From away to garden.com and Robinhood Radio.com, this is Away to Garden with Margaret Roach. You're a weekly invitation to dig in and grow. Finding our way toward a more ecologically vibrant garden can sometimes feel a bit challenging, and I'm always looking for resources to guide me and to share with you. Last year I shared news about a New York-based sustainable landscaping firm that had developed a digital self-test to help us each evaluate the ecological health of our landscape, and in a company 12-step program to enhance it, both of them free to use. Now the same company plan at Wilde with an impressive group of collaborators that includes Doug Talalamis' homegrown national park, the Wild One's membership group Audubon, Cornell Lab, and more has taken the next step. They just launched the beta version of an app described as a personalized, rewilding guide for every homeowner in America to help us decide which actions to take and what plants to use to accomplish them. More in a moment about how this new tool can help support each of us on our native plant journey, but first these messages. Underwriting support for a way to garden provided by Colorblends wholesale flower bulbs. A third-generation bulb company offering top-sized flower bulbs directly to landscape professionals and ambitious residential gardeners on the web, Colorblends.com. And by High Moeng Seeds, Wolcott Vermont, Professional Quality Vegetable, Flower, and Urbel Seeds that are 100% organic and non-GMO project verified on the web, HighMoengSeeds.com. by by Whiteflower Farm offering a wide range of carefully selected and expertly grown garden plants on the web whiteflower farm.com. My guests today are Joanna Hall the CEO of Planet Wild a Westchester New York based landscaping firm focused on creating biodiversity raising native habitats native habitats. And Bram Gunther, PlanetWild's VP of Science and Development. They're here to talk about their Wilder app. A new app they've developed to guide us as we enhance our home landscapes with an ecological focus and the key topics we need to keep in mind along the way. Hi, Joana, hi, Bram, how are you?

We're good.

Thank you so much for having us. Yes, it will just be here. You're welcome. So I took my test last year. My wilder score and so forth. So last year, a lot of us used your self-testing technology called the Wilder Score. And it's W-I-L-D-R for those who want to quickly Google it or whatever, it's no E in it, wilder, without the E to assess how our place was

doing ecologically speaking. And then it sort of followed up with, I think, was a 12-week challenge. Yes, to sort of be more tuned in and think about and maybe make some adjustments and so forth. And now there's a new app that's in beta with the kickoff was on May 7th with a keynote

talked by Robin Wallkimmer or yes. That's right. Yes, coming up here actually by the time we will

have recorded, I think it will have just run. We are so excited, everything kicks off May 7th.

And it is the fourth year of this national campaign now called Lesslone More Life. Right, which is of course the big goal. So, did you, I guess from those first four years, but especially from last year, which was a big push with the Wilder score.

