This episode we're joined by Doug Talemey. He is the author of Nature's Best Hope, and he is joining us
this episode to talk about the new edition, the young readers edition. Welcome Doug.
Thank you, Kathy. Pleasure to be here. Great to have you. And I feel like just saying that
you're the author of Nature's Best Hope is not even giving you a tenth of your background and
all your expertise. So let's talk a little bit about you and how you came to write that book
and you're bringing nature home, nature's best hope, and the nature of Oaks. And we always
like to ask here on the Garden DC podcast Doug, were you born with chlorophyll in your veins and a green
thumb? No, but I was born with with nature in my veins. I was a typical little boy. I loved snakes and
turtles and I knew nothing about plants. So it was really, was the love of life that brought me to
plants eventually and that was through insects. But I didn't, I didn't meet insects until college
took a course at Entomology. But the love of nature and the interest in living things was there
right from birth. It was a good way to put it. And so we discovered Entomology in college. Was that just
a happen to be your science course that you took or did you choose that as your major? Well, I was a biology major
and the chairman of the department was Dr. Bugby, believe it or not, and he's a fourth and
in ecmology. So I had to take it. But it was, you know, I liked biology, but that it was extremely
interesting. And then I went on to grad school and biology. I mean, an Entomology. What got me to
you know, your original question, how did I end up writing these books was the year 2000, my wife,
and I moved into, it was a farm that had been broken up into ten acre lots and southeast Pennsylvania.
And it was completely overridden with invasive plants. And our goal was to restart it.
But one of the things that I noticed right away is that, you know, the local insects are not eating
these plants. And that led to research on what the impact of non-native plants was having on our
not just our natural systems from invasive plants. But we extended that into home gardens and the
managed landscapes, you know, about 85% of our plants are from some other continent. What is that
doing to local food webs? What is that doing to the little chicken eat that wants to breed in your yard?
And that has been the focus of my research ever since then. But one of the things I learned is that,
you know, the impact is huge. The problem is much bigger than I thought it was. And there's real urgency
because we're hearing, you know, we're getting these headlines, global insect decline and we've
lost 3 billion breeding birds in the last 50 years. And the US says we're going to lose a million
species in the next 20 years. These are disastrous things. And I guess the conclusion I've come to
is we can do something about it. Each homeowner, each gardener, each anybody who owns a piece of the earth can
do something about it by managing the life on their property. And that has been my message ever since.
Yeah, those are some alarming things you're talking about, Doug. And I'm glad you're the one
sounding that alarm, you're getting that message out. And before we dive into more of that message,
because our listeners are die hard gardeners, they want to know a little bit about what you're
growing and where you grow, maybe describe the soil in your zone and what you love to have in your
garden. Well, as I said, we're southeast Pennsylvania. So we're we're seven something. So I'm
going to keep changing all the time. Our soil is poor. My front yard is practically serpentine
barrens. The rest of the property is not so bad. So really what I'm guarding. What I'm growing is biodiversity.
And I'm using the native plants that create it. So I call our landscape a restoration as opposed to a
garden. I mean, yes, we are gardening the world. But we have restored the eastern deciduous forest
and some eastern meadow here. It's been it's been 22 years that we've been here and the restoration has
been enormously successful. So one of the things I've learned is you can put it back together again,
much easier than I thought and much faster than I thought. In terms of the plants that I favor,
it's the ones our research has shown support the most biodiversity. And that would, Oaks would be
number one. And we have the animal 12 species of Oaks here. What do plants are supporting more than
our basis plants? But we have what I call keystone plants. The ones that are creating most of the food
that supports most of the animal life. And in terms of just 14% of our native plants are doing
most of that work. They're supporting 90% of the food web. So I focus on those. But any plant that wants
to join our little ecosystem here is more than than welcome. Our biggest challenge is deer over a
abundance of deer because you know, I plant something and it's gone the next day and that's really,
really frustrating. So I was just going to say that deer is a four-letter word on this podcast.
