Today’s guest is a plant ecologist whose work, she says, is driven by this question:

“All of the wild diversity of life on earth is here, with us, right now. How can we take it with us into the future?”

It’s a compelling question, and one that can motivate not just scientists like Lea Johnson, Director of Conservation at Native Plant Trust in New England, but also native-plant gardeners like us. She is here to talk about where conservation and gardening intersect, and some of the challenges and the possibilities we face together.

Lea Johnson joined Native Plant Trust, the nation’s oldest native plant conservation organization, in 2025, as its Director of Conservation.

At the Massachusetts-based nonprofit, she manages various conservation and restoration initiatives, including the monitoring of rare and endangered species; a rare plant seed bank with over 10 million seeds, and the Trust’s seven native plant sanctuaries in New England.

She also oversees the leading botanical resource Go Botany – one of my favorite reference websites.

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