I’ve got good news and bad news.

Good:

Here is the link for the Garden-side Chat this Thursday the 21st at 6PM EST.

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/83480992333?pwd=vR6a5j6AphBjUOoqjv4Y9vHCUvZDQg.1

I’m trying something new and there’s a passcode to get in. It’s 999.

Bad: My brother (the fancy cook) has bailed on the garden side chat. He has a good …

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The podcast is super late this month! What can I say, I’ve been outside! I hope you’re there as well.

I’ve been pulling Garlic Mustard for WEEKS - determined to clear it from the entire forest behind my house. I’m actually having great luck so far and do think I have an effective method. It boils down to this: take it seriously. And remember that seeds can live in the soil for 5 years, but only 4% of seedlings make it to reproductive age.

If you’d like to learn more about how to get rid of this delicious and pernicious weed, consider attending this Thursday’s Garden-side Chat, a monthly, virtual lecture and discussion group for supporters of Grow Like Wild.

It’s only $50 and you get to attend every Garden-side Chat for a year! As well as support the efforts that go into making this newsletter and podcast.

Click to support Grow Like Wild!

What does weeding have to do with phalanx warfare? Find out this Thursday May 21st, at 6PM EST. See you there!

Hi Plant People!

Happy Flower Moon! And happy May Day! How lovely to have them both together. May Day originated with the ancient roman holiday Floralia, where people ran around naked and threw flowers at each other in honor of the goddess Flora. Soon there were maypoles in England and debaucherous Lords of Misrule. As a McMackin, I prefer Beltane, where everyone and their cow jumped over a fire, but most cultures had a spring party of some sort. Early American colonizers tried to celebrate May Day, but the Puritans shut it down and chopped down the pole. It wasn’t until after the civil war that May Day returned. On May 1, 1886 more than 300,000 workers across the country walked off their jobs to demand an 8 hour work day. Police soon turned violent, killing strikers. Workers protested in Chicago‘s Haymarket Square, but when a bomb went off, all hell broke loose and more people were killed. A kangaroo court convicted 8 men and 4 were hanged. As a result though, the 8 hour day became a labour demand all over the world and May Day became International Workers’ Day. In the US however, Eisenhower tried to call it “Law and Order Day” so that we’d forget that we are all one people everywhere, working together to create a better world. Happy May Day, gardeners! I hope you’re dirty and surrounded by flowers.

✤

We had a record-breaking Garden-side Chat last month with arborist Chris Roddick, walking us through the process of selecting, planting, and pruning young trees. This month, we’re focused on less desirable flora, with an entire hour dedicated to GARLIC MUSTARD. Yes, Alliaria petiolata is a fascinating, delicious, and ecologically harmful plant that we should all work to get rid of in North America. I’ve eradicated it entirely on multiple landscapes and am happy to share my process BUT, we’ll also be eating our weeds, with the help of a Michelin Star chef and my brother, Gabe McMackin. GET EXCITED.

Garden-side Chat: May 21, 6PM EST.

This newsletter is and always will be free for everyone. But if you’d like to join our monthly, virtual chats please become a supporter by clicking below.

Support Grow Like Wild!

RESOURCE SPOTLIGHT

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• The Less Lawn More Life challenge is back and begins next week with a keynote by Robin Wall Kimmerer! There are weekly challenges, lectures galore, prizes and even land assessments. You can learn about native plants but also water conservation, art, and navigating the dreaded homeowners associations. It’s all free and more than 8k people have already signed up.

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• In England, they call ecological gardening “rewilding” and it’s different: they focus more on animals and very little on native plants. Still, they’re doing great work and an entire conference on the topic was posted online for free. The Wilding Gardens symposium took place this January and featured all your favorite British rockstars. I recommend John Little, Kate Bradbury, and Fergus Garrett. Enjoy!

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• Chances are that you don’t live in Minnesota. Neither do I, but we share a lot of bee species, which makes Heather Holm’s new website on the native bees of Minnesota so incredibly helpful. It’s beautifully designed, incredibly educational for new-bees and bee nerds alike, and features posts like this one on the first bees of spring. Every state needs a Heather Holm.

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• The Garden Conservancy has a new grant intended to support small organizations gardening ecologically. It has an adorable name: The Nibbled Leaf. Applications open today and end July 15th.

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• Do you know people who are still confused about when to cut down all their garden stems? Xerces has a pamphlet for that, but really the answer is never.

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IN THE NEWS

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• It was a sad month for horticulture. We saw the passing of three pioneering and inspirational practitioners.

  • Topiary artist Pearl Fryar passed away at 86. Fryar was self taught and one of few people able to take horticulture to the level of artistic expression. His garden in North Carolina contained hundreds of works, many of them rescued from nursery compost piles and grown into visionary sculptures. Fryar grew “Love, Peace & Goodwill” and a wonderful documentary about him, A Man Named Pearl, is now free on YouTube.

  • Botanist Peter Raven passed away at 89. He’s best known for leading the Missouri Botanical Garden for decades, conserving and collecting plants. But Raven also helped transform our perspective of plants, from seeing them as individual organisms over to members of vast ecological webs. Alongside Paul Ehrlich, Raven coined the term "coevolution" in a 1965 paper examining how butterflies and plants reciprocally influence each other's evolution.

  • British designer Nigel Dunnett passed away far too soon, at 63. He was without a doubt one of the best garden designers of all time, an absolute genius of atmosphere and delight. But he also took beauty seriously and understood its potential to change people’s lives. His work in cities, creating sustainable, ornamental plantings as critical public infrastructure, inspired many of us. Like Fryar and Raven, Dunnett taught and trained the next generation, and his work and influence will live on.

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• Want to see a bunch of ecological gardeners come to fisticuffs? Walk into a room of us and say the word “cultivar,” then run like hell because it will go down. Are they helpful? Are they harmful? Are they even pretty? Everyone has strong opinions and they will fight you. Sam Hoadley and Margaret Roach revisit the current thinking on “nativars” in her NYT column this month exploring Mt. Cuba’s research on the topic. Cultivars of course aren’t always selected for ornament: they’re sometimes shorter, disease resistant, or cold hardy. But they do have serious drawbacks: they can bloom too early for pollinators or have foliage unpalatable to caterpillars, but most importantly, they’re almost always clones adapted to one place on earth, which is never ever where you’re gardening. New research backs this up: Nicolas Dorian and others tested 4 species of native forbs against 13 cultivars and found that wild plants were always equally or more attractive to pollinators. Of course, attraction is not nutrition. We don’t know if the bees who collected cultivar pollen had as many healthy offspring as those from wild flowers, or if local caterpillars could digest foliar compounds, or if birds got enough fat from the seeds. The gold standard is always wild type plants that come from as close to you as possible. That said, there are plenty of reasons to use cultivars! Sometimes they are all that’s available. And sometimes they are unavoidably beautiful. I use cultivars, (in fact I love them) but I count them towards the 25% of my garden that I reserve for non-native plants.

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• Pollinator gardening could not be hipper, but have you heard of spider gardening? It’s not just for goths - spiders are critical members of the ecological communities we support with our gardens. Spiders contain tons of an amino acid called taurine, which is critical for bird eye and brain development. Bird parents prioritize feeding spiders to hatchlings during their first week, when taurine matters most. Spiders are also major predators of ticks, reducing lab populations by a third. So between self preservation and baby birds, can we all agree that spiders are welcome in our gardens? If so, supporting spiders could not be easier: literally do nothing. The biggest threat that spiders face is us and our leaf blowers. When we remove leaves from our landscapes, we also remove 67% of spiders! So leave those leaves and those spiders. (H/T Dave Bishop)

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• Gardening is in fashion AGAIN. Vogue highlighted all the most useful garden gear, from a $2,000 trench coat to a white sweater. While the New York Times Magazine reviewed fashion houses that used outrageous, realistic florals in recent times. It’s part of a garden-themed series including a piece on floral films and a garden-style quiz. But all the writing is really vibe-y, with so little substance. My theory is that it’s what happens when people who have gardens want to pretend that they garden. It’s awesome that gardens are hip! But why not also treat the discipline with respect?

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• When people compare the biodiversity of ornamental gardens to native landscapes, a key factor they often ignore is that one group of plants is in a garden and the other is not. That means the ornamental plants studied are likely in rich soils, with minimal competition and attentive irrigation, while native plants are left to survive on their own. A new study out of Florida corrected this, taking a group of native plants and a group of exotic plants in the same genus, then watering some and weaning off others. They found that more native pollinators were drawn to the native plants while also showing that irrigated native plants produced healthier pollen and more nectar. We often think of native plants as happy with whatever water falls from the sky, but one finding here is that they do appreciate a little extra.

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• We plant Milkweed for Monarchs and Violets for Fritillaries, but have you ever planted Trillium for moths?!?! I know, as if we need another excuse to plant Trillium... But just because spring ephemerals disappear in summer, doesn’t mean there aren’t enterprising caterpillars enjoying their foliage. Moth-er Seabrooke Leckie did us all a favor and mined Doug Tallamy’s new host plant database, pulling out Lepidopterans who use spring ephemerals and writing about them here. They’re rare, as ephemerals are so often chemically defended against herbivory, but I’m so happy to have this knowledge and will love spring ephemerals even more now.

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• A Massachusetts beekeeper was thrown in jail for trying to protect her sick, elderly neighbor from eviction. As sheriff’s deputies attempted to serve the neighbor, Rebecca Woods drove her truck of beehives to his house, opened them up, and encouraged them to enjoy the “lovely, flowering landscape” around the deputies. She was tackled to the ground, hives were toppled, and everyone got stung. Woods was sentenced to 6 months in jail but is appealing.

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• I know the world is rough right now, but I generally try to focus this newsletter on the things that we can do something about and present horrors in ways that radicalize people to action, rather than lead us to despair. That said, this month was a doozy, and it puts our work in context. The federal government dismantled the entirety of the USGS Ecosystem Mission Area, and is gutting the EPA. They’ve effectively shut down the US Forest Service, and opened up Minnesota’s Boundary Waters Wilderness Area to foreign mining. They gave cattle grazing priority on public lands twice the size of California and are building the border wall through the National Butterfly Center. They’re supporting the Israeli military as they destroy a fifth of Lebanon’s farmland and murder more children. AND it looks like the Farm Bill will block people’s ability to sue pesticide companies as well as states’ rights to regulate pesticides at all! It’s bad out there. And clarifies the importance of our work. Certainly our gardens cannot repair the breadth of destruction above, but they can help our tiny corners of Earth. If it was ever unclear, no one is coming to save us. We save ourselves. And as people and butterflies and public lands are harmed, we can care for them where we live, protecting and cultivating community in our states, towns, and back yards. When I despair about the world, I remember that times of great upheaval also have the potential for great transformation. And while the old order is dying, and it’s terrifying, a new world is also growing, and it’s our job to fill it with flowers.

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• Phew! Here is a collection of 15 ecological projects good people are working on in their communities. From ripping out lawns to harvesting rainwater, there is so much we can do. Of course we must also claw back the levers of power and use them for justice and biodiversity, but in the meantime, planting trees is important work.

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• When the trees of our landscapes get old and weak, they are so often disappeared without a trace - chopped, chipped, and ground as if they were never there. Artist Jean Shin’s new installation, Offering, honors fallen trees while allowing them to continue nurturing the future. After two massive oak trees came down at Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery, Shin returned them to the Earth, buried under mounds reminiscent of Korean tumuli. An April ceremony invited participants to plant native wildflowers and shrubs into the mound. As the trees decompose, they will nourish fungi and bacteria, build soils and cultivate two interconnected ecosystems that support the plants above. “I just wanted everything to have ceremony,” said Shin. Her work celebrates the trees “as part of our lineage, as opposed to treating them like some other thing that is no longer useful.” Rather than disappearing the trees, they simply change form, allowed to offer themselves back to their environment, and making visible the way that decay and growth are always intertwined.