We love them. They're beautiful creatures. But the destruction of especially our native forest is just rampant.
Yeah. That is for sure. The frustrating thing is we know how to control them. But that becomes a
sociological problem. Not a ecological one. We need permission to do that. It's a challenge. But
you know, the not controlling our deer has devastated the forest. It has devastated our ground biodiversity.
It's increased the challenge from invasive plants because the deer eat the natives and lead the
the non-natives and that shifts the competitive balance. Our natives are actually very competitive,
but not when they're eaten when they're two inches tall. So, and it's created the entire giant
line disease. I've had line disease five times. I get tired of that. And it's all because of over
abundance of deer. Wow. Yeah, sorry to hear about the line disease. That could be, you know,
really devastating. Yeah. I, unfortunately, I get all the symptoms. I get the big bulls eye
and I can treat it right away. And I haven't had any long-lasting problems. But there are a lot of
people that don't get the bull dyes bulls eye and then they don't know. And then when you don't treat it,
it's a real issue. Mm. Yeah. So, you know, be on the lookout for that bulls eye pattern,
cover up and wear long sleeves, long pants as much as you can out in the garden, especially in,
you know, shrubby type areas, right? Right. Right. And June may in June or the,
at least where where we live are the primary months of infectivity. You can get it anytime of the year.
But that's, that's by far when you have the most infected ticks out there. So be particularly vigilant
then and take it from an entomologist, right? You know what, I got a little hint here and you're not
hearing it from me. But if you get a deer tick and you pull it off, put knee a sporing on the site
immediately because it takes many hours for the burella of the, that's the Lyme disease infected agent
to actually get into your, your capillary system. So if you put knee a sporing on where the tick was,
it kills it before it gets into your blood and that is really effective. Believe it or not,
it's so easy. There's no downside to it. Okay. I am adding knee a sporing to my shopping list right now
and my medicine cabinet. And so going back to one of the things you said, Keystone species, I've heard
a little controversy about that. Can you talk about that a little bit? I don't know. What is the
controversy? I think people are saying that we're relying to heavily on Keystone species or that
it should be more of a diversity that might be some of the controversy behind it. Well first of all,
you want a diversity of Keystone species. When I say 14% of our native plants, that's still a lot of
plants. The reason I bring this up is that we have been, you know, we've always garden for aesthetics.
And then we have a switch towards native. We still are gardening for aesthetics and some of our most
beautiful natives are not the most productive in terms of supporting the food web. So my position has been
we the Keystone plants are the two by fours in the ecological house that you're building. And they're essential.
So once you went, because of the support system, you can't build a house out of wallpaper. But once you
have them, yes, you do want to diversify. Diversity is the key to stability. So I certainly don't,
you know, don't fight that at all. But there are people that, you know, they're very happy. They have
an IT in their yard and it supports some pollinators. It doesn't support a single caterpillar,
which means if that's all you have, you can't have any breeding birds because it takes thousands of
caterpillars to get one clutches to the point where they mature. So I'm just saying, let's add those
keystone plants. Any chance we get. But we're not, you know, I'm not against diversity either.
And I think one of your principles and nature's best hope was a mix. I think the percentage was
70% native 30% non-native correct. We, yes, correct. But that comes from one study from my PhD
student, Desiree Norengo. And it's the only study that has been done. And it was huge. It was a five-year
study, big NSF supported whole bunch of interns. That showed, you know, the question was, how well
does a landscape that's dominated by native plants, support, chickadee populations, compared to
a landscape dominated by non-native plants? And the results were that you actually can maintain a
food web capable of supporting breeding chickadees with as many as 30% of your plant biomass non-native.
But that's one bird, one study in one place. And I know it's been extrapolated. People all over
the country are saying, well, 70%, 70%, it's a good starting point. But it's definitely a case where
the more is better. But it did show. Yes, you, there is room for compromise. You can have your
crate mural. You can have your ganko. You know, we really can't tolerate any invasive plants because
they're just ecological tumors. They don't stay where we plant them and they multiply. But there's a lot
of ornamental cells that are not invasive. And it doesn't mean, you know, if we're going to
landscape for ecological function, we can have attractive plants from other places as a compromise.
