A Way To Garden https://awaytogarden.com/ 'horticultural how-to and woo-woo' with margaret roach, head gardener Fri, 08 May 2026 19:59:44 +0000 en-US hourly 1 9651199 wildr: a new free app to guide us on our ecological journey https://awaytogarden.com/wildr-a-new-free-app-to-guide-us-on-our-ecological-journey/ https://awaytogarden.com/wildr-a-new-free-app-to-guide-us-on-our-ecological-journey/#comments Fri, 08 May 2026 19:59:44 +0000 https://awaytogarden.com/?p=59015 FINDING OUR WAY toward a more ecologically vibrant garden can sometimes feel a bit challenging, and I’m always looking for resources to guide me along the way, and to share with you. Last year I shared news about a New York-based sustainable landscaping firm called Plan It Wild that had developed a digital self-test to help us each evaluate the ecological health of our landscape, and an accompanying 12-step program to enhance it—both of them free to use. Now the same company, with an impressive group of collaborators that includes Doug Tallamy’s Homegrown National Park, the Wild Ones membership group, Audubon, Cornell Lab and more, has taken the next step. They just launched the beta version of an app described as a “personalized rewilding guide for every homeowner in America” to help us decide which actions to take and what plants to use to accomplish them. Joanna Hall, the CEO of Plan It Wild, a Westchester, NY-based landscaping firm focused on creating biodiversity-raising native habitats, and Bram Gunther, Plant It Wild’s  VP of Science & Development joined me to talk about the Wildr app, the new app they’ve developed to guide us as we enhance our home landscapes with an […]

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]]> https://awaytogarden.com/wildr-a-new-free-app-to-guide-us-on-our-ecological-journey/feed/ 6 59015 getting confident with color in the garden, with stephen orr https://awaytogarden.com/getting-confident-with-color-in-the-garden-with-stephen-orr/ https://awaytogarden.com/getting-confident-with-color-in-the-garden-with-stephen-orr/#comments Fri, 01 May 2026 16:26:25 +0000 https://awaytogarden.com/?p=58991 HOW CONFIDENT are you about the use of color in your garden, and where do you draw your inspiration from for creating a pleasing palette? The topic of color is just one of many that Stephen Orr tackles in his new book, “The Gardener’s Mindset: Connecting with Nature Through Plants,” and we talked together recently about how he’s finding his way to some combinations that please him through his own garden experiments. Stephen, the former editor-in-chief of “Better Homes & Gardens,” is embarking on the fifth growing season at the home he shares with his husband on Cape Cod. It’s their fourth garden and their most ambitious one, a place that presented new realities to acclimate to like sandy soil, but also at least one form of great relief: Finally, no deer. Above, one of his tactics that we discussed for keeping track of color ideas that work is to take snippets of plants of a given moment in the garden and photograph them as a still-life, for future inspiration. Plus: Comment in the box near the bottom of the page for a chance to win a copy of “The Gardener’s Mindset” (affiliate link). Read along as you listen to […]

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]]> https://awaytogarden.com/getting-confident-with-color-in-the-garden-with-stephen-orr/feed/ 99 58991 straight talk on native-plant cultivars, with mt. cuba’s sam hoadley https://awaytogarden.com/the-straight-talk-on-cultivars-with-sam-hoadley/ https://awaytogarden.com/the-straight-talk-on-cultivars-with-sam-hoadley/#comments Sat, 25 Apr 2026 12:05:46 +0000 https://awaytogarden.com/?p=58952 IF WE’RE shopping for native plants with the most ecological impact—ones with the most pollinator appeal, for example—then simply choosing by the prettiest picture on a label or by a catalog photo won’t get you to your goal. It helps to understand the vocabulary of natives: words like straight species and ecotype and selection and cultivar. Especially with cultivars—the cultivated named varieties of, say, Echinacea or Phlox or Aster of which there are now so many to choose from—we need to learn to read between the lines on those plant labels, because not all cultivars are created equal. Sam Hoadley, the manager of horticultural research at Mt. Cuba Center in Delaware, helped me  understand how to do just that. Since 2002, the gardeners at Mt. Cuba Center in Delaware have been studying native plants and their cultivars for their garden-worthiness and ecological value, and since 2019 Sam Hoadley has been heading up that effort, conducting multi-year trials that compare different species and varieties of a genus. (Above, Phlox paniculata ‘Jeana,’ a top performer in their Phlox trial.) Read along as you listen to the April 27, 2026 edition of my public-radio show and podcast using the player below. You can […]

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