Today’s guest and I were sitting having a cup of tea together recently and talking abou guess what? Plants! What came up pretty fast was how lately we both sometimes cringe at the results to our online searches about one garden topic or another, which only seem to be getting worse in the age of A/I—or at the misinformation we see on some viral social-media posts. 

Ecologically focused garden designer Rebecca McMackin and I wanted to talk out loud here with all of you about what trusted sources we go to again and again, and about how we filter out some of the unhelpful noise when seeking answers to our garden questions.

Rebecca McMackin is a horticulturist and garden designer, and the creator of the newsletter “Grow Like Wild,” and now a companion podcast version of the monthly email, too.  In the opening of a “TED Talk” she gave, which has more than 1.3 million views, Rebecca says: “Full disclosure: I am the nerdiest gardener you are ever going to meet.”

Rebecca spent a decade as director of horticulture at Brooklyn Bridge Park, where she managed 85 acres of diverse parkland organically and with an eye toward habitat creation for birds, butterflies, and soil microorganisms. She more recently served as arboretum curator at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, and her acclaimed garden for the Brooklyn Museum planted in 2023 shows that ecological gardens can thrive in even the busiest places. She was a Harvard Loeb Fellow in 2023. 

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