23. David Hoffman on Grasses and Green Infrastructure

David Hoffman Bio

David Hoffman is Chief Operating Officer at Hoffman Nursery, Inc. in Rougemont, N.C. Hoffman Nursery is a wholesale nursery specializing in ornamental and native grass liners for the horticultural trade. David grew up on the nursery, which was started in 1986 by his parents, John and Jill. In 2012, David earned his horticulture degree from NC State University. After a two-year internship at Stauden Peters Nursery in Germany, David returned to Hoffman Nursery, where he applied his experience with European automation and quality control techniques. In 2022, David assumed the role of Chief Operating Officer of Hoffman Nursery. He oversees long range strategic planning and the management of operations, sales and marketing, IT, and HR. This position involves decisions and communications across all sectors of the nursery and nursery-managed properties. He is passionate about the role grasses, sedges, and other plants play in nature-based solutions for sustainable environmental management and resilience.

David is a member of the various organizations including Perennial Plant Association (PPA), International Plant Propagator’s Society (IPPS), AmericanHort, American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA), and North Carolina Nursery and Landscape Association (NCNLA). In addition to serving on the board of the JC Raulston Arboretum, David has been honored with the Perennial Plant Association’s Young Professional Award, NC State University’s Outstanding Young Alumni Award, NCNLA’s Bill Wilder Outstanding Young Nursery Professional Award, and a 40 Under 40 Award from Greenhouse Product News.  You can learn more about him by visiting his website hoffmannursery.com or their LinkedIn page Hoffman Nursery.

Show Notes

  • A discussion with David was the origin of the idea for The Plantastic Podcast

  • David's passion for plants is rooted in the family business with a childhood spent exploring gardens and nurseries eventually leading to David's current role at Hoffman Nursery

  • Insights from his time at NC State, including the importance of learning from failures, the power of travel, and networking during his horticulture club experiences

  • Superseed at NC State

  • Learning from failures and adapting to unexpected challenges like weather events

  • David discusses his internship in Germany at Stauden Peters and talks about the differences in plant production and automation.

  • Recognition of horticulturists like Cassian Schmidt, Karl Foerster, and Piet Oudolf in increasing awareness of grasses

  • Observations on European growers' practices, including closer plant spacing and streamlined sizes

  • Returning to Hoffman Nursery, a family-owned business specializing in grasses and sedges

  • The nursery's focus on consistency, innovation, and adaptability

  • The importance of consistent improvement, asking the right questions, and embracing curiosity in the nursery business

  • The concept of asking five why questions to get to the root cause of issues

  • Teaching a class on nursery production and core principles to take away

  • Consistency, curiosity, and adaptability as core principles for running a successful nursery business

  • The importance of recognizing and addressing problems promptly to ensure plant health

  • A discussion on grasses as the understory of plant populations and how adaptable they are to various ecosystems worldwide

  • The resilience, adaptability, and ecological importance of grasses, including their role in fire-prone ecosystems

  • Emphasis on the importance of considering ecosystem benefits and native habitats and balancing the introduction of non-native species with preserving local ecosystems.

  • The distinctions between warm-season and cool-season grasses

  • Practical considerations for planting and dividing warm-season grasses.

  • The significance of green infrastructure in managing water and preserving ecology.

  • Research from Dr. Helen Krauss and Rebecca (Pledger) Turk’s work on evaluating rain gardens for remediation

  • Challenges and common pitfalls in implementing green infrastructure projects.

  • Small-scale initiatives for homeowners to contribute to green infrastructure. Ideas include rain gardens, bioswales, and meadows for managing stormwater.

  • Exploring the broader impact of green infrastructure on wildlife habitats like wildlife highways and pollinator pathways

  • David shares various methods to stay up to date, including attending nursery events, trade shows, and industry-specific gatherings.

  • Green Roofs for Healthy Cities and Cities Alive, emphasizing community involvement in green infrastructure

  • Visiting Brooklyn Grange

  • Discussion on regional events like Beyond Our Backyard hosted by Keep Durham Beautiful, promoting collaboration among municipalities and landscape contractors.

  • Mention of the importance of local events in fostering community engagement and environmental stewardship.

  • Insights into David's diverse media consumption, including trade magazines like Grower Talks and Greenhouse Management, and e-newsletters.

