Wild Plant Culture

Drew Altland is a Senior Manager of Water Resources at RK&K. I saw him talk a few years ago on stream restoration and was fascinated by his historical perspective on streams and wetlands in Eastern North America. We talk about stream conditions prior to European arrival, about the impacts of the colonial area, about reading streams in the present day, and various restoration methods. I never thought about streams the same way after hearing Drew talk and I hope this podcast is just as revelatory for you.

Welcome to Season Three of the podcast! This episode brings us to sunny Tucson Arizona to speak with Katy Gierlach and Jared R. McKinley of Spadefoot Nursery. We talk native plant nursery shop - about being ecologists not horticulturists, getting people to buy ugly plants and weeds, accepting failure, why tomatoes are patriotic if you're Italian, and dumping chicken manure on people's heads. You'll want to tune in. And yes, that's a picture of them. Hey, if you're digging this podcast, find me on Instagram at @wildplantculture, it's the totality of my social life right now as NJ is snowed in and locked down.

My guest today is Shane LaBrake, talking about our relationship with the tools we use and how that relates to sustainability and earth care. With the winter dormant season coming on, many of us have time to sharpen shovels, fix roofs, change fluids and do other maintenance and repair tasks that we felt too busy for in the summer. So in this episode we're playing hooky from plants and talking about tractors, small engines, and the philosophy of maintenance and loving care. You can reach Shane at sjlabrake@verizon.net. He's got some great videos on Tractor Maintenance on YouTube, produced by ATTRA. Here's a link to the first one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhVIewAsqi8 Music this episode is by Horse Graveyard. Check us out on Bandcamp. This episode is brought to you by Wild Ridge Plants.

Today we have a dispatch from the front lines of habitat destruction and deer overpopulation -- New Jersey. But don't despair! We're talking with Dr. Jay Kelly about some remarkable rare plant recoveries and prospects for restoration. This podcast is brought to you by Wild Ridge Plants, growers and stewards of native plants. The music at the beginning and end is "The Ship" by my once (and maybe future) band Horse Graveyard. If you like raw, dark, heavy music with a bit of blazing sunshine peering out from the dark clouds... check us out. Thanks for listening!

We explore the underworld with Liz Koziol of MycoBloom! Join me as we delve into the soil to uncover relationships between mycorrhizal fungi and native plants. Liz is a researcher and entrepreneur supporting ecological restoration by making available native prairie fungi, which dramatically aid specialist plant species growth, increasingly floristic quality and diversity.

My conversation is with Dr. Susan Leopold, Ethnobotanist and Executive Director of United Plant Savers. Here are some of the topics we discuss: • Medicinal parasitic plants • Sandalwood • United Plant Savers • Protections for rare plants, lack of in US • Not aligning with other parts of the conservation movement • Underworld smuggling • Trade in white sage • Migrant labor and herb harvests • Gypsy co-ops and ramps • Forest Grown Program • Supporting herbal companies doing right by plants and people • Harvesting ramps in Europe • Federal management of medicinal plant harvest -- in Europe, lacking in United States • Osha and disturbance • Anti-viral herbs and coronavirus. Shutdown in trade of medicinals • Forest service management and medicinal herb conservation. Overgrazing • FairWild plant trade issues due to coronavirus • Growing hemp in Virginia • Spagyric extraction of cannabis • Cannabinoids and Ginsenosides as diffusive herbs • United Plant Savers Goldenseal Sanctuary Find Susan’s herbal products at ParisApothecaryVA.com This podcast is brought to you by Wild Ridge Plants, offering medicinal and edible native plants from locally propagated seed. Shop our mail order native plants.

This episode is with Dr. Gerould Wilhelm, who created the Floristic Quality Assessment method back in the 1970s. He’s written several floras of the Chicago area including the Flora of the Chicago Region: A Floristic and Ecological Synthesis. Few people can provide such a deep long-term perspective on wild plants, ecological restoration, and human culture. I’ve been hoping for years for a good excuse to speak with Jerry Wilhelm. Enjoy!

This episode of the Wild Plant Culture Podcast features woodworker and landscape architect David Hughes. We talk about his use of wild plant materials in crafting rustic furniture, as well as his experience designing functional native plant landscapes.

This episode features a conversation with ethnobotanist Kelly Kindscher. Kelly is an unusual combination, a skilled field ecologist deeply interested in the cultural uses of plants, historically and in contemporary application, spanning ethnobotany to chemical analysis. Kelly is a professor at University of Kansas, and Plant Ecologist for the Kansas Biological survey. He's a passionate advocate for native plants and wild places, and the author of several books, includingEchinacea: Herbal Medicine with a Wild History, Medicinal Wild Plants of the Prairie: An Ethnobotanical Guide, and Edible Wild Plants of the Prairie: An Ethnobotanical Guide.