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• New word alert! The “phyllosphere” describes the realm of microorganisms who live on leaves. Similar to “rhizosphere” (the tiny habitat around roots) phyllosphere describes the microbiome of foliage, which, while underappreciated, is absolutely everywhere. A single gram of leaf tissue can host ten million organisms, and all together, leaves on planet Earth comprise a billion km² of surface area, making leaves the largest terrestrial habitat, more than six times that of all land. So who are these tiny guys all around us? Mostly bacteria who live off the leaf’s metabolic byproducts, but also fungi, yeasts and algae, as well as the protozoa and viruses who prey upon them. Writer Sam Knowlton details this hidden world of biofilms and makes the argument for their cultivation in ecological agriculture.

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• Science round up:

  • Metallic Sweat Bees change color from blue green to a golden olive as humidity rises.

  • A study in LA found that yards planted with native plants hosted 4 times more pollinators, hummingbirds included, with more complex and diverse ecological networks, when compared to traditional yards. The effects held regardless of neighborhood income.

  • A nocturnal Australian Bull Ant was found to navigate using the light of the moon as a compass.

  • Cultivars of native grasses were not nearly as effective at outcompeting introduced Cheatgrass than their wild counterparts. Researchers speculate that cultivars are selected for above ground traits, while wildtypes are able to grow more underground.

  • More than 5 million ground nesting Miner Bees were discovered living in a cemetery in Ithaca, New York, making it the largest aggregation in the world.

  • Individual New England Asters around Toronto were found to have reduced pollination when exotic vines colonized populations and reduced Aster density.

  • Birds do not provision their nestlings as well when temperatures rise.

  • Organically fertilized lawns release 8 times less nitrous oxide than synthetically fertilized lawns.

  • Artificial light at night can force flowers to bloom up to 10 days earlier.

  • Salmon exposed to levels of cocaine often found in urban wastewater swam nearly twice as far per week as sober salmon.

  • Spiders stress out when they live around too much traffic.

  • Walking outdoors makes people less lonely.

  • Emerging cicadas find trees to climb by searching for shadows, an inclination known as skototaxis - being drawn to the dark. 🖤

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• Congratulations, Readers! You’ve made it to the end. The reward this month will make your May showers more delightful. Scientists have discovered that certain seeds can hear rain drops. And while the sound of rain tends to put us to sleep, it wakes seeds up and encourages them to germinate. Researchers at MIT put 7,860 grains of rice in shallow tubs of water and drip dropped water nearby. Seeds exposed to the sound of raindrops germinated 30 to 40% faster than silent seeds. They suspect tiny organelles called statoliths drive the process by settling down to the bottom of a cell like sand in a glass jar. When vibration hits and the statoliths are jostled, they encourage the seed to begin to grow. That’s all for this month, dear Readers. May your statoliths be jostled by the spring rain as well. 💚

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UPCOMING EVENTS

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• The Future Now Summit: Taking Action for People + Planet by Design

  June 2-6, Detroit

  In person and open to the public

  I won’t be able to attend this landscape architecture summit but I hope you do. It’s all about cultivating a city and planet for people and biodiversity. I honestly cannot think of the last time I've seen any conference with such a diverse, local, and appropriate lineup of speakers. It literally gives me hope for the future, that the critical task of passing over the levers of power to the people best positioned to cultivate the future we all want, is happening. At least in this small corner. Let me know how it goes!

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• Conway School Graduation

  June 27, MA

  In person and by invitation only

  I’m honored to be giving the commencement address for the Conway School’s graduate program in Sustainable Landscape Planning and Design. I haven’t met them yet, but I already know these students are going to change the world.

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• Chanticleer: Adventures in Ecological Horticulture

  July 15, PA

  In person and open to the public

  I am overjoyed to lecture for Chanticleer this summer. If you needed an excuse to visit the most romantic gardens of the region, this is it. I’ll be speaking on cultivating habitat in ornamental landscapes, from city lots to pleasure gardens. Hope to see you there!

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Support Grow Like Wild here!

HELLO! Below is your link for this evening’s Garden Side Chat - JUST UNDER THE WIRE. What can I say, I’ve been outside gardening.

Tonight features Chris Roddick, who is not only my wonderful husband but was also the head of arboriculture at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden for 30 years. He is lecturing on how to pick a tree at a nursery, as well as how to ca…

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I hope you got to see the Pink Moon this month, named for a tiny flower with a big impact: Moss Phlox (Phlox subulata).

Below is another tiny flower, one of my absolute favorites. The glorious Draba verna. These tiny guys are among the first to bloom, but you’d never see them unless you look, because the entire flower is about a centimeter wide and maybe an inch tall. They can fit in a thimble!

Draba verna is from far away, Asia, Europe and North Africa, brought accidentally to North America centuries ago. But they’re so tiny they don’t bother anybody, and teeny flies visit the flowers. The cutest!

Anyway, enjoy the podcast.

xo,

Rebecca

Hi Plant People!

Happy Pink Moon! The first moon to celebrate a flower: Moss Phlox. I can only imagine the breadth of this plant in years past when its bloom was enough to name a moon. Sadly, they can be hard to find now, outside of gardens. Even so, I remain quite jealous of the Japanese gardens that have elevated this plant to its true potential. They call Phlox subulata “Shibazakura,” which translates to “lawn cherry blossom.” 💖 As I watch the full moon rise this evening, I’ll make sure to send a hope for Moss Phlox: MAY SHE RISE AGAIN!

✤

Ecological gardening is what I do with my life, but the true passion of my heart is pollination ecology, essentially the why and how of flowers. There is nothing I love more than sharing how to read them, and how to know what they want out of life. So, I am happy to report that I’ll be lecturing on this topic later this month! And it’s for a good cause. My mother is a member of the CT American Orff-Schulwerk Association, which you can be forgiven for not knowing is a very fun and dynamic way to teach music to children. The talk is on April 21st, virtual, $25, and all funds raised will go to teaching teachers, who then teach children, and the world is better for it.

✤

We had a lovely Garden-side Chat this week, delving as deeply as possible into the fetid world of Skunk Cabbage (so hot right now) (because of thermogenesis!). It’s such a joy to learn literally everything I possibly can about a plant, and then share that with you.

But this month will be more practical: favorite arborist Christopher Roddick will speak on selecting, planting, and training young trees, as he feels that many of you are likely in the process of doing that now.

The young tree Garden-side Chat will be April 20th, at 6PM EST.

This newsletter is and always will be free for everyone. But if you’d like to join our monthly, virtual chats please become a supporter by clicking below.

Support Grow Like Wild!

RESOURCE SPOTLIGHT

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• Bluebirds are scoping out the rotting posts of my porch for nest sites and my son has generously made me a bluebird house to lure them elsewhere. As I research bluebirds, I found this fantastic guide to bird habitat requirements from the University of Missouri. The guide details which birds need which age of trees and which plants make seeds during which seasons - very specific info I have yet to find elsewhere.

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• Landscape architects Topophyla worked with designer Gabriel Castro-Andrade to create a kit for worksites that can help protect undocumented people from ICE. Called “The Red Line,” the kits organize worksites into zones with varying levels of access to visitors, shifting responsibility for access away from individual workers, and helping to establish boundaries.

  The kits can be made now by using common items and downloaded signage, but will soon be available to the public by emailing programs@archleague.org.

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• There are many benefits to using planting plugs rather than pints and gallons: they’re far cheaper, have a lower carbon footprint, and less work to plant. For years plugs were only available wholesale but retailers like Izel have made them available to everyone. However! There is a learning curve, and thankfully Shannon Currey has written all about it in this handy guide to planting plugs. She covers acclimatizing plants after shipping (slowly), watering more at the edge of a flat, and resisting the urge to root prune. She also recommends mulching a site first, and only then planting into it - a strategy I am excited to try.

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• The Native Plant Society of NJ has created a free guide for those interested in planting school gardens. Geared towards parents, volunteers and teachers, the guide introduces native plants, explains their importance, and includes information on design as well as 50 lesson ideas in different subject areas. You can download it online or request a free, mailed copy.

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• My favorite book in recent years has just been published and I’m thrilled to let you know! David Haskell wrote all about flowers, their reason for being, and relationships with others, humanity included. It’s fascinating information delivered though Haskell’s gorgeous storytelling. If you require a teaser, here is the chapter on scent published in Orion Magazine. I’m horribly biased, but I admit that my favorite part is when he details the plant and animal spreadsheets of Brooklyn Bridge Park, describing them as “miniaturist portraits of the relationship between plants and their caretakers.” I could not recommend this book more.

IN THE NEWS

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• Great news, Monarch fans! Overwintering butterfly populations increased significantly in Mexico this year and Monarch populations are on the rise! They are still low, about half of what is needed to sustain population health, but these signs are encouraging.

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• Right now, millions of those Monarchs are on their way north, traveling thousands of miles in search of milkweed for breeding. But so many others are migrating as well, mostly unnoticed: dragonflies, ladybugs, hoverflies, even lacewings! Research into tracking these epic journeys was illustrated and animated by the Guardian, following Painted Ladies 9000 miles across the Atlantic Ocean and Bogong moths as they navigate by the Milky Way. How do they do it? By floating nets up into the sky, analyzing stray pollen grains, and tracking isotopes in wings. One cool thing I learned from this piece is that Painted Ladies mostly float on the wind, actively flying for only 15% of their journey.

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• Gardening is once again having a fashion moment. At the Paris Fashion Week shows alone Louis Vuitton had models walk through a geometric landscape covered in grass, Hermes’s runway snaked through moss and moonlight, while Miu Miu models clunked down a sodded catwalk wearing hiking boots. Vogue claims it’s part of a faux back to the land movement, in which fashionistas touch grass but inside. Meanwhile everyone’s favorite Menswear Guy heralded Monty Don as a fashion icon in a piece on the history and relevance of “gardening style.” Guy writes that garden clothes “normalize dirt, repair and longevity. They prize comfort and function over novelty, while still allowing for a little theatre in colour and silhouette.” Our high waisted pants and chore jackets let fashion men “borrow a bit of that imagined competence” by providing “a visible record of one’s labour, lending the attire the most potent of menswear spells: authenticity.” (cough cough) Still, he’s right. We look great.

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• It is a big deal for gardeners to get to the point where they’re prioritizing native plants on the land they care for. It’s something to celebrate and support. So I’m thrilled that there’s a new book to help the recently converted figure out what to plant when ornament is no longer enough. Plant This, Not That by Elise Howard features over 200 plant swaps to make our gardens more pollinator friendly. Some of the plants to rethink are ecologically harmful, but some, like lilacs, are perhaps not beneficial enough to warrant space in every garden. Margaret Roach interviewed Elise for the NYT and describes how the book organizes plants by function, giving native options for hedges and groundcovers, while also encouraging people to look for native versions of their existing favorites, like Viburnum, Hydrangea, and Rhododendron. It’s a great read and gift for anyone just getting the bug of ecological gardening.

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• It’s almost time for spring flowers! In just a few weeks, we’ll be surrounded with little blue and white bells carpeting the forests floor. You might wonder why so many spring flowers hang downward, making it seemingly difficult for pollinators to access nectar and pollen. The answer is twofold: first, the bells act like an umbrella, protecting pollen and nectar from spring rain and sunshine. Second, the flowers’ orientation strategically inhibits certain pollinators. A new study out of China took one of their Solomon Seals and flipped the flowers upright to see what would happen. Flower visitation increased, but Honeybees and Syrphid Flies were among them, and they are simply not very good at pollinators. Downward hanging flowers can only be visited by the most acrobatic pollinators, bumble bees and other solitary bees, who are faithful and effective pollinators for many bell flowers. By gatekeeping floral resources and limiting visitors, Solomon’s Seal produces better fruit in the end.

