If you are a gardener, or just enjoy spending time outdoors, then in most of the United States you are at risk from disease-bearing ticks. This week’s Growing Greener takes a two-pronged approach to helping you protect yourself from this menace. First Dr. Thomas Mather, director of the University of Rhode Island’s TickEncounter Resource Center, introduces free tools you can use to educate yourself about the different types of ticks you may encounter, learn what the respective risks are in your neighborhood, with tips on how to minimize your exposure. Then Kathy Connolly, a talented and expert designer of naturalistic gardens, discusses ways she makes her landscapes less tick friendly without banishing other wildlife, and the precautions she takes to keep herself tick free while she is working outdoors.

Helia Native Nursery takes the growing of native plants to a new level. Unlike most of its retail competitors, Helia doesn’t purchase its plants from often distant wholesale nurseries. Instead, it starts with seed it collects from populations growing in its region, to ensure that the resulting plants are adapted to local conditions and the local wildlife. When designing a landscape for a house about to be built, Helia may rescue plants off the site before it is cleared, so that the eventual integration of the designed landscape with its context will be seamless. Likewise, the seed bank Helia maintains is low-tech, but innovative. An array of local plants, selected for diversity, are field grown so that the genetics are stimulated to evolve along with the current changes in the local climate and conditions. Although it serves the local gardening community in many ways, Helia’s most important accomplishment may be the redefinition of the role of the local plant nursery.

Mosquitoes are pests, and can be a health threat if they are carrying diseases such as West Nile Virus. Yet our spray campaigns to limit their numbers cause great environmental harm and, by killing off mosquito predators, often lead in the long run to net increases in the local mosquito population. Join us for a conversation with Aimee Code, Pesticide Programs Director of the Xerces Society, about effective methods for controlling mosquitoes in the home landscape and across the community without inflicting damage on the local ecosystem. And learn about the essential ecological role that mosquitoes play in pollinating flowers and their importance to the food chain.

Like canaries in the coal mine, amphibians are especially sensitive to environmental degradation, says Mark Mandica, co-founder and executive director of The Amphibian Foundation. Some 43 percent of the world’s amphibian species are in serious decline or under threat of extinction, and even in seemingly pristine habitats, amphibians are suffering. Based in Atlanta, Georgia, The Amphibian Foundation seeks to publicize the threats and promote conservation of these reclusive but ecologically essential animals. Join Mark Mandica for a conversation about what gardeners can do in their home landscapes to promote amphibians, and how you can join the effort for their preservation.

Suzanne Thompson is a hands-on conservationist and horticulturist who is personally involved in almost every aspect of gardening and land preservation in her home community of Old Lyme on the Connecticut shore. Her Covid project was an attack on an invasive plant, Japanese knotweed, that has invaded stream banks and roadsides throughout most of the continental United States. The usual response to Japanese knotweed is liberal applications of powerful herbicides; Suzanne has adopted an all-organic approach that starves the invader, ridding the landscape of this pest without chemicals. Her success has gone viral, reaching more than 68,000 followers through social media. Join our conversation today on Growing Greener.

Roots are the hidden half of our garden, and very poorly understood as a result. Horticulturist and author Robert Kourik shares the research that he conducted for his two books: “Roots Demystified,” and “Understanding Roots.” Learn in this conversation about popular misconceptions and the real keys to root vigor and health, and why taking care of roots is fundamental to plant success. A program from the archive first presented in June of 2019.

Dan Jaffe Wilder, Ecological Horticulturist at the Norcross Wildlife Foundation in Wales, Massachusetts serves on the board of the Ecological Landscape Alliance, a New Hampshire based organization that reaches out to members all over the United States and even abroad. Serving professionals and amateurs alike, the ELA’s motto is “Because land doesn’t come with a manual,” and it is intent on providing all the information and guidance you need to become a responsible and successful steward of your landscape. Today, Dan shares a guided digital tour of the Ecological Landscape Alliance, clueing listeners in to its established programs and also the new directions the organization is taking to meet the challenges of this unprecedented era.

Nurseries won’t stop selling and shipping invasive plants, Sarah Middeleer is convinced, until gardeners start refusing to buy them. To hasten that day, this Connecticut-based ecological landscape designer has begun to identify and promote native plants that can substitute for popular introduced and invasive ones. Sarah focuses on shrubs, the backbone of the garden in our conversation. She also shares her thoughts about making naturalistic design with natives more acceptable to conventionally minded neighbors – her front-yard meadow was a popular sight of summer in her hometown, a regular feature in the local newspaper.

Local action can have a national impact. In 2017, local conservation organizations in Wilton, Connecticut came together to address one of our most pervasive ecological challenges, habitat fragmentation. This on-going process, the division of natural areas into ever-smaller, isolated parcels, is fatal to wildlife populations, diminishing their numbers and diversity. The Wilton activists decided to do something. They would reconnect their natural areas with green corridors of native plants, and they would enlist the public by focusing on the popular cause of pollinator decline – everybody loves butterflies. And so the “Pollinator Pathway” movement was born. Four years later, not only is Wilton reconnected, but neighboring towns and hundreds of communities up and down the East Coast have come on board, creating a vital network of greenways that link not only area to area within towns but also town to town from northern New England to Maryland. Listen to a founder tell how this was accomplished.

Our formative first memories of wasps tend to be of painful stings; as a result, gardeners’ attitudes toward this group of insects are generally wary and even hostile. In her new book, “Wasps,” however award-winning author Heather Holm restores the reputation of what is a beneficial, fascinating, and even beautiful group. The types that act aggressively in protecting their nests, are, in fact, very few. The rest are commonly solitary, unlikely to attack, and important in pollinating flowers and controlling garden pests. Join the conversation on this week’s Growing Greener and gain a new perspective on this common resident of our home landscapes.

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.