But when they become dominant, then you really do lose the food web.
So I'm glad to hear. I don't have to throw out my beloved P&Es. And I just love that statistic,
the 73rd because it makes it accessible to the home gardener, the homeowner who's afraid of tearing
out everything and switching 100% to natives overnight. They feel like, you know, there's this
edict or this weight on their head to do it immediately and get that done. But I think a gradual transition
and that goal of 7030 makes it more doable. Right. And remember, it's 7030 biomass.
If you have one large oak tree in your yard, that's a lot of biomass. So it's not counting the number
of plants you have. It's the amount of biomass you have of those powerful natives versus other things.
So you actually could have more numbers of species of nonnatives as long as it's balanced by a
goodly biomass from the productive natives. I have four huge oaks on a tiny urban lot.
And I feel like that is 90% of my biomass. But that's right. Yeah. So I'm like, you know,
could fill in with other things, but I do grow a lot of natives. And some of those because we're
talking mainly to a minute-lantic audience, let's talk about some recommended species to add to your
garden that will support both those caterpillars and the birds that eat them. Right. Well,
all right. Let's move to herbaceous plants briefly. If you look at the plants that are best at supporting
pollinators and caterpillars, the number one in our area would be any one of the solid eggos that
golden rods support 110 species of caterpillars and they support a number of species of specialist bees.
If you're making a pollinator garden, you want to plant for the specialist bees. The bees that can only
reproduce on the pollen or particular plants. Because the general species can use those plants as well.
If you only plant for the general species, you lose all the specialists. And we got about 4,000
species of native bees in this country and over a thousand of them are specializing. We don't want to
lose those. So golden rods would be way up there. Our native asteris are way up there. Parennial sunflowers
are way up there. You have those three genera in your yard. There's up to 44 species of specialist
bees that can use your yard as a place to reproduce. That won't be there if you don't have those three types of
plants. And in the asteris, you're definitely talking about, of course, native asteris because there
are asteris all over the world. And what I love about those selection is they are late season bloomers.
So they really extend the bloom and perennials, of course.
But we can't ignore those early season bloomers. And of course, if you're focusing on pollinators,
red bud is an essential early season bloomer. Native willows. Native pussy willow.
You know, uh, sailor's discolor. They'll be coming out. Actually, if you're done in DC, they may be
at already. And they're a very important source for those first season bees.
And I mentioned Oak's earlier is being the best in terms of making caterpillars. And they are.
They support more than 950 species of caterpillars nationwide. But even though they're wind pollinated,
they also help the pollinators. Those male cackens hang down and loaded with pollim. And if you
get your binoculars out and just train it on some of those cackens, you'll see the native bees are
going there and removing the pollin. All day long. Now they're not pollinating because they're not
moving into the female flowers of the oaks. But they are, oh, our supporting our pollinators. So
it's another benefit of those plants. Well, that makes me feel better dug about, I called them
the tumbleweeds that fall when all those cackens go down. And your garden is just covered in this,
these brown balls of the late cackens. But they're fun to mulch with and to add to your compost pile.
And to fill up your gutters, I know. Yes. That as well. Yeah, don't park under
Oak tree at that point in this season. Yeah. It's kind of like, you know, a shaggy rain at that point.
Yes, that and then the yellow pollen that falls from the pines.
That's all part of life. It's there pluses and minuses and there's some things we have to put up with.
But this is another important message that I keep trying to get out is that nature's not optional.