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• Cutback season will soon be upon us. And if you’re into that sort of thing, it can be a great time to gather and remove the egg casings of introduced Praying Mantids. These giant mantids eat monarchs, hummingbirds, and 30 bumblebees a week! And what’s worse, they are still for sale. David Bishop wrote a great article detailing the damaged caused by these charismatic animals and making the case for removal. Spring is the best time, as egg casings can be ID’d and removed easily. If you’d prefer not to kill them, casings can be donated to local bird sanctuaries where young mantids will join the circle of life. I highly recommend bringing any adults found in the garden inside to keep as pets. ID can be difficult, but as you cut back, look for large, round egg casings stuck to plant stems. The good folks at Brooklyn Bridge Park made a fantastic guide to help.

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• A new study found that Lemon Eucalyptus Oil is just as effective as DEET for keeping Black Legged and Dog Ticks at bay!!! It’s a real thrill because the formulation tested lasted for days when sprayed on clothing. I’ve been using cedar oil for years, but it fades after 30 minutes. Lemon Eucalyptus oil comes from an Australian Gum tree called Corymbia citriodora, which an Indigenous lead company then formulated into the fabric spray tested. Unfortunately it won’t be on the market until next year but normal lemon eucalyptus oil is also quite effective for a few hours.

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• What sort of criminal puts plastic underground intentionally?‎ Perhaps the worst thing about landscape fabric is that it doesn’t even do its job. I used to find it in Brooklyn parks, buried six inches under a patch of Mugwort. Apparently, the Brooklyn Botanic Garden used landscape fabric in the 1980s and spent the entirety of the 1990’s removing it. Author Cass Marketos gives us a brief history of this worst idea in weed suppression, pointing out that, in the rare instance that landscape fabric does kill plants, it also kills all the soil biology around them.

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• One year after the LA wildfires, Terremoto landscape designer Danielle VonLehe filled paper pouches with the seeds of quick blooming wildflowers like sunflower and California poppy, “all phytoremediative seeds that sequester heavy metals in their roots when seeded with endomycorrhizal fungi.” In this beautiful piece for the LA Review of Books, VonLehe describes giving the seeds to neighbors as they collectively figure out how to regrow a healthy and supportive landscape on now toxic soils and amidst a “villainization of nature” lead by bureaucrats and insurance agencies. After the fires, trees that protected houses were chopped down out of fear, and those that evolved to resprout were uprooted. “What is a garden when it’s defined by “defense”? she asks. Rather than seeing gardens as a front line, they should instead “be a place where we learn to work with nature and respect the powerful forces that govern our natural environments.”

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• A couple of years ago, a bumblebee researcher accidentally submerged her overwintering queens in water for days. Imagine her surprise when, after drying them out, her subjects began crawling around again. Further testing revealed that bees can live underwater for a week! New research shows how they do it: they breathe. The bumble bees were able to extract oxygen out of the water, the first known terrestrial insect to do so.

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• Houseplants are hip and getting hipper. It’s a $50 billion dollar a year industry and growing. But our begonias are all too often grown by exploited immigrant women from Latin America and the Caribbean. Florida immigrant rights group We Count! launched a new campaign called Planting Justice, as well as published a damning report on the Human Cost of Houseplants. Surveys of workers in Florida, who produce nearly 70% of US houseplants, found that they suffer a hidden reality of extreme heat, unsafe conditions, and low wages, with 86% of workers reporting suffering an accident, injury, or illness on the job, and half of women experiencing harassment and discrimination. Meanwhile, houseplant owners are good people! 96% of us said we’d avoid buying from retailers and nurseries using harmful labor practices. What to do? Pressure major retailers to sign binding agreements committing to a worker-developed code of conduct. The campaign is currently targeting Home Depot, Lowe’s, IKEA, Costco, Whole Foods, Walmart, and Trader Joe’s. Consider sending an email.

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• How do you get a garden show? First be a major movie star, then learn to garden. A new gardening TV show is in the works and it truly looks very funny but I’m still somehow bitter. US garden media is tanking, streamers don’t want show pitches (as I know all too well), and the only way to get a show is to be Zach Galifianakis. Even then, teaching anyone anything seems a dead art. In “This is a Garden Show” Galifianakis is specifically pitched as someone who is not an expert, exploring how food is grown alongside the audience. At one point he literally asks, “what is a tomato?” Which, sure, but also this sort of edutainment should exist alongside a robust field of North American experts teaching people the things they want to know, just like the rest of the world has. It all feels very anti-intellectual. But still, I’m looking forward to the show.

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• The benefits of charismatic megafauna to biodiversity are well documented - the disturbance of animals like Bison helps entire ecosystems flourish. But what about the tiny guys? As part of a long-running study in Kansas grasslands, researchers fenced and sprayed quadrants of prairie for over a decade, blocking out or allowing communities of small rodents and insects to do their thing. They found that after 5 years, plots with no insects started losing plant species, and continued to decline for the course of the study. Turns out that grasshoppers and caterpillars, munching away, limit plants enough to make room for more plants. It’s a lovely illustration of the interdependence among all members of these systems, even those we might think of as doing damage.

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• Science round up:

  • When you see a long line at a restaurant, you assume that the food is good. A study out of Japan found that bumblebees do the same thing, bypassing the most attractive flowers when they see other bees visiting flowers they aren’t even that into. Researchers are calling it the “bandwagon effect.”

  • A Strangler Fig in Costa Rica has been identified as the single most popular tree for mammals to use as a latrine. Opossums, two-toed Sloths and wild cats - 17 animals in total - have been found to favor this one species, leading researchers to speculate that the animals use the Figs as a method of communication.

  • Grasshoppers do not want to eat red leaves.

  • A study of 6 continents found that environmentally harmful, introduced animals and plants tend to reduce native insect populations by 31%.

  • A study at the Oklahoma City Zoo found that butterfly gardens can diversify and boost regional butterfly populations over time.

  • Parents who lived within 500 meters of landscapes with carbamate, organophosphate, or pyrethroid pesticide applications had babies with lower APGAR scores.

  • A researcher made a fake hand to pester Brown Recluse spiders and found that they only bite when attacked or squeezed.

  • West Coast Monkeyflowers were able to adapt to extreme drought because of the genetic diversity within their populations. It’s important research because many gardeners want to help plants and trees adapt to climate change with assisted migration, but some are clearly capable of saving themselves.

  • New research estimates that there are ~25,000 species of bees on planet Earth. Meanwhile 34% of plant species and 40% of animals are at risk of extinction.

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• Congratulations, readers! You’re at the end at last. Have you noticed that everyone seems to be smoking again? Starlets carry cigarettes like accessories and pop stars have platters for smoking at weddings. Even birds are hip to the trend, now that finches and thrushes all over the world have been documented adding cigarettes to their nests. I too, thought birds were smarter than us but a new study shows that there are upsides to birds’ cigarette use. Researchers placed two cigarette butts into the nests of European Blue Tits (who are BIRDS) and compared the health of the babies to those nests without. Cigarette nests had less blowflies and fleas, and baby birds were healthier. That’s because the compounds in tobacco leaves ward off nest pests and birds know this, even upping the number of cigarettes used with increased pest pressure. But before you go renegade, offering cigarettes to local birds, please remember that they also contain many toxins that find their way into babies as well. Just grow tobacco.

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UPCOMING EVENTS

‎ ‎ ‎

• Adventures in Ecological Horticulture

  April 7, MA

  In person, virtual, & free!

  I’m thrilled to lecture in central Massachusetts for the Lincoln Garden Club next month! Come see me share all about lessons learned from a lifetime of playing with bugs in the dirt.

  ‎

• How to Grow a Better Birdfeeder w/ THE Desirée L. Narango

  April 16

  In person, virtual, & free!

  One the best bird and garden researchers is lecturing for free online this month! Desirée Narango is perhaps best known for her work alongside Doug Tallamy and giving us all the chickadee research we rely on. But she’ll be speaking on how to support birds with plants rather than feeders. See you there!

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• The Language of Flowers: Pollination Ecology

  April 21

  Virtual, $25

  This is a lecture I rarely give but love to the moon. It’s about how flowers work and it will change your life. Also it’s for a good cause! All funds go to support Orff-Schulwerk music teachers’ education.

  ‎ ‎

• Darrel Morrison’s workshop at the Clearing

  July 26 - 8/1, WI

  In person, open to the public

  Darrel Morrison is the greatest living ecological landscape designer and he teaches a weeklong course in Wisconsin sharing his process and that of the talented but seriously problematic Jens Jensen. It’s waitlisted but if you’re in design, you should figure out a way in. It might be his last year teaching.

Support Grow Like Wild here!

Hi friends,

Alas, I have to postpone the Garden-side chat previously scheduled for this evening. I am sick. I am in bed. Alas.

However! We will talk all things SPRING FLOWERS next Monday, March 30th. Please join me for a look at the first bloomers of the northeast: Skunk Cabbage, Red Maple, Pussy Willow, plus a bonus flower I just learned - Mermaid Weed…

Read more

Hello gardeners! At long last, please find the recording of the latest Grow Like Wild podcast episode - the BLOOD WORM MOON! (cue scary music).

These “podcast announcement” emails are never super thrilling, so I thought I’d spice things up by including a fun friend each month for you to be on the look out for. Above is the Half Wing Moth, Phigalia titea. While they aren’t especially glamorous, they are usually the first moths of spring in the northeast.

This guy is a male and I know that because females only have tiny wings (half, if you will) and do not fly. They both overwinter as pupae in the leaves under their host trees (birch, maple, oaks and others) so leave those leaves!

Adults emerge in the first warm days of spring and have only one thing on their minds. They don’t eat, they just mate. Females lay eggs on the bark of their host trees and, when they hatch, their inchworm babies inch up the tree to eat newly emerging leaves. They can only eat those tender, new leaves. If you feed them old leaves, they’ll starve.

So keep an eye out for the halfwing moth! They aren’t beautiful pollinators but they make great bird food and let us know that spring is on the way.

Hi Plant People,

There was a FULL BLOOD WORM MOON ECLIPSE this morning and I’m pretty sure we should all make some sort of offering. It’s not easy to think about gardens when we’re bombing people again, so it is my sincerest hope that you are reading this on a break from devising some way to stop WWIII. If you’re interested in my take on things non-gardening, I would encourage you to ORGANIZE. There are so many of us now, the vast majority, who don’t want war, who want healthcare and paid family leave, and a safe, healthy environment for our families and neighbors. But we’re fragmented and disenfranchised. We deserve so much more and so does the rest of the world. But we need to organize into groups with real political power. Wouldn’t it be beautiful if garden clubs could be the seeds around which these movements form, like the tiny motes and spores inside raindrops and snowflakes? Here’s hoping. HOWEVER, that moon this morning.

At 6AM EST this morning, the earth passed between the sun and the moon, cloaking the moon in our shadow. It didn’t go black, but glowed a burnt red, as sunlight peaked around the edges of the earth, filtering through our atmosphere, and projecting millions of sunsets and sunrises onto the surface of the moon. I couldn’t see it through the clouds, but I hope you could.

✤

Somewhere, under the snow, the roots of skunk cabbage are just beginning to metabolize starches. They generate heat for the flower, arguably the first of spring, so that they can attract flies and beetles with wafts of their warm and putrid aroma. It’s not romantic but it is definitely awesome. We’ll cover more about skunk cabbage, as well as other first bloomers in this month’s Garden-side Chat!

If you’re new around here, I host a zoom meeting once a month for supporters of this newsletter. And this time we’ll examine skunk cabbage, red maple, and pussy willow flowers and flower visitors.

Garden-side Chat: Tuesday, March 24th, 6PM EST.

This newsletter is and always will be free for everyone. But if you’d like to join our monthly, virtual chats please become a supporter by clicking below.

Support Grow Like Wild!

