Garden Futurist is highlighting examples of innovative programs in the Pacific region that are truly preparing students for the future of horticulture within a variety of careers.

There has been some alarm in the last decade around the loss of horticulture and plant related degree and certificate programs. Can we get to the bottom of the conflict in views between talk of a “botanical education extinction” and evidence of younger generations’ growing interest in plants? 

Garden Futurist spoke with A. Haven Kiers, Asst. Professor of Landscape Architecture, Department of Human Ecology, University of California, Davis. We also spoke with recent graduate of the program, Mavi Arias.

Listed to Part 1 of our Innovative Programs podcast with UCB Botanical Garden here.

This episode was sponsored by: Bartlett Tree Experts

Read the companion article here.

We are highlighting examples of innovative programs in the Pacific region that are truly preparing students for the future of horticulture within a variety of careers.

There has been some alarm in the last decade around the loss of horticulture and plant related degree and certificate programs. Can we get to the bottom of the conflict in views between talk of a “botanical education extinction” and evidence of younger generations’ growing interest in plants? 

Garden Futurist spoke with Douglas Justice, Associate Director, Horticulture & Collections at the University of British Columbia Botanical Garden on UBC Botanical Garden’s Horticulture Training Program. We also spoke with recent graduate of the program, Christian Bendsen. 

This episode was sponsored by: Devil Mountain Nursery

“On all scales, at a time when nature biodiversity is facing enormous challenges because of urbanization and climate change, the garden in the broadest sense should be a place where we can celebrate the beauty of plants and the functionality of that space—it should also serve nature.”

Internationally acclaimed horticulture writer, garden, and planting designer Noel Kingsbury breaks down ecological and naturalistic planting design practices for a new era.

Noel Kingsbury and Haven Kiers challenge regional garden designers to submit to Design Futurist Award 2024.

Pacific Horticulture’s Design Futurist Award elevates the power of garden design to achieve climate resilience, steward biodiversity, and connect people with nature. Find your theme: Growing for Biodiversity, Drought and Fire Resilience, Nature is Good for You, Garden Futurist, Sustainable Gardening

This episode was sponsored by: First Editions Shrubs & Trees

Read the companion article here.

Learning to garden with fruit trees can connect you to unimaginable flavor experiences, a romance with non-commercial cultivars, and a willingness to try grafting. 

We spoke with Dr. Rachel Spaeth, Interim Curator of the Prunus Collection for the USDA Agricultural Research Service in Davis, CA about ways to support biodiversity conservation for real and the fascinating people and organizations who make it all possible.

This podcast was sponsored by: Flora Grubb Gardens

Read the companion article here.

For those who love a good mystery, the work to rediscover rare and thought-to-be-extinct heirloom varieties of apples is an incredible story.

17,000 named apple varieties were at one point cultivated in North America. Today, only a fraction remains.

David Benscoter, Founder of the Lost Apple Project, shares how committed sleuthing has led to the miraculous recovery of apples that have not been cultivated in 100 years.

This episode was sponsored by: Sunset Plant Collection

Tyler Hale is the Program Manager of the Plant Protection Program and Sentinel Plant Network at the American Public Gardens Association. These programs share scouting resources, diagnostic support and educational materials to help public gardens stop serious pests and diseases by working on the front lines of early detection.  

Invertebrates do so many important things. But beyond the benefits they provide to ecosystems, they’re fascinating creatures. When you look at them closely, bees are all sorts of metallic colors. There is a beautiful diversity of butterflies. Parasitoid wasps have amazing antenna that are branching in different directions. A lot of us just aren’t aware of them when we’re out in a garden or going for a walk, because so many of them are so small. The more people appreciate how cool they are and how important they are, hopefully the more interested they’ll be in conserving them and protecting them.

Aaron Anderson, Pesticide Program Specialist, Towns and Cities Lead, Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation

This episode is sponsored by: Sunset Plant Collection

Read the companion article here.

This is a really special time of year and at Pacific Horticulture we are attempting to connect with nature in a way that may feel a bit off-kilter to many of us gardeners- we are embracing the darkness!  

Helping to introduce this topic, we have Katherine Renz, author of the recent article “The Night Garden: Design for Pollinators and People that Thrive Under Dark Skies.” 

