Roots and All - Gardening Podcast

My guest this episode is artist and activist Katie Holten. Katie has just released a book called The Language of Trees, a collection of literary and scientific works by people like Robin Wall Kimmerer, Ursula le Guin, and Ross Gay. Using her Alphabet of Trees, the book is underpinned by the Katie’s art and asks us to examine our relationship with trees by pulling together wide-reaching strands and demonstrating in one place, just how connected we are to them. Dr Ian Bedford’s Bug of the Week: Asian Hornets What We Talk About  The idea behind the Language of Trees The Tree Alphabet Themes behind the essays Inspiring Tree People About The Language of Trees In this beautifully illustrated collection, artist Katie Holten gifts readers her visual Tree Alphabet and uses it to masterfully translate and illuminate pieces from some of the world’s most exciting writers and artists, activists and ecologists. Holten guides us on a journey from prehistoric cave paintings and creation myths to the death of a 3,500 year-old cypress tree, from Tree Clocks in Mongolia and forest fragments in the Amazon to the language of fossil poetry. In doing so, she unearths a new way of seeing the natural beauty that surrounds us and creates an urgent reminder of what could happen if we allow it to slip away. Links The Language of Trees by Katie Holten - Elliott & Thompson, June 2023  www.katieholten.com Starcroft Farm Cabins Other episodes if you liked this one: Plants and People The Botanical Mind Patreon

My guest this week is wildlife author and photographer Paul Sterry. Paul has written many books on wildlife but his latest, The Biodiversity Gardener, pulls together his decades of knowledge and the result is a wildlife gardening manual with real-life examples taken from Paul’s Hampshire wildlife friendly space. Dr Ian Bedford’s Bug of the Week: Dark Edged Bee Flies What We Talk About  Can small gardens really make a difference to our declining biodiversity? Won’t they become unsupportable islands of life? How to start wildlife gardening Butterfly caterpillars and when to safely cut the grass/meadow/hedges Weeding and cutting back and species that use certain plants as larval hosts Is scrub good and how can you incorporate it in your garden? Do you need to manage it to avoid it becoming woodland? Advice for anyone looking to transition away from a conventional to a wildlife garden The Nature Conservancy Council! About Paul Sterry Links The Biodiversity Gardener by Paul Sterry - Princeton University Press, June 2023  Paul Sterry on Twitter  www.naturephotographers.co.uk Other episodes if you liked this one: The Garden Jungle with Dave Goulson Making a Wildlife Garden Patreon

This week’s episode, my guests are Chris Young and Susan Ottaviano. Chris and Susan are better known as the 2 Green Witches. Chris Young is a lifelong gardener whose acclaimed garden, Tiny Sur is a certified wildlife habitat and Susan is an artist, performer, songwriter, and food stylist. Their new book is The Green Witch’s Guide to Magical Plants & Flowers: Love Spells from Apples to Zinnias and together we take a light-hearted look at the power of plants to help you manifest your deepest desires.  Dr Ian Bedford’s Bug of the Week: Invasive Species What We Talk About  What is a grimoire? What is green witchcraft? The forward to the book is written by the iconic Debbie Harry. Is she a green witch? Love spells Do spells work?  How the practices in the book help you to connect more deeply with your garden The Indian paintbrush plant. Queen Anne’s lace jelly About Susan Ottaviano Artist, performer, songwriter, and cooking maven Susan Ottaviano welcomes you into the lush and whimsical world of green witchcraft with her new book, The Green Witch’s Guide to Magical Plants & Flowers: Love Spells from Apples to Zinnias ( 6/6/23 Skyhorse Publishing). With her rich illustrations and inspiring vegan recipes, Susan and co-author Chris Young shine light on brilliant ways to use products from the farmers market, supermarket, or even your backyard garden to bring light, love, good food, and good humor into your life. Susan has been a groundbreaking food stylist and recipe developer for over twenty years. Her work has been featured in magazines, cookbooks, and advertisements from Bon Appétit to Grey Goose to Uber Eats. Best known as the lead singer for pop band Book of Love, Susan and her bandmates recorded five albums for Warner Brothers Records/Sire Records. Book of Love was a fixture on the Billboard Dance Club charts throughout the 1980s and 1990s, with multiple hits in the top ten. The group reunited in 2016 for a sold-out world tour to mark their 30th Anniversary. Her evocative artwork, which explores food, femininity, and sexuality, has been featured in numerous gallery shows, including a Spring 2023 group show titled “Eat It” at Collar Works Arts Organization. She earned a BFA in Painting from The Philadelphia College of Art, and has been awarded post-graduate certificates from the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park and the Institute of Culinary Education in New York City. She lives in New York’s East Village.  