When I read the other day that Native Plant Trust, the nonprofit plant conservation organization in New England, had successfully raised the money to complete the endowment fund needed to save its region’s most imperiled native plants in a seed bank, it was like a silver-lining kind of story. 

Yes, the plight of natives in the region – like the state of native species in other regions around the country – is dire; Native Plant Trust estimates that “a staggering 17 percent of the region’s native plants are on the brink of extinction, with an additional 5 percent already lost.”

But efforts like the seed bank offer hope – the silver lining I mentioned — and the seed bank is just one of the organization’s seed-focused projects that are our subject today.  My guest today is Tim Johnson, who in January became chief executive officer at Native Plant Trust, which was founded almost 125 years ago as New England Wild Flower Society, the nation’s first plant conservation organization and the only one solely focused on New England’s natives. Tim has an extensive background in environmental horticulture and biological science, and until recently led the Smith College Botanic Garden.  

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