Margaret Renkl’s newest book “The Weedy Garden: A Happy Habitat for Wild Friends,” is aimed at children, but it’s really for everyone, she says, and indeed we grownups, too, often need a reminder that our gardens are not just “our gardens,” but critical habitats for our wild neighbors. How we manage these spaces determines whether bees and butterflies and frogs and fireflies and turtles and birds and everybody else out there thrives—or not. Margaret is here to talk about the new book and the message for humans of all ages that guides her approach to gardening.

Like many readers, I got to know Margaret Renkl in 2019, upon the publication of her book “Late Migrations.” Since 2017, she has been contributing a popular Opinion column to “The New York Times,” and she also published “The Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year” in 2023 – and now the new children’s book. She lives and gardens with an ecological focus in Nashville.

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