36. Shannon Currey on Elevating Plantings with Education

SHANNON CURREY BIO

Shannon Currey is a horticultural educator with Izel Native Plants. After starting a career in social science research and education, she transitioned to horticulture in 2003, training in horticultural science and landscape design at North Carolina State University. She worked short stints at a local landscape design firm and at Niche Gardens, a pioneering native plant nursery in North Carolina. In 2007 Shannon joined Hoffman Nursery, a wholesale grower specializing in grasses, sedges, and other graminoids where over the next 15 years she developed a deep understanding of these specialized plants.

In 2022, Shannon joined Izel Native Plants, an online retailer for native plants, to expand their education and outreach efforts. Since joining Izel, her ongoing interest in native perennials has blossomed, as she researches, writes, and talks about their role in managed landscapes. A sought-after speaker, Shannon has shared her knowledge in nationally published articles and traveled throughout the country speaking to professional organizations, community groups, and at public gardens.

Shannon enjoys being involved with plants at a broader level and served on the Boards of the Perennial Plant Association and the Perennial Plant Foundation. She currently serves on the North Carolina Plant Conservation Program Scientific Committee, the Advisory Committee for the University of Georgia’s Landscape Architecture Short Course, and the Legislative Committee of the North Carolina Nursery and Landscape Association (NCNLA). She was recognized by NCNLA in 2021 with the Libby Wilder Award for her contributions to the North Carolina plant industry.

Shannon lives in Durham, North Carolina and finds inspiration exploring the native flora in natural areas and cultivated gardens wherever her travels take her. You can learn more about Shannon on the Izel Plants blog, on Instagram @sscurrey, and LinkedIn.

 

SHOW NOTES

  • Shannon’s early connection to nature through playing outdoors as a child in Alabama

  • How her interest in plants was sparked during adulthood while working at UNC Chapel Hill

  • The transformative impact of taking a horticulture class with Bryce Lane

  • Leaving a career in social psychology to pursue horticulture full-time

  • How her background in social psychology informs her current work in horticulture, particularly in research, teaching, and changing attitudes about landscapes

  • The critical role plants play in improving human health and well-being

  • Challenges in connecting people with plants and changing perceptions about the natural world

  • The evolution of perennials in horticulture over the past 15-20 years, from decorative use to recognition of their ecological functions

  • Shannon’s experiences at Niche Gardens and Hoffman Nursery

  • How grasses and perennials became more popular for their functional roles in landscapes, including stormwater management and habitat creation

  • The concept of green infrastructure and its growing influence on public and private landscapes

  • Helping gardeners at Izel Plants by focusing on education and providing tools to improve plant selection and garden success

  • The value of understanding plant behavior, including survival strategies and adaptability

  • Wetland indicator status as a useful tool for understanding a plant’s water needs and adaptability (US Plants Database and Izel Plants)

  • How facultative plants thrive in both wet and dry conditions, making them ideal for rain gardens and bioswales

  • Using The Flora of the Southeastern United States to better understand their growing conditions and heliophily for determining light levels

  • The importance of lists as starting points for plant selection but encouraging deeper understanding beyond them

  • Recognizing that gardening is dynamic, and plant failure is a source of valuable information

  • The role of experimentation and observation in becoming a better gardener

  • How personal experience and talking with other gardeners enhance plant knowledge

  • The coefficient of conservatism and its use in gardens

  • Obligate versus facultative species and their use in the garden

  • Knowing more how the habitat of native species determines growth in the garden

  • Understanding perennial longevity and how different plants serve specific roles in plantings

  • Short-lived perennials like Penstemon digitalis (foxglove beardtongue) and Chrysopsis mariana (Maryland aster) as valuable fillers in plant communities

  • The importance of honesty in communicating plant adaptability and challenges to gardeners

  • Why the matrix layer hasn’t quite caught on yet

  • How plugs and smaller plant sizes are gaining popularity for economical and practical landscape planting

  • Increasing interest in ground cover plants and native sedges for sustainable, low-maintenance landscapes

  • Trends toward matrix planting and layered plantings using ground covers like Carex (sedge) species, Packera aurea (golden groundsel), and Chrysogonum virginianum var. australe (green and gold)

  • Observing plants throughout the year and keeping a photo record as part of her gardening practice

  • Visiting local gardens like Sarah P. Duke Gardens and Coker Arboretum to observe plant behavior and longevity

  • Sketching plants as a method for better understanding their structure and behavior