RESOURCE SPOTLIGHT

• The Feminist Bird Club came out with their patch for the year, and it is the cutest thing I have ever seen in my entire life. All proceeds go to support orgs doing frontline work in Minneapolis, protecting people from ICE.

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• It’s time for seed starting in the northeast and many of us want to begin well before we’re supposed to. How to hold off premature germination? A Way to Garden hosts a handy seed starting calculator. Simply find the date of your last frost, plug it into the calculator, and it will pump out a list telling you to hold your horses and don’t start tomatoes till the end of the month, Rebecca.

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• The British Ecological Society has put out a paper detailing everything ever researched about their native Solomon’s Seal. What’s more, there’s an entire database where you can search through similar papers for hundreds of local species, many which have jumped the pond. It is both very cool and totally unfair. We need a North American version.

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• There are times, like now, where it is extremely important for all of us to get out of the garden and get political. But there are also gardens that are fundamentally political, as well as joyful and beautiful manifestations of people taking care of each other and the world around us. Lottie Delamain details 50 of these vibrant landscapes in her gorgeous book, Gardens That Can Save the World. It’s a true cause for hope and a well of inspiration in these trying times. I’m so honored to be included alongside folks like David Godshall of Terremoto and John Little of Care Not Capital. It’s hard to think of a more important garden book for this moment.

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• Native plant floral design is a relatively new arena and that makes it all the more exciting. Gardening blog Nuts for Natives did us all a favor and documented which eastern flowers hold up in a vase, which spill gracefully over the edge, and which are the most dramatic. How will floral design shift and evolve with this new pallet? I can’t wait to find out.

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IN THE NEWS

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• Did anything happen in horticulture this month aside from the Bad Bunny Halftime show? It was such a joyous celebration of all that is good about this problematic country, with the added bonus of GRASSES. It’s hard to think of another time grasses were this big in pop culture. Maybe Children of the Corn? The Bad Bunny team hired 400 people, dressed them as grasses, and had them march onto the field amidst sugar cane, plantains, and palms trees evoking pastizales and the ecology of Puerto Rico. I thought I’d be helpful and ID the grasses for you, but alas they were made of plastic to withstand the rigors of showbiz! Still, graminoid reggaeton fans finally had their day in the sun and we are all better for it.

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• Much of our work focuses on keystone plants, but did you know there are keystone birds? Woodpeckers, what with all their fancy carpentry, are habitat makers for many other species: owls, bluebirds, bats and raccoons can all be found in homes originally made by woodpeckers. Margaret Roach details their generous housing policies in the NYT, as well as what we can do to support them on the land we care for. We can make sure they have water in winter, berries in summer, and acorns in the fall. Of course, the big thing is to let trees get old and even die, reducing canopy if necessary to keep them safe.

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• The coolest Orchid Show ever is underway right now at the NYBG and the designer is masked mystery man, Mister Flower Fantastic. He’s like a florist MF Doom, but with a pollen allergy severe enough to keep him masked and gloved. The installation is a love letter to Jamaica Queens, gilding car washes, brownstones, and newsstands with orchids. The show is clever and hip but it also elevates floral design into the realm of legitimate art. The show in unmissable and runs thought April 26th.

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• Months ago, I wrote an article for the American Gardener boosting advocacy from BIPOC researchers to soften and shift our rhetoric around harmful introduced plants. When we use terms like “alien,” “invasive” and then combine nations of origin with militaristic language about eradication, there are people who will respond to that with fear. I got great feedback, all thoughtful, from those who supported and those who were against the shifts. Then AHS posted it to Instagram last week and all hell broke loose. There were white gardeners upset that anyone might ask them to change. There were ecologists convinced that this would diminish the severity of the crisis. There were exotic plant advocates “agreeing” that we should celebrate Hosta to “even things out.” Someone called me a “liberal.” It was hilarious. And while most people were calm and intelligible, this is the internet and I honestly think people are still fighting. SO, I’m here to set the record straight:

  • There’s an ecological crisis. We need to support the plants that evolved on the land we’re on, and remove any plants that are causing harm. Exotic plants that are not causing harm are FINE.

  • No one is calling in the language police. No one is getting canceled over this. It can be a gentle and awkward shift to kinder rhetoric. No biggie.

  • I am in no way the figurehead of this movement and it’s honestly problematic to put me there because there are awesome researchers leading the way. You can watch a fantastic webinar here where they detail soon-to-be-published research showing how this language hurts people.

  • And lastly, even if you don’t care about the feelings of people in this era of heightened xenophobia, consider that this an opportunity for us to reach outside of our bubble and speak to people who don’t feel they have a place in this movement. Just strategically, using language that allows us to grow and spread this work is in everyone’s best interests, birds included.

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• Brace yourselves, there’s more bad news about bird populations. But there are also indicators for ways to help, so please let this spur you into action rather than lead you to despair. The situation: a new study in Science shows that some bird species are declining faster than previous thought, and a full quarter of those studied are decreasing faster and faster. There are strong correlations with agriculture and climate change: birds are decreasing most in areas with more pesticide and fertilizer use, larger farmland, and warmer temperatures. While researchers don’t yet know all the mechanisms of decline, decreasing insect populations are a big part of it. Some people think climate change is drying out the world, and many insects can’t adapt. Ecologists in the Brazilian rainforest are literally dumping water on the ground to measure bird response, and preliminary results indicate that birds are healthier with less drought. It can be complicated and overwhelming to stop climate change, but we can protect and cultivate habitat to support the birds around us by planting the native plants that will provide the berries and caterpillars they need. Gardening can be a part of serious ecological work.

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• One of the most incredible native plant gardens in Chile was created by a Palestinian designer. Ximena Nazal has been rescuing plants from demolition sites and collecting wild seed on botanical expeditions, growing them in her garden for decades. She sees these rare desert plants as “symbols of adaptation and endurance” that she can help keep safe. Her stunning garden, profiled in the World of Interiors, is “an ironic inversion of the plant-hunter trope…not pillaging for glory and riches, but to protect and nurture species under threat – from neglect, climate change and our avaricious appetite for exotica.” It’s a lovely portrait of a garden practice that hits all the marks: supporting ecological communities, nourishing the soul, and doing it beautifully.

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• Have you ever fallen in love with a tree? If you’re reading this, there’s a high chance that you already know the wonders of truly knowing, empathizing with, and supporting one of these marvelous earthlings. Ned Friedman at the Arnold Arboretum, sees his job as an interspecies matchmaker, encouraging students in his seminar - simply entitled “Tree” - to pick a single specimen among the collection’s 16,000 and learn from it, befriend it, and eventually fall in love. The course grew from Ned questioning how we might “become more connected with the world in ways that might lead us to behave differently, to feel more passionately about biodiversity?” I’m stuck by how simple and achievable his solution is, to encourage people to truly know a single tree. It seems like a wonderful model to spread to students of all ages.

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• Naturalist Brian Pfeiffer wrote a wonderful article on birch tree reproduction. In winter, he explains, catkins mature into whorls of fertile samaras and three lobed scales that look like tiny birds in flight. The scales are distinct to species, so you can impress your friends by ID-ing the trees around you with only these littlest fleurs de lis!

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• Science round up:

  • When Monarch caterpillars eat the young leaves of Common Milkweed, they grew larger and had improved survival compared to those eating older leaves. Apparently young leaves are easier to eat and have more nitrogen.

  • The removal of introduced Buckthorn in upstate NY resulted in a tenfold increase in herbaceous plant cover and species richness, as well as higher arthropod and pollinator abundance. However, the increased leaf cover and litter also encouraged the establishment of the incredibly harmful introduced Fire Ant, who like to nest in leaves.

  • Bumblebees use a massive amount of energy flying around. Thank goodness that their wings also generate a downdraft, keeping their fuzzy bodies cool.

  • A new pink baneberry was discovered hiding in plain sight around Ithaca, New York. And a new to science mining bee was found in Texas and Mexico and is a specialist on Texas sage.

  • A parasitic braconid wasp is able to inject a tamed virus into their doomed host caterpillars, chemically castrating the caterpillar in order to use that energy to feed offspring.

  • A study in German grasslands found that more plant diversity resulted in increased soil carbon accumulation as well as better microbial resistance to drought.

  • Researchers took Canada goldenrod, New England Aster, and Wild Bergamont and warmed them up to mimic climate change. They flowered less and produced less sugar in their nectar. Monarch butterflies who fed on these warmer plants had 26% less fat than those who fed on normal temperature flowers.

  • Bur Oak populations at the edges of their range were found to contain the genetic diversity thought necessary to adapt to climate change. This can be read as both helpful for assisted migration, or an argument against it.

  • Researchers may have found evidence of deep-rooted trees redistributing groundwater, which then benefits the shallow-rooted plants growing under them.

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• My sincerest congratulations, readers, you’ve made it to the end at last. The reward for this month is twofold. I was going to tell you about these tiny parasitic beetles who evolved to smell like flowers so that bees will visit them and they can hitchhike back to their nest and wreak havoc. But it’s honestly been a really tough month, and I want to leave you with something wonderful. So, I’m going to tell you about electricity. The ground has a negative electrical charge. It’s why we “ground” our stereo systems, by wiring them to the earth. Plants (glorified tubes of water) also carry that negative charge. The atmosphere is usually positively charged, and storms, when they really get going, can suck photons out of the ground, and up into the air. It’s why our hair can stand on end during a thunderstorm. Trees, being the tallest things around, are high points for these climbing charges. Researchers have now documented pine trees glowing blue as charges jump out in a phenomenon called coronae. In the pitch black, it’s just barely visible, but under UV light, the whole tree glows as if “fireflies descended on the treetops.” There have been stories of ship masts and church spires lighting up in a storm, nicknamed St Elmo’s Fire, so it makes sense that trees would do the same. I’ll be looking now, on dark and stormy nights, for “swaths of scintillating corona glowing as thunderstorms pass over forests.”

UPCOMING EVENTS

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• "Life in the Time of ICE: Be an Advocate"

  March 3 (TODAY!)

  Virtual, pay what you can

  El Merequetengue, a network of Latin American landscape architects and designers, is collaborating with private firms local ASLA chapters to put on a workshop TONIGHT about how to be an advocate for and with immigrant communities in the landscape industry. There are more events to come so follow El Merequetengue on Eventbrite.

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• Auction to support Homegrown National Park!

  March 9 - 15

  Virtual

  HGNP is doing wonderful work spreading resources and inspiration, supporting people to support the ecological systems they are a part of. Now we can support them by registering for their auction, where you can win books, gift certificates, and me? Yes! I’m donating an hour of virtual landscape consultation and I so hope one of you wins it.

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• Adventures in Ecological Horticulture

  March 18, OH

  In person & free!

  Come hang out with me in glamorous Ohio! I’ll be lecturing at the Bexley Public Library, talking about all the ways I know to make gardens that support people and ecological communities alike.

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• David Wagner for Pollinator Pathway

  March 19

  Virtual & free!

  ‎David Wagner is the most amazing caterpillar researcher in North America, and he’s lecturing for free for Pollinator Pathway! If you want to learn more about the threats caterpillars face and how to support them, this is an incredible opportunity.

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• Navigating BONAP

  March 31

  Virtual, pay what you wish

  I use BONAP every single day and am SO looking forward to this lecture by founder Dr. John Kartesz on navigating their new website. I’m sure we’ll all learn a ton but I’m just excited to say ‘thank you.’

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• Adventures in Ecological Horticulture

  April 7, MA

  In person, virtual, & free!

  I’m thrilled to lecture in central Massachusetts for the Lincoln Garden Club next month! Come see me share all about lessons learned from a lifetime of playing with bugs in the dirt.

