My guest today is Amy Martin, a writer and researcher from Dallas who is currently compiling a biography on Texas environmentalist Ned Fritz. Now, you may be asking, who the heck is Ned Fritz? And I was right there with you up until last spring when I read his book Realms of Beauty, about the Wilderness Areas of east Texas. His writing was witty and was so relevant to today that I was sad to see that Ned had passed away in 2008 after a half century or more of environmental activism in Texas, for places and things you may or may not have heard of. I heard Amy Martin give a talk to the Dallas Sierra Club back in January and knew I needed to interview her for the podcast. More people need to know about Ned Fritz and what he stood for, how much he fought to protect Texas land and water and why we need more Ned Fritz’ more than ever.
Way back in 2018 I had today’s guest on to talk about his book, A New Garden Ethic. Today Benjamin Vogt is back on the podcast to talk about his latest book, Prairie Up: An Introduction to Natural Garden Design. A lot has changed in the last five years in regard to native plants in gardening and I think Benjamin has driven some of that change. Prairie Up is the garden design book that many of us have been looking for. An approach for native plant enthusiasts that is both attainable and manageable, contrary to so many other beautiful garden design books out there. As you’ll hear me say in the interview, the book blew away my expectations and I think even the most experienced native plant gardener will be able to find something to take away from both the book and the conversation.
Today’s guest is Michelle Lay, a native plant gardener in Austin, Texas. Michelle and I have been Instagram acquaintances and friends over the last few years and I’ve enjoyed seeing her central Texas native plant garden evolve. Michelle has the same passion for conversation and protection of the environment that I do and we talk a lot about that in our conversation. We chat native plants, the Native Plant Society of Texas, the sadness that comes with seeing our open spaces bulldozed for development, and Michelle’s own recent experiences rescuing plants from a development. We pack a lot into the episode and there’s a lot to learn!
Happy 2023 everyone! Spring is trying to spring here but like every year in Texas we brace ourselves for a surprise freeze in February, so I’m not getting too antsy about the growing season yet. But almost!
Today’s episode is a fun one and a little bit different than how I normally conduct a podcast. I was feeling overwhelmed from some other projects and not in the mood for my usual interview style episodes and opted to be a bit more relaxed with this one with an Instagram friend, Bonnie Semmling. You may know her over there as @Bonntany and she always shares wonderful botanical finds from her home state of New Jersey and anywhere else she travels. I’ve learned a lot from her over the last couple of years and know I will be learning a lot from her in the coming years!
Bonnie works in an herbarium and it’s a subject I’m fascinated by and so we talk about that, how she got into botany as a career, and her recent travels to Texas. We got deep a few times on issues like plant blindness, conservation measures in both states and throughout the country…it’s a great conversation and I had fun chatting with Bonnie! Plus, I now have some plants to go look for!
I’m a voracious reader and read anything from paper books to kindle books and listen to my share of audiobooks. Rather than list the abundant garden and natural history books I read this year I summarized my two favorites in this podcast: Saving the Wild South by Georgann Eubanks and The Natural Habitat Garden by Ken Druse. One is a classic that is still very relevant and the other is new but is an instant classic. Let me know what you read this year!
This episode is more or less a recording of a blog post I wrote a few weeks ago regarding the stark divide in native plant media versus what is available for sale in the nursery industry. A summary of the issues…
The Issues at Hand
A diverse and locally native plant landscape for the home gardener is not easily within reach to the majority of home gardeners.
Nursery stock to create a diverse home landscape for gardeners on the scale touted by native plant enthusiasts doesn’t exist and is consistently unsupported by the horticulture industry.
Most homeowners will never delve into gardening, native or otherwise.
Gardeners should be intensely focusing on preserving large, existing tracts of undeveloped land within the suburban/urban/wildland interfaces to counteract the shortcomings of native plant home landscapes.
Today’s episode is one I have been wanting to make for quite a while and I’m glad it finally happened—an interview with Leah Churner and Colleen Dieter from The Horticulturati, a garden and horticulture podcast based out of Austin, Texas. Leah and Colleen are both garden designers with extensive knowledge of the garden industry in and around Austin and produce what I find to be the most delightful garden podcast out there! It certainly isn’t a podcast only for gardeners in Austin or Texas because Leah and Colleen tackle issues in the industry from their most recent episode about problematic common plant names to Ammonium Nitrate and well beyond all of those topics. They make you think, laugh, and inquire more about the gardening life you lead.