We spoke with Dr. Shannon M. Murphy Professor at Department of Biological Sciences, University of Denver about her research on the impacts of artificial light at night on moths, herbivorous insects, and invasive plants and how gardeners can help support ecosystems at night.

This episode is sponsored by: Devil Mountain Nursery

Read the companion article here.

From a gardener's hyperlocal natural history to raw, existential questions, in her new book What We Sow, Jennifer Jewell delves into researching the story of seeds. There is so much talk about biodiversity loss and climate change, yet the central, essential role of seeds is often missing from greater public discourse. Join us as we explore seed conservation on a global, community, and individual scale. You may develop great expectations of your own.

This episode was sponsored by: Sunset Plant Collection

There is a very cool set of native plants that are related to the plants we eat. You can likely find these Crop Wild Relatives in areas around where you live. These plants can help us better understand how familiar plants evolved, while they hold keys to helping us adapt in the future. Meet two scientists who are passionate about maximizing biodiversity on our plates, while racing against time to conserve plants that are critical to our cultural and agricultural future.

Garden Futurist talks to Dr. Colin Khoury, Senior Director of Science and Conservation at San Diego Botanic Garden, and Dr. Michael Kantar, Associate Professor at the University of Hawai`i at Manoa.

This episode was sponsored by: Bartlett Tree Experts

Episode Image Credit: Published by the Royal Society @ 2016, by Colin K. Khoury, et. al. 

View Article: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2016.0792

Interested in learning more? References can be found at the bottom of the podcast article here.

If you knew it would reduce erosion risks, sequester more carbon, require less fuel, fertilizer, and pesticides to grow them, would you eat a new perennial grain? 

The Land Institute states that: “Our science has demonstrated that new perennial grain crops can be developed, and that diverse, ecologically intensified cropping systems hold the potential to bring grain crop agriculture to a level of ecological function on par with native grasslands and other natural ecosystems.”   

Garden Futurist spoke with Tim Crews Chief Scientist; International Program Director, Director of Ecological Intensification at The Land Institute to find out how ecological perennial gardening ideas could scale up to vast areas of our agricultural landscapes.  

This episode was sponsored by: Devil Mountain Nursery

This episode explores the landscape history of cities as ecosystems, not ecosystems of business but actual living systems.  

New research shows that urban gardens support a greater number of species than an equivalent sized semi-wild rural habitat. As gardeners, as horticulturists, we may want to curate these gardened environments. How much urban landscape should be a “scruffy wild edge-land”? How does looking to the past help us plan the future of cities? 

Sarah Beck speaks with historian Ben Wilson about his sixth book, Urban Jungle: The History and Future of Nature in the City. With special guest Saxon Holt.

This episode was sponsored by: Devil Mountain Wholesale Nursery

Read the companion article here.

Joey Santore shares his enthusiasm for studying the diversity, evolution and ecology of the Earth’s plant life so we can see it’s the least boring topic there is! Shedding pretention to get real, this interview digs into why we should embrace Botanical Latin and a distaste for elitism as we rip out lawns and find plant exploration in unexpected places.

This episode was sponsored by Sunset Plant Collection

Pollination ecologist Dr. Stephen Buchmann has been studying bee biology for more than four decades.

His new book is What a Bee Knows Exploring the Thoughts, Memories, and Personalities of Bees.

“In every possible way, my life has been a wonderful and fascinating journey into the private lives of bees while discovering some of their innermost mysteries.”

This episode is cohosted by special guest Aaron Anderson whose recent article for Pacific Horticulture “I Did My Graduate Research in a Garden Ecology Lab, This is What Gardeners Want to Know” is now available.

Sponsored by Bartlett Tree Experts 

Are you designing gardens that change the world? Show us Your Solutions

Pacific Horticulture’s DESIGN FUTURIST AWARD elevates the beauty of garden designs that are climate resilient, steward biodiversity, and connect people with nature.

This episode was sponsored by: Barlett Tree Experts

“Where we can change the narrative though, is we’ve always seen cities, this is true globally, as the foci of extinctions. Both for animals and plants. I really want to change that narrative. I see the city itself as an opportunity to help horticulture, but also biological conservation.”

