LEA JOHNSON is a plant ecologist whose work, she says, is pushed by this query:
“The entire wild range of life on earth is right here, with us, proper now. How can we take it with us into the longer term?”
It’s a compelling query, and one that may encourage not simply scientists like Lea, Director of Conservation at Native Plant Belief in New England, but additionally native-plant gardeners like us. She talked to me about the place conservation and gardening intersect, and a number of the challenges and the probabilities we face collectively.
Lea joined Native Plant Belief, the nation’s oldest native plant conservation group, in 2025, as its Director of Conservation. On the Massachusetts-based nonprofit, she manages numerous conservation and restoration initiatives, together with the monitoring of uncommon and endangered species; a uncommon plant seed financial institution with over 10 million seeds, and the Belief’s seven native plant sanctuaries in New England.
She additionally oversees the main botanical useful resource GoBotany—considered one of my favourite reference web sites.
Learn alongside as you take heed to the July 6, 2026 version of my public-radio present and podcast utilizing the participant beneath. You possibly can subscribe to all future editions on Apple Podcasts (iTunes) or Spotify (and browse my archive of podcasts right here).
conservation meets horticulture, with lea johnson
Margaret Roach: Hello, Lea. So it will need to have been an thrilling first 12 months at Native Plant Belief, sure?
Lea Johnson: Oh my goodness [laughter].
Margaret: Speak about immersion.
Lea: The belongings you simply listed are numerous.
Margaret: Sure. An immersive panorama, as we are saying, in naturalistic gardening, proper? Your portfolio is immersive.
Lea: Completely. And all of that work is figure that’s finished in neighborhood and I’ve discovered the neighborhood of individuals round this work to be simply superb and welcoming. So it’s been a really social course of in addition to time with vegetation.
Margaret: Sure. And like what I mentioned about GoBotany, it’s actually true. I’ve used it perpetually, as a result of I’m in type of the area of New England vegetation. I’m just under New England, technically, in New York State, however close to the Berkshires of Massachusetts. And I simply like it. It’s been my go-to factor, in order that’s nice to see it persevering with to be there for gardeners like myself and others.
Lea: Yeah, I feel I first began utilizing the web site myself after I was working in New York State. And it’s such a pleasure to work with Arthur Haines, who’s the taxonomic powerhouse who retains it updated.
Margaret: I simply love proper there that you just get your maps, you get all of the fundamentals that you just want, so I get actually this overview of every species that will get me began on what I need to look deeper into and so forth.
I really like your mission query that I discussed within the introduction: How can we take the wild range that’s right here with us now into the longer term? And I do know even on my tiny scale as a gardener, I take into consideration the longer term, too. And I give it some thought extra on a regular basis because the pure world appears more and more below strain. So simply to get us began with that as your mindset, I imply, what are a number of the issues which can be all the time type of in your thoughts? I imply, it’s rather a lot. There’s rather a lot proper now.
Lea: It’s an enormous query. And I feel the great factor a couple of query that large is that there are plenty of solutions and there are plenty of methods and alternatives to make a distinction in that path from the very small scale to the very massive scale. From pondering at a regional scale like I get to do rather a lot proper now, to pondering on the dimensions of a single backyard. So I like that it’s a great query for zooming out and in and for pondering creatively with lots of people about how can we mix and make complementary these totally different approaches.
Margaret: As a result of I imply, I believe that even simply on the most elementary degree after we’re speaking about conservation versus horticulture—and I don’t imply versus as in opposed as in comparison with [laughter]—I believe even within the language, the phrase native, native plant, has a really totally different definition. Once I’m out purchasing, both searching the net catalogs or purchasing in a nursery for a “native plant” or you’re doing all of your conservation work, you’re defending uncommon and endangered vegetation, or the seed financial institution, all of this—what’s native isn’t even a common time period. As a result of, effectively, what’s native on the backyard heart, plenty of it’s cultivars of native vegetation which were cloned, have been created, asexually propagated. They’re not from seed, and so forth., and so forth., and so forth. It’s an entire totally different world. It’s a industrial product. It’s not-
Lea: I might like to see over time there being much less of a divide there. I feel it’s one thing that Uli Lorimer at Native Plant Belief and I speak about collectively as this effort. There’s a very thrilling and energetic effort occurring throughout the Northeast proper now to enhance the provision of actually native, source-identified plant materials for each ecological restoration and horticulture. The work of the Native Seed Community is basically thrilling.
