Podcast
Growing Greener
Hosted by Tom Christopher · EN
Your weekly half-hour program about environmentally informed gardening. Each week we bring you a different expert, a leading voice on gardening in partnership with Nature. Our goal is to make your landscape healthier, more beautiful, more sustainable, and more fun.
19episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
The Nurturing Nature Initiative – Botanical Gardens Unite To Address Climate Change
2w ago00:29:01Tap to summarizeEmma Grover and Dr. Mauricio Diazgranados discuss a new program from the New York Botanical Garden to unite the thousands of botanical gardens worldwide in devoting their shared knowledge and resources for a coordinated, plant-based effort to combat the consequences of global climate change.
Transcribe →What is Naturalism?
3w ago00:29:01Tap to summarize"Naturalism" is the dominant design style in ecological gardening, but what exactly is it? Is Naturalism just mimicry of nature, or does it allow for the designer to include aesthetic principles to please the human eye? Can it allow the gardener to enjoy favorite plants not indigenous to the area? Duncan Brine, co-proprietor with his wife Julia of design/build firm Garden Large explains how he has defined Naturalism to create some of the most celebrated new gardens of New York's Hudson River Valley.
Transcribe →"Veganic" Gardening
4w ago00:29:01Tap to summarizeAre you troubled about supporting industrial agriculture and its mistreatment of animals by purchasing by-products such as manures and blood meal to maintain your garden's fertility? British gardener John Walker, an award-winning environmental writer, shares the techniques he has used to make his garden cruelty free, self-sustaining, and sustainable in a conversation first shared in May of 2023.
Transcribe →A New Chapter in the Roundup Debacle
May 1300:29:01Tap to summarizeAward-winning investigative journalist Carey Gillam exposed the corruption and suppression of evidence involved in the Environmental Protection Agency's original approval of the use of the herbicide Roundup and its active ingredient glyphosate on American gardens and farms. In today's conversation she details the on-going suppression of evidence of its harmful impact on human and environmental health and discusses how the case about Roundup currently before the Supreme Court is designed to deprive its victims of recourse, and why Donald Trump has made increasing its production a matter of national security.
Transcribe →Landraces – Customizing Vegetable and Fruit Cultivars to Flourish in Your Garden
May 600:29:01Tap to summarizeIn a conversation first shared in February of 2024, farmer and author Joseph Lofthouse describes how to foster "landraces," strains of vegetables and fruits adapted to the unique conditions in your garden.
Transcribe →Are Alien Plants Superior at Supporting Insect Diversity in the Garden?
Apr 2900:29:01Tap to summarizeJames Hitchmough, an eminent British garden designer and former professor of horticultural ecology asserted on a previous episode that research confirms that gardens rich in alien plants support a greater diversity of insects. Today, Matthew Shepherd of the Xerces Society, an organization founded to promote insect and invertebrate conservation shares a different understanding of the science.
Transcribe →The Million Orchid Project Turns Urban Areas into Sanctuaries for Critically Endangered Native Species
Apr 2200:29:01Tap to summarizeDr. Jason Downing of Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden turns rare orchid propagation into an educational adventure for Miami area students, beautifies the cityscape, and rescues native Floridian species from the brink of extinction.
Transcribe →Maine's Wild Seed Project Offers Education and an Example of Nationwide Significance
Apr 1500:29:01Tap to summarizeIn this week's Growing Greener Heather McCargo, founder of the Wild Seed Project, describes its programs to encourage gardeners to grow native plants from wild-collected seeds to preserve genetic diversity in the garden and beyond, and how McCargo has embraced the evolution of her personal garden from meadow to biodiverse woodland.
Transcribe →Chemical Warfare from Invasive Plants
Apr 800:29:01Tap to summarizeOne of the ways that invasive plants displace indigenous floras is "allelopathy." In a conversation first broadcast in February 2024, Dr. Susan Kalisz of the University of Tennessee Knoxville describes how many introduced plants actually poison the soil so that indigenous species cannot germinate or flourish in their former homes.
Transcribe →Using Genetics to Avoid Spraying in the Vegetable Garden
Apr 100:29:01Tap to summarizeSelecting disease-resistant cultivars is an essential tool for avoiding the use of pesticides in the vegetable garden. Plant pathologist Nicole Gauthier of the University of Kentucky explains how to identify cultivars appropriate to your region and your garden, and why "tolerance" may serve you as well as "resistance."
Transcribe →