Garden Futurist

Spring 2024  Read the companion article here. For those who love a good mystery, the work to rediscover rare and thought-to-be-extinct heirloom varieties of apples is an incredible story. 17,000 named apple varieties were at one point cultivated in North America. Today, only a fraction remains. David Benscoter, Founder of the Lost Apple Project, shares how committed sleuthing has led to the miraculous recovery of apples that have not been cultivated in 100 years. This episode was sponsored by: Sunset Plant Collection

Read the article here.We know that the tree canopy plays a huge part in climate resilience. Urban centers are often the sites of first introductions of invasive pests and pathogens. Knowing what to look for can help us avoid unhealthy plants in our own gardens, but a bit of knowledge might just prevent real disaster. Protecting our urban forests takes all of us working together, professionals and community members. Tyler Hale is the Program Manager of the Plant Protection Program and Sentinel Plant Network at the American Public Gardens Association. These programs share scouting resources, diagnostic support and educational materials to help public gardens stop serious pests and diseases by working on the front lines of early detection.

Read the companion article here. Invertebrates do so many important things. But beyond the benefits they provide to ecosystems, they’re fascinating creatures. When you look at them closely, bees are all sorts of metallic colors. There is a beautiful diversity of butterflies. Parasitoid wasps have amazing antenna that are branching in different directions. A lot of us just aren’t aware of them when we’re out in a garden or going for a walk, because so many of them are so small. The more people appreciate how cool they are and how important they are, hopefully the more interested they’ll be in conserving them and protecting them. Aaron Anderson, Pesticide Program Specialist, Towns and Cities Lead, Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation This episode is sponsored by: Sunset Plant Collection

Winter 2024 Read the companion article here. Invertebrates do so many important things. But beyond the benefits they provide to ecosystems, they’re fascinating creatures. When you look at them closely, bees are all sorts of metallic colors. There is a beautiful diversity of butterflies. Parasitoid wasps have amazing antenna that are branching in different directions. A lot of us just aren’t aware of them when we’re out in a garden or going for a walk, because so many of them are so small. The more people appreciate how cool they are and how important they are, hopefully the more interested…

Winter 2023 Read the companion article here. This is a really special time of year and at Pacific Horticulture we are attempting to connect with nature in a way that may feel a bit off-kilter to many of us gardeners- we are embracing the darkness!   Helping to introduce this topic, we have Katherine Renz, author of the recent article “The Night Garden: Design for Pollinators and People that Thrive Under Dark Skies.”  We spoke with Dr. Shannon M. Murphy Professor at Department of Biological Sciences, University of Denver about her research on the impacts of artificial light at night on moths, herbivorous insects, and invasive plants and how gardeners can help support ecosystems at night. This episode is sponsored by: Devil Mountain Nursery

Fall 2023 Read the companion article here. From a gardener's hyperlocal natural history to raw, existential questions, in her new book What We Sow, Jennifer Jewell delves into researching the story of seeds. There is so much talk about biodiversity loss and climate change, yet the central, essential role of seeds is often missing from greater public discourse. Join us as we explore seed conservation on a global, community, and individual scale. You may develop great expectations of your own. This episode was sponsored by: Sunset Plant Collection

Read the companion article here. There is a very cool set of native plants that are related to the plants we eat. You can likely find these Crop Wild Relatives in areas around where you live. These plants can help us better understand how familiar plants evolved, while they hold keys to helping us adapt in the future. Meet two scientists who are passionate about maximizing biodiversity on our plates, while racing against time to conserve plants that are critical to our cultural and agricultural future. Garden Futurist talks to Dr. Colin Khoury, Senior Director of Science and Conservation at San Diego Botanic Garden, and Dr. Michael Kantar, Associate Professor at the University of Hawai`i at Manoa. This episode was sponsored by: Bartlett Tree Experts   Episode Image Credit: Published by the Royal Society @ 2016, by Colin K. Khoury, et. al.  View Article: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2016.0792   Interested in learning more? References can be found at the bottom of the podcast article here.

Read the companion article here. If you knew it would reduce erosion risks, sequester more carbon, require less fuel, fertilizer, and pesticides to grow them, would you eat a new perennial grain?  The Land Institute states that: “Our science has demonstrated that new perennial grain crops can be developed, and that diverse, ecologically intensified cropping systems hold the potential to bring grain crop agriculture to a level of ecological function on par with native grasslands and other natural ecosystems.”    Garden Futurist spoke with Tim Crews Chief Scientist; International Program Director, Director of Ecological Intensification at The Land Institute to find out how ecological perennial gardening ideas could scale up to vast areas of our agricultural landscapes.   This episode was sponsored by: Devil Mountain Nursery

Read the companion article here. This episode explores the landscape history of cities as ecosystems, not ecosystems of business but actual living systems.   New research shows that urban gardens support a greater number of species than an equivalent sized semi-wild rural habitat. As gardeners, as horticulturists, we may want to curate these gardened environments. How much urban landscape should be a “scruffy wild edge-land”? How does looking to the past help us plan the future of cities?  Sarah Beck speaks with historian Ben Wilson about his sixth book, Urban Jungle: The History and Future of Nature in the City. With special guest Saxon Holt. This episode was sponsored by: Devil Mountain Wholesale Nursery

Summer 2023 Read the companion article here. Joey Santore shares his enthusiasm for studying the diversity, evolution and ecology of the Earth’s plant life so we can see it’s the least boring topic there is! Shedding pretention to get real, this interview digs into why we should embrace Botanical Latin and a distaste for elitism as we rip out lawns and find plant exploration in unexpected places. This episode was sponsored by Sunset Plant Collection