And so forth, I assume you sort of observed and heard, in fact, probably from some of those who took the test and followed the 12-week program, did what they had to say and what they did using it, did that inspire you to sort of shape this new thing? I mean, were there sort of inferences that stuck out? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I will say the past few years has just been a listening journey, listening to this growing community and being very sort of tuned into their suggestions and needs to help advance the movement. So we just continue to lean into it. So last year was our biggest yet. The feedback was incredible, overwhelmingly positive. And in fact, I think over 90% of the participants in the 12 week program improved their score. They take it at the very beginning of the challenge, and then they learn some of the best practices, and then they take it at the end again. Incredible feedback, but still asking for more. Can you make more customer recommendations? Can you answer these questions? So we just keep leaning into the momentum and the opportunity. And I think the more that we listen to the needs and then develop the technology and tools accordingly, that basically becomes our roadmap, if you will, for the product itself. Right. And I've heard you guys call it a wilder as kind of a translation layer. You know, makes, as you've told me, it makes intimidating science actionable for homeowners. And that's what I found is I played with the beta and so forth. And I want to ask you, Bram, you know, can jump in and I'm interested to hear about kind of some of the recommendations and so forth. You know, as a garden writer, I get a lot of emails and comments from people who seem to get stuck on like a lot of times it's about what plant is the plant, you know, for their purpose and their location and they want to know where should I go to find out. And so I think one of the things you've done is you've made that part of this. Some of the answers can be found now in this app. Yes, is that true? Yes, that's exactly true. And fundamentally, people are hungry for this just to reemphasize what you were just talking about. And in their hunger for this, they want action and it can be complicated. So having a guidelines, that a guidelines like this helps people walk through it. So translating that science into mainstream action is the way that we are going to reach our ecological and sustainability goals, whether it's on an individual or community or regional level. And it's also spurring scientists, the new generation of scientists that are finding out how to you get sort of classical science collected in the field and analyzed. But how do you translate that for people across the country and across our communities? So it leads to healthier neighborhoods. So it's all converging at this moment, I think driven by desire and also backed by science. And that's what we hope we're capturing in the wilder app. Yeah, so it kind of encourages us as I was like clicking around and so forth with forth. It kind of encourages us and guides us through creating these planting zones, I think you call them. And I think, I mean, I didn't go all the way through. You know what I mean? I was playing around and it was the beta version and so forth. But it's almost like I was able to say, well, here's what the conditions of light and moisture and and and my purpose were and I was offered a potential plant list, you know, like a pallet of possibilities, not just one or two or three, but like a range of things that I could maybe choose from and play with. Is that an accurate portrayal? Yeah, that's exactly right. So, back to this idea of the translation layer, what we really think is required to kind of activate and support so many of these homeowners and individuals is truly meeting them exactly where they are. So, it hyper-personalized. So folks can join. They can set up these planting areas or zones. You could just start with one or you could have multiple. Maybe you have a small meadow patch, a soft landing under a tree, a shade garden. And then you put in your, we know your eco region from the app, right? So we're making recommendations that are native to you. You put in your site conditions, you put in your goals, and then the app is going to recommend a list of native plants for you ranked in ecological order. And then there'll also be advanced filtering. So it's really about making this as easy as possible, but also sort of translating that science directly to the end user. Either add it to your wish list, right? Here's a list of native plants that I hope to plant over time and I'll chip away at. Or you can also add them if they're already planted in your garden and you can start keeping track of what's living and sort of the diversity and abundance of species that you have on your property. Right so it records, right so it can be a project you have in mind and you can get guidance or you can say what you've already got going on and and that adds up to sort of, yeah. I'm sorry, go ahead, Bram. It's worth noting that in the personalization, in the mainstreaming, which is what we are trying to accomplish, we are collecting and synthesizing data sets in a way that hasn't done before. before, There's a lot of different landscapes across the country, as we all know. And even within those counties, you can have even more nuanced landscapes. So to put this data set together based upon federal data, community-based data, new emerging literature, having experts review this data, it really helps a person who's there doing it on their own, feel confident and reliable that we are suggesting the right composition of plants to restore their land. Right. And if I could add one thing to that because I think one of the things that we as a team are most excited about is, again, back to the whole ethos, if you will, of this platform, this idea of it being built by and for the community. We're also getting community members involved in ground-true thing, those recommendations. It's not just, yes, we're doing a tremendous amount of work right integrating all of these data sets, right?

From regional to national, but we're also inviting folks in to say to confirm the accuracy of our recommendations. What about bloom time in your particular area? What about availability, right? Some of this first party data that ensures that our recommendations are ground truth with real people, and that it's constantly getting better and smarter to serve the whole. And I noticed that there was, I mean there's like different tabs at the sort of top like navigational tabs at the top of the app page of your Liguelan and iPad or whatever and and one of you could kind of, there was one that offered you the possibility of looking at other peoples, what other people are doing. There were sort of sample examples of adventures other people had been on. The plants they had chosen for different applications and so forth. So there was also the chance to kind of learn both from other examples like that. Or almost just kind of research, again, like if it's a potential area you want to develop and say, I'm going to do a thicket or whatever I want to do, a privacy screen. And I'm in this area and I have these conditions and so forth. And you need to get this potential palette to choose from, again, there's another way to learn. So there's a lot of there's a lot of that as well. There's a lot of reference materials so to speak of different kinds, inspirational and more academic, you know, more research, you know, the plant, here's the plant and that would work in that that situation. Yeah. We're very excited about the Explorer feature, which is that inspiration piece. So this is where, you know, you, for example, can, you know, as you're setting up your own place and you're setting up your garden zones and your plant pallets and maybe adding what wildlife features you have, you know, you have the ability to make that public if you choose. And if you make it public, you're actually inviting, right, your address, of course, is obscured, right? But you're inviting folks to sort of take this virtual tour, right, of your own journey, right? Seeing photos of your garden, seeing what palettes, right? You've, you know, plant palettes you're using, maybe even what nature and wildlife, right, has visited your place. And we're already hearing from folks that that's, you know, a big source of motivation to know that they're not alone and be able to kind of, you know, be inspired by other people's journeys, whether that's something that they've been doing for 20 years or they just started. And so again, this is the kind of thing we're putting out there. And then we're going to hear from the community how important this particular feature is in supporting them. So we already have a few folks that requested, ooh, I'd be happy to share my own field notes. What's working? What's not? My own best practice is kind of like a blog for those years to learn from. And so you could imagine people in your eco region, if you're able to kind of follow and learn from them, this starts to become really powerful, kind of peer to peer support. Right. And then there's a whole other sort of thing to browse through. There's a whole list of wildlife features, I think you call them. So, you know, do we have a brush pile? It kind of reminds us, not only asks us, do we have them the way the test did, the the the Wilderscore tested, but it it it also reminds us that huh, that thing is empowering, that thing might be good to have. Can I figure that into my place? So a brush pile, burdened bad houses, a leaf litter zone as you call it, you know, various forms of water access and covering the windows properly or marking the windows properly to protect birds from deadly collisions. You know, there were lots and lots of those and I think those are super important things because it's not just about the planting, is it? No, no, it's not. It's about the entire dynamics of the place. It's about the end... I was going to use the word ecosystem and think some people think of that as a larger space, but you can have an ecosystem as we both know, which is a teeny little space, but holds all these animals. And we keeping things on sight, one of those quirks of the modern age, if I can put it that way, I mean, drop leaves, never walk themselves to the landfill. That was our idea to take those leaves to the landfill. Though the leaves are home and food for all cycles of the season for animals adding nutrition to the soil, that's all part of creating a thriving habitat. And if it doesn't thrive, right, then people are going to be less inspired to do it over time. But if it does thrive and you're using all the materials that are already there, it's more likely that the experience is going to be really positive and you'll get good results from it. And we're going to use, you know, we're going to waste less as we keep the, you know, the logs that have fallen and are adding nutrients to the soil. So it's all part of keeping things where they are and reusing them as part of the ecosystem dynamics.

