Podcasts about nature's best hope

Most startups are founded by entrepreneurs hopeful that their idea will be the next big thing and pad their bank accounts in the process. Yet sometimes companies are started not by enterprising capitalists, but rather by a far less likely progenitor: nonprofit charities.  That's exactly what happened when the nonprofit National Wildlife Federation decided to spin out a for-profit corporation devoted to advancing the charity's mission to protect wildlife. The company, Garden for Wildlife, is already selling native plants to homeowners seeking to make their yards a bit more nonhuman-friendly. The basic premise is this: Too much wilderness has been destroyed by humanity for us to only rely on parks and preserves to give wildlife a chance to survive. While much of the animal biomass alive today is comprised of the animals who we farm for food, if we want to give free-living animals like songbirds a chance, we need to turn over a portion of our lawns and corporate landscapes into wildlife-friendlier corridors, or what author Douglas Tallamy calls “Homegrown National Park” in his book on this topic, Nature's Best Hope. Take the state where I lived most of my life, Maryland, as one example. Maryland alone has more lawn than two times the land allocated to its state parks, state forests, and wildlife management areas—all combined. Sadly though, lawns are essentially biological wastelands capable of supporting less than 10 percent of life that a more natural landscape can support. So why do we do it? Why do we Homo sapiens like to create these nearly lifeless lawns wherever we go? In short, we do it because it makes us feel safe. Evolutionary psychologists suggest that humans prefer unobstructed views of our surroundings because that's what kept us safe on the African savannah where we evolved. As a result, as we've spread off the savannah and across the globe, we've transformed forested ecosystems into something akin to our ancestral home. And this isn't something that only started only once civilization was founded. Even tribal hunter-gatherers living in forests are often proficient at deforesting their surroundings.  So that's the bad news.The good news is that homeowners can actually do quite a lot to make their yards more welcoming to pollinators and other friendly creatures. The key is to ditch part or all of your invasive, water-thirsty lawn and replace it with a beautiful array of native plants and trees that will attract butterflies, hummingbirds, songbirds, and other amazing and harmless animals to your property. But where to start? That's where Garden for Wildlife comes in. Its entire business model is to make it easy for you to do just that without becoming an ecologist yourself. Just type in your zip code on their web site and check off which species you hope to attract, and they'll show you a menu of attractive plants native specifically to your region that you can order straight from their site, delivered to your front door. Profiled by Martha Stewart Living and Better Homes and Gardens, Garden for Wildlife has raised $5 million from investors (primarily its founder, the National Wildlife Federation) and is already bringing in an annual revenue of $1 million. The company is also crowdfunding now, meaning for an investment as low as $250, you can own shares in this startup. And we've got their CEO, Shubber Ali, on the show to talk all about it. While I've not personally used their services, my wife Toni and I four years ago removed our front lawn in Sacramento and replaced it with a tiny little meadow of native, drought-tolerant plants. Combined with a water fountain for avian visitors, since then our front yard has become a Mecca for hummingbirds, songbirds, and other little neighbors we love watching. And it's even become a frequent stop for our human neighbors, who we regularly catch photographing the flowering beauty and bringing their kids by to enjoy the sight. In other words, our own little Homegrown National Park has made life not only better for wildlife, but for a lot of humans, too.  This is an interesting story about one charity's decision to use the power of commerce to advance their cause. I'll let their CEO Shubber Ali tell you all about it. Discussed in this episode Check out Nature's Best Hope by Douglas Tallamy, which is entirely about this topic. Shubber recommends reading Last Child in the Woods. Shubber also recommends TED talks by Patti Maes and Simon Sinek Want to quickly identify birds by sound? Merlin's got you. My wife and I were influenced by Nancy Lawson's resource, The Humane Gardener. More about Shubber Ali Shubber Ali is CEO of Garden for Wildlife.  He is a father, husband, avid gardener, and loves nature - and it's those last two things that led to his current role.   He has spent over thirty years helping companies solve their most complicated and difficult problems through innovation, identifying growth opportunities, enabling technologies and platforms. He was the VP and Global Lead for the Elevate team at Elastic from April 2021 to June 2022, and prior to that he was one of Accenture's global leads for digital innovation from September 2017 to April 2021, where he worked with the National Wildlife Federation to create the Garden for Wildlife business.  He has also served as VP of Strategic Innovation at Salesforce. He has co-founded multiple consumer technology companies, some successes including Centriq (acquired) and Flaik (privately held), and some great learning experiences (aka “failures”).  He serves as an advisor to numerous startups.  In addition, Shubber has served for 9 years on the Advisory Board to the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown (where he has also been an adjunct professor of Innovation Management  in the Executive MBA program) and a guest lecturer for the Emory University Executive MBA program.  Since 2014, he also has served as a member of the global advisory STAR program for Airbus.

