Thirty-two years ago Greg Peterson began turning his residential lot in Phoenix, Arizona into a 1/3-acre “food forest.” To support his lush planting in this desert environment required water, and Greg began exploring ways to harvest and maximize the impact of all the sources on his property. In our conversation he details the techniques he used for harvesting and infiltrating storm water, and for making use of household gray water and condensate from his cooling system. Greg also describes ways that gardeners in other regions of the United States can adapt his techniques to work in their climates and soils.

Founder of EcoBeneficial, an ecological landscape consulting firm, Kim Eierman provides a range of services, from helping homeowners and commercial clients design landscapes that enhance the ecological functioning of their site, to advising landscape architects on the use of native plants. Kim is also a busy educator, teaching at such venues as the New York Botanical Garden, the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, and Rutgers University, as well as delivering talks to all sorts of private and public groups. Amid all this she has found time to write a book, The Pollinator Victory Garden: Win the War on Pollinator Decline with Ecological Gardening. Learn how you can join Kim’s campaign and make your home landscape more pollinator friendly by listening to our conversation today.

Horticulturist and business owner Shay Lunseth cares for lawns organically and sustainably throughout Minneapolis and its suburbs, with her crews of “Organic Lawns by Lunseth” tending some 1,500 landscapes. In our conversation she details the routines she has developed for greening lawns in spring, with tips on keeping them healthy throughout the season. Take Shay’s advice and you too can have a lawn that’s handsome and healthy for your pets and family.

The proprietor of Lost Nation Orchard in northern New Hampshire, Michael Phillips is a leader in growing fruits from apples to pawpaws ‘holistically,’ reinforcing the natural ecology of the orchard to enable his trees and bushes to produce abundant crops of fruit without the use of chemical pesticides. The author of three books about fruit growing, Michael is a much sought-after speaker and teacher and a consultant with an international following. Join us for an introduction to how his techniques translate to the home orchard.

Using native, naturally compact grasses and perennial flowers, Krissy Boys of the Cornell University Botanic Gardens has created a “native lawn” that needs no fertilization or watering once established, and requires mowing just once or twice a summer. Biologically rich, this lawn has become a destination for pollinators and other wildlife, too. Listen and learn how she has created a model for how to rescue the 40 million acres of the American landscape currently devoted to the polluting green desert of conventional turf.

A life-long native plants enthusiast, Gregory Tepper has pursued this interest as director of horticulture at the Mt. Cuba Center in Hockessin, Delaware, and as founding director of horticulture at the Delaware Botanic Gardens. He is currently serving as horticulturist at the Arboretum at Laurel Hill and West Laurel Hill Cemeteries in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Through all these experiences, Gregg has become an expert at dealing with hungry deer and their browsing of his collections. Recently he teamed up with renowned horticultural expert and author Ruth Rogers Clausen to co-author a much needed book: Deer-Resistant Native Plants for the Northeast. Today Gregg will talk with Growing Greener about the book and the fence-free methods he and Ruth have developed for successfully deterring deer from the native plants garden.

The Arthur Ross Vice President for Horticulture and Living Collections, Todd Forrest oversees every aspect of the design and care of the New York Botanical Garden’s 250-acre campus. As such, his gardening experience spans everything from alpine rock gardens to native plants and displays of tropicals in the Conservatory. Today Todd discusses an almost miraculous treasure: the Botanical Garden’s 50-acre first growth woodland, the Thain Family Forest, a survivor in the heart of the Bronx of the local primeval forest. This wild place within the city has many lessons to teach gardeners and those who seek to restore and preserve their own landscapes, however small. Join our conversation on Growing Greener.

This week Growing Greener takes a trip into history with Tom Coward, the head gardener at Gravetye Manor, the great garden and estate in southern England where “wild gardening” was invented. Created on the grounds of an Elizabethan manor house, the gardens were from 1885 the home and laboratory of William Robinson, an Irish-born gardener and writer whose books revolutionized English gardening – Tom Coward calls him “the Irishman who taught the English how to garden.” Robinson believed that plants should combine naturally and even spontaneously, and should be as much as possible self-sustaining. His book, “The Wild Garden,” became an enduring international best-seller and continues to be essential reading.

Tom Coward, who took over the care of the Gravetye gardens in 2010, rescued them from neglect, and has continued to restore and re-interpret them in light of William Robinson’s principles. These principles, Coward maintains, remain relevant and even essential today.