  • Encouragement to explore information beyond horticulture, including podcasts like Farnam Street's Knowledge Project.

  • David discusses the challenges of maintaining a daily routine for staying updated.

  • Insights into the use of calendars, task lists, note-taking, and whiteboards to manage time effectively and brainstorm.

  • A candid discussion on David's reading habits, including attempts at journaling and exploring different book formats.

  • David’s favorite books like Clear Thinking by Shane Parrish, Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely, and The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson

  • Memorable encounters with grass installations, including the High Line in New York, Duke University’s Blomquist Piedmont Prairie, Lurie Garden in Chicago, and tied up grasses in the Netherlands

  • Visiting Appeltern Adventure Gardens in the Netherlands for inspiration

  • Propagating more horticulturists with an emphasis on education as a key tool for spreading plant knowledge and fostering curiosity, acknowledging of initiatives like Seed Your Future's Green Career Week, and the potential impact of job shadowing opportunities.

  • How to connect with David Hoffman and Hoffman Nursery via their website or LinkedIn

22. Susan Poizner on Growing Fruit Trees

SUSAN POIZNER BIO

Susan Poizner is an urban orchardist in Toronto, Canada and the author of Grow Fruit Trees Fast and Growing Urban Orchards. Susan trains new growers worldwide through her award-winning fruit tree care training program at Orchardpeople.com. Susan is also the host of The Urban Forestry Radio Show and Podcast and an ISA Certified Arborist.

SHOW NOTES

  • Susan shares her journey into the world of plants and how her passion developed

  • The pursuit of a certificate in horticulture

  • Her interest evolved into a focus on fruit trees and how planting fruit trees in a public park helped fuel her interest

  • The practice of mulching fruit trees with compost or manure in the early spring

  • The cylces in fruit tree growth

  • The importance of proper pruning for fruit trees.

  • How pruning helps create a strong tree structure and improves fruit production and the timing to encourage growth or slow it down.

  • Getting over the fear of pruning

  • Seeing that fruit trees require an ongoing partnership and how fruit trees need humans to thrive

  • Maintaining nutrition in urban soils is essential for fruit tree health

  • The need to protect fruit trees from pests and diseases and researching and choosing the right fruit tree varieties

  • Holistic sprays as alternatives to chemical pesticides made using simple household items

  • Using holistic sprays for fruit trees

  • Fruit trees sharing resources with soil organisms, creating a mutually beneficial cycle

  • Who is researching holistic sprays like The North American Fruit Explorers and her podcast guests

  • Lessons learned writing her two books Grow Fruit Trees Fast and Growing Urban Orchards

  • Intercropping in orchards and the importance of creating biodiverse environments around fruit trees

  • Pollinator gardens and insectary gardens to support beneficial insects

  • How cover crops can enhance soil health and provide long-term benefits

  • Remedial wood chips, or fungal-oriented mulch, mimic natural processes in forest ecosystems

  • Experimentation and further research are encouraged to optimize orchard management practices

  • Susan hosting The Urban Forestry Radio Show and Podcast discusses various topics related to fruit trees

  • Some favorite episodes featuring holistic sprays with Nigel Palmer and John Kempf.

  • The importance of storytelling in education

  • Susan believes in the power of community, accountability, and planning with orchard management

  • Nigel Palmer’s book The Regenerative Grower’s Guide to Garden Amendments

  • Cultivating more gardeners through community involvement

  • Susan's website, orchardpeople.com, offers access to her podcast, articles, and courses and she has a YouTube channel, too

21. Bryce Lane on the Craft of Teaching Horticulture

BRYCE LANE BIOGRAPHY

Bryce Lane discovered his passion for plants and telling others about them working at a small Massachusetts garden center through high school and college. After earning his BS in Plant Science at the University of Massachusetts and MS in Ornamental Horticulture at The Ohio State University, he came to the Department of Horticultural Science at NC State University as a lecturer in 1981. Bryce also served as the department’s Undergraduate Coordinator from 1987 to 2014. He spent 34 years teaching and advising over 20,000 students. He was the recipient of numerous local, regional, and national teaching awards. Bryce retired in 2014, but still teaches part-time in the department.