I'm not a financial advisor; nothing I write in Superpowers for Good should be considered investment advice. You should seek appropriate counsel before making investment decisions.Remember, you can watch the Superpowers for Good show on e360tv. To watch the episode, download the #e360tv channel app to your streaming device–Roku, AppleTV or AmazonFireTV–or your mobile device. You can even watch it on the web or YouTube.When you purchase an item, launch a crowdfunding campaign or invest after clicking a link here, we may earn a commission. It's an easy way to support our work.Devin: What is your superpower?Shubber: What I think I'm particularly good at is identifying the right problem to solve.Shubber Ali's story is fascinating on several levels. He volunteered himself into a great job. Perhaps I should have him back just to drill down more on that brilliant career maneuver. We focused our discussion on how he identified a critical gap in the work of a national nonprofit and helped it close the gap with a for-profit solution.After becoming a donor and a big fan of the work of the National Wildlife Federation, Shubber helped guide them to design a business line that initially operated within the nonprofit–selling the local plants the organization had long coached people to buy.Shubber had figured out that the big box retailers with garden centers were selling invasive species–often exclusively–in their stores. Given the massive number of people shopping at those stores, this is a big problem. It proved difficult for him to get the native plants he wanted in his yard.He approached the National Wildlife Federation with an offer of pro-bono consulting with this offer “We need to solve the problem of supply; we need to make it easy for people to get these plants so they can put them in their yards and help restore habitat one yard at a time.”After the successful launch of the product line inside the nonprofit, the opportunity began to grow. He shares the story:Long story short, I went to them again last year and said, this is a fantastic business opportunity, but it's not going to thrive inside of a not-for-profit because you're not designed to run a business. They agreed and said, “We'll spin it out as a for-profit company [that they are the majority shareholder of], and then we could bring in outside investors,” but on the condition that I would come in and be the CEO.So, I absolutely jumped at the chance. This is the combination of doing good and doing what I love doing–building companies.Today, you can visit GardenForWildlife.com to find and order native plants for your zip code. This customized finder works for just about everyone east of the Rocky Mountains. Shubber learned some of what guided his yard plantings and business strategy from Doug Tallamy's book Nature's Best Hope. In this book, he learned the vital role native plants play in the ecosystem. He explains:Native plants are actually the food source for the caterpillars of many of the pollinators, the butterflies and moths, etc.Those caterpillars are the food source for the songbirds. So, as the book laid out very clearly, by wiping out all the beautiful native flowers and plants that are out there, we have systematically destroyed not only the pollinators but over 3 billion pairs of nesting songbirds, which is why you just don't see as many these days.Sure, you see sparrows and crows and things like that–and pigeons, of course, in every city, but all the beautiful birds that we're used to, cardinals, wrens, blue jays, chickadees–all sorts of things. They've all basically really diminished in terms of population.Recently, Garden for Wildlife launched a regulated investment crowdfunding campaign, allowing anyone to invest in the company. The National Wildlife Federation invested additional funds and remains the largest shareholder, but now everyone can participate.Living in Suburban Maryland, Shubber will speak at SuperCrowdBaltimore on March 21, 2024. Superpowers for Good readers can save 30 percent with the discount code “SuperCrowd” right now. Register today.Throughout his career, Shubber has been honing a vital skill that enables his success. He's good at identifying the problem that needs to be solved.AI Episode Summary1. Shubber Ali is the CEO of Garden for Wildlife, which aims to educate people about native habitat protection and provides access to native plants for gardens, with a history extending from a program started by the National Wildlife Federation.2. The initial focus of the program has been to protect species like the monarch butterfly and pollinators, creating certified wildlife habitats mainly in people's yards and schools.3. After moving from California to Maryland, Shubber transformed his lawn into a habitat for birds and pollinators by planting native species, inspired by Doug Tallamy's book Nature's Best Hope, which emphasizes the importance of native plants for local ecosystems.4. Shubber identified a core problem in the marketplace: the lack of supply of native plants, as most big box stores sell invasive species, harming local ecosystems.5. Seeing an opportunity to address the problem, Shubber pitched a business plan to the National Wildlife Federation to create Garden for Wildlife, a company that would directly ship native plants to customers' doorsteps.6. After a successful launch inside the National Wildlife Federation, Shubber proposed spinning Garden for Wildlife out as a separate company, with the Federation as the majority shareholder, employees as stakeholders, and bringing in outside investors.7. They launched a crowdfunding campaign to raise additional working capital to scale operations, like building more greenhouses, offering different tiers of investment for shares in the company.8. Garden for Wildlife's website features a native plant finder database, allowing customers to easily find plants that are native to their zip code, aiding in efficient and eco-friendly gardening.9. Shubber touched on the connection between Garden for Wildlife's mission and climate change at COP28, discussing how planting native species with deep root systems can help biodiversity, water absorption, and carbon sequestration.10. Shubber invites interested parties to visit Invest.GardenforWildlife.com to read more about and participate in the investment offering, and he recommends reading Doug Tallamy's book for a deeper understanding of the importance of supporting native plants for environmental health.If you think the world needs more native plants and deeper carbon sequestration, please share this episode.How to Develop Seeing the Problem to Solve As a SuperpowerThroughout his career, Shubber has been using and refining his ability to find the right problem that needs to be solved. It is becoming a signature strength. He's long used a quote that has sometimes been mistakenly attributed to Einstein, “If you have an hour to solve a problem, spend 55 minutes defining it and five minutes solving it.”His work at Garden for Wildlife is an excellent example of using this skill effectively. He shares the story to illustrate the superpower:Garden for Wildlife is a result of understanding the right problem to solve. It wasn't enough to educate people about native plants because, frankly, they've been doing it for almost 50 years, and yet it's only getting worse. It's supply. It was a lack of supply and then awareness to the people who needed to know about it. I was that customer. I gladly shopped at places and bought all the wrong stuff because I didn't know what the right stuff was, and then it wasn't available once I did figure it out. So that's an example of saying, okay, what do we have to solve for? It's an arc of awareness, education, access.By following Shubber's example, you can improve your ability to define the problem you need to solve before you try to solve it. With practice, you can make it a superpower that enables you to do more good in the world.Remember, however, that research into success suggests that building on your own superpowers is more important than creating new ones or overcoming weaknesses. You do you!Shubber will also be speaking at SuperCrowd24. Held on April 17 and 18th, Superpowers for Good readers can save 50 percent on tickets with the discount code “SuperCrowd” right now. Register today. Guest ProfileShubber Ali (he/him):CEO, Garden for Wildlife IncAbout Garden for Wildlife Inc: Garden for Wildlife (GFW) Inc. is a recent spinout from the National Wildlife Federation (our largest investor and shareholder), building on the 50-year history of the GFW educational program.  The company's mission is to drive a massive increase in the planting of native plants in North America (at homes, schools, businesses, community gardens, etc) by making it easy for people and organizations to learn about, find and get the right native plants.  It launched as an ecommerce site in 2021 and, in its first full year of operation (2022), sold approximately $1m of plants to consumers in over 35 states.  Website: gardenforwildlife.comX/Twitter Handle: @garden4wildlifeCompany Facebook Page: fb.com/gardenforwildlife/Other URL: invest.gardenforwildlife.comBiographical Information: Shubber Ali is CEO of Garden for Wildlife.  He is a father, husband, avid gardener, and loves nature - and it's those last two things that led to his current role.  He has spent over thirty years helping companies solve their most complicated and difficult problems through innovation, identifying growth opportunities, enabling technologies and platforms. He was the VP and Global Lead for the Elevate team at Elastic from April 2021 to June 2022, and prior to that, he was one of Accenture's global leads for digital innovation from September 2017 to April 2021, where he worked with the National Wildlife Federation to create the Garden for Wildlife business. He has also served as VP of Strategic Innovation at Salesforce. He has co-founded multiple consumer technology companies, some successes including Centriq (acquired) and Flaik (privately held), and some great learning experiences (aka “failures”).  He serves as an advisor to numerous startups. In addition, Shubber has served for nine years on the Advisory Board of the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown (where he has also been an adjunct professor of Innovation Management in the Executive MBA program) and a guest lecturer for the Emory University Executive MBA program.  Since 2014, he also serves as a member of the global advisory STAR program for Airbus.X/Twitter Handle: @shubberaliPersonal Facebook Profile: fb.com/people/Shubber-AliLinkedin: linkedin.com/in/shubberaliSuperpowers for Good is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Upcoming SuperCrowd Event Calendar* SuperCrowdHour February with the CfPA Executive Committee (free)* SuperCrowdBaltimore, March 21, 2024 (save 30 percent with “SuperCrowd”)* SuperCrowd24, April 17-18 (save 50 percent with “SuperCrowd”) Get full access to Superpowers for Good at www.superpowers4good.com/subscribe

Douglas Tallamy, Chair of the Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology, University of Delaware Any hunter, angler and/or student of the natural world is bound to be more than a little gobsmacked by the rate of development and growth that we see all around us: Bozeman, Atlanta, Boise, Moab, Salt Lake City, Huntsville, Austin, the Gulf Coast, Phoenix, Chattanooga, Asheville and beyond. Is there any hope for the wild places and the world we love? Hell, yes there is. And it will be done by each and every one of us – yard by yard, deck by deck, square foot by square foot. The possibilities are endless. Doug Tallamy, of the Homegrown National Park  movement is the author of Nature's Best Hope (with a companion volume for younger readers and Bringing Nature Home. Doug has a plan to create 22 million acres of native plant communities that will restore whole kingdoms of birds, insects, reptiles and other wildlife, at almost no cost, and with no need to beseech the government or beg alms of the powers that be.  Join us, for a damn good time, and learn about a work that anyone can love and a movement that everybody can be part of. If you hang around to the end, you'll get outlandish insect tales, for no extra investment. And because this interview was so much fun, we've got another one scheduled with Doug to talk about his new book on Oak trees – all 600 species of them – and his obsession with the mysterious universe of gall wasps. Your mind will be blown. 

Bob Tanem In The Garden with Edie Tanem is on the air!  Edie's guest today is Douglas W Tallamy, entomologist at the University of Delaware and author of Nature's Best Hope. This podcast presentation of the show has been edited to remove musical content due to licensing restrictions.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Bob Tanem In The Garden with Edie Tanem is on the air!  Edie's guest today is Douglas W Tallamy, entomologist at the University of Delaware and author of Nature's Best Hope. This podcast presentation of the show has been edited to remove musical content due to licensing restrictions.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

With Douglas Tallamy of the Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Delaware and Homegrown National Park What is Homegrown National Park and what does it look like? How can we all do our part — at home — to contribute not just to conservation but also restoration? From where does the fixation on “the perfect lawn” originate? Why is it so important to shift to a mindset of seeing properties as functional and not just decorative? Following the release of Nature's Best Hope: Young Readers' Edition, Doug joined us to share many of the valuable insights contained in both versions of his bestselling and inspiring book!  Guest: Douglas W. Tallamy is a professor in the Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Delaware. Chief among his research goals is to better understand the many ways insects interact with plants and how such interactions determine the diversity of animal communities. He is author of Bringing Nature Home, Nature's Best Hope, and The Nature of Oaks; and co-founder with Michelle Alfandari of Homegrown National Park, visit it at HNPARK.org. *Episode edited by M. Angel Goñi Avila

