A Way To Garden

creative uses of woody plants, with stoneleigh’s ethan kauffman

Margaret — Fri, 16 Oct 2026 18:48:37 +0000

THERE’S POWER in numbers. That’s what the horticulture team at Stoneleigh, the historic estate turned native-focused public garden in Villanova, Pa., seems to be demonstrating time and again with its highly creative approach to using woody plants. Yes, planting a sumac or a viburnum shrub will attract hungry birds in fall. But what if you combined 10 carefully selected species of fruiting shrubs into swaths of songbird thickets, as Stoneleigh has been doing, offering not just a fall feast here and there, but cover and nesting habitat, too? Elsewhere, hedges and trees are paired with vines to up the beauty and the diversity within their shared footprint—and certain shrubs are planted not one to a hole but as strategically designed clump plantings, with three closely related bare-root specimens positioned together to grow into one mass that shows off all of their slightly different features. Stoneleigh’s director, Ethan Kauffman, and I talked about songbird thickets and clump plantings and other imaginative ways the gardeners there are using native trees, shrubs and vines and that we can, too. Stoneleigh opened its gates in May 2018 as a project of the nonprofit conservation organization called Natural Lands. Rather than being daunted by the […]

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a closer look at caterpillars, with sam jaffe of the caterpillar lab

Margaret — Fri, 09 Oct 2026 19:52:31 +0000

‘WE’RE SO GOOD at pretending the things around us are known and boring, or imagining that the worthwhile things are far away,” says Sam Jaffe, at the start of the documentary film “The Extraordinary Caterpillar.” Sam begs to differ, however, and in the film, as in his work as founder of The Caterpillar Lab, a non-profit educational and research organization, he shows us just how extraordinary—and essential to all of us—they are, and how a diversity of them are right there to discover in our own backyards. It’s a good time of year to focus on caterpillars, as we gardeners make decisions each fall that can support—or threaten—their survival over winter, and so that’s what I did recently: talk caterpillars, with Sam. Plus: With Sam, and Homegrown National Park’s Doug Tallamy, and other caterpillar experts featured in the film, I’m moderating a webinar conversation on Weds. Oct. 14 at noon Eastern—and if you sign up you’ll receive a limited-time link to watch the film in the days leading up to the event. All the registration details are here; how you can host a private group screening is detailed at this link. Drawing on his education in ecology and evolutionary biology […]

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moments of garden awe, with nancy lawson, the humane gardener

Margaret — Fri, 02 Oct 2026 18:55:15 +0000

ONE LATE-AUGUST DAY, Nancy Lawson—or “The Humane Gardener,” as she is perhaps better known—was making a video about a spicebush swallowtail butterfly when something just beyond it in her Maryland yard caught her eye. A green heron was visiting a small pond Nancy had created not long ago—her first such encounter with the bird. (That’s one of her backyard ponds, above.) When I saw that video on Instagram it made me think of the late-March morning when I’d stood up from my desk and the familiar view into the backyard included something very unfamiliar bobbing around my own little water garden: a pair of wood ducks. Every day in the garden is loaded with the potential for such surprises, and the resulting sense of awe. Nancy is here today to talk about some of the wonders large and ever-so-small we have each been privileged to witness, and some of the garden-management tactics we use that increase the chances of such encounters by welcoming more life to the garden. Nancy Lawson is the author of “The Humane Gardener,” a naturalist and habitat consultant based in Maryland. Nancy promotes animal-friendly planting strategies, and in another of her books, called “Wildscape,” she challenged […]

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