No garden has had more impact in recent years than James Golden’s “Federal Twist.” Now, in a new book, “The View from Federal Twist,” Golden has shared the thinking that went into the design of this beautiful landscape, and the history of this careful duet with nature. Indeed, this book, subtitled “A New Way of Thinking About Gardens, Nature and Ourselves,” delivers in full everything the title promises. In our conversation, the author also discusses how he translated the European garden design innovations that were his starting point into a distinctively American process.

Horticulturist Jessica Walliser is fascinated by the insects in our gardens, the vast majority of whom play positive roles in these domesticated ecosystems. We discuss the fruits of her studies and the new, updated edition of her award-winning book, “Attracting Beneficial Bugs to Your Garden, a Natural Approach to Pest Control.” Learn how your landscaping can bolster the work of these essential garden allies.

In 2017 Benjamin Vogt captivated the gardening world with his book, “A New Garden Ethic,” in which he explored the need to radically redesign our domestic landscapes to accommodate all the other creatures of North America. Since then this award-winning author, horticulturist, and educator has been promoting this message in the gardens he designs, his many articles and talks, and his on-line classes. Today we discuss these classes, and how they present an engaging and easy-to-master introduction to his special, eco-friendly, style of gardening.

Gardening can be the heart of a community, as the Rochester, Minnesota Seed Library demonstrates. Librarian Keri Ostby describes how the seed library brings together vegetable seeds for all the groups within the community, providing a source of superior fresh foods and for exploring mutual foodways. By encouraging seed saving the seed library also fosters the development of locally adapted strains of vegetables

If, like me, you’re daunted by the conventional instructions for creating a pollinator meadow, you’ll be heartened by Alina Harris’ unconventional alternative. Instead of applications of herbicides or smothering with sheets of plastic, she says you can just change the frequency and timing of your mowing. An integrated pest and pollinator management specialist for the Xerces Society, Harris also works for the National Resources Conservation Service and the University of New Hampshire Cooperative Extension. In all these roles she’s an advocate for the little things, the insects and other invertebrates that pollinate our flowers and serve as a foundation of the food chain. Hear her story of balancing help for farmers and gardeners to protect their plants against pests with promoting the vital role that invertebrates play in promoting environmental health.

The nation was shocked in December by the destructiveness of the fast-moving Marshall Fire in Boulder County, Colorado which burned through six thousand acres of suburban landscape in less than 24 hours. Bill Melvin of Ecoscape Environmental Design in Boulder discusses the causes of the fire’s ferocity, and how gardeners can adapt their activities to help limit future fires’ impact while also planting more in harmony with the local environment

The “Naturalistic” Garden is popular these days, but what is it and how does it differ from a truly natural landscape? Duncan Brine, principal with his wife Julia of Garden Large, a garden design firm in Pawling, New York, is an acknowledged master of the naturalistic. Listen as he discusses this style of design, how it informs his work, and how it is illustrated in the remarkable six-acre garden that he and Julia have created around their home.

Struggling with a wet spot in your yard? Join John Courtney of Kind Earth Growers to learn how to turn this difficulty into an asset. John has more than 20 years of experience in growing native plants adapted to wet soils. From collecting seed in the wild to mixing special soil blends, he understands wetland natives’ special cultural needs, and savors their special beauty. Let John help you transform that wet spot into an ecological opportunity and beauty spot.

The flowers in your garden are not, as gardeners often suppose, aesthetic statements, they are more or less blatant invitations for sex. Ranging from plant incest to the brutality of dragonfly sex, Carol Reese, distinguished horticultural educator at the University of Tennessee, shares insights on the curious aspects of sexual relations between plants and the role that wildlife plays in promoting it.

Sam Hoadley, Mount Cuba Center’s Director of Horticultural Research deliberately neglects his plants. His responsibility is to conduct the trials by which this renowned botanical garden in Hockessin, Delaware tests native plants to see which are garden stars – and attractive to pollinators – and which are garden and pollination duds. After selecting a popular genus, Sam and his crew collect all the types they find available in nurseries, establish them side-by-side in the test plots, and leave them to fend for themselves. The results he collects into detailed, comprehensive reports, an invaluable resource that Mount Cuba makes available to gardeners for free.