  ‎

• Darrel Morrison’s workshop at the Clearing

  July 26 - 8/1, WI

  In person, open to the public

  Darrel Morrison is the greatest living ecological landscape designer and he teaches a weeklong course in Wisconsin sharing his process and that of the talented but seriously problematic Jens Jensen. It’s waitlisted but if you’re in design, you should figure out a way in. It might be his last year teaching.

Support Grow Like Wild here!

Gigantic clusters of soft flakes are falling outside my window. I almost feel guilty for not racing outside with a macro lens to capture as many as I can before they melt or sublimate. Oh? Have you not heard of snow sublimation before? Perhaps you might consider attending the snow ecology Garden-side Chat on Monday!

GARDEN-SIDE CHAT - SNOW ECOLOGY

Monday,…

Read more

Happy Waning Crescent Snow Moon.

This month’s podcast was long in the making, but out in the wild white yonder at last. Snow is everywhere. It’s biting cold. We should all be in bed with a book (or a podcast!). But the days are getting longer and the light is coming back.

xoxo,

Rebecca

Hi Plant People!

Happy Snow Moon! The northeast is covered in an enchanted blanket that makes everything sparkly and quiet. It’s enough to let us imagine the world is safe and cozy while we know otherwise. As we strike, donate, march, and organize for our communities, I’m going to share the most magical things I’ve learned this month, all about SNOW.

Snow is actually shockingly warm. It’s fundamentally an insulator that holds heat in the ground like a duvet, snuggling in plants and animals for the winter. Just like down feathers, it’s the tiny pockets of trapped air that allows snow to buffer temperatures. When we leave twigs and leaves on the ground, the heat of the earth melts the snow directly above it, creating a whole little world for beetles, mice, and small plants to run around, hidden from exposure. This realm is called the Subnivean Zone and with just 6” of snow, it never gets below freezing.

Many people are under the misconception that snow is frozen water. Snow is frozen MIST. It was a gas. A snowflake’s tiny droplet was floating in air when it crystalized, which allowed it to form prisms and facets unencumbered by gravity. It’s the space between and among their tiny crystal branches that holds the air as they land on the ground, jumbled on top of each other.

Frozen water is what we call ice. Which has very little air and is far, far colder than snow. Ice is a conductor of heat, rather than an insulator, as we all know from our cold rears sitting on the winter ground. It’s with that biting, frigid nature in mind, that I would just like to reiterate: ABOLISH ICE.

✤

Immigration and horticulture are utterly entangled. Not only are the vast majority of us immigrants or their recent descendants, but immigrants are our friends, family, and coworkers. Gardening, landscaping, landscape architecture - none of it happens without immigrants.

Gardeners are world changers. We literally spend our lives cultivating beautiful new realities for our communities. Let’s all work together to weed out fascism and support our neighbors. Abolishing ICE is a great first step.

✤

Want to know more about snow ecology in the winter landscape? Snow will be the whole topic of the next Garden-side Chat! We’ll cover the wonders of snow formation, which plants and animals require it for winter, and how to encourage snow on our land.

Snow Ecology Garden Side Chat! Monday, February 23. at 6PM EST

This newsletter is and always will be free for everyone but if you’d like to attend these monthly chats, please become a paying supporter of Grow Like Wild below. It’s a mere $50 for a whole year and it supports this work!

Support Grow Like Wild!

RESOURCE SPOTLIGHT

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• Ecological gardeners rejoice! Mt Cuba has published yet another of their invaluable plant trials and this one is on GOLDENROD. I feel like these are gifts from the gods and we should leave Mt Cuba offerings. Goldenrods are quintessentially North American plants, with less than a dozen elsewhere in the world. Mt Cuba trialed half of our ~100 species, focusing on the eastern US. Results indicate that Solidago gets a bad rep: very few species are aggressive and some are outright hard to grow. We’ve got goldenrods for wet sites, green roofs, shade and even spring! They’re also important keystone species: having evolved alongside thousands of other animals for millennia, they support both generalists and specialists with their pollen, nectar, leaves stems, and roots. Now for the trials: tied for first place are a common cultivar and a rare ecotype. Solidago rigida ‘Fireworks’ won top billing for manageable stature, companionable demeanor in typical garden soils, and bang up fall display. I’ve always found it too geometric but to each their own. Solidago fistulosa (the Pine Barron Goldenrod) had more “classic” goldenrod qualities while being well behaved in the garden and providing a bonanza for pollinators. It’s worth reading the report in full or picking up a printed copy. But the project website is also a fantastic reference.

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• Every year, the Xerces Society gives away hundreds of Monarch & Pollinator Habitat Kits to support regional wildlife on public land. Kits are available for small and large projects, containing 500 - 1000 plants. If you work on community gardens, urban farms, working lands, town and city parks, educational institutions, Indigenous tribes, or other shared community spaces, apply before February 17th.

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• A new book on community gardens written by MIT history professor Kate Brown is coming out later this month. Tiny Gardens Everywhere chronicles the history of working class people growing food, creating beauty, and cultivating community. She travels to Washington DC, London, Estonia, and all over Europe to share historical tactics and contemporary activism. I do wish Brown had visited Cuba, where, forced by US sanctions, they created the largest and most baddass urban ag operation in the world. Havana produces up to 90% of their own produce organically. Given our increasingly yet eternally insane foreign policy, they’re going to need to up production. ANYWAY, the book is marvelous. If you garden and organize, this book is for you.

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• Shout out to reader Bethany C. who sent me this helpful guide to container gardening with native plants from the Missouri Botanical Garden. There are various combos for various exposures, as well as design guides for “thrillers, fillers, and spillers.” Enjoy!

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• One of my favorite nurseries of all time, Pleasant Run in New Jersey, has a newsletter with fantastic information about plants and animals. This month they covered Tufted Titmice and not only is there a list of specific plants whose seed the birds love, but I also learned that they often visit bird feeders as families: a mated pair and their kids from the prior season. The cuteness!

IN THE NEWS

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• Elder trees have always been our connectors to the past, transporting us to the battles, civilizations, and celebrations that they have witnessed over their centuries. Author Beronda L. Montgomery, standing in the shadow of a 600 year old Live Oak growing on a former plantation in South Carolina, realized that they can be so much more. In her beautiful piece for People Magazine, Montgomery shares her revelation that ancient trees “bear a physical record of the generations of individuals with whom they’ve lived in the carbon stored in their wood.” As we exhale, trees take in our carbon dioxide and that breath can become a “living legacy.” She writes that new tree rings, made in part by her and her family “would live on supported by the foundation of older rings holding the captured breath of ancestors… my transformed breath to live on with theirs.” It’s transformative writing and I cannot wait to read her new book.

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• Now is the time to consider winter garden design. Desiccated foliage in black, tan and gold punctuated by seed heads and set against evergreens are now becoming the norm. Every garden should be four season, with December considerations arguably more important than June’s. Spring gardens grow and shift every few days but as Jared Barnes writes, for these three months of winter, “what you see is what you get.” Where to start? Barnes helps us by chronicling the winter foliage of his favorite native garden perennials with implications for wildlife. Gardenista interviewed Dutch designer Frank Heijligers, who is working with global plants but provides many helpful design insights focused on atmosphere and structure. He recommends late flowering plants in our gardens, as these persist longer in the winter, while surrounding geometric seed heads with the feathery textures of grasses. For more aspirational inspiration, Gardens Illustrated profiled a new Piet Oudolf garden, photographed on a frosty English morning. Piet’s design advice is to always consider the low winter sunlight and of course, “accept death.”

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• Doug Tallamy calls caterpillars '“baby food” because they’re smooshy and packed with protein. He and 5 other ecologists published a new study that quantifies caterpillar importance for Bluebirds. They stuck GoPros on nest boxes, photographed >8k birds with food in their beaks, and identified their ill fated prey. More than any other animal, Bluebirds fed their babies caterpillars, a full 41% of their diet. Fun fact: 99% of those caterpillars were moths, not butterflies, as butterfly caterpillars are more chemically defended. Given that most moths are specialist feeders and rely on native plants, this makes planting native plants the best way to care for Bluebirds as well!

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• Most British gardeners are not yet into native plants. This is perhaps an understatement given the side eye they throw when you try to talk to them about it. Literally, people get offended. But they ARE increasingly into “wilding” and supporting their native fauna, just not with their native flora. I have many theories on the topic but essentially A) a few loud voices often dominate the conversation and B) gardeners and ecologists just haven’t been collaborating for as long as we have, and it’s going to take them a bit to arrive. Which, honestly might be happening? Kate Bradbury reports on the conversation around natives at a recent Wilding Conference. Her personal conclusions get awful close to what I’d consider to be the general attitude here for the last decades: native plants are best for ecology, harmless introduced plants are also fine if used sparingly. One big difference: WOW, are they into “assisted migration” for climate change. In North America, it’s an unproven theory that ecologists are very hesitant to recommend, preferring to give local plants a chance to adapt and support them through the process. There, they’re convinced the island won’t have any more trees in 20 years unless they bring them in from the Mediterranean. Still, it’s a pet fascination for me to watch this conversation evolve. And in this one instance ONLY, it’s fun to read the comments.

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• ‎I’m so proud to share this piece by my favorite writer of all time: Christopher Roddick (aka, my husband). He snagged the last page of the American Gardener to remind us why old trees are critical to the ecology and even beauty of our landscapes. Indeed, in our youth-obsessed culture, letting trees get old and die can be the most life affirming thing a gardener can do.

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• It will be a few more months at least until any of us plants a tree, but winter is the perfect time to learn how to do it. Of course we all think we know what we’re doing, but new research is out and it might upset some delicate sensibilities. With the rise of container grown trees, circling roots have become a hazard of the trade: pot-bound trees explore their container, circling as they search for a way out. If not repotted soon, roots lignify, cementing their escape attempts into a permanent deformity. When circling roots aren’t corrected at planting, they can lead to stem girdling and eventual death. So what is the right way to help trees? There has been much debate. Gentle souls like yours truly have preferred to tease out roots, untangling them like the snarls in a child’s hair and encouraging them to grow outwards. The first time I saw Chris plant a tree I was aghast: he used his saw to shave off the outer inch of roots and soil, all around the entire surface, bottom included, and then returned with pruners to make clean cuts on larger roots. To no one’s surprise, Chris was right, shaving is best. Years of research with varying root treatments were published in Arnodia and follow up studies came out in fall. Unless you’re an urban forester, there is more info here than you will ever need, but the takeaways are as follows:

  • London planetrees are incredibly popular specifically because of the level of abuse they endure. They survived all possible treatments but were happiest when roots were shaven and then mulched. They really like mulch. Trees grew ~40% more in 2 years when given 3” of mulch.

  • Tuliptrees, American hornbeam, American hophornbeam, and will suffer greatly if you bareroot them. They responded better to shaving than teasing out roots.

  • Red Maples have dense, fibrous root systems and do not want their roots shaved, thank you. They also hate bare rooting. Detangle them.

  ‎

• Venezuelan artist Victoria Ruiz makes elaborate flower costumes that honor spiritual traditions rooted in resistance, adaptation, and reverence for the natural world. Her work combines ancestral wisdom with dance and photography to challenge colonial narratives and imagine a realm in which humans, spirits, and ecosystems exist in balance.

  ‎ ‎

• I don’t smell the roses people buy for me. It’s heartbreaking but I know too much about the fungicides they’re treated with. Unlike food, there’s no limit to the amount of pesticides that growers are allowed to use on flowers, and it’s even worse for the imported flowers that make up the vast majority of the trade. Who knew that growing and arranging flowers could be such a dangerous business? The Guardian reports on the tragic story of a little French girl who died from cancer, likely from exposure in utero from her mother’s florist business. It’s hard to establish a definitive link but studies show that Colombian flower workers were exposed to 127 pesticides and Belgian florists had residues of 70 pesticides in their urine despite wearing two pairs of gloves. Unfortunately there’s very little other research, compounded by the fact that growers are often in the Global South and arrangers are often women, two groups often devalued. What can we do about it? Buy organic and local when possible, and if handling commercial flowers, wear gloves, use air purifiers, and crack open a window.