This conversation is with Karl Anderson. Karl's an elder in the best sense -- someone who's lived a full life, delved deep, and come up smiling (and sometimes cursing, too). He's always been generous about sharing his wide interests and experience in natural history. Here, I ask Karl about his life story from a city kid to a draftsman to the director of a nature center. We talk about changes in botany and in the plant world, about sharing vs. secrecy when it comes to rare plants, about being an educator, and about some of his many travels to interesting natural places around North America and beyond.

This conversation is with Dale Hendricks of Green Light Plants in southeastern Pennsylvania.We delve deep into Dale's experience with rewilding the landscape, discussing permaculture approaches, biochar and soil carbon, the connection between health and food systems, and a bit about the legendary Hershey Nursery growing tree crops. We also discuss pawpaws, persimmons, honey locust, ramps and other native permaculture food crops.Dale's a character, a very generous human being, and very sharp. I think you'll enjoy listening to our chat.This podcast is brought to you by Wild Ridge Plants. We started Wild Ridge to offer a toolkit for the restoration of native plant communities, including a native plant nursery, botanical surveys and stewardship planning, as well as classes, hikes, presentations and publications. Check us out online at wildridgeplants.comHere's a link some of Dale's writing on "Permaculture and Horticulture".The music is from my lo-fi music workshop. I'm having trouble keeping up with new pieces for each podcast! I'm hoping to do some serious recording some time soon. For now, here's a snippet on slide guitar that I hope reflects Dale's folksy, energetic, friendly approach.

Today's conversation is with Julie Martin, primitive skills practitioner.Julie teaches ancestral skills ranging from fire-starting to herbal medicine at Practical Primitive, a school in Great Meadows, NJ run by Julie and her husband Eddie Starnater. It's a fantastic place to go for workshops in a vast array of different skills. I hope you enjoy today's conversation immersing in the forgotten fundamentals of human survival. Julie and I start the conversation by talking about processing acorns for food, a skill that she helped me with quite a lot. We also discuss fire and its elemental place in human life, communicating with plants, building community and nature connection through primitive skills, and a whole lot more.

Daniela is a plant ecologist who researches the effects of land management on culturally significant plant species and ecosystems. She is inspired by traditions that have lasted for millennia based on traditional management through anthropogenic fire and selective harvesting.I love the way Daniela braids together ethnobotany, ecology, anthropology, and restoration. In this conversation, we talk about Daniela's research with Robin Kimmerer on Sweetgrass, about "traditional land management" and "traditional ecological knowledge" in the Northeast and in Costa Rica, about monocrop agriculture and alternatives found in traditional cultures, and about urban people finding nature connection.

A fun and inspiring conversation with ecologist Roger Latham, PhD. We talk about the geological and cultural factors that sustained Eastern grasslands historically, and techniques for their restoration today.

I visited with ecologist, historian, and author Kerry Hardy along Lake Megunticook in Maine during a recent family trip. He graciously grilled us a meal, served my son many glasses of lemonade, and sat down with me at twilight, overlooking the lake, for this interview. You might hear the mosquitoes buzzing as the sun set and witching hour began.I first learned of Kerry from his book Notes on a Lost Flute: A Field Guide to the Wabanaki, a multidisciplinary deep dive into the relationship between Native American foodways, language, place names, and ecology. Told in a series of personal stories in essay form, it's a fun read and a unique document.In the interview, we discuss Native American foodways, burning regimens, and land management, including dispersal of species like bur oak and American plum. Kerry talks about many Native words, describing words as "among the most durable fossils there are". Kerry gives a fresh read on European economy compared to Native economy, including a moving insight into seventh generational thinking and "non-thinking". Kerry gives us a preview of his present project exploring the lost history of the Hudson River estuary, speaking evocatively of the missing voices of native peoples, African slaves, women, and the ecosystem itself in colonial history.Kerry's an impressively learned guy, also a big-hearted, stout rural soul who bikes 27 miles to work and lives just a few feet from the dock where his Adirondack guide boat is kept. It was a treat to spend a few hours with him, and I think you'll really dig this interview. Enjoy!

Leslie Sauer, a founder emeritus of Andropogon Associates, is a pioneer in the field of restoring and managing native landscapes. Through innovative strategies and techniques, she has directed the reestablishment of natural systems in a wide range of sensitive, degraded, and developed environments.