From 2003 to 2014 Bryce hosted and produced a three-time, Emmy winning, UNC TV public television show called In the Garden With Bryce Lane. The show focused on all things home gardening and served all levels of gardeners.

He now spends his time giving horticulture talks, doing leadership, and communication training, teaching part-time at NC State, and at the JC Raulston Arboretum. He has worked closely for years with North Carolina Extension and the NC Nursery and Landscape Association. An avid gardener, Bryce has gardened on the same one quarter acre plot for 40 years. He and his wife of 46 years also spend plenty of time with their 6 grandchildren. You can find out more about Bryce by visiting his website.

SHOW NOTES

  • Early exposure to plants by spending time outside

  • His passion for plants and developing soft skills by working at a local nursery in Massachusetts called Hadley Garden Center

  • Encouragement to go to graduate school and what mentors saw

  • Experiences in teaching at The Ohio State University and working with Dr. Steven Still

  • The decision to not pursue a PhD and advice for students

  • Rising from lecturer to undergraduate program coordinator at NC State

  • Honing the craft of teaching students with tools, techniques, and artistry

  • Early criticism from other professors over his teaching style

  • Core skills for improving teaching others about plants

  • Motivation and creating an environment where if students choose to engage they will learn

  • The power of story and the importance of authenticity

  • His friendship with the late JC Raulston, JC’s role as a teacher and observational scientist, and naming Styrax japonicus ‘Emerald Pagoda’

  • Fostering curiosity and bringing a chainsaw into the classroom

  • Having a roadmap as an educator, and the minutiae of teaching techniques like outlines, analogies, and Powerpoint

  • Teaching in retirement and hosting gardening classes with the JC Raulston Arboretum

  • Lessons learned from transitioning online during COVID

  • Hosting and producing In the Garden with Bryce Lane for 10 years and winning three Midsouth Regional Emmy Awards

  • How Bryce approaches goals and objectives

  • Using Google and apps to learn about plants

  • Soil Science for Gardeners: Working with Nature to Build Soil Health by Robert Pavlis

  • The myth of how much plant growth/dry weight comes from photosynthesis versus the soil

  • Propagating more horticulturists by not holding back and sharing plants with children

  • You can find out more about Bryce by visiting his website.

20. Molly Hendry on Telling Stories with Gardens

MOLLY HENDRY BIO

Molly toggles the worlds of design and plants as both a trained horticulturist and landscape architect. Up through July 2023, she was the Associate Director of Gardens Support for the Friends of Birmingham Botanical Gardens for 5 and a half years. There she was actively involved in the horticultural and design development of the 26 unique gardens that make up Birmingham Botanical Gardens. She was also a key support player in the renewal of the Gardens's master plan, in addition to managing ongoing garden projects. Since recording the podcast, she has stepped out to create her own garden design studio, Roots and Ramblings, where she does design work for folks in the Birmingham, Alabama area. With this studio, Molly is most interested in the intersection between people and places. She loves designing gardens for "hands in the dirt" gardeners, focusing on how design is not just a masterplan on a piece of paper, but an ongoing dialogue between a person and a place... often with a spade in hand! One of her top honors is that she spent 10 months living in the UK, sinking her hands into the soil at some of the top gardens across the country as the Garden Club of America's 2016–2017 Royal Horticultural Society's Interchange Fellow. You can learn more about Molly by visiting her website Roots and Ramblings and by following her on Instagram @mollshendry.

SHOW NOTES

  • Molly on her childhood spent outdoors

  • Encouragement from her parents to pursue landscape architecture 

  • Molly’s focus on horticulture and landscape architecture at Auburn University

  • The impact of study abroad trips on Molly and the stories she learned about gardens

  • How Rousham deeply touched Molly

  • Molly’s internship at Winterthur and a valuable lesson learned

  • Experiences while being the Garden Club of America's 2016-2017 Royal Horticultural Society's Interchange Fellow

  • Shadowing Nigel Dunnett and James Hitchmough to learn about naturalistic planting and how to think differently about plants and gardening

  • Time at Great Dixter and lessons learned from Fergus Garrett

  • Fergus’s sketches and mind maps

  • Molly’s roll as Associate Director of Gardens Support for the Friends of Birmingham Botanical Gardens