And there are some downsides. But it is what keeps us alive in this planet. And we have to landscape
in a way that supports it for our own good. And if that means a grins on the ground some time or pollen on
our windshield, that's okay. I like to compare it to telephone poles. You know, telephone poles bring
me a selector city. There ugly as in and nobody ever complains. Nobody ever says, I don't like them. I'm
going to go, I'm going to go chainsaw them down because we know they're absolutely necessary. And
there are parts of nature that are absolutely necessary as well that we just have to start accepting instead of
just saying we're going to remove all of it. I love that nature is not optional. And so in the new version of
nature's best hope, which is directed at young readers, what is the age group and why did you feel the
necessity of coming up with the second version aimed at younger readers? Well, the age group is
hard to say because the kids differ so much in their reading abilities. But I would say 8 to 12.
But it's probably the target middle schoolish. Some of it is written a little bit younger than that.
But when you get above that, the original version of nature's best hope is not over their heads.
Why do we want to do this? Because the kids on this planet are the future stewards of that planet.
And right now they are so disconnected from nature. And if you listen to the media when it talks about
nature, it's almost all negative. If you go outside, you're going to, you know, mosquitoes are going to kill you.
Something terrible will happen. And it's just a big turn off for our kids. So the message has been,
you have to fear nature. Stay away from it. You know, screen time is what life is all about.
And yet these are going to be the future stewards of our planet. So the message in nature's best hope is no.
You are nature's best hope. And if you buy into the fact that nature's not optional, that means it is,
it is you who's going to take care of this planet. And not only are you going to take care of the planet,
it is your responsibility to do that. Because we all need healthy ecosystems. Every one of us has
a responsibility to take care of this as ecosystem. Not just the treehaggers, not just a few ecologists.
And that's a message I want to get, you know, I'm working to get it to all the adults out there.
But the kids as well. We've got to focus on the kids. So we're hoping this will take off in school systems,
maybe be used in some coursework or after school activity. I'm not sure.
Hasn't really been released yet. The end of March. And we'll just see how it goes.
Yeah, that's great that it's coming out in a few weeks. And the subtitle, how you can save the
world in your own yard. I love that. It's so empowering. That's it. You know, the planet has huge problems.
And more and more people recognize that. But they all feel powerless. What can one person do?
The one person can do a lot. And that's what we outline in the book. All the things that you can do.
From as easy to changing the the light bulb over your front front porch from a white bulb to a yellow bulb.
That will reduce the number of insects that are killed every night during the summertime.
Very easy to do. But have a huge impact. And in the book, you have a chapter on homegrown
national park. And if you look that up in the National Park Service website, you're not going to find it.
A location. So you can you define that to our listeners. Yeah. Well, 78% of the country is
privately owned. 85% of the country east of the Mississippi is privately owned. So if we don't do
conservation of private property, we're going to fail. And as we've already mentioned, we can't
afford to fail. We have to start, you know, our parks and our preserves are islands surrounded typically by
no man's land. So what we need to do is if we practice conservation and private property,
that's all the area in between those parks create viable habitat where we actually live and work and play.
Then our preserves are not islands. Then the populations within them are not so tiny. So when
they fluctuate, they won't just blink at and disappear. Because that's what's happening right now.
Well, who's going to do that? It's property owners for the most part. And they don't know
that that's what they're supposed to do. They don't, they don't, all the things we just talked about.
Most people don't have a clue about it. So homegrown national park was was a small nonprofit
co-founded with Michelle Alphandary. And she was actually a perfect example of the non-quire.
She had just retired from a marketing job in Manhattan.
Do nothing about biodiversity or the biodiversity crisis or conservation or anything else.
But she heard me give a talk and said, you really have to get this message to people just like me.
We don't know anything about this. And she came at the concept of getting on the map. So
the after-cust to register your property where you live at homegrown national park and it's free by the way.
And the amount of area that you're going to start to landscape in an ecologically responsible way.
Maybe you're going to reduce the area of lawn because lawn isn't helping us much.
Maybe you're going to plan a note tree and maybe you're going to put that aster in a flower pot.
Whatever you do, you're going to record that area. And then that information goes onto the map.
And your little piece of your county will light up. And you get to see who else has
dry in homegrown national park. But the object is to enlist the millions of people out there.
That's this grassroots army that can participate in conservation to turn around the biodiversity crisis.
