Happy Father's Day and welcome to a new season!

We're joined today by Dr. Tjite deVries former head of Biology at La Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador. A long time friend of John & Susana's and one of the first scientists to be stationed in the Galapagos Islands studying birds. Listen in as he tells us of his history in Ecuador and biology.

Happy Father's Day everyone!  New Dad Chris Fehlhaber sits down with Uli Lorimer and Tim Johnson of the Native Plant Trust to talk about gardening and fatherhood and lessons learned along the way.

Today's episode is dedicated to John's Dad (Sam) who despite growing up during World War 2 and living in downtown Toledo, Ohio still managed to raise food for his family through always having a 'victory garden', a practice he carried on his entire life and passed on to his children teaching them the importance of being able to raise your own food. Tonight's guest; Maggie Stuckey has authored many books, but tonight, she and John will be discussing her latest; The Container Victory Garden which shows that even the smallest of gardens can be used wisely to help keep fresh foods within reach. We hope you enjoy.

Uli Lorimer is director of Horticulture at Garden In The Woods, in Framingham, Massachussettes. Previously, he was curator of Brooklyn Botanic Garden's Native Flora Garden until early 2019. The Delaware native grew up with an interest in all things green, and after receiving an honors degree from the University of Delaware in landscape horticulture, he moved to New York City to become the woodland gardener at Wave Hill. 

Wild Seed Project builds awareness of the vital importance of native plants and provides all people with the tools to restore biodiversity in their own communities. They equip community members, public officials and municipalities, and land-holding individuals and organizations – from farmers to land trusts – with the skills and resources they need to collectively repopulate landscapes with native plants that expand wildlife habitat, support biodiversity, and build climate resilience.

John sits down with legendary Landscape Designer Piet Oudolf and discusses his new book- 'at Work', landscape design, working with others and a few other topics. There are even a few dog stories.

Gardening Author and Landscape Designer Owen Wormser drops by to spread some wisdom on eliminating lawn and replacing it with habitat, just like he does in his book 'Lawns Into Meadows, Growing a Regenerative Landscape'

OK, so we're not the most organized people in the world- we're sorry. We originally spoke to Don last year, but in an unfortunate sorting incident, we lost the file for a time. We're very glad to have found it though as it is a wonderful piece of entertainment and education. Garden Designer Donald Pell is known for his use of native plants in the landscape and ecological approach to design, but it turns out he also enjoys a good laugh and a craft brew. Welcome to the show Don, we're happy to have you.

John & Susana team up to get us started this year by describing a pretty incredible trip to Ecuador over the winter where they visited Antisana and Chimborazo volcanos and the cloudy forest of Papallacta (pronounced- Papayakta). They also update us on co-hosts and joke around a bit while celebrating their 30th wedding anniversary. Thanks for joining us once again, we hope you'll enjoy another great season of the Native Plant Podcast.