Susan can be found on Instagram at @susanottavianoart About Chris Young Author, gardening expert, and former Comedy Central executive Chris Young first discovered his love of the outdoors growing up exploring the vast Indiana backyard of his late grandfather. Even while obtaining a degree from Indiana University and working as the Director of Talent at Comedy Central, Chris never lost his fascination with the power of nature. In his new book, The Green Witch’s Guide to Magical Plants & Flowers, Love Spells from Apples to Zinnias (6/6/23 Skyhorse Publishing), Chris and co-author Susan Ottaviano share the surprising mystical properties of dozens of plants and flowers.  Over the years, Chris honed his expertise working with green witches, gardening virtuosos, and botanical magic practitioners from New York City to rural Oregon. Eventually Chris settled down in California with his husband, television writer Jon Kinnally, where he re-committed himself to the botanical world. Chris’ own garden, “Tiny Sur”, has been designated by the National Wildlife Federation as a certified Wildlife Habitat. It is also certified by The Xerces Society as a Pollinator Habitat, by Monarch Watch as a Monarch Waystation, and by the Humane Society as a Humane Backyard. On Facebook, Tiny Sur (@tinysuroflaurelcanyon) boasts thousands of loyal, engaged followers.  Chris writes, gardens, and practices green witchcraft in Laurel Canyon, where he lives with husband Jon, cats Simon, Howard, and Elliott, and two Russian tortoises, Wentworth and Boris.  Chris can be found on Instagram as @plantymcflowers. About The Green Witch’s Guide to Magical Plants & Flowers Chris Young and Susan Ottaviano, better known as the 2 Green Witches. Chris Young is a lifelong gardener whose acclaimed garden, Tiny Sur is a certified wildlife habitat. Susan is an artist, performer, songwriter, and food stylist.  Their new is The Green Witch’s Guide to Magical Plants & Flowers (6/6/23 Skyhorse Publishing).  Couldn’t we all use a little more magic in our lives? Equal parts practical guide and beautiful keepsake, The Green Witch’s Guide to Magical Plants & Flowers shows you how to bring more love and contentment into your life using elements of nature. This book, written by our favorite 2 Green Witches, unlocks the secrets hiding in your garden, transforming everyday flowers, fruits, and plants into bath salts, herbal infusions, soaps, sachets, tinctures, and more. It provides all-natural recipes that illuminate pathways to health, peace, love and prosperity, and harmony. The book deals with: Love Potions: Learn how to attract your soulmate and cultivate your best self with these love rituals including jasmine bath salts, lavender candles, oils and more Food for the Soul: How to use vegan recipes made with organic ingredients that ease stress in your relationship, boost your immunity, relieve a headache and even enhance your fertility. Susan can share recipes, including a meadowsweet and mint tea, lust parsley salad, orange cake, to candied violets.  Magical Mindfulness: Say goodbye to stress and hello to relaxation with these anxiety-reducing methods and recipes.  Plant Magic: How does your garden grow? Master magical gardening and growing with plant whisperer Chris Young. Learn about which plants offer protection, give you good luck and prosperity. Links The Green Witch’s Guide to Magical Plants & Flowers - June 2023, Skyhorse Publishing  The 2 Green Witches on Instagram Other episodes if you liked this one: Sensory Herbalism The Wheel of the Year Patreon