Today Mary is talking to Victoria Beeler. Victoria is a butterfly enthusiast and enjoys gardening, wildlife, nature, and learning. She and her family have helped with the Smith-Gilbert Gardens butterfly exhibit in Kennesaw, Georgia, U.S.A., and with releasing butterflies there. They have raised Monarchs—from eggs, to caterpillars, to chrysalis, and to emerging butterflies—in an outdoor butterfly garden habitat at home near Atlanta for the first time last fall and then released them into the wild to migrate! It was truly an incredible, inspiring, and transformative experience! Victoria has written a documentary book about her Monarch experience with raising and releasing them. In Journey with Monarchs: A Personal Experience of Raising and Releasing Monarchs in the Home Garden, she combines photos of the Monarchs' life stages and personal knowledge about Monarchs with the science. Monarchs are so special, and their legacy can be continued by planting native milkweed. Monarchs have also inspired Victoria to give native milkweed seeds as gifts (seeds of hope) to family and friends and Monarch books to children in her community to save and protect Monarchs and continue their legacy. Monarchs bring joy, hope, and continuity. Nature is a blessing. Planting native milkweed and creating a wildlife habitat are important to helping Monarchs, as well as birds, pollinators, and the ecosystem. It also connects people. All of creation is interconnected and weaves together a unique, dynamic tapestry of life. Victoria hopes that, together, we can spread joy to all and save the Monarchs and wildlife!Victoria's suggestions How We Can Support Nature: ·Create natural habitat in our yards and communities to support the full life cycles and food webs of local biodiversity and restore species populations. -Garden, pocket prairie/meadow (mini-prairie/meadow). -Try to let it grow naturally. Limit mowing to pathways (reduce mowing). ·Provide host and nectar plants (host-plant specialists / plant-insect interactions; no milkweed, no monarchs; no flowers, no pollinators; no insects, no balance). -“Insects are the animals that are best at transferring energy from plants to other animals…” (Doug Tallamy, Nature's Best Hope, 2019). -Also include a “puddling station,” a place in the habitat area where butterflies and moths can absorb minerals from muddy soil and pebbles (place pebbles in a tray with water and mud).·Plant native plants and keystone plants (most beneficial to local ecosystems and increase biodiversity, ecological connectivity, and ecosystem function). -Top 20 native trees, like the oak, cherry, and willow, support over 5,000 butterfly and moth species (Tallamy, Nature's Best Hope, 2019). -Oaks support about 557 caterpillar species- more than any one plant; oaks make the most food; excellent for supporting local food webs; oak = top keystone plant species. -Five percent of the local keystone plant species can host up to 75 percent of local Lepidoptera species (including some local keystone plant species benefits greatly) (Tallamy, Nature's Best Hope, 2019). -U.S. resource: National Wildlife Federation's Native Plants Finder, which shows the native plants by zip code that support local species and food webs. -Try to remove and replace non-native, invasive species with native plants. -Balance: Plant mostly native plants, with some exceptions (a habitat space with primarily native and keystone plants benefits greatly; helps local ecosystem; having some native plants is better than none). -Replace with native plants gradually (manageable segments/tasks/goals); a process.·Provide shelter for non-migratory, overwintering butterflies and moths (safe caterpillar pupation sites) -Leaf litter for moth caterpillars to drop from their host trees, burrow into the leaves and/or soil, and spin their cocoons. -Leaf litter is also a food source for some caterpillars. -Leave plant stems, which provide nesting cavities for native bee species & pupation sites for caterpillars. -Fallen logs & branches, which provide nesting sites for native bee species. -Leave a bundle of sticks or brush pile for birds, other animals, & native bees to nest. -Thick or uncut vegetation. -Leave some weeds, which are host plants to some butterflies and moths. -“Leave an area of uncut grass all year round to provide shelter for pupating caterpillars (especially caterpillars that feed on grass) and for butterflies in reproductive diapause” (Biodiversity Ireland, “Gardening for Butterflies,” 2023). -Native trees to shelter roosting butterflies. -Include hedgerows (hawthorn and holly) -Have a layered landscape (horizontal layer—understory, with woodland/shade plants; middle layer—shrubs; and vertical layer—overstory/canopy, with trees). -Have a “continuous sequence of flowering plants (plants that flower continuously; perennials; benefits butterflies, moths, bees, and other pollinators)” (Tallamy, Nature's Best Hope, 2019).·Feed the insects to feed the birds (create a garden/habitat space that welcomes all of nature). -A plant is a bird feeder, a pollinator feeder, and much more.·Pesticide-free/chemical-free.·Can include container plants.·If outdoor lighting (artificial light, which interferes with nocturnal insects and birds) is used, consider motion sensor lights instead (not continuous light) -Nocturnal insects (moths) usually get nectar from nocturnal flowers and need natural light from the moon (not artificial light) to find host and nectar plants and to mate; become easy targets for predators (visible) (Tallamy, Nature's Best Hope, 2019).·Shade-grown coffee grown under native trees (shelter for birds).·Participate in citizen/community science (butterfly tagging and butterfly counts). -U.S.: -Monarch Watch tagging and the North American Butterfly Association's butterfly counts; Monarch Joint Venture and Save Our Monarchs (monarch organizations). -Other resources—Stokes Butterfly Book: The Complete Guide to Butterfly Gardening, Identification, and Behavior (1993) by Donald and Lillian Stokes and Ernest Williams -“MrLundScience” YouTube channel -Wings in the Meadow (1967) by Jo Brewer -Bringing Nature Home: How You Can Sustain Wildlife with Native Plants (2019) by Doug Tallamy -Nature's Best Hope: A New Approach to Conservation That Starts in Your Yard (2019) by Doug Tallamy -The Living Landscape (2012) by Rick Dark and Doug Tallamy -Ireland: -Irish Butterfly Monitoring Scheme (apart of the National Biodiversity Data Centre of Ireland)—note butterfly populations, flight patterns, and habitat availability from April-September. -Butterfly Conservation's Big Butterfly Count (Northern Ireland)—count the butterflies seen in a 15-minute period and upload results online. -Ireland threatened butterflies and moths (large white, small white, green-veined white, ringlet, small tortoiseshell, small copper, speckled wood, meadow brown, red admiral, peacock, painted lady, holly blue, common blue, six-spot burnet, and silver-Y). -Butterfly Conservation Ireland's National Garden Butterfly Survey—record butterflies seen in your garden over a 3-month period (https://butterflyconservation.ie).·Ireland butterfly resources -National Biodiversity Data Centre (Ireland)—“Ireland's Butterfly Series—Gardening for Butterflies: Helping Butterflies with Native Plants” PDF resource (https://biodiversityireland.ie). -Butterfly Conservation (Northern Ireland Branch)—“Do It Yourself” resources on butterfly and moth events, volunteering, counts and activities, and gardening (https://butterfly-conservation.org).·Ireland native larval host plants: -Buckthorn (brimstone butterfly) -Clovers (clouded yellow butterfly) -Nettle (comma, peacock, red admiral, and small tortoiseshell butterflies) -Trefoil and vetch (common blue and wood white butterflies) -Garlic mustard and watercress (green-veined white and orange-tip butterflies) -Holly and ivy (holly blue butterfly) -Brassicaceae family of plants and nasturtiums (large white and small white butterflies) -Fescues and meadow grasses (meadow brown and small heath butterflies) -Thistles (painted lady butterfly) -Violets (fritillary butterfly) -Sorrel (small copper butterfly)·Ireland native nectar plants: -Sedum -Verbena -Sage https://biodiversityireland.ie/app/uploads/2023/06/Rewilding-Yo

The nature and scale of ecological degradation can provoke empathy distress that devolves into depression, despair, anxiety, antipathy, avoidance, and outright denial. But ecological awareness and ecological education can help us to see how much power we have when we become attuned to spiritual and ecological realities. We can actually help to heal the world—each and every one of us, wherever we live.Imagine a national park bigger than Yosemite, bigger than Yellowstone, bigger than the Grand Canyon. Imagine a national park bigger than all three of those combined. Now imagine a national park bigger than those three combined with the addition of the Adirondacks, the Grand Tetons, the Great Smoky Mountains, Denali, Olympic, and Sequoia—bigger than all of those put together!Imagine all the wild beings doing the work they do to further the conditions of life, all the work they do to make your life and my life possible. Imagine those beings thriving, and imagine humans thriving more in the process.Finally, imagine that this park can become a reality—and that reality depends on you. It doesn't depend on you in some burdensome, terrible way. You don't have to give yourself a spiritual or physical hernia. Rather, it depends on things you can do at your own scale, something enjoyable and rewarding. And something done in the key of wonder, something that can open up the ecology of your own mind.This describes Doug Tallamy's project, detailed in his book, Nature's Best Hope. This is a good news kind of book, and it can dispel our feelings of hopelessness and powerlessness, replacing them with beauty, wonder, wildness, and mutual empowerment.Doug is the T. A. Baker Professor of Agriculture in the Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Delaware, where he has authored 112 research publications and has taught insect related courses for over four decades. His principle research goal involves arriving at a better understanding of the many ways insects interact with plants, and how these interactions create diversity in animal communities.Doug's books include Bringing Nature Home, The Living Landscape (co-authored with Rick Darke), The Nature of Oaks (winner of the American Horticultural Society's 2022 book award), and Nature's Best Hope (a New York Times Best Seller). In 2021 he cofounded Homegrown National Park with Michelle Alfandari (HomegrownNationalPark.org). https://www.homegrownnationalpark.org/