  • Thoughts on how to illicit emotions in gardens

  • The analogy of garden design with Salt Fat Acid Heat by Samin Nosrat

  • Molly’s approach to designing gardens and questions she asks clients

  • How writing helps Molly be a better gardener and how she reviews her thoughts on New Year’s Day

  • Using the app Notability in the field and Google drive

  • Favorite books including Anne of Green Gables and Russell Page’s Education of a Gardener

  • The myth that we can’t garden the same as the English do

  • Molly’s favorite ice cream flavors

  • Propagating horticulturists by bringing in the human element and engaging with children

  • Learn more about Molly by visiting her website Roots and Ramblings and by following her on Instagram @mollshendry

19. Matt Biggs on a Home for Every Plant

MATT BIGGS BIO

Matt Biggs, a graduate of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, is a well-known British gardener, broadcaster, and author of fifteen gardening and plant related books.

He has presented numerous television programs, notably Channel 4’s Garden Club, stepped behind the camera to direct Meridian Television’s popular gardening series Grass Roots and worked as Horticultural Consultant for a garden design series on Channel 5.

Matt contributes to several magazines, including the Royal Horticultural Society Journal The Garden, BBC Gardeners’ World, Countryfile, and Gardens Illustrated and leads gardening tours worldwide.

He lectures at the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, Oxford University Botanic Gardens, the Cookery School of Michelin starred chief Jean-Christophe Novelli, and is course Director of the Plants and Plantsmanship course at the English Gardening School.

Matt is also a regular panelist on BBC Radio 4’s ‘Gardener’s Question Time’.  You can learn more about Matt by visiting his website. 

SHOW NOTES

17. Ann Amato, Seedstress of the Pacific Northwest

ANN AMATO BIO

Ann Amato lives in Portland, Oregon and is a horticulturist and seed propagator at Cistus Nursery and a propagator at Secret Garden Growers in Canby, Oregon. At 18, she published the book Ancient Forests and Western Man: A Pictorial History of the West Coast. Later, she earned a bachelors of arts from Portland State University with a double major in English literature and art history. She has been a garden blogger (amateurbotannist.com) for over a decade and is the recipient of an Oregon Nurseries Foundation Scholarship. Currently, she is the President of the Mount Hood Gesneriad Society, an affiliated chapter of The Gesneriad Society. She been featured in horticulture media like Garden Time TV, The Planthunter in Australia, and the podcast Horticulture Rising. When not working, she tends to her indoor houseplant collection at home where she has over 500 different plants in her indoor collection, many of which are either gesneriads or begonias. She also tends to her small urban garden named Campiello Maurizio: the Garden of One-of-each-ee. You can learn more about Ann by visiting her website Amateur Bot-ann-ist, her store Spiffy Seeds, Facebook, and Instagram.

SHOW NOTES

  • Ann’s early experiences with nature in the Pacific Northwest, being mentored by plant enthusiasts, and experiences with her dad

  • Ann’s pursuit of biology at Lewis and Clark College and health issues with hereditary angioedema

  • Publishing Ancient Forests and Western Man: A Pictorial History of the West Coast in college

  • Shifting to studying art history

  • Ann’s interest in critical theory in art history and horticulture

  • Inspiration from the gardens at The Huntington

  • Becoming a propagator at Cistus Nursery and roles at Secret Garden Growers

  • Plants as a solace during her illness

  • Ann’s interest in how people and society engages with plants

  • Landscapes in art history and mimicry

  • “When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer” by Walt Whitman

  • The title of Seedstress and the pleasures of germinating seeds

  • Caring about where plants were propagated

  • Different germination stations for seeds

  • Core lessons about germinating seeds including it is complicated, it takes time, success is variable, understanding percentage germinated, and how too much care can lead to failure

  • Deciding on what media to use for seed germination

  • How environmental conditions can influence germination

  • How to experiment sowing seeds by talking to colleagues and societies, splitting batches up, and using chemicals

  • Smoke treating seed

  • Note taking about seed germination in Excel

  • Deciding what seed to sow

  • The epiphany that horticulture is social and the effects of temperature and light on seed growth