  ‎

• Tis the season to appreciate bark. We’re all familiar with bark as a protective layer but the truth is that it does a lot more for trees as well as the rest of us. Trees can often photosynthesize through bark, take in water, and provide habitat for algae, moss, and bacteria. All those little microbes are hard at work respiring: taking in dangerous gases like methane, carbon monoxide, and hydrogen. Australian researchers estimated that a square meter of bark can hold more than 6 trillion individual microorganisms and those tiny guys may be responsible for offsetting 15% of the methane emissions we keep pumping out. Cool nerds have named this new frontier in climate ecology the “barkosphere.”

  ‎

• Science round up:

  • Sunflower pollen reduces the gut parasites of 5 species of bumblebees. They think it’s the spiky shape of the pollen that does it.

  • Four years after homeowners participated in a garden biodiversity assessment, nearly 40% of them said they were inspired to garden ecologically. Tailored feedback was most influential.

  • Climate change is creating stronger and more frequent “El Niño” events, which make for hot and dry weather that is decimating tropical insects.

  • 72% of Americans support an eco-socialist agenda when not labeled as such.

  • According to models, the more tree canopy cover a Baltimore neighborhood has, the less chance people have of developing cancer.

  • Biodegradable plastics applied to the soil of tomatoes were found to inhibit plant growth as well as the health of soil microbiology.

  • Frequent burning can help oaks and suppress introduced Stiltgrass.

  • A Scottish study found that more native oaks in cities lead to more birds.

  • Trees in cities reduce cardiovascular disease by 4%, but turf increases heart issues by 6%.

  • Grasslands with deep snow had increased nitrogen availability, soil microorganisms who could take up carbon more efficiently, and larger plant canopies which then kept the ground cool all year round.

  ‎ ‎‎

• Gardeners! You’ve done it, you’ve made it to the end. The reward this month is honestly grotesque. Researchers at Kew described and named an epiphytic orchid who grows on shrubby Tree Daisies in the Andean forests of Ecuador. The BLOODSTAINED ORCHID (yes, totally) evolved a maroon center to mimic a hot female Tachinid Fly, just waiting alluringly for a mate. The flower even gives off the scent of female flies. Unsuspecting male flies will attempt to mate with the flower, pollinating them in the process. (Men!) Anyway, as bizarre as it sounds, it’s a common tactic of orchids and even has a name, pseudocopulation. Sadly, more than half of the orchid’s habitat has already been cleared due to ongoing mining and agriculture. THE END.

UPCOMING EVENTS

‎

• Plant Quest

  January 26

  Virtual and open to the public

  Wait, this event has passed… But it’s not to late to sign up to view it! Plant Quest is Michigan State University Extension’s 4-part winter webinar series (of which I was one part). You can sign up to see me, Jeff Epping, Kim Shearer, and Marc Hachadourian until Feb 26th.

  ‎ ‎

• Plant Symposium, Landscape Ontario

  February 3

  Virtual, in person, and open to the public

  ‎‎If you happen to find yourself in Ontario in February, please come and warm up at the Plant Symposium where I’ll be lecturing on caring for land that supports beautiful gardens for people and functional habitat for wildlife, even in tough environments like cities.

  ‎

• The Science and Biology of Pruning

  February 11

  Virtual and open to the public

  Yes, it’s nepotism but also in the interest of public good to share that Chris Roddick is lecturing for the Gresham Japanese Garden on all things pruning. Enjoy!

  ‎

• Approaching Design from an Ecological Perspective

  February 19

  Virtual and open to the public

  It’s always a pleasure to talk to Margaret Roach. In this class for her Virtual Garden Club, I’ll share how to start a design project. WELL before we pick plants, we should know the history of the land, the existing ecological communities, and the needs of the people who will use it. There will be a lot of time for questions so please come ready to chat!

  ‎

• Piedmont Landscape Association Symposium

  Feb 26, VA

  In person and open to the public

  Could not be more thrilled to speak alongside friends at the stunning Paramount Theater in Charlottesville, VA! I’ll share Adventures in Ecological Horticulture while designer & gentleman Preston Montague talks planting, and entomologist Heather Holm discusses pollination in the veggie garden.

  ‎ ‎

• Ecological Landscape Alliance Annual Conference and Marketplace, RI

  POSTPONED TILL AUGUST

  In person and open to the public

  ALAS! The ELA Conference had to be postponed because not enough people signed up! It’s been rescheduled for August but come on people! Let’s support this org that has given us so much. More soon but I hope to see you there!

Support Grow Like Wild here!

Can you imagine anything more cozy than learning all about Hollies as half the continent gets blanketed in snow? Join us this Sunday for the Holly Party Garden-Side Chat at 6PM EST.

Here is the zoom link: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/86596149608?pwd=l0b5TI965qdw3ResSoCsgMsoekVqNp.1

Huge THANK YOU to reader Erin N who suggested I reach out to Sue Hunter of H…

Read more

The moon tonight is a waning crescent, but that silver sliver is still in the month of the Wolf Moon. It was the last super moon of the season, we won’t see another till fall. And even thought the sky is dark, we’re still gaining more than 2 minutes of sunlight each day. It’s the perfect time to listen to a podcast and enjoy the snow.

Want to follow up on articles, papers, and videos? The written newsletter has a million links and references. Please visit https://rebeccamcmackin.substack.com/p/grow-like-wild-wolf-moon.

xoxox,

Rebecca McMackin

Hi Plant People!

Happy New Year! Happy Wolf Moon. This moon is named for the winter howling wolves we don’t often hear anymore. Wolves used to inhabit the vast majority of North America, but populations in the US dwindled after European settlers decimated their prey, then went after wolves strategically, eradicating them ~200 years ago. A few populations have been reintroduced out west but in the northeast, wolf habitat has been taken over by coyotes. Coyotes are now everywhere, from Central Park to my back yard, but originally they were a grassland species with a limited range, living where wolves were not. And while coyotes will kill weak deer, they don’t control populations like wolves do, leaving us with overgrazed landscapes and >1,000,000 car/deer collisions a year. I like to think about what it would look like, and feel like, to bring back wolves. How much safer and lusher the world would be, but also an undeniable shift for those of us who live in the woods. Deer create a real danger for all of us who drive. But wolves shift a power dynamic and our perception of danger. We’re not necessarily on top anymore with wolves around. Would we ever allow that to happen?

✤

Last month’s Garden-side Chat was all about Witch Hazels. We talked cultivars, design technique, moth specialists, and pollinator partners. But this month, all flowers are gone and beauty outside is found in seedheads, evergreens, and, if you’re lucky, berries galore. This month, we’ll delve into HOLLIES and all things Ilex. We’ll explore their cultural significance (i.e. witchcraft), functionality in the winter garden, and then dive deep into those neon berries that bring so much joy to us and winter birds alike.

Holly Party Garden-side Chat: Sunday January 25, 6PM EST.

This newsletter is and always will be free for everyone. But if you’d like to join our monthly, virtual chats please become a supporter by clicking below.

Support Grow Like Wild!

RESOURCE SPOTLIGHT

‎ ‎

• So much gardening takes place inside, dreaming and scheming all winter about what to plant the following season. Tools to help you navigate plants for wildlife are getting better, easier, and more local. A simple guide for newbees can be found from Penn State’s Center for Pollinator Research, which provides illustrated guides to widespread, powerhouse plants that support hummingbirds, butterflies, bees, and even flies.

  ‎

• But if you’re interested in the next level, Rutgers has a fabulous website, searchable by zip code, pollinator group, bloom month, and site conditions. Want to attract butterflies to your sunny, wet garden in NJ on your birthday in July? There are 18 flowers for that. Be warned: the database also includes exotic plants.

  ‎

• French designer and plant philosopher Gilles Clement has a new book/manifesto out on the “Planetary Gardener.” It’s a call to action for those of us who see this work as so much more than decoration and filled with gorgeous profiles of communities all over the world who came together to rip out asphalt and fill their lives with gardens.

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• The ever-generous Mr. Douglass Tallamy worked with researcher Kimberley Shropshire to create a MASSIVE database of all known moths and butterflies in the US and Canada, along with their host plants and range. Paper on the project is here and the database can be downloaded by clicking here.

  ‎ ‎

• I collect detailed information on flower behavior like a dragon hoarding jewels. It is precious, magical stuff and often lost knowledge. So when I find a keeper of it, I tend to stalk them relentlessly. Irish botanist John Feehan is one of my favorites. He has a YouTube channel filled with stories of flower history, functionality, and pollination, many of them “weeds” of North America but still, knowing the intricate secrets of chickweed and dandelions just makes life richer. Enjoy!

IN THE NEWS

‎ ‎

• Gardeners are fundamentally hopeful people - even those of us cynics are dedicated to growing a beautiful future. Gardenista’s Melissa Ozawa is here to help, asking all our favorite gardeners from Uli Lorimer to Edwina von Gal, about what small thing we can all do to cultivate a hopeful tomorrow:

  • Folks from Refugia want you to talk to your neighbors about gardens.

  • Richard Hayden thinks we should embrace the beauty of decay.

  • Georgia Silvera Seamans encourages you to get into phenology, tracking the bud burst and flowering of the trees around you.

  • Gardeners from Terremoto want you to go back to hand watering.

  • and Kelly Norris says we should grow plants from seed.

    ‎

• Margaret Roach is a national treasure. Her new column in the NYT describes this confusing year in horticulture, in which we all tried to garden ecologically amid shifting temperatures and mysterious hydrological patterns. She covers new research on leaving leaves, the popularity of keystone plants, and suggests that “the gardener’s tool kit should now include printouts of key Buddhist writings on the topics of impermanence, powerlessness and nonattachment, plus the Serenity Prayer.” What will 2026 bring? My hope is more connection to the wonders around each of us.

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• Have you noticed Rhododendron leaves curling and up and huddling together on a very cold day? It’s a response called thermonasty - moving in response to temperature - and we can use it as a thermometer! Leaves start to curl just below freezing, tightly tuck themselves up around 25°F, and coil into tubes below 20°. Researchers still aren’t sure exactly why or how they do this but seem to think that it’s an effort to avoid sunlight and the freeze/thaw cycle that can harm chloroplast.

  ‎ ‎

• Last month I covered an anti-leafblower activist and the methods she used to ban them in her community. I was thrilled to receive advice and further resources from readers.

  • Nonprofit Quiet Clean Alliance can help you navigate eliminating gas leaf blowers in your town or city.

  • Stihl publishes a calculator to determine the duration of your Return on Investment when switching from gas to battery equipment.

  • And NH lawyer Justin Richardson suggests a focus on the harm leaf blowers do to lawns by removing much-needed soil nutrients and carbon.

  ‎

• Did you know that there’s a conspiracy theory that the US military created and spread Lyme disease from a laboratory on Long Island? It’s debunked but RFJ Jr has been spreading it around because of course he is. New tick related research that is, in fact, based in reality has found that certain exotic plants, already pushing out native ecosystems, can also support ticks. We’ve known about Barberry and Black Legged ticks for a while, but research out of Florida shows that Codongrass (Imperata cylindrica, aka Bloodgrass) provides safe harbor for Lone Star ticks, allowing them to live 100 days longer than those in intact ecosystems. Harmful plants are so “often managed for their ecological and economic impacts,” say researchers. “This research highlights that they should also be managed to minimize their impact on public health.”

  ‎‎

• Jennifer Jewel is one of our many horticulture matriarchs, platforming and sharing the stories of hundreds of other gardeners on her radio show for a decade. Now she’s branching out into a new medium: film. I’m thrilled to share the trailer for her upcoming series, Cultivating Place, the Power of Gardeners. The films will profile ten gardeners whose stories expand what gardening means, “growing resilience in land, people, and culture alike.” Can’t wait!

