Maybe seven or eight years ago, in a conversation with landscape designer Claudia West, she said a sentence that has really stuck with me, as she explained her approach to selecting and combining plants.
“Plants are the mulch,” Claudia said then, about making immersive landscapes that engage humans as much as they do pollinators and other beneficial wildlife.
Though it’s tempting to choose the plants we buy for our gardens based on looks alone, Claudia and her colleague Thomas Rainer of Phyto Studio, co-authors of the groundbreaking 2015 book “Planting in a Post-Wild World,” have tougher criteria for which plants earn a spot in their designs.
Claudia is here today to talk about how the Phyto Studio team figures out what makes the cut, and more.
What the word “groundcover” means has really changed in the years Ken Druse and I have been gardening. And I'll admit right here, some...
Yes, it’s time or almost time to do some raking, and to dig the dahlias to stash – time to perform the rounds of...
Today’s guest didn’t have to convince me to be wild about woodpeckers, because I already am—utterly so. These charismatic, hardworking birds make oversized ecological...
