Neelam Patil, M.Ed., MFA, is a Climate Literacy and Science Teacher in the Berkeley public school system. She was awarded TIME Innovative Teacher of the Year 2022 by TIME Magazine based on her work teaching children they can do something about climate change. Ms. Patil spearheaded the planting of the first Miyawaki schoolyard forests in North America in Berkeley, California. While teaching her students about deforestation, they wanted to do something immediate and impactful. They demanded, ‘Let’s plant trees!’, and the rest is history.

Ms. Patil has been an educator since 2000. Her work specializes in empowering children to face the most pressing challenges of our time through climate resilience, mindfulness, plant based culinary education, and youth urban forestry. She is a certified SKY Breath instructor and recently founded a non-profit, Green Pocket Forests, whose mission is to green urban spaces using the Miyawaki method.

Robert Lundgren has a Bachelor of Plant Science and Fine Arts minor from the University of Delaware, and a Master of Landscape Architecture from the University of Pennsylvania. He worked at landscape architecture firms, Olin and Andropogon and is now at Penn working as the University Landscape Architect within the Facilities & Real Estate Services Division, shepherding a variety of landscape projects on the 300-acre campus arboretum. He is an artist, an award-winning designer and an avid naturalist. His responsibilities at Penn include research, campus planning, tree care and management, garden design, ecological and environmental initiatives and maintenance protocols.

Dave Muffly has been planting trees (especially oaks) in the Bay Area and other California locations for more than 30 years. Dave began his tree career when he received his undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering, at Stanford University. Moving from engineering to ecology, Dave managed native oak plantings at Stanford with the non-profit Magic, in a project that has yielded more than 4,000 established oaks in 40 years. Dave then branched into fruit trees, and urban tree plantings, with a special focus on street trees.

Dave subsequently became a Board Certified Master Arborist and designed/oversaw the 101 Freeway Soundwall planting as part of the East Palo Alto Tree Initiative led by the non-profit Canopy. This radical and experimental 1000-tree drought adaptation planting succeeded far beyond expectations and laid the foundation for the changes reverberating through the California tree nursery industry today. The East Palo Alto Tree Initiative became the proof of concept for the even more radically diverse plantings at Apple Park in Cupertino, where Dave spent seven years as Apple's Senior Arborist. Today Dave works as a senior arborist and horticultural futurist.

Daniel Hinkley is a plantsman, author, lecturer, nurseryman, and horticultural consultant. He earned a B.S. in Horticulture and Horticulture Education from Michigan State University and an M.S. in Urban Horticulture at the University of Washington. His first garden, Heronswood, near Kingston, Washington is now owned and operated by the Port Gamble SKlallam Tribe and is open to the public throughout the year.

Dan's current garden, Windcliff, is just a few miles from Heronswood. It sits on a high bluff overlooking the Salish Sea. For forty years, Hinkley has traveled the globe to similar climates to observe and preserve plants that deserve recognition as possible new additions to landscapes worldwide.

He has written four books and has been recognized by his peers in receiving numerous awards for his work, including the Liberty Hyde Bailey award from the American Horticulture Society, the Scott Gold Medal from the Scott Arboretum, and the Veitch Memorial Medal from the Royal Horticultural Society.

Mr. Al Key has been involved in the green industry for 30 years as an owner of DeepRoot Green Infrastructure, LLC. Together with his partners, he co-invented the SilvaCell® and has received several patents for his inventions which address trees and stormwater management in the urban setting. He has written for a wide range of publications, including the Journal of Arboriculture and Civil Engineering News. As Vice President, he established a representative network nationwide, set up major distributorships, and has been instrumental on projects such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, USTA Billie Jean King Tennis Center, and the MIT SOMA Center at Kendall Square, Cambridge MA. Mr. Key is a former Board Member of TreesNY, a Bronze Level Sponsor of the American Chestnut Foundation, a Forestry Committee member of the Wantastiquet Trout Club, and an Affiliate Member of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE).

Doug Oster is the Pittsburgh’s Garden Guru and host of the popular radio show The Organic Gardener on KDKA radio every Sunday morning. He writes a gardening column for The Green Voice, the newsletter for Pittsburgh Earth Day.

Oster appears on KDKA-TV’s Pittsburgh Today Live as a contributor.
He’s also host of the Talking Trees podcast for the Davey Tree Expert Company along with starring and producing In Doug’s Garden, a weekly television show for CBS/KDKA Streaming.

Oster is proud to work as a consultant with Farm to Table of Western Pennsylvania/Buy Fresh Buy Local. In that capacity he teaches organic gardening classes, helps in the creation and maintenance of local gardens, and works with the team to help underserved communities.

In addition, Doug hosted, produced and wrote the one-hour special “The Gardens of Pennsylvania” for PBS which won the Emmy for Outstanding Documentary.

His fifth book, “The Steel City Garden; Creating a One of a Kind Garden in Black and Gold” demonstrates how to create a garden using Pittsburgh’s favorite colors.

