Roots and All - Gardening Podcast

This episode I'm speaking with Seb Stroud. Seb is based at Leeds University and is part of the Ecology & Evolution Group, where his research looks at many different topics including botany, freshwater ecology, ecosystem structures and urban landscapes. He recently co-authored a research paper which looks at the state of botanical education and that's what I was particularly interested in chatting about today. Dr Ian Bedford's Bug of the Week: Woolly Aphids What We Talk About What is the extinction of botanical education? Why is it happening? The effects of losing our tradition of botanical education Plant blindness The UN's sustainable development goals and future funding The impact of botanical education extinction on climate change, food security and our economy What is actually being done about it? Natural history GCSE Equity and accessibility in environmental education The UK as a nation of gardeners and nature lovers…? About Sebastian Stroud Links Botanical education paper Seb Stroud on Twitter Botanical University Challenge Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh RBGE's PropaGate Learning - Online Courses BSBI Kew's Grow Wild Botanists are Disappearing with Seb Stroud - The Conversation, July 2022 CW Studio Other episodes if you liked this one: Modern Plant Hunters The State of Horticulture Patreon

My guest this episode is urban smallholder Sara Ward. Sara runs Hen Corner, a backyard smallholding in London. Her website Hen Corner has a wealth of information on growing and making food, she runs courses, sells products from her bakery and has just published a book 'Living the Good Life in the City'. I began by asking Sara what prompted her to follow in the wellieprints of Barbara Good. Dr Ian Bedford's Bug of the Week: Gardening for Nature What We Talk About What prompted Sara to set up Hen Corner How much can you grow in your average urban garden? Keeping animals Getting rid of waste from the garden Preserving food Looking after things when you're away About Living the Good Life in the City Sara Ward has transformed her Victorian terraced house in London into an urban smallholding, 'Hen Corner', and in Living the Good Life in the City she shares some of the ways she and her family have brought city and country together, and shows that you, too, can make a difference to how you live and the food you eat. Divided into sections covering Make, Grow, Preserve, Keep and Celebrate, Living the Good Life in the City is packed full of recipes, stories, tips and tricks including baking bread, making your own jam, pasta, sausages and cheese, keeping bees and livestock, preserving, foraging, harvesting and celebrating with food. Links Living the Good Life in the City by Sara Ward - Pimpernel Press, July 2023 www.hencorner.com Digital Fuse Other episodes if you liked this one: Huw Richards on Veg Growing Food Forest in Your Garden with Alan Carter Patreon

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