According to those who know, we are in the midst of the Sixth Great Extinction, this one brought on by the activities of human civilization that are resulting in a species extinction rate that is estimated to be between 1,000 and 10,000 times higher than natural extinction rates.  So far, efforts to protect endangered plants, animals and insects have proven inadequate to the challenge.  What are we to do? Join host Ronnie Lipschutz for a conversation with Professor Douglas Tallamy, who teaches in the Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Delaware.  He is the author of Nature's Best Hope—a New Approach to conservation that Starts in Your Yard, published in 2019, and a just-published companion version for children, subtitled How You Can Save the World in Your Own Yard.  Both books propose what some might consider a radical approach to protecting species through transformation of front and back yards into conservation zones.

Matt interviews Dr. Doug Tallamy of the University of Delaware's Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology. Dr. Tallamy's book Nature's Best Hope Young Readers' Edition: How you can Save the World in Your Own Yard is an adaptation of his New York Times Bestseller Nature's Best Hope that aims to inspire kids to join the Homegrown National Park movement and learn how to protect the planet through small and approachable acts of conservation at home.Nature's Best Hope is a guide to fighting the decline in wildlife populations through the use of native plants. Now, kids can join the Homegrown National Park movement and learn how to protect the planet through small and approachable acts of conservation in their own backyards.Make sure to check out our sponsor for today's episode at Kitcaster with a special offer for friends of our show to become guests on other podcasts.

The plants that we choose to include in our landscapes can be life-sustaining, invaluable resources for our native wildlife or they can just be plants that just look pretty while contributing little to nothing to the ecosystem. My guest this week, entomologist, speaker and author Doug Tallamy, explains how we can make better plant choices for the sake of nature and, in turn, ourselves. Podcast Links for Show notes Download my free eBook 5 Steps to Your Best Garden Ever - the 5 most important steps anyone can do to have a thriving garden or landscape. It's what I still do today, without exception to get incredible results, even in the most challenging conditions. Subscribe to the joegardener® email list to receive weekly updates about new podcast episodes, seasonal gardening tips, and online gardening course announcements. Check out The joegardener® Online Gardening Academy for our growing library of organic gardening courses. Follow joegardener® on Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter, and subscribe to The joegardenerTV YouTube channel.

Saving the planet starts at home, and kids can help! This episode of Big Blend Radio features Doug Tallamy, ecologist and professor in the Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Delaware, and author of New York Times bestseller, "Nature's Best Hope." Hear about how he is working to inspire the next generation of conservationists through is latest book, NATURE'S BEST HOPE YOUNG READERS' EDITION: How You Can Save the World in Your Own Yard (Timber Press). "Nature's Best Hope" is a guide to fighting the decline in wildlife populations through the use of native plants. Now, kids can join the Homegrown National Park movement and learn how to protect the planet through small and approachable acts of conservation in their own backyards! See: https://www.homegrownnationalpark.org/ This episode is part of Big Blend Radio's "Nature Connection" Series that airs every 4th Friday in collaboration with Margot Carrera, a fine art nature photographer who is passionate about the environment. More: https://www.carrerafineartgallery.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Saving the planet starts at home, and kids can help! This episode of Big Blend Radio features Doug Tallamy, ecologist and professor in the Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Delaware, and author of New York Times bestseller, "Nature's Best Hope." Hear about how he is working to inspire the next generation of conservationists through is latest book, NATURE'S BEST HOPE YOUNG READERS' EDITION: How You Can Save the World in Your Own Yard (Timber Press). "Nature's Best Hope" is a guide to fighting the decline in wildlife populations through the use of native plants. Now, kids can join the Homegrown National Park movement and learn how to protect the planet through small and approachable acts of conservation in their own backyards! See: https://www.homegrownnationalpark.org/ This episode is part of Big Blend Radio's "Nature Connection" Series that airs every 4th Friday in collaboration with Margot Carrera, a fine art nature photographer who is passionate about the environment. More: https://www.carrerafineartgallery.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Saving the planet starts at home, and kids can help! This episode of Big Blend Radio features Doug Tallamy, ecologist and professor in the Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Delaware, and author of New York Times bestseller, "Nature's Best Hope." Hear about how he is working to inspire the next generation of conservationists through is latest book, NATURE'S BEST HOPE YOUNG READERS' EDITION: How You Can Save the World in Your Own Yard (Timber Press).  "Nature's Best Hope" is a guide to fighting the decline in wildlife populations through the use of native plants. Now, kids can join the Homegrown National Park movement and learn how to protect the planet through small and approachable acts of conservation in their own backyards! See:  https://www.homegrownnationalpark.org/  This episode is part of Big Blend Radio's "Nature Connection" Series that airs every 4th Friday in collaboration with Margot Carrera, a fine art nature photographer who is passionate about the environment. More: https://www.carrerafineartgallery.com/ 

"Nature's Best Hope" was the first Doug Tallamy book I read, and although it points out some dire facts such as mass extinction, it does give hope to the situation of each property owner all over the world being able to help remedy the current insect and bird loss. Now it has been re-written for children, who have more time to truly be nature's best hope --although Dr. Tallamy points out that we can't wait for them to grow up; these individual and simple changes to the way humans interact with nature need to start now. The Plant of the Week is the Zizia aurea, and I talk about how to deal with bulb foliage and the end of peony season. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/intothegarden/support

We're closing Earth Month with yet one more book at ways we can improve our world by improving our relationship with our neighbors...our wild neighbors and connecting with nature in our own backyards: Nature's Best Hope by Douglas Tallamy Get a copy of Nature's Best Hope yourself, or check it out at your local library (you can listen to it on audio, too) Related Zoo-notables: Where the Wild Things Were and Last Child in the Woods Connect with ZooFit for more on how to provide self-care for you and the planet

As we prepare to mark Earth Day 2023, many of us are also coming to terms with the latest climate report from the IPCC which said the world is on the brink of catastrophic warming. News like that can make it hard for individuals to know what they can do to have an impact on the environment. One movement suggests we can all help with conservation efforts by planting local that's the focus of this episode of Stats and Stories with guest Doug Tallamy. Doug Tallamy is the T. A. Baker Professor of Agriculture in the Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Delaware, where he has authored 111 research publications and has taught insect related courses for 41 years. Chief among his research goals is to better understand the many ways insects interact with plants and how such interactions determine the diversity of animal communities. His books include Bringing Nature Home, The Living Landscape, co-authored with Rick Darke, Nature's Best Hope, a New York Times Best Seller, The Nature of Oaks, winner of the American Horticultural Society's 2022 book award. In 2021 he cofounded Homegrown National Park with Michelle Alfandari. His awards include recognition from The Garden Writer's Association, Audubon, The National Wildlife Federation, Allegheny College, Ecoforesters, The Garden Club of America and The American Horticultural Association.

Dr. Douglas Tallamy, the University of Delaware entomologist who has been awakening homeowners to the need to plant natives and join our plots together in a giant “homegrown national park,” has found a new audience.  He has just released a young readers' edition of his best-selling book, “Nature's Best Hope.”  Learn how you can enlist your children in the campaign to save our ecosystems.

