Episodes

  • Tomatoes With Craig LeHoullier-A Way to Garden With Margaret Roach February 28, 2022

    Tomatoes With Craig LeHoullier-A Way to Garden With Margaret Roach February 28, 2022
    Feb 26 2022

    Sick of winter? What I find helps, besides the occasional warmish, sunny day, is thinking about tomatoes. And that's what we're going to do today with Craig LeHoullier, author of the hit 2014 book “Epic Tomatoes,” who has over the years grown some 3,000 varieties in his home garden and adds new ones to his list every year

    Craig, who gardens in North Carolina, is a retired chemist with a longtime passion for tomatoes. He's the co-founder of the Dwarf Tomato Project, an advisor on tomatoes to Seed Savers Exchange, and the person who in 1990 named the popular heirloom Cherokee Purple from seed that had been passed down and eventually made its way to him. 
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    26 mins
  • Native Cultivars with Sam Hoadley - A Way to Garden With Margaret Roach - April 27, 2026

    Native Cultivars with Sam Hoadley - A Way to Garden With Margaret Roach - April 27, 2026
    Apr 24 2026
    If we’re shopping for native plants with the most ecological impact—ones with the most pollinator appeal, for example—then simply choosing by the prettiest picture on a label or by a catalog photo won’t get you to your goal. It helps to understand the vocabulary of natives words like straight species and ecotype and selection and cultivar. Especially with cultivars—the cultivated named varieties of, say, Echinacea or Phlox or Aster of which there are now so many to choose from—we need to learn to read between the lines on those plant labels, because not all cultivars are created equal. Sam Hoadley,... Read More ›
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    28 mins
  • Tomatoes With Craig LeHoullier-A Way to Garden With Margaret Roach February 28, 2022

    Tomatoes With Craig LeHoullier-A Way to Garden With Margaret Roach February 28, 2022
    Feb 26 2022

    Sick of winter? What I find helps, besides the occasional warmish, sunny day, is thinking about tomatoes. And that's what we're going to do today with Craig LeHoullier, author of the hit 2014 book “Epic Tomatoes,” who has over the years grown some 3,000 varieties in his home garden and adds new ones to his list every year

    Craig, who gardens in North Carolina, is a retired chemist with a longtime passion for tomatoes. He's the co-founder of the Dwarf Tomato Project, an advisor on tomatoes to Seed Savers Exchange, and the person who in 1990 named the popular heirloom Cherokee Purple from seed that had been passed down and eventually made its way to him. 
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    26 mins
  • Performance Plants of the High Line - A Way to Garden With Margaret Roach - April 20, 2026

    Performance Plants of the High Line - A Way to Garden With Margaret Roach - April 20, 2026
    Apr 17 2026
    Both gardeners and their plants have to be more resilient than ever these days in our changing climate, it seems. At the High Line in New York City, one of the best-known naturalistic gardens anywhere, that’s especially so, since it’s built on the preposterous site of a former rail line 30 feet above street level – meaning a plant must be an exceptional performer to make the grade. Richard Hayden, the High Line’s senior director of horticulture, is here to tell us about the plants that excel in different extremes of moisture, for instance, or in shade, or offer the... Read More ›
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    27 mins
  • Outsider Animals with Marlene Zuk - A Way to Garden with Margaret Roach - April 13, 2026

    Outsider Animals with Marlene Zuk - A Way to Garden with Margaret Roach - April 13, 2026
    Apr 10 2026
    I’m privileged to observe a fascinating diversity of animals outside where I live, but the term “Outsider Animals” was new to me—and it’s the title of a recent book by today’s guest, Marlene Zuk, a leading expert in behavioral evolution and a professor at the University of Minnesota. The book’s subtitle is “How the Creatures at the Margins of Our Lives Have the Most to Teach Us,” and among her subjects are ones that many gardeners may know—or think they know—like raccoons, cabbage white butterflies, cowbirds and snakes. All these animals have one thing in common, she writes: “When we... Read More ›
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    28 mins
  • Editing and Dividing Perennials With Toshi Yano - A Way to Garden With Margaret Roach August 23, 2021

    Editing and Dividing Perennials With Toshi Yano - A Way to Garden With Margaret Roach August 23, 2021
    Aug 20 2021
    Maybe you, like I do, have certain perennial beds that could use editing and some particular plants that need dividing in the process. That’s just one focus of today’s guest, Toshi Yano, in his role as director of horticulture at Wethersfield, a former private estate turned public garden in the Hudson Valley of New York, He’ll tell us the how-to, and also about visiting this special place.  Toshi Yano Toshi is in his third year as director of horticulture at the former estate called Wethersfield garden in Dutchess County, New York, with its 3-acre formal gardens plus 7 acres of wilderness garden and commanding views of the Catskills and Berkshire Mountains.  Toshi and his team are bringing the gardens back to life, and he told me about the place, and specifically about the tasks of editing and dividing that every perennial gardener needs to do, whatever their garden scale. 
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    26 mins
  • Bird Gardens with Becca Rodomsky-Bish - A Way to Garden with Margaret Roach - April 6, 2026

    Bird Gardens with Becca Rodomsky-Bish - A Way to Garden with Margaret Roach - April 6, 2026
    Apr 3 2026
    I always say that birds taught me to garden, as I watched their behavior here at my place, and added more of the plants and features they seemed to like and use most, and I have been blessed to have a diversity of avian visitors over many years. One place I’ve long turned for all kinds of information about birds is Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and lately among their many educational resources they’ve added the Garden for Birds Project, loaded with reference materials and inspiring webinars and more. The project’s leader, native plant specialist Becca Rodomsky-Bish of Cornell Lab, is... Read More ›
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    27 mins
  • Creating Habitat with Shaun McCoshum - A Way to Garden with Margaret Roach - March 30, 2026

    Creating Habitat with Shaun McCoshum - A Way to Garden with Margaret Roach - March 30, 2026
    Mar 27 2026
    We talk about pollinator gardens, and seek out the plants that provide that essential nourishment to bees and butterflies and moths, for example. But insects do not live by pollen alone: To make our gardens places of life-sustaining habitat, we have to provide for other needs, too—like water, for example, and shelter in each season of the year, and more. A new book called “Natural Habitats and Wildlife Gardening: Inviting Nature into Your Backyard,” by today’s guest, Shaun McCoshum, provides inspiration for doing that. Shaun is a landscape ecologist, conservationist, pollinator researcher and writer who has worked on green energy initiatives,... Read More ›
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    26 mins