So we don't see these headlines all the time. If we put the right plants back where we live,
work, play, and to a lesser extent farm, we really can't. We can turn around those birdlosses.
We can turn around many of the terrible statistics we're seeing. And it's not an if. It's when we do it,
because it's our only option. We have to do it. So homegrown national park is a social media approach to
getting the message to the non-quirer. Your state will be color coded with how many people are participating.
And the darker green you are, the better your state's doing. And that creates a competitive aspect to it.
So it's it's young. We're in our second year. But I've got, I don't know, about 24,000
members at this point. And it's growing, growing rapidly. So we're pleased.
Wow, 24,000 is impressive.
With 24,000, it's really family. So if you count the number of people in those families, it could be closer to
100,000 who knows. And a lot of times on the podcast, we cover that kind of friction between
local regulations and are sometimes HOAs and what we can grow in our own yards. Is that part of that campaign?
Well, it is. It is a friction, historically a serious one. It's becoming less and less.
You know, there's this idea that if you use native plants, it's going to be wild and ugly and
lower property values. And back in the 70s, people really took that to heart. And they wrote some
very strict homeowner association rules. Everybody has to have the same same plants and the same height
grass and so on. First of all, it's not true. If you do good job landscaping is not going to
lower your property value. And we're actually getting to the point where it is increasing property values.
We do want to landscape without giving up aesthetics. I say we should reduce the area of lawn,
but not get rid of it. It's a cue for care. And the lawn we keep should be manicured. It's where we
should walk because it's a perfect plant to walk on. We're just going to have more plants in our yards rather
than two or three acres of lawn. We do have 44 million acres of lawn right now, which is an area bigger than
New England. And it's dedicated to an ecological dead scape because it's a status symbol. We can
have our status symbol and have less lawn. And we could do it without violating any of the HOA regulations
if we do it tastefully. There was a couple in Maryland. I'm sure you've heard about it. We who fought the lawn
in the lawn lost. They sued their HOA saying we want to have our plants in our yard and they won.
So there's now a legal precedent for HOA to not push this too much. But we want to respect the culture.
We do want to change the culture to where the normal landscape has a lot more plants in it than
it used to have. And it's happening. It's happening. The nursery industry is recognizing that there is a
real market in native plants that carrying more of them. We're still at a point where the demand for
natives is exceeds the supply. So now we have business opportunities. We need to grow what I call
native plant landscapes or ecological landscapes. There are a few around but we need many, many more
because most people really don't guard. Most people just hire somebody. I'd like to replace the whole
mobile and go industry with trained ecological landscapes so they can come and put in the plants we need,
maintain them. Nobody's going to lose their job but we're going to do it in a way that actually
supports the life around us. That's the ultimate goal. None of that should conflict with the
homeowner association rules. And to convert part of the horticulture industry from the moment,
blue landscape, what you're describing, it will probably take some type of training or certification
program. Any of that in the works? Yeah, a few here and there. We've got one at the University of
Delaware. Not nearly enough though. Not nearly enough. So now people are putting at their
shingles with their own experience. I have nothing against that. But yeah, you're right. We need,
we need some organized certification programs. I'm not sure, maybe through master gardeners.
You know, I talk about all these things. Every big expects me to do it.
I need a little help here. Yes. Yeah. As a messenger, you're also always tasked to be the doer
and that's two different things. You know, that's really tough. But, you know, there is a just big bay
landscape certification in the mid Atlantic. So that can start there. And of course, self-taught
and self-experience. And somebody who is a professional landscapeer who was to read your books and to
really grasp those messages, I think, could do well. Yeah, it is happening. It is happening. And
it's accelerating. So people say, "What gives you hope?" That's what gives me help. People are listening.
People are eager. When they hear, there's actually something they can do personally and see the results.
They get excited about that. There's, in the very few environmental issues where you can do anything,
but throw up your hands. But this is, this is when you really can do something you can see the results.