Hello and welcome to this week’s episode where my guest is poet and scholar Camille Dungy. Camille has documented how she diversified her garden to reflect her heritage in her book ‘Soil: The Story of a Black Mother’s Garden’. We talk about the politics of gardening, planting a nature garden and how nature writing has influenced our gardens in the past and how it can shape the way we do so in the future. Dr Ian Bedford’s Bug of the Week: Bloodsuckers What We Talk About  Why Camille believes “Every politically engaged person should have a garden” The idea behind Camille’s pollinator garden in Colorado Gardens that offer something more than beauty Is there something we can do to make ourselves take more thinking, creating time? The state of modern nature writing The lessons learnt from gardening “If I cultivate a flourishing I want its reach to be wide”. What Camille means by this. About Camille Dungy Camille T. Dungy is the author of Soil: The Story of a Black Mother’s Garden (Simon & Schuster: May 2, 2023). She has also written Guidebook to Relative Strangers: Journeys into Race, Motherhood, and History, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and four collections of poetry, including Trophic Cascade, winner of the Colorado Book Award. Dungy edited Black Nature: Four Centuries of African American Nature Poetry, the first anthology to bring African American environmental poetry to national attention. She also co-edited the From the Fishouse poetry anthology and served as assistant editor for Gathering Ground: Celebrating Cave Canem's First Decade.  Dungy is the poetry editor for Orion magazine. Her work has appeared in Best American Poetry, 100 Best African American Poems, Best American Essays, The 1619 Project, All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis, over 40 other anthologies, plus dozens of venues including The New Yorker, Poetry, Literary Hub, The Paris Review, and Poets.org. You may know her as the host of Immaterial, a podcast from the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Magnificent Noise. A University Distinguished Professor at Colorado State University, Dungy’s honors include the 2021 Academy of American Poets Fellowship, a 2019 Guggenheim Fellowship, an American Book Award, and fellowships from the NEA in both prose and poetry.  Links Soil: The Story of a Black Mother’s Garden by Camille Dungy - Simon & Schuster, May 2023 www.camilledungy.com Other episodes if you liked this one: Can Women Save the Planet? Ecologically Integrated Gardens Patreon

This week’s episode, my guest is writer Victoria Bennett, author of'All My Wild Mothers – motherhood, loss and an apothecary garden’. The book weaves memoir and herbal folklore and is a story of re-wilding our wastelands, and the transformation that can happen when we do. Daisy, for resilience. Dandelion, for strength against adversity. Borage, to bring hope in dark and difficult times… Dr Ian Bedford’s Bug of the Week: Box tree moth What We Talk About  What is an apothecary garden? How Victoria learnt about gardening and herbalism The garden Victoria and her son built in their new house Dealing with the challenges thrown up by neighbours and housing associations Some of the most powerfully useful plants Victoria has grown How Victoria’s mother influenced her gardening aesthetic Victoria and her son’s next joint gardening adventures About 'All My Wild Mothers – motherhood, loss and an apothecary garden’ The book was published earlier this year with Two Roads Books. An intimate weaving of memoir and herbal folklore, it is a story of re-wilding our wastelands, and the transformation that can happen when we do. Daisy, for resilience. Dandelion, for strength against adversity. Borage, to bring hope in dark and difficult times. Victoria says, “faced with a life very different to what I thought it would be; deep in grief following the tragic death of my eldest sister, facing financial difficulties, and caring for my young son who was diagnosed at age 2 with Type One diabetes, I decided to see what could grow on the barren land of the former industrial site over which our new social housing home was built. With my son, I began to grow, relying on the weeds that were under our feet and the things that other people threw out or eradicated from their pristine gardens. Stone by stone, seed by seed, my son and I turned the rubble into a wild, healing garden. As we did, we discovered that sometimes what grows does so, not in spite of what is broken, but because of it.” Links Victoria’s website 'All My Wild Mothers – motherhood, loss and an apothecary garden’ by Victoria Bennett Other episodes if you liked this one: Grounding Roots with Lulah Ellender Darwin’s Garden with Dr Jude Piesse Patreon