In this episode of GardenDC: The Podcast about Mid-Atlantic Gardening, we talk with Doug Tallamy, author of Nature's Best Hope. The plant profile is on the Cornellian Cherry and we share what's going on in the garden as well as some upcoming local gardening events in the What's New segment. We close out with Eva Monheim, host of The Plant a Trillion Trees Podcast, who shares the Last Word on Trees with Unique Services. Tallamy's books include Nature's Best Hope (https://amzn.to/40363q9), Nature's Best Hope Young Reader's Edition (https://amzn.to/3JtQ2UE), Bringing Nature Home (https://amzn.to/3l3wqNE), and The Nature of Oaks (https://amzn.to/42gRWPZ). Note these links are connected to our Amazon affiliate account and this podcast may earn some pennies from your purchase but it will not affect your purchase price. BTW, YOU can become a listener supporter for as little as $0.99 per month! See how at: https://anchor.fm/gardendc/support. Show Notes will be posted here on 3-14-2023. If you liked this episode, you may also enjoy listening to: ~ GardenDC Podcast Episode 20: Native Plants, Diversity in the Garden, and Sunflowers https://washingtongardener.blogspot.com/2020/07/gardendc-podcast-episode-20-native.html ~ GardenDC Podcast Episode 50: Deer-Resistant Native Plants https://washingtongardener.blogspot.com/2021/03/gardendc-podcast-episode-50-deer.html We welcome your questions and comments! You can leave a voice mail message for us at: https://anchor.fm/gardendc/message Note that we may use these messages on a future episode. And be sure to leave us a 5-star review on your favorite podcast platform plus share us on social media with #GardenDC, so other gardeners can find us too! Episode Credits: Host and Producer: Kathy Jentz Editing and Show Notes: Jessica Harden Recorded on 3-11-2023. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/gardendc/support

What Are Native Plants Anyway?Episode IntroductionIn today's episode we break down what makes a plant native, why to grow them, where to source them for your garden, and where you can learn more about planting native.Host Stephanie BarelmanStephanie Barelman is the founder of the Bellevue Native Plant Society, a freelance garden designer under the name Victory Cottage Gardens, and host of the Plant Native Nebraska Podcast. Listen, rate, and subscribe!Get some merch! https://plant-native-nebraska.myspreadshop.com/Find us on FacebookVisit our homepage https://plant-native-nebraska.captivate.fmGive us a review on Podchaser! www.podchaser.com/PlantNativeNebraskaSupport My Work via Patreon The Plant Native Nebraska podcast can be found on the podcast app of your choice.Episode ContentWhat makes a plant native?http://bonap.net/fieldmaps Biota of North America North American Plant Atlas database-select Nebraska https://bellevuenativeplants.org Bellevue Native Plant Societyhttps://www.prairienursery.comhttps://www.prairiemoonnursery.comnative (wild type) vs. nativar/native cultivar (cultivated by humans for desirable characteristics)On the WebBONAP aforementionedBNPS aforementionedhttp://www.facebook.com/groups/bellevuenativeplantsociety- BNPS on Facebook Books & Authors*Please note* As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.Rick Darke- The Living Landscape https://amzn.to/3EYx8lKDouglas Tallamy- Professor and Chair of the Department of Wildlife Ecology and Entomology at the University of Delaware, author of The Living Landscape, Nature's Best Hope, naturalist, and curator of "Homegrown National Park". Link to Nature's Best Hope book here: https://amzn.to/3RGInqvEnrique Salmon- Iwigara https://amzn.to/3LFPrQpDaniel Moerman -Native American Ethnobotany https://amzn.to/3tdCLK7 Heather Holm- https://www.pollinatorsnativeplants.comNative Plants of the Midwest-

Do you view your farm as a production space? A landscape that should generate x number of stems in x square feet for x amount of dollars each season?  Many farmers do.  In this episode, host Jennie Love encourages listeners to look at their farms as whole ecosystems that serves millions of lives, not just your own goals.  Jennie is joined by author, Dr. Doug Tallamy, a professor in the University of Delaware's Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology.   For years, Dr. Tallamy has studied how insects interact with plants and how those interactions impact the food web, right up to us humans.  He's authored several books, including Nature's Best Hope, which is the main focus of this episode's discussion.    Farming is the single biggest land-use category on this planet!  With nearly 50% of the earth's land being used for agriculture, every single farmer HAS to be part of the solution as we face down the 6th great extinction our planet has seen. Some of the actionable steps that Doug and Jennie talk about are to: stop spraying pesticides of any kind plant native plants increase diversity of plants, particularly trees leave your weeds alone and stop manicuring your farm and let it get a little loose and wild.   If you enjoy the content you hear on this podcast, consider joining the Regenerative Flower Farmers Network (RFFN), a community of like-mind growers who put the ecosystem at the forefront of their farms.  It's less than the price of a fancy latte to join for the whole year! Members get special access to podcast guests and other exclusive content, including an article with 15 favorite tried-and-true native plants for cutting.   Please rate and review this podcast on whatever platform you are listening.  It only takes a minute and your review helps spread the word about this podcast and its important message so we can effect even more positive change for our earth and our community.  Many thanks for your help with that!

We very pleased to bring you a special episode of Let's Argue About Plants today, featuring an interview with Douglas Tallamy, PhD. Several months ago, Christine Alexander, digital content manager for FineGardening.com, sat down with the famed professor of entomology and wildlife ecology at the University of Delaware to discuss how plants can save our planet. Tallamy has spent his life's work researching the impact of nonnative plant species on the environment with his fieldwork playing a critical role in solving the mystery of the plummeting insect and bird populations seen over the past 50 years. Despite the seemingly larger-than-life problems we face, Tallamy insists there are ways average gardeners can help save our ecosystems. Within the interview we get answers to the questions gardeners want to know like, “Should we be planting only native plants?” And “What are keystone species and why should I be filling my landscape with them?” Tallamy's message is sometimes misconstrued, especially when it comes to a gardener's role in the climate crisis. We hope this interview sheds some light and hope on actions steps we can all take to help nature. As Tallamy says, “we're its last hope.” This interview was edited for length and clarity. For further reading, check out Douglas Tallamy's most recent books, The Nature of Oaks (2021) and Nature's Best Hope (2020). Keystone Plants: Goldenrod (Solidago spp., Zones 3–9) Aster (Aster spp., Eurybia spp., Symphyotrichum spp., Zones 4–9) Sunflower (Helianthus spp., Zones 3–9) Oak (Quercus spp., Zones 2–9) Cherry (Prunus spp., Zones 3–8) Birch (Betula spp., Zones 3–9) Cottonwood (Populus spp., Zones 2–9) Elm (Ulmus americana, Zones 3 to 9) Willow (Salix spp., Zones 4-10)

How's your lawn faring after these past few months of hot dry weather? As summer winds to a close, landscape designers Joanne Shaw and Matthew Dressing discuss lawn care and lawn care alternatives. Tune in to hear Joanne and Matthew discuss lawn care and lawn alternatives. Here are some of the questions and topics covered in this episode: What should we be doing for our lawns in September? How do we apply nematodes? How do we fertilize at this time of year? Seeding and sodding; is now the time? What other activities can I do as temperatures cool and the lawn is healthy? What is biodiversity? What does “lawn alternative” stand for? What are some lawn alternatives? Do I have to make my lawn just one thing? How do incorporate some lawn alternatives into my existing lawn? How do I take care of lawn alternatives? Resources mentioned during the show Down the Garden Path podcast – Grub Control Natural Insect Control – www.naturalinsectcontrol.com West Coast Seeds – www.westcoastseeds.com Down the Garden Path podcast – Lawn Care: Artificial Turf Toronto Flower Market appearance Saturday September 10th – www.torontoflowermarket.ca Doug Tallamy's book: Nature's Best Hope. Down the Garden Path Podcast Each week on Down The Garden Path, professional landscape designers Joanne Shaw and Matthew Dressing discuss down-to-earth tips and advice for your plants, gardens and landscapes. As the owner of Down2Earth Landscape Design, Joanne Shaw has been designing beautiful gardens for homeowners east of Toronto for over a decade. A horticulturist and landscape designer, Matthew Dressing owns Natural Affinity Garden Design, a landscape design and garden maintenance firm servicing Toronto and the Eastern GTA. Together, they do their best to bring you interesting, relevant and useful topics to help you keep your garden as low maintenance as possible. In their new book, Down the Garden Path: A Step-By-Step Guide to Your Ontario Garden, Joanne and Matthew distill their horticultural and design expertise and their combined experiences in helping others create and maintain thriving gardens into one easy-to-read monthly reference guide. It's now available on Amazon.

