, 2020 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 or Stitcher (and browse my archive of podcasts here).mastering microgree

Read along as you listen to the June 26, 2107 edition of my public-radio show and podcast using the player below. You can subscribe to all future editions on iTunes or Stitcher (and browse my archive of podcasts here).evaluating monarda with george coombs of mt. cubaQ. We’ve talked before on the show about your past trials of other native plants like Baptisia and Heuchera—and native plants are the mission of Mt. Cuba, which is both a garden for visiting and a research center, right?A. Mt. Cuba Center is actually a former du Pont family estate, the Copeland family estate, and they left their estate to become a public garden. What kind of sets us apart from others in the area is that we focus on native plants. We broadly define our nativity region as the Eastern United States.We do a lot of work promoting plants in a display capacity in the gardens itself, and then we also do research like what I do, trying to help

Jeff is Director of Grounds and Coordinator of Horticulture at Scott and Swarthmore, where among the extensive and diverse plantings is a whole Tree Peony Garden area, one of the first collections established after Scott was founded in 1929 and now including more than 80 varieties of tree peonies. He is also vice-president of the Mid-Atlantic Peony Society.Why consider these plants? Tree peonies are deer-resistant, extremely cold-tolerant, long-lived and really don’t require a lot of complicated pruning. And oh, those flowers (that’s one of Jeff’s favorites, ‘Nike,’ up top.).Read along as you listen to the April 10, 2107 edition of my public-radio show and podcast using the player below. You can subscribe to all future editions on iTunes or Spotify or St

Dr. Tripp, the voice of Robin Hood Radio’s newest program, “Your Health,” received her D.O. from the University of New England. In previous incarnations she has her BS and MS from Cornell; her Ph.D. from North Carolina State University, where she also served as Curator of Conifers for the famed J.C. Raulston Arboretum, and did postdoctoral work at the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University. She knows from trees and shrubs—and that’s what we talked about:q&a: great trees for gardens, with kim trippQ.What woody plants always got your recommendation—what did you try to encourage clients to plant when you were making gardens for people, while supporting yourself through medical school? A. The first thing I always did, especially with a new client, was to walk around with them and say, “Let’s just see what’s growing here now–what’s out there and doing well,” and have a look at it and see if we like it or don’t. And we’d go from there.I found a few plants in our region that no matter what the conditions, were always doing well—even with deer browse.They were thi

Even in the week of July 7, Ken says, he notes 15 or 16 options on his sowing calendar, and that’s in our shared USDA Zone 5B, where frost can arrive around the start of October. Gardeners in zones with longer frost-free seasons have even more time, and opportunities.  Admittedly Ken starts fewer things each week now, but even through September, he’s starting multiple new plantings—and he makes November sowings of spinach and mache for extra-early spring harvest.“Sow now what?” as Ken asks (tee hee). The list is long, including peas, carrots, lettuce, broccoli, bok choy, Chinese cabbage, mibuna and mizuna, tatsoi, kale, collards, cauliflower, kohlrabi, swiss chard, scallions and more. You can even sow more bush zucchini (especially if your early crop is looking tattered or mildewed from tough weather); ditto with cucumbers. Bush beans are high on Ken’s list. It’s a great moment for bush types for dry beans, he says, which benefit from generally drier fall weather at their harvest ti