Rethinking Our Gardens

In April 2020, I had the privilege of interviewing for my podcast, Growing Greener, Uli Lorimer, the Director of Horticulture for Native Plant Trust in Framingham, Mass. In a former professional incarnation, Uli was the horticulturist who expanded the Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s Native Flora Garden into a habitat-themed, world-class display. Uli was telling me about the Native Plant Trust’s practice of growing genetically diverse plants from locally sourced, wild-collected seed. I contrasted that with the push by the commercial nursery industry to transform native plants into vegetatively propagated, compact clones of no particular provenance.

Uli pointed out that the nurseries are merely supplying what they believe the