Rebuilding our national ecology is everyone’s job, that’s the message of Douglas Tallamy’s two best-selling books, Bringing Nature Home and Nature’s Best Hope. As a researcher in insect ecology at the University of Delaware, Dr. Tallamy had noted that garden plants of foreign origin supported very few of our native insects. That in turn means our gardens are supporting very few birds and other kinds of wildlife that depend on the insects for food.

Tallamy’s solution? Plant native species that do foster insects. If all American homeowners converted half of their lawns to landscapes of native plants, the resulting “homegrown national park,” would total almost ten times the size of Yellowstone Park, and go a long way toward reversing our national ecological decline.

Now he has teamed up with entrepreneur and business development strategist Michelle Alfandari to spread this message on the internet and social media. At homegrownnationalpark.org, Tallamy and Alfandari have posted easy tips on converting lawn to wildlife habitat, links to on-line tools for selecting the most effective, locally adapted plants, and an interactive map that allows the user to see where their yard fits into the national landscape.

Join me today for a conversation with Douglas Tallamy exploring his new on-line venture, and how it can help you turn your yard into a wild-life friendly element of our greatest, “homegrown,” national park.

Today we join Marc Wolf, executive director of the Mountain Top Arboretum in Tannersville, New York, as he discusses his institution’s intimate relationship with the surrounding Catskill Mountain landscape. Through Marc’s descriptions we explore the Arboretum’s stunning habitats, ranging from an ancient bog to the largest marsh in the Catskill Park, and acres of rich woodland. Marc also details the Arboretum’s unique education center, whose timber frame was fashioned from 21 different species of trees harvested in the surrounding woodland, and whose foundation was enriched with bluestone excavated on site. Also included in the tour is an introduction to the Arboretum’s ecologically designed gardens, including a series of linked rain gardens that collect and cleanse snow-melt and storm run-off, an essential service as the Arboretum lies within the watershed of the New York City reservoir system. Join us for this celebration of sustainable, environmentally-informed gardening.

Co-founder of The Cooks Garden, Ellen Ecker Ogden was a pioneer in bringing gourmet European vegetable seed varieties to American Gardeners in 1984. More recently she has turned her attention to the superior flavors and locally adapted growth characteristics of the heirloom vegetables and fruits that we inherited from previous generations of gardeners. Now she has published an outstanding book, The New Heirloom Garden, that furnishes all the information a reader needs to plant, harvest, and prepare for the table their own crops of edible heirlooms. As beautiful as it is informative, this book offers sample garden designs to inspire, and a wealth of delicious recipes, all fully illustrated with informative drawings and gorgeous photographs. Join us for our conversation with Ellen Ecker Ogden.

Mary Menniti grew up sharing in the care – and harvests – of her Italian immigrant grandfather’s abundant garden. Now as an adult, she has made it her mission to archive and preserve the gardening stories of her Italian-American community. On her website, The Italian Garden Project, Mary has collected photographs, videos, and recollections from all over the United States. Today on Growing Greener we discuss what made those gardens special and what they have to teach the rest of us about sustainability and the wise use of resources.

Chris Wiesinger, “the Bulb Hunter,” began his gardening as a child in Bakersfield, California; his disapointment over the rapid decline of a tulip bulb he planted at age 11 led to a persistent quest for truly perennial bulbs. He wanted bulbs that would increase and spread from year to year rather than fade and diminish like most of the mass-marketed Dutch hybrid ones. He found his answer on the backroads of rural Texas. Join us as Chris tells his story of the “heirloom” bulbs he has returned to Southern gardens, and his prescription for gardeners in the rest of the country.

A native of Iowa, Kelly D. Norris grew up exploring remnants of the native prairie and collecting wildflowers that persisted as roadside weeds. After studying horticulture at Iowa State University, he began a career of garden design and administration that has included 8 years as director of horticulture and education at the Greater Des Moines Botanical Garden. An award-winning author, Kelly published his fourth book this month, “New Naturalism: Designing and Planting a Resilient, Ecologically Vibrant Home Garden.” An invaluable tool for ecologically oriented gardeners, this book is as relevant for residents of Eastern woodlands or Western mountains as for gardeners in Kelly’s own Midwest. Kelly’s work has been featured in publications ranging from The New York Times to Better Homes and Gardens.