I mean, Mom, I think about just that element. You just said, you know, the logs, for instance, when I think about our traditional methods over however long of tree care, quote, unquote, definitely quotes, where we basically remove right down to the stump grinding, any tree that wasn't in perfect condition. For so long we've been doing that as a practice and how costly that is and how much life that did not support, you know, how much that life that took away and how much life support potentially to each site that those trees are removed from, you know, that that took away. I mean, there's just, it's just, just clicking through, I'm just trying to give an example that clicking through that area, your wildlife features. It reminds me, even as an experienced gardener of things that are so important and I want, I was mental stock of, how am I doing and that, how am I doing on that? I think that's the point, right? How am I doing and can I do a little better? That is spot on. And you didn't see it in the version that you saw, but the one that will be an app store by the time we launch here for the campaign, we'll have already taken that a little further. So there's a bit of a dashboard and this is all coming from the score, right? The score is this sort of baseline of the ecological health of your land and the levers that you as an individual can control to improve that health. And so in this version, you know, we give folks targets, right? Target number of wildlife features that you should have on your property. You can choose which ones and we'll make recommendations based on your region and so forth. A target number of native species, native relative to introduce, for example. So we're going to layer in targets to sort of help people understand what they're striving for, what good looks like, and to show it all together holistically. Now the dream, like Barbara has you were sort of saying that this will take a little longer to get to, right? But the dream is really to be able to show homeowners that based on their management practices and these decisions and actions, what does that mean from a cost savings perspective? What does that mean in terms of the total life, wildlife that I'm supporting, that perhaps the water that I'm cleaning, the carbon that we're sequestering or saving by not mowing and things like that. So that's really where we intend to go because you sort of move what you measure. We how do we keep this gamified and fun and encourage people right to understand, right? That sort of holistic health of their property. And to insert sort of Doug Callamy's at least famous quote amongst us is that he envisions landscaping as synonymous with ecological

