Thinking out loud this week...

THE BOTANICAL JOURNEY & LEXICON OF A CARING PLANTSPERSON, with TIM JOHNSON, NATIVE PLANT TRUST

Thinking out loud about my conversation on Cultivating Place last with Tim Johnson, plantsman, family man, and CEO of the Native Plant Trust– here’s one of my favorite things Tim says in our more than hour long time together – and I loved so many of his insights about our growing world, but this one sticks:

“My greatest strength is I love learning. Why do I love gardening?

I love learning.

I try to grow something new every year." 

“My greatest strength is I love learning.

Why do I love gardening? I love learning.

I try to grow something new every year." 

(image above: Showy lady's-slipper (Cypripedium reginae) at Eshqua Bog Native Plant Sanctuary in Hartland, VT)

He goes on to talk about the work of the Native Plant Trust - at Garden in the Woods, at Nasami Farm - from plant research, to seed collecting, land stewarding, endangered plant conservation, invasive plants, and more. Native Plant Trust programs encompass so much work, which is wonderful! But we came back around to the humble gardeners in our midst and Tim, a gardener himself, offered this great note - which we put up as an audiogram over on CP’s Instagram page:

 “I want to put out a note of encouragement to gardeners or people just getting into gardening: sometimes [all of this technical information] can be overwhelming, and we could end up in situation where we are a little bit frozen and stop this beautiful journey that we call gardening, because they are afraid of doing damage or harm. I would say that I tend to take a long view of gardeners and that most of the gardeners I know eventually pretty naturally come around to an organic approach to gardening, and they pretty quickly connect the dots that its wonderful to have tomatoes and its wonderful to have peppers, but I also want to see native bees and I want to see butterflies and so I better supplement around the edges with native species. So I would encourage people that are on the path to continue on the path. From the Native Plant Trust’s perspectives there’s really just two things to NOT do: do not plant invasive species and do not use pesticides. Starting from there is a great base.”

So, among the many things Tim and his work help to grow are encouraged gardeners, and optimism in a world that needs it, and those are pretty great seeds.

May this be true of us all – stay on the path, enjoy the journey, plant good seeds, keep learning, keep growing….

(All photos courtesy of Tim Johnson and the Native Plant Trust, all rights reserved.)

And PS:

For all of you who have ever donated to or are among those cherished donors who give on a monthly basis to make Cultivating Place possible – and you really do make this work green and vibrant just as much as each week's guests do – I have some great news!

I have recently moved into a new chapter of my relationship with North State Public Radio and Capital Public Radio (their umbrella station) out of Sacramento. As a result, all of your donations large and small are now fully tax-deductible and go directly to the support of the public radio stations that fully support Cultivating Place.

I am thrilled and hope you are also to have such a quality community-oriented station with state-of-the-art capacity behind the production and distribution of Cultivating Place going forward. 

Thank you as always for all of your support – from listening to donating through

the links over at Cultivating Place.com – you grow Cultivating Place better!