You can see the life come to your yard. I always use what's happened at our house. We put,
and I we put the plants back. And my research has shown, if you know the number of
moths species that are making a living in a particular food web, you have an index of how stable
and how productive that food web is. In other words, how many other species can it support?
So I've been counting the number of moths that are making a living in my house. Now, I've got a picture
of each one of them. And I'm up to 1,199 species of moths that have come back since we put the
plants back. So it's enormously encouraging. And it says, this really does work. We get 60 species of birds
that have bred here, not flu-by, but bred here, because we've got all that bird food. So it works.
And that's really encouraging. Yeah, I love that it's a positive message because
the guy who's been to so many environmental programs, talks, films, documentaries, that kind of
in like with a lot, they don't really help with the solution. They just point out the errors of our ways,
but then kind of leave you really depressed. That's right. Yeah, that's not the solution. Okay,
we know what the problem is, but now we need to spread the message that we are the solution,
which is where that title comes from. Nature's best hope. We all are nature's best hope.
Yeah. And so I know that you are doing some work or had done some work with Mount Cuba. And we've had
several staff from Mount Cuba on the podcast before talking about their trials of native plants
and the cultivars. And when you talked about the availability of native plants at local nurseries,
that's one of the cruxes, right, that we have as a home gardener is sourcing native plants. And then
making that decision should we do straight species is one of the cultivars better or just as good.
Right. And the answer is it depends. You know, we as humans, we want a black and white answer. Yes,
or no, but it's just not that simple. Whether or not the cultivar is as good as the straight species
that some ecological function depends on what the genetic trait was that created the cultivar
to begin with. Many cultivars are found in nature. They're natural variants. And somebody's brought them in and
then clone them and put an aim on it. Many of them. Others have been actively selected for,
but whether or not that increases or decreases the ecological value, again, depends on what the trait was.
We did an experiment at Mount Cuba. It was a three-year common garden experience experiment,
looking at traits of woody plants. So it wasn't about flowers. It was about whether you took a green leaf
and made it red or purple. Well, you had variegated leaves, well, you made a tall plant short,
whether you enhanced berry size. The typical cultivar traits that you see in the industry all the time.
And the only one that decreased insect use consistently was taking a green leaf and making it red or
purple. Because that loads the leaf with antiscience which are feeding deterrence. The other traits
didn't reduce insect use at all. My only caveat, and Mac Cuba, by the way, is doing some wonderful
trial garden experiments, looking at a whole bunch of cultivars, a flowering plants to see which ones
are servicing the pollinators and which ones aren't. Some of them don't. Some of them do.
The one caveat I would add is that I wish we could find a way to propagate these cultivars
and maintain genetic variability at the same time. When you clone them, you've lost all the genetic
variability. And we know in the age of an any age, but particularly the age of climate change,
genetic variability is that's the mechanism by which our plants are going to adapt to all these
serious changes we're throwing at. So I tell people, you know, I'd love to see nursery's carry the
straight species along with the cultivars. And then you can decide, right now if you go to a nursery
it's very often the cultivar only. They don't even have the straight species. We know the straight
species work. The cultivars sometimes work. There are examples where they actually work better.
The flocks, uh, Pinniculata, Jenna, was an atro variant found in Georgia and has twice the
flowers on it as the straight species. And yes, it supports twice the pollinators. So, um, you know,
oh, that's, that's good. But we loved to maintain the genetic variability so that we can we can
provide the stuff that makes natural selection work for the future of our plants in our gardens.
Yeah, that's a tough conundrum because, you know, with as a grower or a whole sailor or
a breeder of plants, you want consistency, and I product, of course. And you want to be able to
guarantee that for the retailers in the seller. And then of course, for the grower, the home gardener,
the consumer at the end, once that consistency and kind of that guarantee that's going to do well
in there in their climate. Yeah. So breeder's out there, get to work. But yes, uh, I go to a lot of native
plant sales and to garden club swaps and that's a great place to source your native plants as both
those because usually people have golden rod to spare or asked or spare. Right? Yeah. Which is great.
