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Growing Greener

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Tom Christopher
June 11, 2025

Ecologist and Author Tom Wessels Talks Coevolution

Tom Christopher
June 11, 2025

Understanding this concept provides the foundation for creating a high functioning, stable, and resilient landscape – anywhere you garden

Tom Christopher
June 4, 2025

A Devastated Arboretum Embraces the Catastrophe

Tom Christopher
June 4, 2025

When a freak tornado swept through Ambler Arboretum, the staff and university administration took the opportunity to turn its recovery into an exploration of natural resilience in the face of climate change

Tom Christopher
May 28, 2025

Who’s Promoting the Spread of Invasive Plants?

Tom Christopher
May 28, 2025

Dr. Eve Beaury’s research reveals the outsize role American gardeners still play in supporting the propagation and spread of plants that are known to be invasive.

Tom Christopher
May 21, 2025

An Ecological Gardening Firm’s 12-Step Program

Tom Christopher
May 21, 2025

Plan it Wild’s “Less Lawn More Life” challenge offers a fun, easy, and free initiation into natural gardening that’s exploding across the country, drawing thousands of ecosystem novices young and old

Tom Christopher
May 14, 2025

The Overlooked Virtues of Native Annual Flowers

Tom Christopher
May 14, 2025

Alicia Houk, natural garden designer and educator, describes how native, reseeding annuals can make your plantings self-renewing, weed resistant, and resilient in the face of disturbance

Tom Christopher
May 7, 2025

A Local Activist With a National Impact

Tom Christopher
May 7, 2025

Co-founder of Pollinator Pathway, Louise Washer saw this project go viral, spreading from one Connecticut community to nationwide in just 8 years.  Listen as she shares the approach that has made her other environmental activism so effective.

Tom Christopher
April 30, 2025

A Low-Cost Swimming Pool that Saves Energy and Serves Biodiversity

Tom Christopher
April 30, 2025

Jennifer Campbell, a sustainable landscape designer in New Hampshire, built herself a natural swimming pool that saves energy, nurtures native plants, serves wildlife, and cost her only $10,000 to install.

Tom Christopher
April 23, 2025

Helping Native Plants Outrun Climate Change

Tom Christopher
April 23, 2025

Assisted migration, helping native plants move to escape the effects of a rapidly changing climate, is a controversial topic among ecologists.  Thomas Nuhfer of the University of Massachusetts Amherst shares a new understanding of how to make these moves without destabilizing existing ecosystems.

Tom Christopher
April 16, 2025

A Conversation with Growing Greener’s New Partner

Tom Christopher
April 16, 2025

Award-winning landscape designer Edwina von Gal describes her Perfect Earth Project’s dual approach to changing the culture of land care in the United States: building a constituency among land owners and gardeners for ecologically-based, toxin-free design and maintenance while educating landscapers in how to serve this new market.

Tom Christopher
April 9, 2025

DOGE is Destroying an Essential, Inexpensive Foundation of American Agricultural Greatness

Tom Christopher
April 9, 2025

The National Plant Germplasm System has protected U.S. farmers against crop diseases and now climate change for over a century; DOGE has defunded its $40 million annual budget, imperiling our $1.5 trillion food system

Tom Christopher
April 2, 2025

The Lawn Mower as Ecological Design Tool

Tom Christopher
April 2, 2025

Award-winning landscape architect Michael Geffel describes how he used precisely targeted and timed mowing to convert a brownfield into a flowering grassland and a vibrant public recreation area.

Tom Christopher
March 26, 2025

Slugs “Don’t Get No Respect

Tom Christopher
March 26, 2025

Slugs are the Rodney Dangerfield of garden wildlife – our only interest is in exterminating them.  Yet as Dr. Jann Vendetti of the Los Angeles County Natural History Museum explains, they lead fascinating and, in many ways, very useful lives

Tom Christopher
March 19, 2025

Benjamin Vogt Explains Why He Prefers Clay Soils

Tom Christopher
March 19, 2025

Gardeners complain about clay soils, but Benjamin Vogt, a leading designer of natural gardens and landscapes notes that they offer many advantages for the ecologically based gardener

Tom Christopher
March 12, 2025

A Pioneering Native Plant Supplier That’s Equally Remarkable as an Educator

Tom Christopher
March 12, 2025

Shannon Currey, head of education and outreach for Izel Native Plants, shares how that transformative plant clearinghouse is as committed to the education of its customers as to providing them with biodiverse bargains

Tom Christopher
March 5, 2025

Collecting Seeds to Grow Locally Adapted Native Plants

Tom Christopher
March 5, 2025

Molly Moore, master gardener and master naturalist, shares the online program she co-wrote with Marlene Smith which can set you on the path to success in starting plants from locally collected seeds without harming the wild populations

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Tom Christopher
February 26, 2025

“Roll Out Gardens”

Tom Christopher
February 26, 2025

Brandon Carbary’s pre-designed garden templates, shipped complete with plants, makes creating a locally adapted, aesthetically attractive display of native plants almost effortless

Tom Christopher
February 19, 2025

Stoneleigh: a Natural Garden

Tom Christopher
February 19, 2025

Ethan Kauffman, Director of Stoneleigh, describes the 9-year process his team has pursued, enriching a classic Philadelphia Mainline estate with thousands of species of native plants, to transform it into a model for how to honor traditional landscape aesthetics while boosting biodiversity and serving the local ecosystem

Tom Christopher
February 12, 2025

Starting the Next Generation Indoors

Tom Christopher
February 12, 2025

Starting vegetable and annual seedlings indoors is a skill every gardener needs to master and Dr. Steve Reiners of Cornell University shares tricks of the trade.  Grow your own locally adapted, disease-resistant cultivars for bigger harvests, better flavors, and a more resilient garden.

Tom Christopher
February 5, 2025

11 Generations of Stewarding the Land

Tom Christopher
February 5, 2025

Judge’s Farm Nursery is the newest venture in the Griswold family’s 385-year association with their homestead at the mouth of the Connecticut River.  Co-founder Matt Griswold describes the nursery’s program of growing native plants sustainably from locally collected seeds.

Tom Christopher
January 29, 2025

The Garden Benefits of Backyard Ducks

Tom Christopher
January 29, 2025

Aaron von Frank discusses his book, “The Impractical Guide to Keeping Pet and Backyard Ducks” and details the services a flock can provide in controlling weeds and pests, as well as furnishing a supply of eggs and fertilizer.

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