-Alessandro Ossola, PhD, University of California, Davis, CA

“Going from the mow and blow to a more horticulturally knowledgeable approach to maintaining the landscape. And that that’s a big change. That’s a really big change, but basically we’re increasing the canopy cover and we’re cooling, we’re greening, we’re storing more carbon. We’re providing all these benefits, and one of the biggest being the wildlife. All the nature that’s coming to this habitat. So that would be my vision for a future that it’s more of a climate-ready landscape, less of the unused grass." 

Dr. Greg McPherson, research forester with the USDA Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station, emeritus, in Davis, California.

#ShareTheShade | #LifeNotLawn

This episode was sponsored by: Bartlett Tree Experts

This episode was sponsored by: Bartlett Tree Experts

Welcome to Part Two of our special two-part episode of Garden Futurist, called “What Climate Is This?”, with Bart O’Brien, Adrienne St. Clair, Kathleen Norris Brenzel, Glenn Griffith, Ryan Longman, and Dan McKenney.  It is part of our series, “Multidisciplinary Approaches to Resilient Landscapes.”

If you live in the Pacific region, you know that seasons in your garden look different from the rest of North America. There are many potentially important factors and multiple systems for mapping zones in our region. Ecoregions, microclimates, hardiness, rainfall, soil types, elevation, chill hours, ecology. It goes on and on. You have likely observed that the Pacific Ocean annually influences weather patterns from the coast all the way to the mountains.

In an already complex region, climate scientists tell us that extreme changes are underway now. We held a conversation recently with a panel of experts working within the fields of climate science, ecoregion, and hardiness mapping. As we listen to the panelists, we are going to attempt to frame this conversation through a horticultural lens.

This episode was sponsored by: Bartlett Tree Experts

Welcome to a special two-part episode of Garden Futurist, called “What Climate Is This?”, with Bart O'Brien, Adrienne St. Clair, Kathleen Norris Brenzel, Glenn Griffith, Ryan Longman, and Dan McKenney.  It is part of our series, “Multidisciplinary Approaches to Resilient Landscapes.”

If you live in the Pacific region, you know that seasons in your garden look different from the rest of North America. There are many potentially important factors and multiple systems for mapping zones in our region. Ecoregions, microclimates, hardiness, rainfall, soil types, elevation, chill hours, ecology. It goes on and on. You have likely observed that the Pacific Ocean annually influences weather patterns from the coast all the way to the mountains.

In an already complex region, climate scientists tell us that extreme changes are underway now. We held a conversation recently with a panel of experts working within the fields of climate science, ecoregion, and hardiness mapping. As we listen to the panelists, we are going to attempt to frame this conversation through a horticultural lens.  

This episode was sponsored by: Bartlett Tree Experts

Guests David Montgomery and Anne Biklé talk with Garden Futurist about how they have used soil science, history, and storytelling to explore the interconnections between farming practices, how soil health affects the health of crops, how the health of crops influences the health of livestock, and how all of these things affect human health.

David Montgomery is a professor at University of Washington, a MacArthur Fellow, and an authority on geomorphology and Anne Biklé is a biologist and environmental planner. They are known for previous books such as The Hidden Half of Nature and for a new book What Your Food Ate.

This episode was sponsored by: Bartlett Tree Experts

This episode is a little different from our usual format. This conversation with Michael Boland, Chief Park Officer at Presidio Trust in San Francisco, will fill you in on a really exciting in-person event Pacific Horticulture held back in August, when we walked the newly opened Tunnel Tops landscape.

“We are finally, finally embracing the Anthropocene…we have to free our minds and accept that nature is not what we were taught it was and that if we are really concerned about biodiversity and about addressing the climate crisis, that we need to think in a completely different way about where nature lives and what it looks like.”

This episode was sponsored by: Bartlett Tree Experts

Emmanuel Didier, Principal and Creative Director at Didier Design Studio is a leading figure in public garden design. He speaks to Garden Futurist about representing the steppe biomes of the world as a permanent public garden exhibit and how he works to build ecologically functioning landscapes that also reflect people culturally. Listen to this fresh take on new aesthetics and techniques that will apply to your garden.

This episode was sponsored by: Bartlett Tree Experts

When we look at the Willamette Valley, we recognize that we see these remnant giants of Oregon white oak in the landscape. Those Oregon white oaks and the oak savanna have been historically managed with cultural burns since time immemorial.  If we can look at the oak savanna—of which about 3 percent remains today, it's an endangered ecosystem, just like the redwoods or old growth forests—we can see that a lot of our native plant relatives like nettles (Urtica) and the prairies of camas (Camassia) that we are in the process of replanting.