  • Continually learning by identifying and researching plants in natural areas

  • Recommended horticulture books: Wildflowers and Plant Communities of the Southern Appalachian Mountains and Piedmont by Timothy Spira and Wildflowers of the Atlantic Southeast by Laura Cotterman, Damon Waitt, and Alan Weakley

  • How to propagate more plant passion by using public spaces to foster a love for plants and attract more people to horticulture and valuing expertise in the horticultural industry and improving systemic support for horticulturists

  • Learn more about Shannon on the Izel Plants blog, on Instagram @sscurrey, and LinkedIn

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

13. Carol Reese on a Life in Horticulture Extension

Carol Reese Bio

Carol grew up as a farm girl in Mississippi where she learned much about the land from her family.  In her 30’s she pursued her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Mississippi State University in horticulture.  Carol worked as a regional horticulture extension specialist for the University of Tennessee’s West Tennessee AgResearch and Education Center in Jackson, Tennessee for 27 years where she inspired countless gardeners within the state with her humor and scientific approach to learning.  She is beloved in the horticulture community for giving sensational presentations across the country where she pushes the envelope of people’s understanding of the natural world.  Additionally, she wrote Q&A articles for Horticulture magazine and contributed a weekly column to the Jackson Sun newspaper in Jackson, Tennessee for many years.  Carol recently retired from her position and has even more time to roam the 117 acres of her mostly wild property with her dogs. 

You can connect with Carol Reese by finding her on Facebook.

SHOW NOTES

  • Carol’s interest in plants starting with her family, delectable edibles, and exploring the natural world

  • Her return to college in pursuit of a horticulture education for healing

  • Lessons from graduate school at Mississippi State University

  • Breaking the fear barrier with audiences in classes and presentations

  • Carol Reese interview in Horticulture magazine

  • Carol’s passion for reading and her freedom of speech

  • Working for UT extension as regional horticulturist at the West Tennessee AgResearch and Education Center in Jackson, Tennessee and developing curricula for teaching

  • The American Gardener

  • Changes in extension over the years

  • Carol’s advice to not top trees

  • Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac

  • Carol’s thoughts on the current education system and changes she would make like encouraging stewardship

  • Anthropomorphizing plants and animals to connect them with her audience

  • How to teach people to be less gullible about plant purchasing

  • Her favorite aspects of extension

  • Core aspects of extension that she would share with a class including knowing plants, their taxonomic relationships, their natural lore, and their history

  • Carol’s fascination with the Lewis and Clark expedition

  • Carol’s teaching practices of how she delivers information including humbling herself, walking around the room, and challenging people

  • Finding the answers to her curiosity through reliable social media groups, looking for multiple reliable sources, and going down “rabbit holes”

  • Essential practices and habits like unlearning, being suspicious about garden products, and avoiding impulse buys

  • Carol’s thoughts on amending the soil and using natural materials on top of the ground and avoiding product marketing

  • Carol’s focus on specific groups like Osmanthus and heirlooms

  • The need for companies to sell unpatented plants that have stood the test of time

  • Carol’s thoughts on native plants, planting species that have the most benefit for a garden, and regreening cities

  • A deeper dive into natives versus non-natives and the relevance of time

  • The Eastern Asia-Eastern North America disjunction

  • Monarchs and their preference for different milkweeds

  • Changes Carol would make if she were made queen for a day

  • Teaching children about the importance of the natural world

  • Carol’s heart and passion for rescuing dogs

  • Her favorite books including Michael Dirr’s Woody Manual of Landscape Plants, Dan Hinkley’s books, Margaret Roach, and Pilgrim at Tinker’s Creek by Annie Dillard

  • Her pursuit of new knowledge including scientific articles (and her suspicions), experts, and close friends

  • How Illicium parviflorum is native and yet insects won’t touch it

  • The myth of the importance of fertilizer that leads to overuse and being sure to evaluate plant needs

  • An epiphany she had about how some species have doomed themselves to extinction

  • Learning experiences including meeting great plant people at conferences

  • How she wishes more gardeners would plant species that offer more in the landscape, resist impulse planting, and overplant and be a fearless editor

  • Impatiens capensis treating poison ivy (note, a scientific article I found showed the plant mashed up is more effective than extracts)

  • The right press and support we need is missing from horticulture

  • Propagating horticulturists by getting them more exposure, getting people active in it, and being open to the power of plants on human health

  • You can connect with Carol Reese by finding her on Facebook.