Born and raised in Vermont, Dan Snow grew up in a landscape filled with dry-stone walls, stone walls assembled without the use of mortar. He has embraced this craft and raised it to the level of a fine art, using dry-stone techniques to create all sorts of works that range from the practical (such as stock walls) to the fantastic: pavilions, cairns, grottoes, and free-form sculptures, all held together by nothing more than gravity, friction, and Dan’s extraordinary skill in matching stone to stone. Commonly using stones collected on site, Dan says that he “strives to transfigure the essence of place into new forms and experiences through the manipulation of natural materials.” The author of three books about his work with stone, Dan is a thoughtful and articulate spokesperson for his unique blend of craft and art.

One of the major dilemmas of ecological landscaping is that returning a garden to a more natural state most often begins with a resort to synthetic herbicides. To give native vegetation a chance to establish itself on a site, any existing invasive plants, and even too aggressive natives, must be removed, and that usually has meant spraying them with weed killers. Gardeners who are seeking greater harmony with nature find this a jarring beginning to the process of renewal.

Kathleen Groll Connolly, principal of Speaking of Landscapes LLC, offers a number of alternative, more environmentally friendly, practices. Kathy is a noted landscape designer, writer, and speaker who emphasizes earth-friendly designs, native plants, and low-impact land care techniques. To satisfy clients who don’t want chemicals used on their properties, Kathy has mastered a number of all-natural methods for eradicating weeds and invasive plants. In our conversation, she details how she accomplishes this feat, and why patience is the ecological gardener’s greatest friend.

Why is the northeastern United States such a special target for invasive plants and animals? And why is this crisis predicted to increase in the coming years? Why is this relevant to what will be experienced in the rest of North America?

Today Growing Greener speaks with Carrie Brown-Lima, Director of the New York Invasive Species Research Institute in Ithaca, New York. Carrie and her institute work to bridge the gap between scientists who are studying the issues associated with invasive species, and land managers and others who need up-to-date information to help them deal effectively with invasive species in the field. One of Carrie’s concerns is the effects that a warming climate will have on opening the door ecologically to new invasive plants and animals, awakening “sleeper species” already present in our woods, fields, and gardens, and she discusses how gardeners may play a role in combatting these new threats effectively.

Carrie Brown-Lima earned a Master’s of Science degree from Cornell University and spent more than eight years as a conservation planning specialist and program manager in Latin America.

Sustainability is not enough, says Trevor Smith; his goal is “regenerative landscape design,” to restore the landscape to a healthy ecological function.

A landscape designer and installer in the Boston metropolitan area, Trevor served for four years as president of the Ecological Landscape Alliance, and he is a passionate advocate of cooperation within the landscape industry. From the first days of his practice, Trevor’s goal has been to make his landscapes a source of renewal to the local ecosystem. A LEED-certified professional, Trevor’s specialty is creating green infrastructure, to restore the hydrological cycle by infiltrating and treating stormwater within the landscape on which it falls.

A rising star in the New York horticultural world, Wambui Ippolito has gardened for clients such as Martha Stewart and David Letterman, and is much sought after as a speaker. An immigrant from East Africa herself, she is passionate about the contributions that immigrants make to American gardening. Successive waves of immigrants have traditionally been the backbone of the landscape industry in the United States, but too often, says Wambui, they leave behind their special perspectives in the effort to become American. In this conversation Wambui discusses how she connected with the land as a child in Kenya, and makes the case for how the American landscape can be enriched if all of us re-discovered our immigrant roots.

Robert Kourik of Santa Rosa, California is a nationally recognized gardening expert who has spent decades meticulously researching his craft. A pioneer of sustainable gardening, he is the author of 19 books, including a number of classics such as “Designing and Maintaining Your Edible Landscape Naturally” and “Drip Irrigation for Every Landscape and All Climates.”

Robert’s writing and gardening is remarkable, in that unlike most gardeners he doesn’t rely solely on traditional lore or anecdotal experience. Instead Robert bases his gardening on extensive research.

In this episode of Growing Greener Robert turns his attention to that gardening stand-by, mulch. He explains the potential benefits of this garden treatment, and examines how to use it most effectively – Robert himself maintained his own garden for 30 years through northern California’s seasonal drought using only mulch to maintain soil moisture and fertility. He also discusses the dangers involved in misusing mulch. Robert explains where he gets his information and the advantages of “peer-reviewed” scientific studies.

Robert caps the program with an examination of a very popular material used by increasing numbers of gardeners, aerated compost tea. He addresses the science, or lack of science associated with this, and shares his recommendation for a more economical substitute.