Judy BlueHorse Skelton is an Assistant Professor in Indigenous Nations Studies at Portland State University.

This episode was sponsored by: Bartlett Tree Experts

We’re making space for the social and cultural aspects of horticulture as an experience—and we want to honor the role of individual voices. We spoke with a garden futurist who is working to amplify the voices of underrepresented communities in mainstream garden media, specifically the Black community.

Colah B Tawkin is a mother, gardener, and the founder and host of the podcast and media platform known as Black in the Garden. She describes herself as an advocate for Black people trying to reconnect with the land and talks about plants with vigor and volume.

This episode was sponsored by: Bartlett Tree Experts

Dr. Matt Ritter is a professor in the Biology Department at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo and director of the Cal Poly Plant Conservatory. He is the author of many books, including California Plants: A Guide to Our Iconic Flora.

“If you are just an average American, and you’re going about your business spewing carbon into the atmosphere, how many trees do you need to plant a year to offset the amount of carbon that you put in the atmosphere? The answer is somewhere around 80, that need to be planted where trees don’t exist.” – Dr. Matt Ritter

If you are interested in how to use the SelecTree tool, check out Pacific Horticulture’s recent how-to video on our YouTube channel with Dr. Jenn Yost.

This episode was sponsored by: Bartlett Tree Experts

If you take Keystone plants out of your local food web, the food web collapses, because they are producing most of the caterpillars that run that food web. We found that just 5% of our native plant species are supporting 75% of the caterpillars that are out there.

Dr. Doug Tallamy is the T. A. Baker Professor of Agriculture in the Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Delaware.  He is known for highly acclaimed books including Bringing Nature Home and Nature’s Best Hope.

This episode was sponsored by: Bartlett Tree Experts

With Dr. Nancy Shackelford, Restoration Futures Lab director, and assistant professor of environmental studies at the University of Victoria British Columbia.

“In this context, restoration has a lot of meanings. One of those meanings is yes, trying to support the plant species, but it’s also trying to rebuild and support those relationships with people and the practices and the traditions and the histories and the cultures that really existed with those ecosystems. And so in this context, restoration really has a very strong human-nature combination and combined values.” Dr. Nancy Shackelford

This episode was sponsored by: Bartlett Tree Experts

With Dr. Susan Cordell, Director and Research Ecologist, US Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station, Hilo, Hawai'i.

How might a more culturally inclusive viewpoint replace negative historical language associated with invasive plant biology?

“In many parts of the world, we cannot uncouple the fact that humans and natural systems are linked and that pristine landscapes are often, in fact, a mirage.”  This quote from a paper authored by our guest and colleagues was published recently in Frontiers of Ecology and Evolution. Noticeable right away is that this essay gets very quickly into talking about the language we use when we talk about nature.

Our guest and her multi-disciplinary team have taken a unique approach to ecological restoration that considers language and cultural context around how plants in complex ecosystems can be managed. To learn more about Dr. Cordell's work, please read her group's newest paper, inspired by the Liko Nā Pilina experiment: https://www.hawaii.edu/likonapilina/. This is a project using functional traits to promote invasion resistance and native biodiversity. In this perspective, we teamed up with a philosopher to explore the concept and underlying biases towards non-native species.

This episode was sponsored by: Bartlett Tree Experts

“There's a surprising portion of the entire natural world of all biodiversity that either rests in or on an oak tree. And another huge portion of biodiversity uses oak trees for food. An oak can produce 3 million acorns in its lifetime, but only a tiny handful of those, if any,  will create trees, but those extra acorns are there on the ground waiting to feed just a huge number of organisms from tiny ones all the way up to bears.”

Dave Muffly, Senior Arborist and Horticulturist, Santa Barbara, CA.

This episode was sponsored by: Bartlett Tree Experts

One of the most innovative things about botanic gardens remains the incredible diversity of plants in one place. In addition to being centers for horticultural education, botanic gardens can use their living collections—often consisting of thousands of plants—to inform research and conservation.

