Episodes

  • Tomatoes With Craig LeHoullier-A Way to Garden With Margaret Roach February 28, 2022
    Feb 26 2022

    Sick of winter? What I find helps, besides the occasional warmish, sunny day, is thinking about tomatoes. And that's what we're going to do today with Craig LeHoullier, author of the hit 2014 book “Epic Tomatoes,” who has over the years grown some 3,000 varieties in his home garden and adds new ones to his list every year

    Craig, who gardens in North Carolina, is a retired chemist with a longtime passion for tomatoes. He's the co-founder of the Dwarf Tomato Project, an advisor on tomatoes to Seed Savers Exchange, and the person who in 1990 named the popular heirloom Cherokee Purple from seed that had been passed down and eventually made its way to him. 

    Show more Show less
    26 mins
  • Welcoming Bluebirds With Julie Zickefoose - A Way to Garden With Margaret Roach - February 24, 2025
    Feb 21 2025
    The sight of Eastern bluebirds rates high on my happiness scale, so I say bring them on. But what makes a place look like inviting habitat to these charismatic birds, encouraging them to maybe stick around during breeding season? And if your site meets with their approval, and a pair perhaps shacks up in a nest box you provided, how can you then be a good bluebird landlord? Those and other bluebird-centric questions are today’s topic with expert birder Julie Zickefoose, a writer, artist, naturalist and wildlife rehabilitator who lives on an 80-acre wildlife sanctuary in the Appalachian foothills of... Read More ›
    Show more Show less
    28 mins
  • Tomatoes With Craig LeHoullier-A Way to Garden With Margaret Roach February 28, 2022
    Feb 26 2022

    Sick of winter? What I find helps, besides the occasional warmish, sunny day, is thinking about tomatoes. And that's what we're going to do today with Craig LeHoullier, author of the hit 2014 book “Epic Tomatoes,” who has over the years grown some 3,000 varieties in his home garden and adds new ones to his list every year

    Craig, who gardens in North Carolina, is a retired chemist with a longtime passion for tomatoes. He's the co-founder of the Dwarf Tomato Project, an advisor on tomatoes to Seed Savers Exchange, and the person who in 1990 named the popular heirloom Cherokee Purple from seed that had been passed down and eventually made its way to him. 

    Show more Show less
    26 mins
  • Ironweeds, with Sam Hoadley - A Way to Garden with Margaret Roach - Feb. 17, 2025
    Feb 14 2025
    One of the tallest perennials in my garden is New York ironweed, Vernonia noveboracensis, but basically my knowledge of the genus starts and ends there. Or at least it did until just recently, when Mt. Cuba Center, the renown native plant garden and research institution, published the results of its four-year trial of a range of ironweeds—powerful plants that pollinators love…and deer generally don’t. Sam Hoadley, the manager of horticultural research at Mt. Cuba Center in Delaware, returns to the program today to talk about what he and the team there learned in their multi-year trial of the plants called... Read More ›
    Show more Show less
    28 mins
  • Seed Exchange With Josie Flatgard A Way to Garden With Margaret Roach - Feb. 10, 2025
    Feb 7 2025
    You probably know the popular Seed Savers Exchange catalog, which this year features 600 varieties of seed to choose from, and supports the beloved nonprofit preservation organization, which in 2025 is turning 50 years old. But maybe you haven’t clicked around in Seed Savers’ online seed swap that’s simply called The Exchange, where homegrown open-pollinated seed for more than 14,000 unique varieties is offered this year—some of it from Seed Savers’ own vast collection, and others from hundreds of individual gardeners all over the country. It’s the ultimate seed rabbit hole for keen gardeners to explore, and then some. The... Read More ›
    Show more Show less
    27 mins
  • Editing and Dividing Perennials With Toshi Yano - A Way to Garden With Margaret Roach August 23, 2021
    Aug 20 2021
    Maybe you, like I do, have certain perennial beds that could use editing and some particular plants that need dividing in the process. That’s just one focus of today’s guest, Toshi Yano, in his role as director of horticulture at Wethersfield, a former private estate turned public garden in the Hudson Valley of New York, He’ll tell us the how-to, and also about visiting this special place.  Toshi Yano Toshi is in his third year as director of horticulture at the former estate called Wethersfield garden in Dutchess County, New York, with its 3-acre formal gardens plus 7 acres of wilderness garden and commanding views of the Catskills and Berkshire Mountains.  Toshi and his team are bringing the gardens back to life, and he told me about the place, and specifically about the tasks of editing and dividing that every perennial gardener needs to do, whatever their garden scale. 
    Show more Show less
    26 mins
  • Garden Rituals With Matt Mattus - A Way to Garden With Margaret Roach - Feb. 3, 2025
    Jan 31 2025
    Have you ever replied, “I don’t know; that’s just the way I’ve always done it” when someone asked why you performed a certain garden task in a particular way? Sometimes we stay stuck even when there’s evidence there’s a newer, better version to try. Old habits die hard. Here’s how one friend—today’s guest, Matt Mattus–explained it in a recent social media post that caught my eye: He wrote: “It’s hard to change, especially when a method becomes a nostalgic ritual.” Indeed. Matt’s here today to talk about some of our nostalgic rituals that we cling to, and others we’ve surrendered in... Read More ›
    Show more Show less
    27 mins
  • Snapdragons With Joseph Tychonievich - A Way to Garden With Margaret Roach - Jan. 27, 2025
    Jan 24 2025
    Anybody in the mood for something just plain pretty at the moment, something to search the seed catalogs for, choosing among the many wildly colorful varieties, and then get ready to sow? Something hopeful and bright? Me too! After I saw a photo of a bed of snapdragons the other day from last year’s garden of today’s guest, I thought they might just be the thing to bring us all some delight, so Joseph Tychonievich is here to entice us further and tell us how. Joseph Tychonievich is a writer, a plant breeder and of course a gardener—and the creator... Read More ›
    Show more Show less
    28 mins