In the last 24 years, Judy has moved approximately 16 times for her husband's military career. But her family has finally settled down in a lovely house with a yard near Annapolis, Maryland. Now Judy is hoping to transform her outdoor space into something that's beautiful and environmentally friendly. On this episode of How To!, Doug Tallamy explains why, now more than ever, we need people like Judy to plant native species in order to revive our ecosystem. He has some surprisingly easy tips for replacing your grass (take that, lawn mower!), finding plants that pollinators will love, and even getting rid of those pesky mosquitoes.  Resources:  Homegrown National Park Nature's Best Hope: A New Approach to Conservation That Starts in Your Yard Audubon Native Plants Database National Wildlife Federation Native Plant Finder SEEK by iNaturalist The Life and Death of the American Lawn If you liked this episode, check out “How To Squash Your Fear of Bugs (and Other Phobias)” Do you have a problem that needs solving? Send us a note at howto@slate.com or leave us a voicemail at 646-495-4001 and we might have you on the show. Subscribe for free on Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen. Podcast production by Derek John and Rosemary Belson with help from Katie Shepherd.  Slate Plus members get bonus segments and ad-free podcast feeds. Sign up now at slate.com/howtoplus. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On this week's show, your host, Justin Mog, brings you a preview conversation with Dr. Douglas Tallamy who will be the guest speaker at a special event on Friday in collaboration with UofL's Sustainability Council and Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest. Joining the conversation is Bernheim's Director of Education, Kristin Faurest, Ph.D. Doug Tallamy is the T. A. Baker Professor of Agriculture in the Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Delaware, where he has authored 106 research publications and has taught insect related courses for 41 years. Chief among his research goals is to better understand the many ways insects interact with plants and how such interactions determine the diversity of animal communities. His book Bringing Nature Home was published by Timber Press in 2007, The Living Landscape, co-authored with Rick Darke, was published in 2014; Nature's Best Hope, a New York Times Best Seller, was released in February 2020, and his latest book The Nature of Oaks was released by Timber press in March 2021. In 2021 he cofounded Homegrown National Park with Michelle Alfandari. His awards include recognition from The Garden Writers Association, Audubon, The National Wildlife Federation, The Garden Club of America and The American Horticultural Association. Dr. Tallamy will be speaking on Nature's Best Hope on Friday, July 22nd, 6-7:30pm, in UofL's Humanities room 100. General public: $25 Bernheim members: $20 University faculty/staff with valid ID: $10 Students with valid ID: free, but must register for the event Purchase tickets at https://bernheim.org/event/natures-best-hope-with-dr-douglas-tallamy/ Presented by Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest in partnership with the UofL's Sustainability Council. Recent headlines about global insect declines and three billion fewer birds in North America are a bleak reality check about how ineffective our current landscape designs have been at sustaining the plants and animals that sustain us. Such losses are not an option if we wish to continue our current standard of living on Planet Earth. The good news is that none of this is inevitable. Dr. Tallamy will discuss simple steps that each of us can - and must - take to reverse declining biodiversity, why we must change our adversarial relationship with nature to a collaborative one, and why we, ourselves, are nature's best hope. A spread of healthy farm-to-table appetizers from Bernheim's Edible Garden and Isaac's Cafe will be available starting at 5:30pm, and attendees will also have the opportunity to purchase Bernheim memberships. Climate-resilient Gardening Takeaways: A walking tour by Bernheim Director of Horticulture and Sustainable Landscapes Renee Frith Saturday, July 23, 10-11:30 a.m This on-site tour highlights landscaping practices at Bernheim that are meant to be replicable in your own back yard. Renee will show you how you can make your yard a more natural and healthy place! Limit: 20 people. Meet in front of the Bernheim Visitor Center and you must pre-register here: https://bernheim.org/event/savor-the-season-positive-vibes-for-summer-2022-07-23/2022-08-27/ As always, our feature is followed by your community action calendar for the week, so get your calendars out and get ready to take action for sustainability NOW! Sustainability Now! is hosted by Dr. Justin Mog and airs on Forward Radio, 106.5fm, WFMP-LP Louisville, every Monday at 6pm and repeats Tuesdays at 12am and 10am. Find us at http://forwardradio.org The music in this podcast is courtesy of the local band Appalatin and is used by permission. Explore their delightful music at http://appalatin.com

On this episode, we dive into ecologist Douglas Tallamy's books Nature's Best Hope (2019) and The Living Landscape (2014, with Rick Darke). Tallamy's work takes native plant gardening and wildlife gardening to another level by focusing not just on species diversity, but on diversity of species interaction to promote ecological conservation. According to Tallamy, "native" plants are those which have "evolved in a given place over a period of time sufficient to develop complex and essential relationships with a diversity of animals." Native plants, then, are organisms that have interacted with insects, birds, and mammals for thousands, if not millions, of years. We discuss Tallamy's perspective and the how we might tackle the challenge of implementing a conservation design -- and convincing homeowners to think of themselves as land stewards. Up first: It's hot here in Austin, so we are talking about what early triple-digit temps mean for gardeners. Leah is looking for her niche, taking inspiration from specialist insects.  Support us by joining our Patreon! $5 a month gets you early access to episodes, bonus content, and our deep gratitude. Mentioned in this episode: National Wildlife Federation's Native Plant Finder web tool; The Know Maintenance Perennial Garden (2014) by Roy Diblik; Planting in a Post-Wild World (2015) by Claudia West and Thomas Rainer. Also - after recording, we found this article from the NWF about yucca moths. (Their caterpillars eat the yucca seeds and flowers, not the leaves! Then the moths pollinate the yuccas in return!)

On this episode, we dive into ecologist Douglas Tallamy's books Nature's Best Hope (2019) and The Living Landscape (2014, with Rick Darke). Tallamy's work takes native plant gardening and wildlife gardening to another level by focusing not just on species diversity, but on diversity of species interaction to promote ecological conservation. According to Tallamy, "native" plants are those which have "evolved in a given place over a period of time sufficient to develop complex and essential relationships with a diversity of animals." Native plants, then, are organisms that have interacted with insects, birds, and mammals for thousands, if not millions, of years. We discuss Tallamy's perspective and the how we might tackle the challenge of implementing a conservation design -- and convincing homeowners to think of themselves as land stewards. Up first: It's hot here in Austin, so we are talking about what early triple-digit temps mean for gardeners. Leah is looking for her niche, taking inspiration from specialist insects.  Support us by joining our Patreon! $5 a month gets you early access to episodes, bonus content, and our deep gratitude. Mentioned in this episode: National Wildlife Federation's Native Plant Finder web tool; The Know Maintenance Perennial Garden (2014) by Roy Diblik; Planting in a Post-Wild World (2015) by Claudia West and Thomas Rainer. Also - after recording, we found this article from the NWF about yucca moths. (Their caterpillars eat the yucca seeds and flowers, not the leaves! Then the moths pollinate the yuccas in return!)

We sat down at the picnic table with John Hart Asher, host of Central Texas Gardener and Cofounder/Senior Environmental Designer at Blackland Collaborative to talk about pocket prairies. What's a pocket prairie? It's a very small prairie. What's a prairie? It's a community of native grasses and forbs wildflowers that have evolved along with microbes, plants, and animals over millennia. This "disturbance-driven ecology" historically relied on periodic fire and low-frequency, high-intensity grazing to function. John Hart sees the "millions-year-old technology" of the American prairie as a replicable system that we can borrow in our own yards to sequester carbon, manage stormwater runoff, and support the essential interconnections between life forms that make up the food-soil web. As Douglas Tallamy writes in his book Nature's Best Hope, "If each American landowner made it a goal to convert half of his or her lawn to native plant communities...[we] could collectively restore some semblance of ecosystem function to more than twenty million acres of what is now ecological wasteland."    We discuss the role of wildfires and buffalo grazing in Texas before European settlement, the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center's research on prescribed burning, and how to prepare, install, and maintain a pocket prairie.  John Hart insists that we must rethink our approach to landscape design, gardening, land ownership, and even our concept of "nature" if we are to sustain life on earth. He describes prairie restoration as "a trajectory, not an intervention" -- a process, rather than a product -- which can help us reconnect with the web of life, reduce climate anxiety, and make our homes more beautiful to boot.  Mentioned in this episode:  Nature's Best Hope: A New Approach to Conservation that Starts in Your Yard by Douglas Tallamy; the USDA Web Soil Survey; Black Owl Biochar; KR Bluestem. Please join our Patreon for bonus episodes, early access, and more! 