And that's from your local ecosystem if you're going to your local garden club swaps. And so I know
you're super busy writing these books and giving talks, but you're also a professor, um, that
University of Delaware, correct? That's right. And I wanted to ask a little bit about your university
students and what you're seeing and any changes in the past decade or so of teaching, um,
in their attitudes and what they're curious and what they're asking about. Well, I'm in the department
of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology. So the students that come to our department are already interested
in in nature. They're interested in conservation. So it's a very biased sample. I do get inquiries
from students all over the country. You know, can I come be your graduate student? Plenty of interest
there far more than I have the money to support. So I think the students are reflecting general
public's increase in in conservation, increase in in finding ways to address these serious issues that
that they're reading about in the New York Times or the Washington Post. They want to do something
about it. Um, the students at the University of Delaware, you know, I I've been there 42 years
and the quality of student that goes to the University now is considerably higher than it was 42 years
ago. So we got some good students. What we don't have is the resources to support all the
students that want to study this. So that's that's a problem across the country, I think.
And the careers are going on to what type of jobs would they be taking post graduation?
You know, the the state jobs and conservation or wildlife agencies in Delaware, they're just dominated
by our students. They go out all over the country. We have students working in zoos. The head of the
primate center at the Philadelphia Zoo is our student. Many students go on to graduate school. So they
can either go into academia or research, you know, the huge conservation organizations like
conservation international and national wildlife federation. There's see a club all of these
these people are hiring our students at one level or another. You know, that's the first question
the parents ask us when they come in. Can my my son or daughter get a job and the realization that
we do need to actively put the earth back together again is spreading. I mean, look at the
the UN's 30 by 30 initiative. We're going to save 30% of the planet by 2030. That's a great goal.
But it's going to take people to do that and they need to be trained. So I am looking for an increase
in the number of available jobs and conservation organizations over the next coming years. I've been
saying that for a while now, but we are seeing a lot more public interest in it. So I think it's going
to happen. But it's not enough right now. We need more of these paid positions. You need to be able
to make a good, you know, have a good career doing this or it's not going to attract people.
I agree. And I think the funding will come eventually, but it just needs to be politically pushed
and is one way to phrase it. The priorities have to be conveyed to the politicians.
Yeah. I think we're lucky in so far, you know, everything becomes politicized. It's red or it's blue.
But everybody needs a healthy environment, even people who pretend they don't. They do. And
I think that has helped keep the, you know, the contentious political rivalry out of many of these
conservation issues. And that's a good thing. That's a good thing. I thought I would get pushback from
a whole bunch of people, but I really haven't gotten a people around board and that's encouraging to me.
Red or blue, you know, conservative or not. I agree. Yeah. I think it's just a matter when I say
politically of budgeting, it's not a matter of, you know, whether it's one party or the other,
who is behind it, but it's priorities over your, of course, you know, there's other priorities in
school and policing. And that sort of thing. And all of those are important. But what piece of the
pie is the environment going to get? Yeah. And that's the tough one because it's a new piece of the pie.
It's not new. People are just seeing it for the first time. So all you problems still exist.
Now we're asking for money to support this as well. And that kind of kind of sneak in there and say,
we need a piece of that pie as well. That's a tough one, but something keep on working at.
And Doug, I was going to ask who are your influences? Because I'm hearing about these universities
students going on to great things. And we could call them the "Talemy Accolates" or disciples
that are spreading that message throughout the world in the nation. But I bet there was somebody
in your past who or somebody who brought these messages to you.
Yes, there certainly were. I mentioned Dr. Bugbe, an Allegheny college back in 1972.
He's won the "Gamy" on this track. But as soon as I got to graduate school, I started reading about
E. O. Wilson, I would know Wilson from Harvard and I read all of his books. He just died
the day after Christmas two years ago. But he was kind of my academic god, the whole whole time.
Had the pleasure of meeting him several times. So he, not only did he tell us,
"Buy diversity exists. It's really important. It's disappearing. And this is how you save it.