  • Staying current from friends that share knowledge with her

  • Underused plants including Begonia, Petunia, and grandma plants

  • The myth that her job is a dream job

  • Why Ann writes in her blog Amateur Bot-ann-ist

  • Being inspired by Beth Chatto’s book The Dry Garden and field guides

  • Propagating more horticulturists by better communication and encouraging more professionalism about gardening

  • Connecting with Ann on her blog Amateur Bot-ann-ist, her store Spiffy Seeds, Facebook, and Instagram

16. Greg Paige on Being a Public Garden Rockstar

GREG PAIGE BIO

Greg Paige discovered his career goal early—creating and working in beautiful public gardens and sharing and teaching this passion with others. Greg currently serves as the Director of Horticulture at the JC Raulston Arboretum in Raleigh, North Carolina. Greg has had a storied life in public horticulture. His 30-year career involved work at some of the finest gardens in the country including Bartlett Tree Research Laboratory as Director of Horticulture and Arboretum Curator, Daniel Stowe Botanical Garden in Belmont, North Carolina, the Scott Arboretum of Swarthmore College in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina, the Holden Arboretum outside Cleveland, Ohio, and the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden in Cincinnati, Ohio.

You can learn more about Greg by visiting him at the JC Raulston Arboretum, watching videos from his work at the arboretum, and following him on Instagram.

SHOW NOTES

  • How his grandmother inspired him through books and his mother encouraged him to be outside

  • Pursuing a career in plants with a associates degree in forestry and working at an army munitions plant

  • Pursuing horticulture at Virginia Tech

  • Eye opening experiences doing an internship at Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden and working with Steve Foltz

  • Advice for non-traditional students returning to school

  • Holden Arboretum curatorial internship and lessons about database curation, plant conservation, and plant explorations

  • Developing skills at a cemetery in Wilmington, Delaware

  • Experiences at The Scott Arboretum of Swarthmore College and lessons about integrated pest management and volunteers

  • Lessons at Biltmore estate and the walled garden with color plantings

  • Admiration for the Appalachian mountains

  • Returning south to Daniel Stowe Botanical Garden and working with Douglas Ruhren and lessons about succession of bloom

  • Becoming Director of Horticulture and Arboretum Curator at Bartlett Tree Research Laboratory

  • Experiments and the research component at the Bartlett lab

  • Lessons learned about tree planting

  • Exploring planting prairies at Bartlett lab to reduce management and increase biodiversity

  • A new opportunity at the JC Raulston Arboretum

  • Systems and processes like setting alarms, bringing intelligent people into projects and having conversations, self care and running

  • The clipboard system learned from Andrew Bunting and using colored manila folders

  • How Greg moves projects forward at botanic gardens

  • Staying current in horticulture by attending conferences and talking to colleagues

  • Underused plants like shrubs (Deutzia and Hydrangea quercifolia) and more diverse urban trees

  • Greg’s knowledge about tree planting, how people shouldn’t prune, and bagging grass clippings and leaves

  • Myth busting pruning and how you can prune trees when the blade is sharp (i.e. anytime) and that you shouldn’t bag leaves

  • Books that Greg Paige returns to including Michael Dirr Manual of Woody Landscape Plants, Harrison Flint’s Landscape Plants for Eastern North America, Kelly Norris’s New Naturalism, and Thomas Rainer and Claudia West’s Planting in a Post-wild World

  • Propagating horticulturists including engaging with students and engaging with audiences

  • You can learn more about Greg by visiting him at the JC Raulston Arboretum, watching videos from his work at the arboretum, and following him on Instagram.

15. Mary Phillips on Gardening for Wildlife

MARY PHILLIPS BIO

For eight years, Mary has led Garden for Wildlife™ and Certified Wildlife Habitat® as an ambassador for native plants with the National Wildlife Federation. Her work ensures all habitat programs and resources are rooted in sustainable practices and the latest science. 

Mary’s love for wildflowers comes naturally. As a child, she discovered trillium, dogtooth violets, spring beauties, bluebells and the wildlife around them near her family’s Ohio home. Years later, she introduced her children to these same native plants along the Sligo Creek trail in Maryland. Recently, she has seen many of these essential early spring ephemerals squeezed out by invasive, non-native plants. This personal experience fuels the passion for her work.

