Quick Takes With: Margaret Roach

Longtime garden writer Margaret Roach‘s list of accomplishments is long and illustrious: She was once fashion writer for Newsday; then garden editor-turned-editorial director at Martha Stewart Living (where she helped birth its internet direct-commerce division); and now, since 2020, a contributing columnist for The New York Times. But that’s not all: “I create a website, podcast, and weekly newsletter called A Way to Garden, the title of my 1989 book that was reissued in 2019 in an all-new edition. I have written several other books, including in 2013 The Backyard Parables,” of which no less than Elizabeth Gilbert called “a blessing.” Oh, and did we mention Margaret also hosts Virtual Garden Club subscription classes with her friend Ken Druse? The next semester starts March 28.

Below, the tireless garden booster divulges the reason she despises most ground covers; the fail-proof way to attract birds to your garden; and her grandmother’s secret for overwintering geraniums.

Your first garden memory:

Sitting on a chaise on our grandmother’s patio with my sister—we were maybe 5 and 3 years old—and looking up at all the seedpods hanging from the wisteria-covered pergola above, wondering what in the world was going on up there.

Book/show/movie/art that has influenced your work:

I am a field-guide fanatic. I have a whole little cupboard devoted to them—ones on birds over all, and others devoted to hawks, or sparrows, and whole volumes on beetles and fireflies and dragonflies and spiders and lichen and bark and weeds and…you get the idea. They have helped me get to know the cast of characters outside, and become a sharper observer.

Garden-related book you return to time and again:

Since its publication in 2019, I have dipped back into (and gifted) How to Catch a Mole: Wisdom from a Life Lived in Nature by Marc Hamer probably more than any other. It’s not actually a how-to on mole hunting, but a book about being quiet, connecting to nature, and sharpening our powers of observation. And it’s also about noticing when it’s time to stop catching moles (or whatever you are doing that has run its course and you need to let go of)—the point Marc came to in his journey.

Instagram account that inspires you:

Besides gardening, my grandmother also made what she called “pressed-flower pictures,” so dried plants are part of my DNA. I love looking at the Instagram account of modern-day flower pressers like Lacie RZ Porta, @framedflorals, and herbarium curator Linda Lipsen of University of British Columbia, @pressedplants.

Plant that makes you want to run the other way:

So many from the traditional “ground cover” category were touted as the solution to knit the garden together visually and lessen the workload. And many (most?) of them turned out to be thugs—though I still see a lot of them for sale. I don’t have the scourges of English ivy, Pachysandra, and Vinca, but despite all my incessant digging, will I ever be rid of yellow archangel (Lamiastrum galeobdolon), or the worst of all, chameleon plant (Houttuynia cordata)?

Plant that makes you swoon:

The first plant I planted in my garden 35ish years ago was a Japanese umbrella pine, Sciadopitys verticillata, an unusual, distinctive conifer that’s not a pine at all despite its common name, and is now taller than the house. How as a beginning gardener I even found such a thing, and dared to try it, I’ll never know. I still cannot pass by it without reaching out to stroke its long, thick needles and just generally admire it. Sometimes it even shows up in my dreams at night!

Most dreaded gardening chore:

Reseeding bare spots along the worn-away, wobbly edges of heavily trafficked grass paths—or actually sowing lawn grass anywhere. I am pretty good at growing plants, but just never really mastered turfgrass. (Can I blame the birds and say they eat all the seed, and that’s why my patches fail?) Thankfully lawns are shrinking in favor of more ecological plantings, but in some high-traffic spots, walkable grass still suits and I need to get better at repairs.

The one thing you wish gardeners would stop doing:

Using chemicals—whether fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides, fungicides. Even some products that may be labeled “natural” or even organic can be injurious. I shudder when people tell me about spraying vinegar on weeds, especially now that highly concentrated forms are sold at garden centers. Not only do they not even kill roots (just top growth of young annual plants, basically) but imagine being a frog or salamander or soil-borne insect in harm’s way of that “natural” acetic acid dousing.

Old wives’ tale gardening trick that actually works:

My grandmother always overwintered the geraniums (Pelargoniums) she grew in pots each summer by bare-rooting them, then hanging them upside-down in paper bags pinned to a clothes line in her dark, cool cellar.

Every garden needs a…

…water feature that stays accessible, with at least a portion of the surface unfrozen, even in winter. The power of water to support increased diversity is unmatched in the garden; from dragonflies to amphibians to birds and mammals, the water garden is where the action is. My two in-ground pools were one of the first things I created here, and thanks in large part to them 70ish species of birds visit regularly, for instance.

Tool you can’t live without:

Why over-effort by using a too-big pruner when for most jobs a smaller, lightweight one will do? ARS HP-300LDX stainless steel needle-nose fruit pruners, meant for working in vineyards and orchards, are my hand-saving go-to for most daily chores. I have a pair of lightweight, scaled-down aluminum loppers, too, for making bigger cuts.

Go-to gardening outfit:

My yoga gear from 20 years ago, rubber boots, and un-fancy gloves with nitrile-coated palms and fingers.

Favorite nursery, plant shop, or seed company:

Cannot name just one, but I am a longtime champion of farm-based, organic seed companies—people who grow some or all of the seed they sell, and are happy to tell you who grew the rest, and how. In this age of such terrifying consolidation of the seed industry into the hands of a few giant companies who regard and patent it as intellectual property, these often small “seedkeepers” in the organic movement are where I see hope.

On your wishlist:

After reading Mt. Cuba Center’s just-published Trial Garden research on all the different native bluestars, or Amsonia, I almost want them all. Beautiful flowers, and graceful foliage with great fall color—plus they are super-tough and long-lived.

In their New Jersey garden, my friends Louis Bauer and Ken Druse use columnar trees really effectively—both conifers and deciduous ones such as European beech—and I’m trying to identify a couple of spots here for such distinctive exclamation points.

Not-to-be-missed public garden/park/botanical garden:

In just 10ish years, the historic estate called Untermyer Gardens Conservancy in Yonkers, NY, has risen from the ashes, thanks to a crew of artistic and energetic horticulturists. Breathtaking. Speaking of transforming historic estates, Stoneleigh in Villanova, PA, is being transformed with a natives-only mission—unusual in such a formal setting, and very exciting.

The REAL reason you garden:

I always say that I garden because I cannot help myself. It’s not about outdoor decorating for me (though I do think the yard looks better for the efforts). More powerful, though, I experience the garden as part meditative space, part science lab. It’s a place where I slow down and where my curiosity is constantly aroused—and not just about plants, but birds, moths, lichen, you name it, and how all the pieces of the food chain and the ecosystem fit together.

Thank you, Margaret! Follow her @awaytogarden.

For other interviews in the series, see:

• Quick Takes With: Molly Sedlacek
• Quick Takes With: Summer Rayne Oakes