A Way To Garden https://awaytogarden.com/ 'horticultural how-to and woo-woo' with margaret roach, head gardener Sat, 03 Oct 2026 16:52:25 +0000 en-US hourly 1 9651199 moments of garden awe, with nancy lawson, the humane gardener https://awaytogarden.com/moments-of-garden-awe-with-nancy-lawson-the-humane-gardener/ https://awaytogarden.com/moments-of-garden-awe-with-nancy-lawson-the-humane-gardener/#comments Fri, 02 Oct 2026 18:55:15 +0000 https://awaytogarden.com/?p=59577 ONE LATE-AUGUST DAY, Nancy Lawson—or “The Humane Gardener,” as she is perhaps better known—was making a video about a spicebush swallowtail butterfly when something just beyond it in her Maryland yard caught her eye. A green heron was visiting a small pond Nancy had created not long ago—her first such encounter with the bird.  (That’s one of her backyard ponds, above.) When I saw that video on Instagram it made me think of the late-March morning when I’d stood up from my desk and the familiar view into the backyard included something very unfamiliar bobbing around my own little water garden: a pair of wood ducks. Every day in the garden is loaded with the potential for such surprises, and the resulting sense of awe. Nancy is here today to talk about some of the wonders large and ever-so-small we have each been privileged to witness, and some of the garden-management tactics we use that increase the chances of such encounters by welcoming more life to the garden. Nancy Lawson is the author of “The Humane Gardener,” a naturalist and habitat consultant based in Maryland. Nancy promotes animal-friendly planting strategies, and in another of her books, called “Wildscape,” she challenged […]

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]]> https://awaytogarden.com/moments-of-garden-awe-with-nancy-lawson-the-humane-gardener/feed/ 101 59577 listening to the language of trees, with hannah fries https://awaytogarden.com/listening-to-the-language-of-trees-with-hannah-fries/ https://awaytogarden.com/listening-to-the-language-of-trees-with-hannah-fries/#comments Fri, 25 Sep 2026 18:34:17 +0000 https://awaytogarden.com/?p=59552 IN THE INTRODUCTION to her latest book “A Forest Language,” Hannah Fries acknowledges a fascination with the words we use to talk about trees—organisms she calls the backdrop of her life. From our human vocabulary of forest ecology and botany Hannah has collected some of her favorite arboreal terms to fill the new volume, ones referred to in its subtitle as “Words That Illuminate the Astonishing World of Trees.” Do you know pitch from sap, for instance, or heartwood from sapwood? What’s a burl, a snag, a nurse log, a lenticel? In “A Forest Language,” Hannah brings to life the many layers of meaning she found within each word in its own little essay, and she joined me to talk trees. Hannah grew up among the trees of New Hampshire and now lives in western Massachusetts. She is a poet, an executive editor at Storey Publishing, and the author of an earlier inspirational book about trees called “Being with Trees.” (Affiliate link.) (Photo of Hannah, below, by Susan Quinn.) Plus: Comment in the box near the bottom of the page for a chance to win a copy of “A Forest Language” (affiliate link). Read along as you listen to the […]

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]]> https://awaytogarden.com/listening-to-the-language-of-trees-with-hannah-fries/feed/ 187 59552 knowing, and saving, the seed, with bill braun of freed seed federation https://awaytogarden.com/knowing-and-saving-the-seed-with-bill-braun-of-freed-seed-federation/ https://awaytogarden.com/knowing-and-saving-the-seed-with-bill-braun-of-freed-seed-federation/#comments Fri, 18 Sep 2026 20:19:30 +0000 https://awaytogarden.com/?p=59524 I LOOK AROUND the garden and I see it happening everywhere, on so many different plants: seed is forming. Seed is the start of most everything we grow, yet most of the seed we gardeners and even more important the nation’s farmers plant originates elsewhere—often very far away from our home soil—and many of us who garden know relatively little about seed except how to order more for the coming growing season and sow it. Now, while there’s perhaps still time to save some for next year or to share with a friend, and well before the seed catalogs arrive loaded with temptations galore, I thought it a good time to think about where our seed comes from, and reflect on how we gardeners can each do our small part to support a healthy seed system. I met today’s guest, Bill Braun, when I was working on a recent “New York Times” garden column about seed saving. Bill is an organic seed farmer and co-founder of the non-profit Freed Seed Federation in Dartmouth, Mass., which describes itself as a “farmer-run nonprofit dedicated to the preservation, adaptation, and diversification of place-based seed”—in his case, specifically seed for the Northeast U.S.  I […]

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