This is a longer episode than my usual podcast episodes but I hope that it gives you great insight into who each of them are and entices you to check out their podcast and hit subscribe.
Today’s guest is Haeley Giambalvo from San Antonio, Texas. You may know her on Instagram as the person behind Native Backyards, the highly informative account that features native plants and native plant gardening advice focused on Texas. I have loved what Haeley has been doing since the very start of her account and have admired the effort she has put into the outreach and advocacy for native plants on her account. In addition, she has a website that delves into all this even more, complete with resources on where to find native plants in your region.
In our conversation we talk about her entry to gardening with native plants, how and why she began the Native Backyards platform, and some of her favorite native plants to garden with. There’s a lot to learn from Haeley!
Welcome to the Garden Path Podcast, Life Lessons and Conversations from the natural world. I’m your host Misti Little.
Back in the 6th grade I was introduced to the world of art via an elective in middle school. I had played the oboe in the band for my first semester in middle school but after deciding that buying double reeds every few months was going to get expensive, and the fact I wasn’t that interested in practicing, I switched my elective to art the following semester. I was hooked from the get-go, with the wonderful Mrs. Walker, my art teacher who taught us about pointillism and expressionism and everyone before and art as we made our own art that year. I loved it so much I continued on with it every year in middle school and eventually submitted my portfolio to be judged into the honors art program in highschool. Eventually I lettered in art my senior year but I knew that I struggled with the quality of my work because of that same pesky thing I had dealt with in band—the lack of practice! And if I thought double reeds were expensive, did you know how much good art supplies cost?
My life diverged from art when I went to college but much like my love for reading, I would find my way back to it now and again during those four years. I continued dabbling around with art after college and then with my own money and more free time I had the opportunity to study it for myself and play around with different media. In highschool I had loved mixed media, and I still do, but then I found myself in love with oil painting and soft pastels. It was easy to become a collector of art supplies with a discount coupon to Michaels and a keen eye for the clearance racks there! Watercolor was always a subject that seemed to defy me, though, and one in which I didn’t enjoy nearly as much as I did oils and acrylics. A loose pastel was about a free form as I wanted to be. But I still found myself drawn to watercolors.
Back in the 2000s I would pilfer through WetCanvas, an online forum for art enthusiasts, and through blogs, to gain inspiration. Both of those still exist but as Instagram took over our lives in social media I created a special account just for my art and to follow artists of interest. I originally became aware of nature journaling from my friend Kate Dolamore who was a guest in November 2019 on the podcast. I had always admired her art journals that she shared every month, which chronicled the nature she saw while hiking. And she’s such a talented watercolorist that it made me intrigued to find out if I could master watercolors for myself.
Sometime in the spring of 2021 I started following more watercolorists and nature journalers on my Instagram account and then later that summer I found the most delightful podcast called Journaling with Nature. I devoured the episodes from Australian Bethann Burton and really began diving into what the world of nature journaling was all about. A lot of nature journalers work in watercolor but a fair number use pen and ink or brush pens to accomplish their artwork. And I had always loved the idea of actually completing a full sketchbook. I had several half completed sketchbooks but never a full one.
Finally, I decided to commit to it. A real nature journal for myself, which I started in September of 2021. So, what is nature journaling you ask?
It sounds simple, and it is—but there are many variations, but the most important part is to make it your own. In a blog post from the International Nature Journaling Week, also created by Bethann Burton, “Nature journaling is the practice of drawing or writing in response to nature”. In other words, we sit, observe, draw, and make notes on what we experience in nature. There are so many things to tell you about nature journaling so I will start by talking about my own nature journaling this last year and then delve into the who’s who of nature journaling and how you can get started on your own.