We sat down at the picnic table with John Hart Asher, host of Central Texas Gardener and Cofounder/Senior Environmental Designer at Blackland Collaborative to talk about pocket prairies. What's a pocket prairie? It's a very small prairie. What's a prairie? It's a community of native grasses and forbs wildflowers that have evolved along with microbes, plants, and animals over millennia. This "disturbance-driven ecology" historically relied on periodic fire and low-frequency, high-intensity grazing to function. John Hart sees the "millions-year-old technology" of the American prairie as a replicable system that we can borrow in our own yards to sequester carbon, manage stormwater runoff, and support the essential interconnections between life forms that make up the food-soil web. As Douglas Tallamy writes in his book Nature's Best Hope, "If each American landowner made it a goal to convert half of his or her lawn to native plant communities...[we] could collectively restore some semblance of ecosystem function to more than twenty million acres of what is now ecological wasteland."    We discuss the role of wildfires and buffalo grazing in Texas before European settlement, the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center's research on prescribed burning, and how to prepare, install, and maintain a pocket prairie.  John Hart insists that we must rethink our approach to landscape design, gardening, land ownership, and even our concept of "nature" if we are to sustain life on earth. He describes prairie restoration as "a trajectory, not an intervention" -- a process, rather than a product -- which can help us reconnect with the web of life, reduce climate anxiety, and make our homes more beautiful to boot.  Mentioned in this episode:  Nature's Best Hope: A New Approach to Conservation that Starts in Your Yard by Douglas Tallamy; the USDA Web Soil Survey; Black Owl Biochar; KR Bluestem. Please join our Patreon for bonus episodes, early access, and more! 

Humans have destroyed natural habitat in so many places that local extinction is rampant and global extinction accelerating. This is a growing problem because it is the ecosystems around us that support us. Doug Tallamy is a professor of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Delaware, where he studies the many ways insects interact with plants and how such interactions determine the diversity of animal communities. His new book, Nature's Best Hope, lays out a new approach to conservation that everyone can employ at home in their own yards. [Originally published February 4 2020, EP15] Doug's website: homegrownnationalpark.org/ Also available on your favorite podcast apps Website: noordenproductions.com/nature-revisited-podcast Nature Revisited is produced by Stefan van Norden and Charles Geoghegan. We welcome your comments, questions and suggestions - contact us at noordenproductions.com/contact

The Annapolis Home Owner's Expo is back in full swing later this month with dozens of vendors for ANY home improvement project. Antique appraisals, how to stage your home for sale, master gardening and two "headliners". Doug Tallamy is a world-recognized entomologist and wildlife ecologist. He will be talking about the small steps we can each do to save the habitat we call earth. The steps are small and surprising. Jeff Devlin is a master carpenter and host of HGTV's Stone House Revival and he has a hands-on demo, and two other presentations on how to hire the right contractor and remodeling like a pro.  We hopped on the phone with both of them to get a preview of what to expect!   Have a listen! LINKS: Tickets and more information at thehomeownersexpo.com Doug: HomegrownNationalPark.org Jeff: schoolhousewoodworking.com

This special episode was recorded in a Saint Michael's College Senior Seminar. Seminar participants had read Nature's Best Hope and we were honored to have Dr. Douglas Tallamy join us on zoom. The episode consists of Doug's answers to students' questions regarding creating a Home Grown National Park. With the lion's share of land in the United States being in private hands, if each of us lives up to our responsibilities as stewards of the planet, we can go a long way toward enhancing biological diversity one yard or garden at a time. Please enjoy this episode and then go plant a tree native to your local area.

Meditation practice can lead a person to understand causes and outcomes, prompt awareness of impacts and impulses, ground the perception that change is an only constant - and foster a commitment to act with loving kindness. Valuable for our toddler human species, busy whacking at all around us. And a tall order, that's not out of reach.  What transpires when meditation practice focuses on our human relationship with Earth?  Lisa Hoover is exploring this space. Lisa peer-leads the weekly practice of White Oak Sangha, based in the Missouri Ozarks, grounded in the Western Insight meditation tradition. This winter, she is exploring relationships to Earth, through an intensive class ____________- Earthworms host Jean Ponzi took advantage of Zoom access (vs. an hour from St. Louis drive) to join this group when 2020 pandemic adaptations moved meetings online. Sharing their love of Earth, Jean shares insights with Lisa Hoover. THANKS to Andy Heaslet, Earthworms audio engineer, and to Jon Valley and Andy Coco, the KDHX Production team. Related Earthworms Conversations: One Health for Animals - People - Earth with Dr. Sharon Deem, DVM (April 2020) Facing the Climate Emergency with psychologist Margaret Klein Salamon (June 2020) Nature's Best Hope? Ecologist Doug Tallamy say WE ARE (Feb 2020)  

Episode 63: Pajama Buck Episode 63: Pajama Buck finds Will celebrating a successful harvest from the meat garden: an antlerless buck taken by Will whilst in his pajamas. The homesteaders answer a listener question on how to select plantings for a new homestead (see the show notes for more!). Sarah shares research on the immune benefits of letting kids play in the dirt for the Rock the Cradle segment. Visits to the bee yard and chicken coop have the homesteaders hoping for more activity come spring. The edible landscape is winding down for the season with garlic planting, weeding, and mulching, but the homesteaders are enjoying their harvests in pumpkin chili and pepper pot soup. Will closes the episode with some hard-hitting agricultural news from New Zealand about Doug the Potato. Show Notes Resources for selecting plants for establishing a new edible habitat landscape: Identify your hardiness zone with the USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map: https://planthardiness.ars.usda.gov/ Find your local extension service at your state land grant university. Consult resources and programming at your local library. Review selections at your local nursery and feed stores. Use edible plant field guides, such as the Peterson Field Guide to Edible Wild Plants (https://www.hmhbooks.com/shop/books/A-Peterson-Field-Guide-to-Edible-Wild-Plants/9780395926222), the Peterson Field Guide to Medicinal Plants and Herbs (https://www.hmhbooks.com/shop/books/field-guide-to-medicinal-plants-and-herbs/9780547345048), or Samuel Thayer's book Nature's Garden (https://www.foragersharvest.com/store/p3/NaturesGarden.html#/). For more on the science and philosophy of habitat gardening, refer to Doug Tallamy's work in Bringing Nature Home and Nature's Best Hope (https://homegrownnationalpark.org/tallamys-hub-1). Rock the Cradle - Science Advances, Biodiversity intervention enhances immune regulation and health-associated commensal microbiota among daycare children. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aba2578 How to Make Pepper Pot Soup - The Philadelphia Citizen. https://thephiladelphiacitizen.org/pepper-pot-soup-recipe/ New Zealand Couple Unearth What Could Be the World's Largest Potato (and Decide to Call it Doug) - People Magazine https://people.com/human-interest/new-zealand-couple-unearth-what-could-be-worlds-largest-potato-call-it-doug/

Douglas Tallamy's first book, “Bringing Nature Home,” awakened thousands of readers to an urgent situation: wildlife populations are in decline because the native plants they depend on are fast disappearing. His solution? Plant more natives. In this new book, Tallamy takes the next step and outlines his vision for a grassroots approach to conservation. “Nature's Best Hope” shows how homeowners everywhere can turn their yards into conservation corridors that provide wildlife habitats. Talllamy says that because this approach relies on the initiatives of private individuals, it is immune from the whims of government policy. Even more important, it's practical, effective, and easy.