restoration. There are no sometimes licked. They're the same thing and you still get a beautiful yard in which you can spend time in and yet it is rich with biodiversity versus the opposite now, which of course is you know, solid with and our lifeless laws. Right. And what any means advocating that you give up all your lawn, just to be precise here, you know, the lawn has is, you know, function people gather there, people talk to each other there, they eat there. We just don't need as much as we have, and it can be translated-diverse habitat. Yeah. I wanted to take a few minutes to talk about, you know, we have maybe five, four, five minutes left, and I wanted to talk about two of the things on the wildlife features list that I was glad to see, and there are ones that have really been coming up lately more recently in that. And I don't know as much about them, but you know, they weren't in the list of horticultural practices not so long ago, but now I think they're emerging and they're so important, especially for birds. The dense shrub thicket and the pocket forest. I feel like this shrub, I've been saying this lately a lot. We've really decimated the shrub layer in our world, you know, the way that we garden and so forth. But yeah, so I was glad to see those. Are those things that are sort of near and dear to you guys? Yes, and you are right that in our area and particularly the shrub layer has been decimated by deer. And it is, you know, for an ecologist, as I'm trained, it's a weird thing to look at a forest and see the big trees and nothing else. Right. Worrying that part of what's a natural vertical landscape is really important. And then pocket forest, I'm glad you brought it up because it is one of one of the things that we are most pushing and recommending in this area. Obviously, if somebody is using wilder in the Sedona desert, it's going to be a different set of plants in this area. But in our region and our experience through planet wild, which is our on the ground part of the business. The forest is a natural succession of this area. You want to establish that forest because it's self-sustaining and it can fight off the invasive plants, by and large on its own. And we are trying to shift this landscaping perspective away from just a horizontal look to this vertical look to provide the most biodiversity and environmental benefits possible in a particular place. So yes, we are very much pushing pocket forests. Yeah, it's an interesting subject. So in the last couple of minutes, do I still take the test? Like if I'm a newcomer to the whole Lesslon more life and to the whole, the wilder, the world of wilder of your wilder products? Do I still take the test or, and also use the new app or what's the entry point? And by the way, all of this is at lesslawonmorelife.com. I believe is the URL, but I'll give all the links and all the information with the transcript of the show over on a way to Garden.com, of course. Yes, the answer to the score is that once, so for anyone that's taken it, we have a lot of folks that join the challenge last year and took the quiz and are going to be coming back this year. The app will actually, as long as they're using the same email, it will recognize them and pull in their prior score. So we'll already have that data, we'll already have that information, we'll be pulled into the app and then sort of tracked over time. They can also retake it. So they're encouraged to take it again, particularly at this challenge. And then our goal is to help them track, sort of use that as a baseline over time. Okay. So, and then there'll be 12 weeks of prompts again, like an email weekly email with suggestions and reminders and so forth. Exactly. signs up. It's 12 weeks of prompts again, like a weekly email with suggestions and reminders and so forth. Exactly. Anyone that signs up, it's 12 weeks of fun little microchallenges and best practices. We have incredible new hosts and experts that are teaming up with us this year. And then we've also decided to layer in. We had a few webinars last year, but we're for those who want to go deeper, we have six webinars scheduled throughout the course of the campaign that folks can join and if they can't join live, they'll also receive those full recordings. Okay. Lots of information. Yeah, and Robin, Walkkamer, doing the kickoff, she has also

created an entity that's part of your large group of collaborators, I think.

Yes.

Yes, plant baby plant. Is that right? Instead of drill baby drill, it's plant baby

plant, I believe it's a profit. Yeah.

That's right. I love it. They're incredible partners. We are so, so honest, just, you know, grateful and excited to have her kick this off with us this year. And then we have new national partners. We've got, we've got national Audubon and Lab of Ornithology and the Garden for Birds, folks in one earth. So there's a lot of new collaborators that are co-promoting, that are sharing resources and information to just spread the word and get more and more people engaged. Right. And of course, a lot of these have a depth of science knowledge that I assume is really valuable to vet things and toss around ideas and figure out how to shape this as a product emerges, evolves. usually viable. You know? Usually viable. I mean, we sort of, we think of ourselves as just co-creating this with partners. I mean, we're constantly talking to the folks at Homegrown National Park, Doug Tallamie's organization with wild ones and both the national folks as well as the regional chapter leads with Cornell Lab of Ornithology, team, Becca Brudomsky-Bish is on our science advisory board. So again, we sort of think of ourselves as not by any means the experts, right? But how can we listen and learn and collaboratively, effectively to then just rebuild this conduit to the end user, to the homeowner? Well, I'm glad you did and thank you, Bram, and thank you,

Joanna, for being with us today. And I'm looking forward to Diggy and Deeper and doing a test

again and seeing how I do by comparison and being more conscious. So thank you and I'll talk to you

again soon. I hope. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. And thanks to all of the rest of you for

tuning into now. Don't miss an episode. you can subscribe free to the podcast version of the show on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and you can find me anytime at away to garden.com and on Facebook and on Instagram as at away to garden and happy gardening meantime. Underwriting support for away to garden provided by color blends wholesale flower bulbs, a third generation bulb company offering top-sized flower bulbs directly to landscape professionals and ambitious residential gardeners on the web, Colorblends.com. And by High Moeng seeds, Woke Up Vermont, Professional Quality Vegetable Flower and Erbil Seeds that are 100% organic and non-GMO project verified.

On the web, highmoingseeds.com and by Whiteflower Farm offering a wide range of carefully selected

and expertly grown garden plants.

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