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• If you need another reason to reduce or stop using synthetic pesticides, you should know that manufacturers lie about their safety. And our thoroughly compromised EPA writes policy based on that fraudulent corporate research. It’s nothing new, they’ve been at it for years. But a massive new retraction illuminates how the process works. In 2000, “independent” researcher Gary Williams and two others conducted a landmark study of glyphosate’s carcinogenicity. It became a key defense for Monsanto’s claim that Roundup was safe and the cornerstone for EPA regulations. But then lawyers for >67,000 people who believe they got cancer from Roundup published internal Monsanto emails, thanking staff for their hard work drafting the paper. They even suggested - IN WRITING - new studies be “ghost written” by Monsanto agents, just like they had done with the Williams study. Now the study has been retracted but still, the Trump administration just encouraged the Supreme Court to limit the Roundup-related lawsuits that people can bring. Bayer’s stock surged 15% on the news last month.

  ‎ ‎

• OK, time for sunshine and positivity. The largest prairie mural in the world was just painted atop a building in Fort Worth, TX. Artist James Prosek created the 5,000+ sq. ft. mural as a work of work of public ecological storytelling, as well as a tribute to the >120 species of featured prairie plants. The mural functions as a clearing above the city: a place where ecological history, human intervention, and the prairie’s enduring complexity are brought into view.

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• Have you noticed plants in your garden stretching and reaching towards the sunlight? They are “shade avoidant,” moving themselves away from the stress of shade. “Shade tolerant” plants accepted their fate long ago, evolving characteristic that allow them to thrive with less sun, like large, thin leaves that capture the light and more easily diffuse CO₂. They tend to grow slower, investing in their foliage more than their sunny compatriots or they become ephemeral, completing their entire lifecycle in the brief windows of sunshine before trees leaf out. Shannon Currey from Izel Native Plants put together this wonderful guide to shade gardening, defining types of shade and explaining little-known tools like the “heliophyte index” that gives more information than a typical plant label. Of course Shannon’s favorite shade plants are included as well.

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• Short film platform Nowness, has produced a series on “great gardens” of the world. They’re sweet little portraits of iconic spaces, from Derek Jarman’s Prospect Cottage, to Dan Pearson’s Hillside, to Edward James’s glorious Mexican jungle Las Pozas.

  ‎ ‎

• Science round up:

  • Beetles communities in Florida were more diverse when suburban landscapes were planted with native plants, but less abundant when pine straw was used as mulch.

  • The bills of Dark Eyed Juncos in LA changed during Covid lockdown to resemble those of more “wild” birds, possibly due to a lack of access to human foods.

  • Beaver-built wetlands had more butterflies and hoverflies than human built ponds.

  • Ancient Caribbean sweat bees were found to have nested in the tooth cavities of extinct rodent jaw bones more than 20,000 years ago. It’s the first evidence of bone-dwelling among bees.

  • Anna’s Hummingbirds were found to be evolving longer and slimmer beaks as a result of drinking out of hummingbird feeders.

  • The Australian bogong moth was found to use the Milky Way to navigate their annual migration, the first know invertebrate to do so.

  • A new parasitic flower was discovered in Malaysia thanks to iNaturalist!

    ‎

• Nice work gardeners! You’ve made it to the end. The reward this month is so hot right now. And also hot 200 million years ago. Cycads predate flowers by 100 million years, growing “cones” like conifers to reproduce. But unlike conifers, cycads employed the help of pollinators to transfer pollen from cone to cone. How could they do this without flashy flowers? Heat. Cones can get >27°F above air temperature. And adorable specialist pollinating weevils love the heat for the cozy vibe, but they also have sensors in their antennae that pick up infrared directly, guiding them to heated cones. The cones that make pollen heat up around dusk, then cool down when seed-bearing cones heat up 3 hours later, encouraging weevils to travel from cone to cone. So many of us think pollination is all about bees and flowers, but honestly, is there anything more romantic than 200 million years of these tiny animals dancing from plant to plant under the starlight?

UPCOMING EVENTS

‎ ‎

• New Directions in the American Landscape Symposium

  January 15 - 16, NJ

  Virtual, in person, and open to the public

  This is one of my favorite symposia of all. I’m not speaking but NDAL brings together researchers and practitioners for two days of science, ecology, and collaboration. You can attend online but the conversations that happen here are half the reason to go. I’m excited for Preston Montague lecturing on small spaces, Margo Robbins speaking on Indigenous fire management, and Nigel Dunnett on novel urban ecological design.

  ‎

• A Conversation with Robin Wall Kimmerer & Esther Bonney

  January 21

  Virtual and by donation

  Wild Ones is hosting Robin Wall Kimmerer in conversation with youth-native plant organizer Esther Bonney. They’ll be discussing how to engage the next generation of plant people and I’m looking forward to it.

  ‎

• Plant-o-Rama!

  January 27, NYC

  Free, in person, open to the public

  ‎NYC’s best plant party is back! Speakers include Joseph Charap on Greenwood Cemetery and James Hitchmough on diversity in herbaceous plantings. Free events include a Jobs Fair where nearly every NYC hort organization tables specifically to talk to you. There’s a trade show, where the region’s best growers and suppliers bring all their cool stuff. And there’s a seed swap. It’s truly the best.

  ‎

• Garden Conservancy Webinar Series on Beijing’s Summer Palace

  Jan 29, Feb 26, & March 19

  Virtual and open to the public

  Hundreds of years ago, a famed Chinese palace gardened by eunuchs allowed Jesuit priests to install a massive and complex western wing, inspiring and the region and then bringing eastern design back to Europe. Researcher Andrew Hui will give 3 lectures on this overlooked history.

  ‎

• Plant Symposium, Landscape Ontario

  February 3, ON

  Virtual, in person, and open to the public

  ‎‎If you happen to find yourself in Ontario in February, please come and warm up at the Plant Symposium where I’ll be lecturing on caring for land that supports beautiful gardens for people and functional habitat for wildlife, even in tough environments like cities.

  ‎‎

• Ecological Landscape Alliance Annual Conference and Marketplace

  February 4-5, RI

  In person and open to the public

  Save the date for ELA annual conference, back in person at last! It’s a great party and while lineups aren’t published yet, I happen to know that the incredible Christopher Roddick will be keynoting.

Support Grow Like Wild here!

Hi All,

Good news: Witch Hazels are marvelous and I can’t wait to tell you all about them.

Bad news: I am currently nursing both my son and husband through the flu and fear tomorrow will be my time in the barrel. I’m knee deep in ginger, oregano and salt water but apparently this flu is persistent.

SO! Here is a zoom link: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/858219…

Read more

December’s Cold Supermoon will only be a half moon this evening, but it will still trace its highest arc across the night sky - higher than all other moons of the year. It’s the perfect time to listen to this month’s Grow Like Wild podcast, featuring hard evidence of the benefits of ecological gardens, the latest horticultural drama, and a gift guide for all your favorite gardeners.

Want to follow up on articles, papers, and videos? There’s a written newsletter that comes out on the full moon with a million links and references. Please visit https://rebeccamcmackin.substack.com/p/grow-like-wild-cold-moon.

xoxox,

Rebecca McMackin

Hi Plant People!

Happy Cold Supermoon. The full moon rises in the east at 4PM EST tonight and traces a high arc across the sky, reaching higher than all other moons of the year. Cultures all over the world have named this the Cold Moon for centuries, but its long path through these longest nights before the solstice gives it another common name, the Long Night Moon from the Mohican people.

I live on Mohican/Schaghticoke land in CT and spend a fair amount of time thinking about how I can be in right relationship here, caring for the land while recognizing the history. Part of that process relates to the work we all do when we garden with ecology in mind. It’s easy to see how oak trees, beaver, and willow are keystone species, shapers of landscapes that miss them when they’re gone. Chestnuts and elms took whole foodwebs with them when they left.

For me, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to talk about native plants and supporting ecological dynamics without recognizing the role of Indigenous people as well, and how these systems miss them. I don’t think these topics can be separated. The reason we don’t have a healthy monarch population isn’t just because there’s not enough milkweed. It’s because land was stolen from people. Everything else is downstream.

It’s Indigenous Awareness Month, and a great time to visit Native-Land.ca and see whose land you live on. You can also learn about and get involved in the LandBack movement, which seeks to return Indigenous sovereignty to non-ceded public lands. There have been big wins recently that are not only the right thing to do, but also a huge part of restoring the biodiversity we all work towards. It’s a great time to research efforts in your region and think about how you can help.

✤

I podcasted-it-up this month, speaking to Cultivating Place’s Benjamin Futa for honestly one of my favorite conversations about the role of gardening and gardeners in these dangerous and extreme times, and how well we are positioned to meet the moment.

And I was a guest on the Constant Wonder Podcast, and spoke about my childhood in the woods, how gardening can help those who struggle with connection, and my favorite flower stories for kids.

✤

This newsletter is free and always will be. But supporters of Grow Like Wild get to come to a monthly virtual Garden-side Chat, where we discuss all things ecological gardening.

Last month I convinced my arborist husband Chris Roddick to talk about “ecological pruning," a topic which proved too big to fit in our timeframe. Still, I learned so much: many of us recognize the critical role of dead wood for fungi and wildlife but still try to clean it out of living trees. Chris reminded us that the only reason to do so is safety, and that leaving the stub of a dead branch on a tree can be beneficial for the tree as well, protecting living wood while the branch collar compartmentalizes.

This month’s Garden-side Chat will take the deepest of dives into Witch Hazels: their habitats, medicinal use, roles in a garden, and - my favorite - pollination ecology! Get exciting for water dowsing and ballistic seed dispersal!

This month’s Garden-side Chat will be on Thursday, December 18th, at 6PM EST. These chats are not recorded, they’re casual and a forum for discussion. So if you’d like to attend, please become a paid supporter below.

Support Grow Like Wild!

RESOURCE SPOTLIGHT - GIFT GUIDE!

‎This month’s resources are all for you to give away. After decades of gardening professionally, these are the tools and books I cannot live without.

• My controversial pruner take is that ARS beats Felco by a mile. Something about Japanese steel feels sleeker. The ARS V-Series Pruner has an elegant open and close mechanism that makes a satisfying click in the process. You can also get smaller pruners for smaller hands which is game-changing.

• People only rarely call a spade a spade. They’re most often called shovels, even though spades have flat blades for digging and cutting, while shovels have curved bowls for scooping. I have two favorite spades. The first is Niwaki’s Golden Spade: it’s small and beautiful, lightweight and gold without being Trumpy. It’s awful chic for something covered in dirt, just like me. The other spade is incredibly ugly: the Spear Head Spade looks like a cyber truck but is actually useful. With a pointed tip and footrests, it’s the best for rocky and compacted soils.

• Robin Wall Kimmerer’s, The Serviceberry is a book fundamentally about gift giving. She shows us how to be grateful for each fruit and then give back to the tree. The book can be a revelation for those stuck in an extractive world view and reveals how life, plants, and each other are all better appreciated as gifts.

• Every year I get the Caterpillar Lab’s Caterpillar-a-Day calendar. Every day is a new, amazing image of a caterpillar to learn about. This year’s theme is “exploration” - so you learn about where to find these adorable guys.

• This one’s from my husband: his favorite, bring-everywhere saw is the Silky Zubat. Many gardeners opt for Silky’s folding saws but they are harder to use when you need them, less effective at their one job of cutting, AND you don’t get a scabbard on your tool belt, which is honestly just very cool. Chris says the 13” Zubat with smaller teeth is the best for occasional but serious pruning.