Our guest today is Dr. Ari Novy, President & CEO at San Diego Botanic Garden, previously Chief Scientist at Leichtag Foundation, and former Executive Director of the U.S. Botanic Garden in Washington, DC 

Learn more about the San Diego Botanic Garden, as well as the Pollinator Project collaboration between SDBC and University of California Cooperative Extension. See also the Breadfruit Institute at the National Tropical Botanical Garden.

This episode was sponsored by: Bartlett Tree Experts

Deborah Pagliaccia’s work has many promising applications, including improving plant and soil health, reducing waste, addressing hunger and food access, reducing water use, and reducing fossil fuel use. Food waste bioproducts, which she calls digestates, are fermented food for plants and other microorganisms. The best part is that gardeners can make it at home!

Dr. Deborah Pagliaccia is a professional researcher in the Department of Microbiology and Plant Pathology, at the University of California, Riverside. She is also the Managing Director of CAFÉ, (California Agriculture and Food Enterprise), a program which supports connections among those interested in food and agriculture on the campus and in the community.  

See University of California Riverside’s CAFÉ for more from Dr. Pagliaccia and her colleagues.

While some areas of science get a lot of flashy language, Garden Futurist co-producers Sarah Beck and Adrienne St Clair discover that what is happening in the tree research lab may also be described in “explosive” terms. Some of this large-scale research also informs low-tech takeaways that gardeners can use right away. Decisions we make in our home landscapes can have direct impacts to our carbon footprint.

Dr. Drew Zwart is a plant pathologist and physiologist at Bartlett Tree Experts. He works out of the Bartlett Tree Research Lab West in San Rafael, California. He explains that while trees that sequester carbon eventually decompose and re-release their carbon into the atmosphere, it’s the services they provide in life—such as shade and irrigation—that leave a net positive impact on the environment. 

So we're really trying to discover which plants really change the whole community network.. We still don't know the rules of complex communities, how they get built, how they're maintained and how they fall apart. And I think eDNA's a rapid way to advance ecological theory about how interdependent we all are on other species.” 

We are talking about the microbiome and Dr. Martin Breed helps us imagine the microscopic, the microbiome inhabits, the soil, the air, and ultimately breaks into our own personal space to connect our bodies to everything around us.

Martin Breed is a lecturer in biology at Flinders University, in Adelaide, South Australia.

Find his research on Vertical Stratification in Urban Green Space Aerobiomes here.

Today’s guest, Winnie Hwo, is taking a very particular approach to the problem of insect decline to mobilize people and take action. She is Senior Public Engagement Specialist and one of the David Suzuki Foundation staff responsible for the Butterflyway initiative and is the project lead for British Columbia.

We hear a somewhat controversial perspective on managing fire risk around homes and properties. We discuss a compelling solution: transitional landscape from human habitation to transitional spaces and then into forest. 

Our guest, Kim Sorvig, is a research associate professor at the University of New Mexico and a George Pearl fellow, which is an honor given to professionals whose work encourages discourse and positive change in architecture, planning, and historic preservation.

Read an excerpt from Sustainable Landscape Construction, Third Edition, Principle 2: Heal Injured Soils and Sites: Restore Forests and Coexist with Wildfire

“I don't want to beat people over the head and say, you must conserve all of your water in a bucket, and this is the way to do it. I want them to do it because they want to see that water go down the runnel and they want to see the rain chain and celebrate it.” - Haven Kiers

We address multi-dimensional resilient landscapes. Nature HEALS stands for health, engagement, aesthetics, landscapes, and sustainability.

Haven Kiers is an assistant professor of Landscape Architecture at UC Davis. 

“And when I say ecosystem function, I mean, functions that are important for human survival. This is not just because I think ecology is cool and native plants are neat, but I think I want a world where my children and my grandchildren will survive.” - Tom Kaye

We are talking about how wild plant populations are responding to climate change and what humans, both ecologists, and home gardeners, might do to encourage healthy and diverse ecosystems.

Tom Kaye is the executive director at the Institute for Applied Ecology in Corvallis, Oregon where his team is working to conserve native species of plants and animals, and doing ecosystem restorations.

Our guest brings us a great example of the challenges and opportunities that are present, where a biodiversity hotspot, and a densely populated human settlement meet. It is radical innovation towards a futurist vision for the integration of humanity and nature.

Clayton Tschudy is the executive director of San Diego Canyonlands.