When we moved into our house we started keeping a small notebook for noting interesting animal sightings. We kept track of it for a while, or rather my husband did, but it did fall by the wayside. And then several years ago I heard on Margaret Roach’s podcast an interview about the Naturalist’s Notebook, a way to write down and observe nature for yourself in a 5-year perpetual calendar sort of way. Unfortunately during this last year I found that I was tired of dealing with the small note spacing for each day and that I really was bad about keeping up with it! That book is actually very interesting in other aspects because the authors do provide many tidbits about noticing nature that you can easily incorporate into your own nature journal, but again, the spacing and writing only portion didn’t work for me. Plus, as an avid blogger, my blog posts are almost my archive for observations. I don’t blog nearly as much as I used to but that is still a valuable source of information. Maybe someday I will do something with those posts.
Which is where nature journaling came into play. I wanted to work on a sketchbook habit and also wanted to document the nature around me and I came up with a plan. I set up an Arteza watercolor sketchbook, an 8.25×8.25 sized journal, I’ll put the link in the show notes for you, as it provided enough pages for me to set up one week for each page and then have a few extra pages later for notes or watercolor swatches or whatever. It also has a handy clear pocket on the inside back for any ephemera you may want to put in there. I have some extra pages left at the end and am using it for yearly reflection notes but you could also use it for paint swatches or to draw other things that you may not want to put on the main pages.
A year into this I am realizing that you can be as flexible as you want to be with it. My goal is to just start creating a practice so that means I am often drawing from photos I took during the week and not out in nature itself. I don’t always have the time to sit and paint something for thirty or 45 minutes so sometimes it is easier to do it when I have the time later. I also keep my note taking to a minimum, mainly noting the plant or animal I painted and a short sentence about it. Many nature journalers get more detailed in their note taking, including weather, wind patterns, detailed notes on the subject they are studying. It really does vary.
As I mentioned, the medium involved can be dependent on personal preferences and I chose watercolor to strengthen my watercolor skills. But people use pen and ink, pencil, or markers. If you choose watercolors I suggest using something other than a beginner set. I originally began using a Winsor and Newton Cotman set but overtime I realized I didn’t really like the way the paint was working on the paper. I have since broadened out into the Art Philosophy watercolor sets as there are many different pallets and they are affordably priced. A bit better than beginner paints, they won’t break your budget as some more professional grade paints might. I definitely enjoy them, though they do have their limits, too. I also have some tubes of Daniel Smith watercolors, a professional line, and enjoy those as well. Over this year I have found that working from photographs worked best but hope that this coming year I can find time to get outside and work in the journal from nature more often!
Earlier I mentioned Bethann Burton and her podcast but there is a wide world of nature journalers out there to gain inspiration from. The biggest name is probably John Muir Laws, a naturalist and educator who has written countless books, both on nature journaling and field guides, and teaches classes both online and in person throughout the year. I highly recommend diving into his YouTube channel for a trove of information he has to offer! He has also done a podcast series with artist Danny Gregory this last year, the Art for All podcast. Danny is also someone you should check out if you are at all interested in keeping a sketchbook beyond a nature journal. Also on YouTube and through a newsletter, I like to catch Marley Pefier’s videos when they are out.
In book land, Clare Walker Leslie is hailed as the go-to, along with John Muir Laws, for nature journaling. While I have not read any of her books I have heard countless people on podcasts talk about her so I know she is someone worth reading and learning from. There really are so many wonderful people doing great nature journaling work out there! I’ll share a list of them in the show notes so that you can check them out!
One thing I enjoyed noticing this year was realizing that the cardinal flowers were about to bloom when I flipped back to the first entry from last year, the first week of September. It was a fantastic reminder that the seasons change and everything has its season and we get a chance to enjoy it again. Documenting it in photographs is one thing but taking the time to put it down on paper and write a little bit about it commits that moment to memory, possibly more than it would have if you had snapped a photo on the go.
So, I encourage you to start your own nature journal or at least start sketching here and there what is going on in nature around you. You don’t need to wait for the right moment or for a few year to begin. I started mine in September last year! And life isn’t always favorable for keeping up with it, that’s why it is so easy to look at a photo a few weeks later to catch up.
I’ll share a few entries of my own journal on the show notes for the podcast along with the links that I mentioned above at thegardenpathpodcast.com If you want to chat about nature journaling or have questions, feel free to email me at thegardenpathpodcast at gmail.com
That’s it for the episode, I hope it inspired you just a little bit! Thanks for listening and happy gardening