And I feel I might love for it to be the case that you possibly can go to a reasonably regular backyard heart and have the ability to know the place the seed got here from. And it’s such an enormous problem to develop that entire pipeline of how does the seed get from the wild into propagation? What are the genetic concerns? How native is native, and what are the results of doing the rise? Are we choosing for issues that develop effectively in a farm subject?
However on the identical time, we’ve got to cope with these questions, as a result of we’d like plenty of vegetation to do ecological restoration and so as to add again ecological worth to our residence and residential and industrial landscapes in addition to the extra wild locations. And I feel the reply to what materials you want might actually range. And that is one other type of attention-grabbing subject of dialog amongst people who find themselves fascinated with these items: The wants of ecological restoration or for conservation of a uncommon species, the concerns are totally different when it comes to the way you would possibly transfer propagules round.
Margaret: I used to be not way back speaking to somebody at Mt. Cuba Middle in Delaware they usually had been speaking about how with the cultivars that I used to be simply mentioning versus the straight species and particularly the native ecotype, the precise genetics of the native model of that plant, that the best way they type of draw the road in the mean time is like close to the property home and so forth, they might use the cultivars in a extra horticultural setting, however once they’re doing the big-scale restoration of their wild areas and so forth, they’re searching for in and out many circumstances propagating the straight species, the native model, as a result of that’s crucial. These genetics are very, crucial and well-matched to the opposite organisms, different lifetime of that space, yeah?
Lea: Proper. And I really like Mt. Cuba Middle. They do some actually attention-grabbing work. And it’s an attractive place. After which there are questions associated to that, about if there’s a species that… In New England we’re proper on the fringe of the vary of various species, like wherever species the place you’re in the course of their vary or the place you’re on the northern, southern, jap, western fringe of their vary. And so there are species which can be very uncommon on the fringe of their vary however extra widespread within the center. And it makes plenty of frustration for pure heritage botanists when individuals are taking materials from the center of the vary and transferring it to the sting of the vary, after which they’re like, “Was this a pure inhabitants—are these the native genetics?” It may be very complicated and complicate their work fairly a bit.
Margaret: So that you talked about simply a few minutes in the past, the native seed community and I simply wished to only a actual fast sentence or two of what’s the Native Seed Community as a result of that’s a part of the hopeful answer for the longer term. Sure. Is it a collaborative challenge that you just’re doing?
Lea: Yeah, it’s an enormous community of those who Native Plant Belief has been concerned in for the reason that outset that it entails farmers and botanical gardens and arboreta and seed banks and simply lots of people who’re enthusiastic about native vegetation in plenty of other ways, pondering collectively about the way to improve the provision and the amount of native seed for ecological restoration and horticulture. [More on the Northeast Seed Network, and the larger Native Seed Network’s directory of all its affiliated regional projects around the U.S.]
Margaret: Proper, as a result of demand is rising each in horticulture and for conservation/restoration and provide shouldn’t be as in all probability as nice because the demand, particularly in sure areas. I imply, up until now, I say now that means not too long ago… Once I first got here to my place like 40 years in the past, this piece of land, I observed as a result of I had already met some native plant folks and been to the Midwest and met some prairie folks and so forth, been to the College of Wisconsin-Madison. And I observed there was little bluestem on my hillside and it was like right here I used to be in New York State within the space it was. And I didn’t perceive that. After which I learn that there have been even prairies on, I feel, Lengthy Island again in early historical past, 1000’s of years in the past, and I’m like, “What?” [Laughter.] The Ice Age will do plenty of attention-grabbing issues, I assume.
However what’s native and the place is it native as you had been speaking about earlier than? After which but after I wished to get extra little blue stem, the one sources had been and have been till not too long ago actually, in Midwestern nurseries. Have you learnt what I imply? Which is nice that it was out there, however I didn’t know something. I didn’t perceive. I’m solely now lately understanding the complexity of all of this.
Lea: Most issues in ecology are very advanced [laughter].
Margaret: Certainly. I don’t understand how you retailer all of it in your head. I’m having hassle even with simply the horticulture a part of implementations of it [laughter].
Lea: Properly, I’m a plant ecologist by coaching and ecology is the research of relationships. That’s actually what it’s, relationships between organisms and one another and organisms and the surroundings. So I discover this sort of stuff fascinating. It’s important to be very, as the highschool science requirements prefer to encourage comfy with uncertainty.
