choosing the right native plants, with uli lorimer

I HEAR MANY TIMES each week from readers or listeners wanting advice about native plants—about pollinator plants, for instance, or making a meadow, or which woodland wildflowers to plant and how to care for them. Uli Lorimer has extensive experience with all of the above, and says the way to get to know native plants is to spend time outside among them, to observe them in their natural context. An adventure in field botany, he says, can inform your practice of horticulture back in the home garden.Uli Lorimer has made a career of observing and working with natives. He was longtime curator of Native Flora Garden at Brooklyn Botanic Garden, and recently, became director of horticulture at Native Plant Trust, the new name of the former New England Wild Flower Society, America’s oldest plant conservation organization, founded in 1900.

We talked about matching plants to habitat, of course, but also why evaluating their habits–do they spread by rhizomes, or are they clumpers?–is key, too, among other considerations. Not all goldenrods (or milkweeds, or fill in the blank) are created equal).

Read along as you listen to the June 3, 2019 edition of my public-radio show and podcast using the player below. You can subscribe to all future editions on iTunes or Spotifyor Stitcher (and browse my archive of podcasts here).

getting to know native plants, with uli lorimer

Margaret Roach: Congratulations on your recent change of job, Uli, and-

Uli Lorimer: Thank you. Yes, it’s very, very exciting times.

Margaret: Before we go on kind of a virtual walk among the wildflowers together, tell us about the new job and the new name for the former New England Wild Flower Society.

Uli: Sure. The organization made the first moves to change the name a

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