My guest  this episode is author and activist Ellen Miles. Ellen is the founder of Nature is a Human Right, she runs Dream Green, a social enterprise that helps people get guerrilla gardening with guides, grants, and workshops and has a book that will be released this Thursday the 8th of June, Get Guerrilla Gardening: A handbook for planting in public places. Dr Ian Bedford’s Bug of the Week: Spider silk What We Talk About  What is guerrilla gardening? Does it matter who owns the land you guerrilla garden? Is it illegal? Are you liable if someone trips over your planter, for example? Should we be growing more food in communities?  If you’re growing food in an urban location, how can you know the soil isn’t contaminated with anything that will be taken up by your plants? Who decides why a space should be used for? Where is the input from the people that live with and use guerrilla gardened spaces?  What are some potentially good sites? What are parklets? Are there spaces (such as wild spaces) that should be left alone? In order for a plant to establish either from seed or as a plant, it needs to have a degree of tenacity. Is it easy to strike a balance between finding plants that are tough enough to survive and persist and avoiding plants which can be invasive? How do you cope with practical hurdles such as no water, nowhere to store your tools, nowhere to sit down…? How do you cope with vandalism? Should you try and communicate with the local authority? If so, who and how can you best get hold of them? How do ensure a garden continues to thrive after it’s established?  Other resources and people doing good work in this area About Ellen Miles Ellen Miles is an author and activist rooting for nature in urban neighbourhoods. She founded Nature is a Human Right and edited the acclaimed anthology of essays inspired by the campaign (Nature is a Human Right: Why we're fighting for green in a grey world, DK, 2022). Ellen also runs Dream Green, a social enterprise that helps people get guerrilla gardening with guides, grants, and workshops. Get Guerrilla Gardening is a joyful handbook – packed with illustrated 'how to's, inspiring stories, and photos of vibrant transformations – demystifies the art and science of planting in public places. With no prior gardening knowledge required, Get Guerrilla Gardening guides you through a straightforward, flexible action plan to suit your aims and abilities, covering everything from the legalities of guerrilla gardening, to how to choose the right plants for your patch. Links Get Guerrilla Gardening by Ellen Miles Ellen on Instagram Other episodes if you liked this one: Public Green Spaces with Neil Sinden of CPRE Ecological Gardens with Sid Hill Patreon

My guest this week is gardener Benny Hawksbee. Benny has a background in biology and gardens with one eye on biodiversity. His projects include the Eden Nature Garden, a community garden designed to be a haven for people and wildlife, and John Little’s garden in Essex.  We talk about how Benny brings biology and ecology into his work, what we can all do to garden for wildlife whilst reducing our input in terms of resources and how we can involve the community in building and using gardens that work for everyone.  Dr Ian Bedford’s Bug of the Week: Broad bean pests What We Talk About  Benny’s professional background and how he got into horticulture The Eden Nature Garden How Benny brings biology & ecology into his work Gardening on a low budget and with low resource availability, such as the absence of running water and electricity Going against the horticultural rule book Bees - native species and honeybees The importance of community involvement in public gardens The future of gardening in the UK Links www.edennaturegarden.org www.hawksbeegardening.com Benny on Instagram  London Natural History Society UK Bees, wasps, ants recording society Other episodes if you liked this one: John Little Nature from the Rubble Patreon

This episode goes out in celebration of The Chelsea Fringe. The Fringe is an annual event which runs concurrently to the RHS Chelsea Flower Show and celebrates everything alternative in horticulture. And this episode is certainly alternative! It was intended to be an AMA (Ask Me Anything) episode but quickly evolved into a general chat with my host this week, Jake Rayson. We then moved on to talk about a new initiative I’m launching. The idea is in its embryonic stage and I have no idea how it’s going to develop, but listen on for some more info.  Thank you very much Jake for being a friend, stand-in host and long-term supporter of Roots and All. Please check out the links to Jake’s work below.  Links Jake made a handy list of free resources, NBN Atlas and GBIF his latest faves, quite amazing.  And he's available for wildlife forest garden design work, remote sites a speciality. Here's his portfolio Here's Jake's Garden Wild Spreadsheet Other episodes if you liked this one: The Chelsea Fringe with Tim Richardson Introduction to Forest Gardening with Jake Rayson Patreon Custom permalink