Mary’s strategic leadership aligns the Garden for Wildlife mission across National Wildlife Federation’s (NWF) internal teams, habitat initiatives, partner networks and external messaging. She collaborates with leading entomologists, pollinator conservationists, federal agencies, NWF’s naturalists and trend researchers to provide substantive content, such as, keystone native plant lists for NWF’s Native Plant Finder™, Garden for Wildlife content, and Spanish language resources. This cross functional strategy has fostered public participation among millions of wildlife gardeners, more than doubled certifications, increased science and civic partnerships and created a Garden for Wildlife state network.

Under her leadership, in coordination with the White House Office of Science and Policy, NWF coordinated the National Pollinator Garden Network in 2015 to launch the Million Pollinator Garden Challenge which created over a million pollinator gardens in three years. This partnership involved over fifty national organizations with a third from the commercial garden trade, such as growers and independent garden centers.

In 2021, inspired by the work native plants do to restore habitat, and based on research conducted with the National Gardening Research survey and five hundred native plant growers nationwide, Mary helped create the Garden for Wildlife Native Plants Collection™. The goal of this social enterprise is to increase the native plant supply, reduce carbon impacts, and secure survival of iconic species, such as the monarch butterfly, native bees and songbirds. Mary works to ensure Garden for Wildlife, Inc. maintains its sustainability commitments: to engage everyday people in solutions for critical wildlife loss and climate impact and, connect local native plant growers to consumers through ecommerce. The pilot launch in spring of 2021, resulted in over 4,000 native plant collections sold in five months, for a total of 237,000 sq ft. of new garden habitat.

Prior to joining NWF, Mary was principal at The Abundant Backyard, a sustainable native plant landscaping service and one of the first Certified Green Businesses in Montgomery County, MD.  As a Maryland Master Naturalist, Mary maintains her Certified Wildlife Habitat® with her family and enjoys hiking and exploring the Chesapeake Bay natural history and heritage. 

You can find more about Mary Phillips on LinkedIn.

SHOW NOTES

  • Mary’s early start with plants and gardening with her grandparents and wildflowers

  • Her focus on communications in college at Arizona State University

  • Core aspects she would teach others for understanding the audience and their motivations

  • The importance of sharing plant stories and benefits

  • Mary’s role at The Abundant Backyard and creating community gardens and curriculum

  • Lessons learned as part of the Maryland Master Naturalist program about the Baltimore Checkerspot Butterfly

  • Advice for installing and managing community gardens

  • Developing curriculum for kids to engage with the gardens

  • Mary’s work with the National Wildlife Federation multiplying the effect of small gardens

  • 50 years of Garden for Wildlife

  • Certified Wildlife Habitats

  • The Million Pollinator Garden Challenge

  • Doug Tallamy and Jarrod Fowler and the creation of keystone plant lists

  • Dealing with challenges of growing natives in production

  • Favorite collections with the Garden for Wildlife Native Plants Collection™

  • The impact of wildlife gardens

  • Description of a keystone plant species

  • Helping connect people to plants through animals

  • Misconceptions about native plants

  • Plants that provide food, water, cover, and places to live for animals

  • Incentives and supporting laws that support native plant landscapes

  • Study about a portion of lawn converting to native plants doubling

  • Increasing woody plant options

  • The Mayors’ Monarch Pledge

  • Efforts shifting policy and legislation

  • Small things everyone can do to plant for wildlife

  • Having wilder landscapes in urban areas and HOA’s

  • Finding inspiration from Doug Tallamy’s books and Beatrix Potter’s books

  • Practices that help Mary be more productive including gardening with others in the community and sitting quietly and watching the wildlife

  • Staying current with online groups and industry groups like AmericanHort, Perennial Plant Association, and partner organizations

  • The myth that native gardens are messy, attract rodents, and that finding them is hard

  • Encouraging gardeners to enjoy time in the garden more and reducing chemical use

  • Favorite animals including Ruby-throated Hummingbirds, Northern Cardinals, Northern Flicker, and Chipmunks

  • The board game Wingspan

  • Propagting horticulturists by working with communities and helping people understand native plants and career opportunities. Diversifying story and shift way we tell stories

  • Learn more about Mary by visiting nwf.org/garden and by visiting her on LinkedIn