Margaret: Which is after all the title of, I feel, a e book by the Buddhist nun Pema Chodron.
Lea: [Laughter.] Properly, I like her work, too.
Margaret: [Laughter.] Yeah, I like her work too. Proper, precisely. So I do know Native Plant Belief is concerned in, as we’ve been speaking about, analysis about propagating native species and the way to retailer the seed and all this stuff that should do with having sufficient and so forth. However after I take a look at traditional propagation manuals or textbooks that I’ve on my bookshelf, admittedly some are many years outdated, they don’t embody these vegetation [laughter]. They’ve hostas and stuff and astilbes and you understand what I imply? It’s not like these are the vegetation which can be in your primary gardener’s propagation how-to handbook like sedges. It doesn’t say the way to propagate the Carex or Pycnanthemum, the mountain mints, or no matter.
So is that one thing else you’re engaged on, to type of unravel is like how do these vegetation, how are these vegetation greatest… I imply, not simply the place can we get sufficient seed or no matter, but additionally the secrets and techniques, as a result of every plant has its personal secrets and techniques actually in the case of propagation, sure?
Lea: Yeah. And I might say that there are folks studying issues definitely throughout teams of individuals just like the Northeast Seed Community, however yeah, I feel we’re definitely taking notes on the whole lot we study. [Above, native seed in sieves; photo from Northeast Seed Network website.]
Margaret: And sharing them.
Lea: Yeah. And I feel extra sharing of that’s one thing I positively need to do, however yeah, there’s a lot to study. There are some manuals for native vegetation, but-
Margaret: Oh, I’m positive. However they’re not horticulture ones.
Lea: Proper. They don’t cowl the whole lot for positive. And there are such a lot of species, and one of many issues that’s actually tough is very with uncommon vegetation, no person’s propagating this stuff. So we companion rather a lot with … I imply, the conservation division may be very built-in with the horticulture division at Native Plant Belief after we’re engaged on propagating uncommon species out of our seed financial institution. Now we have some seeds from 1992 and we need to ship them again out to assist increase a inhabitants that has declined that they got here from at first. And so I’m very grateful to Alexis Doshas at Nasami Farm for figuring numerous issues out. There’s plenty of horticultural experience in our hort division, which I’m very grateful for.
Margaret: Proper, as a result of does it require stratification, scarification—and people are simply two easy issues that I learn about as a gardener, that some vegetation want—a pre-treatment of some variety, so to talk, that simulates what nature would’ve offered the place they got here from of their pure habitat to make them germinate and thrive. And it’s plenty of mysteries, plenty of mysteries.
You mentioned uncommon vegetation, and naturally that’s a part of the mission. What are a number of the vegetation that you’re essentially the most centered on in the mean time? Are there some type of top-of-the-list ones that-
Lea: Properly, issues which have gone out and gone within the floor this season: sundial lupine [Lupinus perennis], a challenge with the state of Vermont, working with the state botanist Grace Glynn on augmenting a inhabitants that had develop into very small, and in addition planting out into an identical habitat some seeds from a very long time in the past. There was a very attention-grabbing genetic research that was finished partially in relationship to that, how the genetics of that inhabitants had develop into much less numerous. After which we added some range that was beforehand there when the inhabitants was larger again in.
Now we have been working for a very long time with a plant referred to as Jesup’s milk-vetch [Astragalus robbinsii var. jesupii]. Invoice Brumback began, effectively, labored on this for a really very long time with Bob Popp from the State of Vermont and in collaboration with the Pure Heritage Program of New Hampshire as effectively.
This can be a little plant that solely exists in three pure populations and three launched populations in very comparable habitat, very close by. And it clings to rocks [below, photo of A. robbinsii from GoBotany by Arthur Haines] and it will get washed away. And so the seeds that we’ve got within the seed financial institution, yearly there’s a gathering to debate: Will we increase it once more this 12 months? Will we wait and see which populations want extra consideration? So we had some very sturdy vegetation that Alexis grew final 12 months that had been so fluffy and wholesome that they really flowered of their first 12 months after we planted them, which doesn’t all the time occur. In order that was a pleasant factor to see this.
Margaret: Attention-grabbing. So speaking additionally once more again to the overlaps, similarities and variations in horticulture and conservation. So Doug Tallamy, the College of Delaware professor, for one writes in his books about creating wildlife corridors and so forth, and the way our native plant gardens, although clearly very small in comparison with wild areas and sometimes sited in extremely developed city and suburban settings, they nonetheless join disparate patches of nature and subsequently are actually vital to the larger image. So even little bits pieced collectively to make these type of pathways for wildlife and so forth.