This episode features writer, garden historian and returning guest Caroline Ball. In eighteenth-century Bavaria a prosperous apothecary, Johann Wilhelm Weinmann began an extraordinary project, the compilation of an A to Z of plants, meticulously documented, and lavishly illustrated by botanical artists using the latest colour-printing methods of the time. He aimed to include thousands of plants from all over the world, describing their individual characteristics and commissioning magnificent colour illustrations of each specimen. The first complete volume of the Phytanthoza Iconographia, as he called it, was published in 1737 and the work grew to four immense tomes. The Iconographia gives an unparalleled view of the ornamental and useful plants that were known to botanists and gardeners in the early eighteenth-century. Caroline has written two books, A Splendour of Succulents & Cacti and A Cornucopia of Fruit & Vegetables, which document how this piece of work came to be collated and which reproduce many of the amazing images featured within.  Dr Ian Bedford’s Bug of the Week: Butterfly Tongues & Buddleia What We Talk About  Johann Wilhelmina Weinmann and his Phytanthoza Iconographia  Where Weinmann sourced the plants that were included The painters who documented the specimens Historical plant pots How the work was reproduced Matching the plants depicted to contemporary specimens Are historical botanical texts merely a curiosity, or can they inform our knowledge of horticulture in the present day? Some of the more surprising medicinal uses for plants that are documented in the book About Caroline Ball & the Phytanthoza Iconagraphia In eighteenth-century Bavaria a prosperous apothecary, Johann Wilhelm Weinmann, grew an ‘American aloe’ that astounded all who saw it. He was also the mastermind behind an extraordinary project - a comprehensive A to Z of plants, meticulously documented, and lavishly illustrated by botanical artists using the latest colour-printing methods of the time. Weinmann aimed to include thousands of plants from all over the world, describing their individual characteristics and commissioning magnificent colour illustrations of each specimen. The first complete volume of the Phytanthoza Iconographia, as he called it, was published in 1737 and the work grew to four immense tomes. The Iconographia gives an unparalleled view of the ornamental and useful plants that were known to botanists and gardeners in the early eighteenth-century. Caroline Ball is an editor, copywriter and occasional translator who has written on many subjects, but has a particular interest in horticulture, garden history and plant-hunters. She is also a keen gardener. Caroline’s books A Splendour of Succulents & Cacti and A Cornucopia of Fruit & Vegetables feature illustrations from an eighteenth-century botanical treasury, celebrating Weinmann’s rare and precious volumes by theme.  Links A Splendour of Succulents & Cacti A Cornucopia of Fruit & Vegetables: Illustrations from an eighteenth-century botanical treasury Members of the public can explore the collections via the Bodleian’s online image portal here. digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk Other episodes if you liked this one: Heritage Apples with Caroline Ball Herbs with the Herb Society Patreon

This week, my guest is Dr Neil Bell, bryologist at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh and author of The Hidden World of Mosses, which takes a look into the minute and fascinating world of bryophytes.  If you’ve ever wanted to know how these plants live and reproduce, whether you can cultivate moss indoors or outdoors, what that green stuff is you find on the surface of potted plant’s compost and whether you should take it off, the environmental and habitat value of mosses and how they are affected by the moon, listen on… Dr Ian Bedford’s Bug of the Week: Tardegrades What We Talk About  What is moss? How is it different to other plants?  Liverworts and hornworts How mosses reproduce Moss species in the UK Cultivating mosses in a garden or as a houseplant Liverworts growing on the surface of potted plants Is there a place for mosses on brownfield sites? Do all mosses need shade and moisture?  How mosses take in nutrients and attach to structures The role mosses play in the environment in terms of water attenuation and conservation, and as habitats for other creatures Sphagnum bogs as a ‘potential positive feedback loop’ for climate change and what can be done about this The connection between sphagnum moss and the moon How you can better see mosses, to explore what they look like in detail and appreciate them About The Hidden World of Mosses Did you know that there are nearly 20,000 different species of mosses and their relatives worldwide with over 1000 in the UK? And did you know that Sphagnum moss is almost wholly responsible for the creation and maintenance of peat bogs, preventing harmful carbon from being released into the atmosphere? The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh has published The Hidden World of Mosses, providing an accessible guide to these not-so-humble botanical gems. Written by bryologist Dr Neil Bell, the book presents information about these incredible plants, exploring their tiny, intriguing and diverse environments in detail. This fascinating book also contains hundreds of stunning photographs which reveal the beauty and splendour of moss. Perhaps the most misunderstood and misrepresented of all groups of organisms, moss is often thought of as unattractive and unremarkable, but nothing could be further from the truth. Mosses and their relatives (liverworts and hornworts) are found in almost every part of the world, from lush forests to rocky mountains tops and from city centres in the tropics to Antarctic tundra. Mosses are critical to the planet - if they ceased to exist tomorrow the world would be in a lot of trouble.  Examining the many different types of moss, including those found in the UK and internationally, The Hidden World of Mosses explores the incredible environments of these plants that form their own miniature forests filled with grazers and predators, and have their own ecological norms and mechanics. They play a critical role in climate change prevention and have an extraordinary ability to hold and control water in forests, uplands and valleys.  Incredibly, some mosses can hold more than 20 times their own weight in water. Peat mosses (Sphagnum) are almost entirely responsible for creating and maintaining peat, which is a traditional fuel and used for the flavour it imparts to many whiskies. Sphagnum moss keeps the soil in which it grows permanently wet, largely preventing decomposition.Interestingly, Sphagnum moss has also been used by medics over the centuries. Due to its absorbent and antiseptic properties, it was used as a cheaper alternative to cotton wool dressings in World Wars One and Two, and has been used to treat wounds for many years.  On tropical mountains, mosses prevent flooding by capturing large amounts of water, gently controlling the flow of heavy rainfall, absorbing it like a giant sponge and then slowly letting it out again into rivers in a regulated manner. Additionally, mosses offer hunting grounds, protection and food for a host of much smaller creatures such as worms, mites, spiders and beetles, who use moss as a place to shelter, graze, or reproduce.  Speaking about the publication of The Hidden World of Mosses, Neil Bell said, “Mosses are just a little smaller than most things we deal with in our everyday lives, so we tend not to notice their intricate beauty and how different they are from each other unless we make the effort to look really closely. Mosses and their relatives have evolved to live in a different way from other plants, playing a critical role in the environment that other plants can’t, and the mosses and liverworts we have in Scotland are of international significance - far more so than our other native plants, in fact. We need to recognise that and protect them. I hope that this book will raise awareness of this hidden botanical world and encourage more people to explore it .” Dr Neil Bell is a bryologist at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh.  Much of his research is focused on quantifying, understanding and promoting Scotland’s globally important bryophyte flora, of which mosses are part.  Neil is also editor-in-chief of the Journal of Bryology.  This year, the British Bryology Society celebrates its centenary.  The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh is one of the world’s leading scientific botanic gardens, holding knowledge gained over centuries that the world needs today.  All known life depends on plants and fungi. The Garden’s mission is to explore, conserve and explain the world of plants for a better future. We all know biodiversity loss and climate change is threatening thousands of plants with extinction. Through cutting edge science, conservation and education, the organisation is helping to save them.  Its four Scottish gardens – Benmore, Dawyk, Logan and ‘The Botanics’ in Edinburgh – attract over a million visitors every year. Together, these gardens comprise one of the richest plant collections on earth. As a registered Scottish charity, the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh is funded principally by the Scottish Government – but as an organisation, it is very much global, taking positive action for plants and people around the world – from local communities in Scotland, to over 40 countries overseas. Links The Hidden World of Mosses by Dr Neil Bell    www.britishbryologicalsociety.org.uk Other episodes if you liked this one: Lichen Mycorrhizal Fungi with Jeff Lowenfels Patreon