Based in Decorah, Iowa, the Seed Savers Exchange was founded in 1975 by Diane and Kent Whealy to share and preserve seeds of heirloom plants such as the morning glory and tomato that Diane’s great grandparents had brought with them when they immigrated from Bavaria in 1884. Today, the exchange boasts some 13,000 members and preserves 20,000 vegetable and fruit cultivars. Join our conversation with Dr. Philip Kauth, the Exchange’s Director of Preservation, to learn about what is new with the preservation of historic seeds.

Native plants enthusiasts Kristen Nicholson, Britt Drews, and Jasmin Callahan were frustrated by the lack of nearby sources on biodiverse, locally adapted plants. So they started their own nursery, growing the plants from locally collected seeds. Today Blue Stem Natives is a horticultural phenomenon and a haven for ecological gardeners in southeastern Massachusetts.

One from the archives (first broadcast on June 5th, 2019): Dr. Jared Westbrook of the American Chestnut Foundation explores a controversial subject: the use of genetic engineering by his foundation to create blight-resistant American chestnut trees and return this once iconic species to the eastern woodlands. Called “the redwood of the East” chestnuts grew to a diameter of a dozen feet or more, and their nuts were an essential food for wildlife and an important source of income to rural people. One of the most plentiful hardwoods of the eastern forest, American chestnuts were nearly extirpated by an imported blight, but the American Chestnut Foundation is dedicated to their re-introduction.

How to introduce Sefra Alexandra, “the Seed Huntress”? She’s an agroecological educator with a masters degree from Cornell University and she’s worked as an ethnobotanist all around the world, including in her home town of Southport, Connecticut. Sefra’s a “BOATanist” who plants seed-grown natives along riparian corridors by canoe, and she’s a member of The Explorers Club. Currently Sefra is also the coordinator of the Northeast Organic Farming Association’s program to restore pollinator habitat, the Ecotype Project. For this project she’s supervising and assisting in the sustainable collection of wild type, locally adapted seed, and facilitating their cultivation so that these plants’ seeds can be harvested, processed, and delivered to local nurseries to be grown on and returned to the wild or gardens. A Seed Huntress, it appears, is a person of many skills.

Eric Fleisher of F2 Environmental Design has been breaking new ground – literally ­– ever since he first began converting New York public landscapes to organic management 30 years ago. By building up and managing the soil, and treating the landscape as a holistic system, he eliminates the needs for chemical inputs and turns garden wastes into an environmental resource. In this way he has transformed landscapes all over the country, from the Harvard University campus to the Museum of Modern Art Sculpture Garden.

Being in the moment is a challenge in our busy, too-connected age, yet it is essential for appreciating and understanding the garden. Poet Susan Brearley shares her practice for mindfulness: the on-the-spot composition of garden haiku. Brearley, who has been teaching haiku workshops at the great Innisfree garden in Millbrook, New York, shares the basics of this classic Japanese poetic form, along with a look at the sensibility that traditionally informs it.

Do you hate the noise and stink of gasoline-powered blowers and mowers rampaging through your neighborhood? Matthew Benzie of Indigenous Ingenuities in Doylestown, Pennsylvania is doing something about that. He’s switched his maintenance crew to zero-emission, quiet, battery-powered equipment transported on a bicycle-powered cart. He’s designing his landscapes for greener, sustainable maintenance too. Learn about this revolutionary rethinking of the landscape business on this week’s episode.

One of the first designed public landscapes in the United States, Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery was a favorite resort of New Yorkers throughout the 19th century, rivaling Niagara Falls as a tourist destination. Director of Horticulture Joseph Charap tells how Green-Wood has re-discovered its heritage as green-space for the community, re-inventing itself as an arboretum and as a center for environmental research to serve the living as well as dead.

It’s a ritual of autumn – clearing all the fallen leaves from your yard and garden, and cutting back the dead flower stems. It’s familiar, but also highly destructive to the wildlife that serves as a foundation for the local ecosystem. Join Matthew Shepherd of the Xerces Society as he outlines a wildlife-friendly treatment for putting the garden to bed for winter – one that also saves you work.

If you want a garden that is fruitful as well as beautiful, and chemical free, you need Robert Kourik’s new book “Sustainable Food Gardens: Myths and Solutions.” In our conversation, Robert details the exhaustive research in the garden and in the library that went into the writing of this invaluable guide. We focus in particular on “food forests,” a central concept of the widely popular Permaculture school of gardening. Robert describes how he has corrected this for the North American landscape, and where the Permaculture model goes wrong. Just one of the many myths and solutions this must-have book addresses.