So do our gardens, to your thoughts as an ecologist, I imply, do our gardens play a job? Are they a part of the restoration image? Have you learnt what I imply?
Lea: Completely. I imply, I’ve spent plenty of time within the house of city ecology. I feel it’s actually vital. I type of consider it as a continuum from one finish, you’ve gotten preservation of comparatively intact locations the place you’ve gotten the entire interacting system has its elements and all of those relationships are intact among the many many alternative parts of an ecosystem. And then you definitely’ve received locations the place the ecological restoration is required for a wide range of causes. There are all types of various issues that change.
After which on essentially the most peopled finish of that spectrum, there’s a lot chance within the locations the place we stay, the place we work, and it’s all a part of the identical course of and the identical trajectory of enhancing the well being of the ecosystems round us. And I feel it’s so vital to do this the place we see it on daily basis. There’s been a bunch of analysis that claims that nature expertise, particularly early in your life, is basically vital to your connection to nature.
And that takes an city type for most individuals. Eighty % of People stay in cities and cities. So we’re residing, we’re voting, we’re pondering, we’re making selections about what we do with land. And so I’m completely in favor of accelerating biodiversity in all places, particularly connecting to the native biodiversity, the native species of the place the place you reside. I feel it actually deepens a way of place.
I’m such a fan additionally of studying to know the issues which can be throughout you. It actually enriches expertise a lot. And that’s studying to see the mullein that’s rising in a crack within the driveway [laughter] and appreciating it for its enthusiasm. I feel in an ecological sense, relying on what your specific place is surrounded by, that’ll make a distinction to what can use it that you just didn’t put there, however there’s connectivity throughout all types of panorama matrix. So some organisms can transfer extra simply throughout an city surroundings than others. So a blue jay can really switch acorns fairly a distance in a metropolis, so an oak tree would possibly journey O.Okay. if there are blue jays. However one thing like bloodroot [photo, top of page], you may need that in a remnant forest patch in a metropolis, but it surely isn’t going to journey as effectively as a result of it travels by ants. [Laughter.]
Margaret: I used to be going to say, the hungry ants prefer to eat the elaiosomes and get all that yummy lipid or no matter it’s, that type of fatty stuff off the elaiosomes or one thing.
Lea: And within the course of, take the seed to their rubbish pile and plant it. Yeah. Nice. Within the compost. Precisely. However they’re not going to take it a mile away or perhaps a few blocks. However residential land does actually cowl plenty of land. And so I feel we are able to take a look at that as ecological potential.
Margaret: Yeah. So simply every other type of vegetation or initiatives or something that you just need to shout out for folks, or every other type of issues that you really want us to pay attention to as gardeners which can be in your thoughts that you just really feel like will be on our thoughts, too, and assist with answering that query that you just pose as your mission assertion type of?
Lea: Properly, I feel what unites all of the issues we do with vegetation—plant conservation, ecology and horticulture, agriculture, relying on the way you’re doing it—is that we’re caring for nature, we’re caring for the land in a method that’s centered on vegetation. And so I discover plenty of widespread floor among the many individuals who do this in a wide range of other ways.
Margaret: Sure.
Lea: And I feel that bringing native vegetation into our on a regular basis lives will be actually simply wondrous and delightful. And I significantly benefit from the factor of shock and alter and seeing what else comes, in addition to having fun with the vegetation that you just invite your self.
Margaret: Yeah. And I’m all the time thrilled. I’m glad you mentioned type of the wondrous factor, as a result of I all the time thought it’s simply as gardeners who type of have the awe factor as a result of we don’t perceive sufficient and it feels so large to us. However after I hear analysis scientists and so forth, ecologists and entomologists communicate in regards to the awe issue, I do know we’re all one, like all plant folks. All of us type of have that very same underlying feeling, which is so nice.
So I’m so glad to speak to you and I hope we’re going to speak once more quickly. And I’m once more so appreciative for the work that you just do, which clearly as somebody within the normal neighborhood, I’ve utilized a lot over time. So thanks, Lea Johnson from Native Plant Belief. Thanks for making time right this moment.
Lea: Thanks to your work, which I additionally very a lot take pleasure in.
(Images from Native Plant Belief, besides as famous.)
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