IN THE NEWS

‎ ‎

• “Climate gardening” should be a thing. And if there are too many things already, then perhaps we can all get better at it regardless. Laura Fenton gives us a mini-masterclass on carbon-conscious landscape design in Gardenista with a focus on hardscape. So much of reducing our landscape footprints depends upon the materials we use and the “embodied carbon” they require to get from source to site. Fenton spoke to some of the best designers around to pass along their techniques for sustainable landscapes:

  • Use less hardscape. Terremoto co-founder David Godshall calls it “lifeless" Keep it to a minimum.

  • Up-cycle exiting hardscape materials. “The trick to using recycled materials is to make them look intentional and well crafted,” says Apiary Studio’s Hans Hesselein. If you can’t find a spot for them, give them away, or save for another project, rather than throwing them “away.”

  • When you do buy stone, shop local and salvaged. Regional materials give your project a sense of place.

  • Skip tropical hardwoods and minimize concrete. Sarah Brunelle from Lu — La Studio notes that gravel can be used in place of concrete footings for structures and it actually works better.

    ‎

• Axios just put out their annual gardening survey for 2026, and the results indicate that the kids are alright: younger gardeners are on the rise, with Gen’s Y & Z making up nearly half of homeowner gardeners. They’re spending more money and time than us elder Gen Xers and planning to do more in the future. But they’re also gardening differently, driving a shift away from box stores and towards independent garden centers. Box store plant purchases dropped from 63% to 53% this year. While garden centers purchases rose from 14% to 18%. Those numbers seem small, but they represent hundreds of millions of dollars. Garden centers are also where people go to learn about plants, even more than the internet, if you can believe it. There are some strange findings as well: respondents apparently use Twitter to learn about new plants (Reddit is right there, people) and overwhelmingly use Google Lens rather than iNaturalist. Youngins, what am I missing here? Make it make sense?

  ‎ ‎

  

• Horticulture drama alert! A team of researchers in West Sumatra lead by Indonesian botanist Septian Andriki went viral this month after they found Rafflesia hasseltii. They had been searching for this glorious, parasitic flower for 13 years and Andriki was so overwhelmed by the sight of it, that he wept. I must have watched the video 10 times, reveling in one of the coolest lifeforms this planet has to offer. BUT THEN the University of Oxford posted about the discovery, and do you think they gave credit where it was due? No, sir. They highlighted ONLY the white, British botanist on the team (Chris Thorogood, who is totally amazing) in a colonial throwback so severe, they got a Community Note on Twitter. I learned a lot about Indonesian shitposting that week and am a better person for it.

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• Gas-powered leaf blowers are a scourge upon the land, the air quality, and our piece of mind. They cause respiratory problems, birth defects, cancer, and hearing loss, especially for the people who use them. So how do we go about getting them out of our communities? Jessica Stolzberg details how she was able to get them banned in Montclair NJ for Bloomberg, with the hope of providing protocols for those of us who’d like to follow suit. The first thing is to get your facts in order: electronic equipment has changed a lot in the last few years, with new batteries that can last longer than a tank of gas. It also requires less maintenance, no fuel, is easy to start, and can be quite profitable over time. Armed with that and determination, Stolzberg and neighbors spoke at 10 consecutive city council meetings, linking industry talking points to those who were against indoor smoking and lead paint. She focused on the municipal level rather than going after the state, and within months, she had a ban strong enough to withstand three years of lawsuits.

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• I am professionally prohibited from commenting on this critique of public, costal, post-industrial landscapes in NYC by James Andrew Billingsly for the New York Review of Architecture. I’ll just add a few scathing quotes below, that it won the 2025 Bradford Williams Medal, and that I’ll read everything he writes until I go blind.

  • “Don’t let anyone tell you that Little Island isn’t a great place to meet French tourists.”

  • “‘Landscape architect’ has always been an awkward job title, because it never intrinsically meant anything; Frederick Law Olmsted just married two words to generate prestige for a made-up profession through association with a respected one, like ‘water sommelier’ or ‘prompt engineer.’”

  • “Little Island is not a place; it is a consumer product, even an appealing one. As such, it possesses the quality of disposability—not the cheap, twentieth-century disposability of a Styrofoam cup, but the expensive, twenty-first-century disposability of a MacBook….There is a sheen over everything that rejects the wandering mind required to cultivate vulnerability, openness, and introspection; you bounce off the surface like a water bug.”

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• An abandoned soccer stadium in Taiwan was turned into a massive community garden. It’s part of Taipei’s initiative to promote urban micro-farming. Planters and trellises cover the grandstands to feed hundreds of people. More of this everywhere, please!

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• In 1944, Vladimir Nabokov split the tiny blue butterfly he was studying into two distinct species: the Karner Blue butterfly on the east coast, and the Mellissa Blue on the west. The Karner, now endangered, feeds only on lupin, while the Mellisa’s caterpillars can also eat milkvetch, lotus, and alfalfa. Melissas evolved alongside of milkvetch and lotus for millennia, but the alfalfa is a newcomer, spread by settlers a couple hundred years ago. The Melissas figured out how to eat it and have spread their range far and wide. But that doesn’t mean it’s good for them. A new study shows that Melissas raised on alfalfa have higher deadly viral loads than those who use their native hosts and, frankly, die younger and more often. The case is interesting in that it illustrates how animal relationships with novel plants can appear positive to casual observers, but might still harm populations, especially when newcomers push out the plants of this land, as people have encouraged alfalfa to do. As even abundant butterfly populations continue to drop, the best thing we can all do is protect and provide native host plants (while also overthrowing capitalism but, you know, also gardening).

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• Kvetching about deer is an almost sacred part of American gardening. But designing from a defensive crouch doesn’t always lead to the most rewarding results. Also deer are wonderful and beautiful creatures! What if we could just accept them, even celebrate them, while creating diverse and beautiful landscapes? Humane Gardener, Nancy Lawson shares her approach in Gardensita:

  • Plant diversely and densely. “If there’s a big mixture that includes some less palatable plants, deer are much less likely to devour a given area.”

  • Surround your precious plants with ferns, mints, thorns, and those with sticky burs for “associational resistance.”

  • Plant aggressive, sacrificial plants (polkweed and evening primrose) on the edges of paths for the deer to help prune.

  • Cage young plants (beautifully!) until establishment. More info here.

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• How do you create a world-class garden in a muted coastal landscape? You simply ask Piet Oudolf to design it. Many of us know him for his drifts and combos of pink, orange, and purple flowers, but he delights each year when flowers fade and the more subtle beauty of a garden emerges through textures and golden grasses. His new Nantucket garden, profiled in Gardens Illustrated by Tony Spencer, works with the surrounding scrub dunes and cedar houses rather than sitting on top of them. Tony writes that “imitators might get the plants right, but seldom the restraint. Therein lies the maestro’s touch.”

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• Researchers have fit the tiniest of trackers onto the backs of 400 monarch butterflies and followed them on their migrations this autumn all the way from Canada to Mexico. Each one of those rainbow lines in the map above is the journey of a single butterfly and you can follow along on the Project Monarch Science app. Researchers are thrilled that their new abilities will reveal unknown overwintering sites and support conservation, but are also concerned that this new tech will be available to the general public, rather than for researchers only.

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• In July of 2023, ecologists in Ontario began surveying milkweed in city centers, to measure the impact of urbanization on the number of herbivores it can support, monarchs of course among them. They hypothesized that they would find less and less monarchs on milkweed patches as they moved to the center of the city. But that is the opposite of what they found. The chance that a milkweed population would have monarchs literally doubled from outside of the city to within it. Researchers believe this is not due to the rarity of milkweed in cities but instead because of the ecological benefits of maintained gardens. I quote, “there seems to be qualities inherent to garden habitat that support greater occupancy regardless of the spatial distribution of habitat in the urban landscape.” Nice work, team. Keep it up.

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• Colah B. Tawkin is a force of nature. She doesn’t just have a hit podcast, Black in the Garden, but has also founded the Compost Society to divert pumpkins from the waste stream and Underground Arborists to plant trees.

  “Everything I do is about reconnecting Black people to the land,” she says. “We’ve been intentionally pushed out of agricultural and plant industries for generations. My work is about saying: we’ve always been here.” Read more about her work and approach in Ebony.

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• Science round up:

  • Have you ever noticed how sparkly buttercup petals are? That glossiness twinkles in the sun, attracting pollinators at long distances. But a new study shows that trained bumble bees can get confused up close, perhaps dazzled but unable to see the colors that show them where to land on the flowers’ surface.

  • Larger parks in Alabama were found to have lower neighborhood crime rates than small parks specifically because they support better community mental and physical health.

  • A study of >100 urban greenspaces in Florida found that the more species of native plants were present, the more species of pollinators were present as well.

  • Agricultural fields in Alberta had 33 times more hoverflies in them when their borders were planted with trees rather than herbaceous plants.

  • Milkweed nectar was found to harm bumblebees’ ability to thermoregulate during heat stress events.

  • The Native Plant Trust has banked more than 10 million rare and endangered New England seeds.

  • Bee diversity of an area was successfully surveyed just by barcoding the DNA left on flowers.

  • Urban raccoons are showing early signs of domestication. Apparently, our abundant trash habituates them to our environments, and they’re in that sweet spot of bold, but not a threat. Pet raccoon? I’m ready.

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• Congrats readers! You’re at the end. Do you like to compare insects to food items? This month’s reward is for you: Mowing is a reality of grassland management. But many innocent insects are sucked into the whirling vacuum of a mower’s blades, where they meet their grisly demise. German researchers are working hard to create mowers that are less lethal to our tiny friends, but they are hesitant, as you can imagine, to keep a bunch of grasshoppers on hand to test the lethality of their inventions. Enter the cereal grains! A new and hilarious paper assessed common grocery store items as stand ins for insects and charted which species matched up with which grain when sucked through a giant vacuum. A few insects were sacrificed to save the many but were thankfully euthanized prior to testing. To ease your burning curiosity: fruit flies have the same terminal velocity as puffed quinoa grains, crickets are similar to wheat berries, and couscous is a solid stunt double for honeybees.

UPCOMING EVENTS

I am lecturing less to focus on other projects, but there are many wonderful events to attend:

• New Directions in the American Landscape Symposium, NJ

  January 15 - 16

  Virtual, in person, and open to the public

  This is one of my favorite symposia of all. I’m not speaking but NDAL brings together researchers and practitioners for two days of science, ecology, and collaboration. You can attend online but the conversations that happen here are half the reason to go. I’m excited for Preston Montegue lecturing on small spaces, Margo Robbins speaking on Indigenous fire management, and Nigel Dunnett on novel urban ecological design.

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• Plant Symposium, Landscape Ontario

  February 3

  Virtual, in person, and open to the public

  ‎‎If you happen to find yourself in Ontario in February, please come and warm up at the Plant Symposium where I’ll be lecturing on caring for land that supports beautiful gardens for people and functional habitat for wildlife, even in tough environments like cities.

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• Ecological Landscape Alliance Annual Conference and Marketplace, RI

  February 4-5

  In person and open to the public

  Save the date for ELA annual conference, back in person at last! It’s a great party and while lineups aren’t published yet, I happen to know that the incredible Christopher Roddick will be keynoting.

Support Grow Like Wild here!

You lucky gardeners. My husband, Christopher Roddick, who was head of arboriculture at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden for 30 years, is coming to the Garden Side Chat on Monday to tell us all about ecological pruning.

He’s spent many years experimenting with techniques to care for trees while also supporting arboreal fauna and funga and has so much to say o…

Read more

The full Beaver Super Moon is now a waning gibbous, but the Grow Like Wild Beaver Moon Podcast is just hitting the airwaves.

Please enjoy this short but action packed edition featuring new takes on leaving leaves, hidden flowers, and (you know it) databases for plant nerds.

Want to follow up on articles, papers, and videos? There’s a written newsletter that comes out on the full moon with a million links and references. Please visit the Grow Like Wild newsletter here.

xoxox,

Rebecca McMackin