He did that consistently throughout his entire career. And for a long time, he was a voice
crying in the wilderness. But of course now that he's gone, things are really accelerating. There's the
E. O. Wilson, a half-earth society. We're going to save half to 50% of the earth. And these are
real things that exist now. And it's all because of his work." He was a great man. And I think
not enough people are even aware of his work. And I hope that some of his publications and things
are more widespread now. Yeah, I hope so too. You know, he wrote a lot of books. And he wrote them for the
public. There was a really smart guy. And I think he had a downside. He was writing above
the average public's head. And so they're not finding them as accessible as they could have been.
But I mean, he wrote a book. I think it was 1990 or 1992, just called the diversity of life.
It's a it's a still a great book. And you know, it starts at talking about how after the Big
Balkano and Cracatoa exploded wiped out all the life on that island. And then people studied how it
came back. And that's a positive message right there. Even if you're starting with Bear Rock,
biodiversity will return if you give it a chance. But that's a great read for anybody who wants to be
introduced to this subject. It's dated but not out of date. If that makes any sense.
Yeah, I think it makes total sense. And that does bring up what we've said on the podcast before
that plants want to live. You know, as gardeners were kind of the stewards, the nurturers,
giving the right plant in the right place a chance, you know, helps it along a bit. But a lot of times
you could just plop it in the soil and walk away. And it'll do just as fine without you.
Yeah, well, I love how you say, you know, gardeners are stewards of plants,
which makes them stewards of everything. Because of course it's plants that capture the energy from
the sun and turn it into the food that supports just about all the animals on the planet.
So losing our plants is not an option. And what's the figure? 40% of our plants are now
in danger. Some crazy thing like that. We need to save the plants. We need to save all the plants
and gardeners are in better position to do that than anybody. And for gardening practices, you know,
there's kind of the two major schools of gardening, which are the collector gardeners and kind of the
landscape that design a beautiful garden and like the whole feel overall versus the individual plants.
Where do you fall on that spectrum, Doug? I'm definitely more in the landscape aspect of it. And
I go beyond, I mean, this way, I really don't talk about gardens because people have this image. The garden
is that little patch of your yard next to the front porch that you work on. And everything else doesn't
count. I say, everything else does count. Every square inch of your property is part of your landscape.
And what you do with those square inches is going to determine how much life can exist in your
garden, your space, your landscape on your property. So I push beyond the design. I'm not a landscape
designer on any, any level to, to conservation. What can we do to our landscape that will allow
us to share our landscape with the most other species in a very productive and fun and educational
and healthy way? I mean, all the research showing that the health benefits to humans when you
interact with plants or other parts of nature. It's astounding. The wonderful things that happen when
you spend a little time staring at a tree. It's really amazing. So it's really, it's just, you know,
win, win, win all the way around. And that's what I've been focusing on. It's really the big picture.
Great. And how can our listeners contact you or follow up for more information?
Well, the best source of information about all of this would be hungro-nationalpark.org. It's all there
in one form or another. Or you could, we could buy one of my books. That'll help.
Yes. And I was going to say, you didn't plug your book. And I will definitely put a link to both
the nature's best hope and the new version for young readers coming out in our show notes.
And any final thoughts dug for home gardeners looking to have more diversity, more natives, and their
landscape? I guess, you know, since we're focusing on gardeners at this point, I would point out that
you, you are, you have the potential to be a model for all of your neighbors. You know, this is how we
ought to do it. You don't have to say a word. You don't have to go press the ties or knock on anybody's door.
Just make a wonderfully attractive productive landscape and enough neighbors to say, hey, I want that too.
And that's how we change the entire culture. So it puts all of our gardeners in a very powerful position.
That's wonderful. I think gardening by example, a terrific way to teach, rather than
berating people or chastizing them for doing it the wrong way, showing them the right way
is always the best way. Right? Well, thank you Doug for sharing your book for your knowledge and your passion.
Well, thanks for the opportunity. Always appreciate it.