My guest in this episode is Dr. Doug Tallamy, and let me say up-front that the episode title doesn't really do justice to our wide ranging discussion!Doug Tallamy is the T. A. Baker Professor of Agriculture in the Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Delaware, where he has authored over 100 research publications and has taught insect related courses for 40 years. Chief among his research goals is to better understand the many ways insects interact with plants and how such interactions determine the diversity of animal communities. His book Bringing Nature Home  was published by Timber Press in 2007 and was awarded the 2008 Silver Medal by the Garden Writers' Association. Nature's Best Hope, his 2020 book, was a New York Times Best Seller, and his latest book The Nature of Oaks was released by Timber Press in March 2021. Dr. Tallamy is the recipient of numerous awards for his conservation and communication efforts. As you can tell from that introduction, Doug is widely known as a passionate advocate for treating personal property as critical habitat. Today we discuss his most recent work on this theme, the aforementioned book, The Nature of Oaks.Oaks aren't just "a little" important, but stand well above others in terms of the number of insects they support. Why is this important? As you'll hear, the majority of birds require insects to raise young, and not only that, but immense numbers of caterpillars. And this is just scratching the surface of the food web impacts. We also talk about gall-making wasps that use oaks, and the parasitoid wasps that rely on those gall-making wasps! Dr. Tallamy gives a great introduction into gall maker life histories.We discuss some basic ecological concepts in relation to oaks, including keystone species, trophic levels and energy transfer. We consider the roles oaks played back when our forests were more diverse, before the American Chestnut was wiped out by disease, before Dutch Elm Disease wiped out 75% of mature elms in the United States, and before the current die-off of eastern Ash trees.Oaks also have interesting semi-random cycles of acorn production, called masting. Doug reviews the four fascinating hypothesis as to why this is.Doug started a nonprofit called Homegrown National Park (instagram). Homegrown National Park helps people understand the critical connection they have with functional food webs and ecosystems. We discuss how Homegrown National Park came to be, how to help people make yards more ecologically functional, and some tips and suggestions for connecting with people if you too want to advocate for this good cause.Full Show NotesEmail me: naturesarchivepodcast@gmail.comLINKSCalifornia Native Plant Society CalScape native plant finderKenneth V. Rosenberg - lead author of the study showing 3 billion birds have been lostMichelle Alfandari - Partnered with Dr. Tallamy to create Homegrown National Park's online presenceSudden Oak Death - a newer problem impacting oaks in much of the USATammany Baumgarten - advocate for the "10 step program" to make insect problems disappearDr. Tallamy's Books:Bringing Nature HomeNature's Best HopeThe Nature of Oaks

Doug Tallamy is a New York Times best-selling author and a professor of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Delaware. We really appreciate Doug's ability to take difficult subjects - such as the biodiversity crisis - and make them deeply understandable to lay-gardeners such as us.

Desert Pollinators Part 2: Fluttering Butterflies Summary: In part two of their desert pollinator series, Cheryl and Kiersten talk about butterflies. Join them as they discuss the life cycle of the butterfly, look at a few local residents, and tell you what plants will bring them to you. Show Notes: * Note on Chickadee caterpillar usage. The 6,000 to 9,000 count of caterpillars is per clutch, which includes 4 to 5 chicks, not per chick. *The Butterfly Bush (Summer Lilac or Orange Eye) Buddleja davidii is native to China and is the plant you want to avoid when choosing plants to attract butterflies. It is not native and is invasive. Central Arizona Butterfly Association: www.cazba.org These books were referenced (and are great reads):  Nature's Best Hope by Douglas W. Tallamy Caterpillars in the Field and Garden by Thomas J. Allen, Jim P. Brock, Jeffery Glassberg Butterflies of the Southwest by Jim P. Brock 70 Common Butterflies of the Southwest by Western National Parks Association The Life Cycles of Butterflies by Judy Burris and Wayne Richards Monarch vs. Queen Identification: www.wildflower.org/magazine/fauna/monarch-vs-queen Butterfly and Caterpillar pictures:www.butterfliesandmoths.org Native Plant Nurseries: www.plantnative.org   We are no longer sponsored by Wild Birds Unlimited, Mesa but through personal experience we highly recommend their products. 

Our next guest wants you to create a homegrown national park…and it's not as daunting as it sounds. Our philosophy at Wearthy is creating environments for children to thrive, so who better to have on the show than someone who researches thriving environments as a profession. Doug Tallamy is a professor in the Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Delaware, he has authored around 100 research publications and has taught insect related courses for 40 years. One of his books, Nature's Best Hope was also a New York Times best-seller. In this eye-opening episode, Lukas and Doug talk about the necessity of nature, restoring biodiversity, the food web, how to get children caring for plants and lots more! https://homegrownnationalpark.org/ https://bit.ly/3hT8zf9 - purchase Nature's Best Hope and Doug's other books https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doug_Tallamy

Entomologist Doug Tallamy and I discuss his new book, The Nature of Oaks, in which he pulls back the curtain on the fascinating world of living creatures that inhabit oak trees. From acorn weevils to spun glass caterpillars, the book introduces us to a cast of unusual characters, many of them insects. Tallamy and I discuss these characters, how to best plant oaks (pssst! plant acorns) as well as other engaging and useful oak facts. To listen to my earlier interviews with Doug Tallamy, you can click here for my interview on Bringing Nature Home and here for my episode on Nature's Best Hope.For images and links that supplement this episode see http://in-the-weeds.net/oaks-with-doug-tallamy/To reach out to me with ideas, suggestions, pitches, etc. email me at asquith.intheweeds@gmail.com.

Join me for a discussion with Dr. Doug Tallamy about a simple yet revolutionary way that we can save nature while building a relationship with it and gaining the health benefits of such an activity at the same time. With his extensive research background on the interactions of the plant and insect world, Dr. Tallamy skillfully teaches us:·      The ecology of native vs. non-native plants and why maintaining native plants matters to the insect population.·      how the health of the insect population is foundational for the health of the ecosystem, especially birds. ·      Why it is important not just to protect places where people aren't inhabiting, such as national parks and preserves, but to also maintain suitable habitat in the places people do inhabit. ·      How we can cut our lawns in half to create a “Homegrown National Park” and shatter the almost universally accepted myth that humans and nature cannot coexist in the same areas. ·      How to approach prohibitive homeowners' associations to advocate for the planting of more native species.·      The three historical missteps that modern western humans have made that have disconnected us from nature and helped to create the ecological crisis we now face.·      Ideas for getting started creating your own “Homegrown National Park”.Connect with Dr. Tallamy and “Homegrown National Park”:Homegrown National Park WebsiteDr. Tallamy's Presentation to The National Wildlife FederationBook Recommendations:Nature's Best Hope: A New Approach to Conservation That Starts in Your Yard, by: Douglas TallamyBringing Nature Home: How You Can Sustain Wildlife with Native Plants, Updated and Expanded, by: Douglas TallamyThe Nature of Oaks: The Rich Ecology of Our Most Essential Native Trees , by: Douglas Tallamy (Available March 30, 2021)Garden Revolution: How Our Landscapes Can Be a Source of Environmental Change, by: Larry Weaner & Thomas ChristopherEssential Native Trees and Shrubs for the Eastern United States: The Guide to Creating a Sustainable Landscape, by: Tony Dove & Ginger Woolridge

Douglas Tallamy's first book, “Bringing Nature Home,” awakened thousands of readers to an urgent situation: wildlife populations are in decline because the native plants they depend on are fast disappearing. His solution? Plant more natives. In this new book, Tallamy takes the next step and outlines his vision for a grassroots approach to conservation. “Nature's Best Hope” shows how homeowners everywhere can turn their yards into conservation corridors that provide wildlife habitats. Talllamy says that because this approach relies on the initiatives of private individuals, it is immune from the whims of government policy. Even more important, it's practical, effective, and easy.

A chat with Kit Gage, a Chesapeake Bay Landscape Professional, about the recent Green Matters Symposium, the novel “The Overstory,” and the “Nature's Best Hope” by Doug Tallamy. Our Plant Profile this episode is on the cool-season annual Sweet Alyssum. Recorded on March 14, 2020 --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/gardendc/support

Today we meet entomologist, researcher and author Douglas Tallamy. the book is called, Nature's Best Hope, a new approach to conservation that starts in your yard. He shares about plant and insect interactions, ornamentals and how they are affecting the local food webs, and his ongoing research on invasive plants. Then Douglas gives a directive for creating a sustainable relationship with the earth, focused on our yards and three-dimensional, native landscapes. His category of keystone plants that drive the food webs and can help restore nature and extend preserved lands. This goes beyond just any native plants and focuses on those that are extremely productive in their support of the food webs. This book inspired me, and I hope you will go out and order yourself a copy. Enjoy my interview with Douglas, and follow up with the resources he mentions in our interview! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/get-in-my-garden-podcast/message