The garden personality has a strong following on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Oster’s most satisfying accomplishment was founding Cultivating Success, a garden program for foster and adoptive children.

John Grimshaw has been interested in plants his entire life, as both gardener and botanist. He holds a first class degree in botany and a doctorate in the ecology of the forests of Mt Kilimanjaro from Oxford University. His Tanzanian connections remain important, and he’s proud to be an honorary elder of the Maasai community of Lerang’wa, Tanzania. African plants remain an important botanical interest, but he is fascinated by all plants and has grown a huge diversity in his gardens. He has travelled widely to see plants growing in habitat. His first book was The Gardener’s Atlas (1998), recounting the journeys plants have made from their source to our gardens.

Working in The Netherlands for the seed company K. Sahin, Zaden. B.V., John was responsible for developing perennials and other plants for the seed trade. This gave him invaluable experience of commercial horticulture and management. Following that he joined Colesbourne Park in Gloucestershire as Gardens Manager, where he was responsible for maintaining and developing the historic Elwes family garden, especially the snowdrop collection. He co-authored the monograph Snowdrops (2002) with M Bishop & A Davis, published by Griffin Press. Between 2004-2009 he was lead author of a major book on trees introduced in the past 35 years, entitled New Trees, Recent Introductions to Cultivation, with co-author Ross Bayton. It was sponsored by the International Dendrology Society and was published by RBG Kew, in May 2009.

In August 2012 he became Director of The Yorkshire Arboretum, North Yorkshire, with responsibility for the 120-acre arboretum and 20-acre Ray Wood, on the Castle Howard estate. This involves a wide range of management and administrative duties, fundraising and networking as well as active curation of the extensive collection. In 2021 the arboretum opened the country’s first dedicated Tree Health Centre, to raise awareness of the problems facing trees from diseases, pests and climate change. He was appointed MBE for ‘services to tree health and plant conservation’ in the 2024 New Year Honors List.

John is a member of the Royal Horticultural Society’s Nomenclature and Taxonomy Advisory Group, the RHS Woody Plant and Gardens Committees, and in 2012 led the RHS review of the Award of Garden Merit.

He speaks and writes widely on horticultural and tree-related subjects. Other interests include the arts, cookery and poultry-keeping.

He is also Editor-in-Chief of the International Dendrology Society’s Trees and Shrubs Online www.treesandshrubsonline.org, an encyclopedic work covering all temperate woody plants.

Richard McCoy is a 30 plus-year green industry professional, American Green Zone Alliance (AGZA) Northeast Regional Representative and owner of Richard A. McCoy Horticultural Services Inc., established in 1995 and incorporated in 1998 as a conventional landscape company.

McCoy’s company began a transition to become one of New Jersey's first completely organic, ecological, and low-impact land care companies in 2005. Currently, McCoy Horticultural offers organic lawn and land care solutions, native plants, and green infrastructure design and installations. McCoy’s off-the-grid battery electric landscape maintenance is powered by a prototype self-designed solar trailer, and he uses autonomous robotic lawn mowing.

Richard is a NOFA Accredited Land Care Professional, holds a Rutgers Organic Land Care Certificate and is an AGZA Certified Service Pro. McCoy is also an active New Jersey Nursery and Landscape Association member.

In addition, Richard is an advisor to many professional groups as well as being an organic, ecological, and low-impact land care educator to contractors, municipal and institutional workers on how to transition to alternative land care methods.

Mark Richardson is the Director of Horticulture for the New England Botanic Garden at Tower Hill in Boylston, Massachusetts. He leads a team of horticulture staff and oversees a living plant collection that spans sixteen distinct garden spaces, two conservatories, and over 100 acres of surrounding woodlands and wetlands. He has a passion for ecological horticulture and native plants, and he lectures on various topics including “How to Kill Your Lawn.” He is the co-author of the book Native Plants for New England Gardens (Globe Pequot, 2018).

Tim Boland is the Director of the Polly Hill Arboretum on the island of Martha’s Vineyard, West Tisbury, Massachusetts. Tim moved with his wife Laura and two children to the Vineyard in 2002. Before his move to the Vineyard, he was Curator of Horticulture at the Morton Arboretum in Lisle, Illinois. A plantsman with wide-ranging interests, he is a nationally recognized author, photographer, and lecturer.

Tim has an undergraduate degree in Landscape Horticulture and a master’s degree in Botany and Plant Pathology from Michigan State University with a specialization in Plant Ecology and Systematics.

Tim studies oak trees and has traveled the world to see oaks in their natural habitats. He is a board member of the International Oak Society, and Chair of the Oak Conservation and Research Committee.

Tim is also active in assembling a modern flora for Martha’s Vineyard and adjacent islands. He is a plant collections advocate and serves on the Living Collections Advisory Committee of the Arnold Arboretum, Boston, MA.

In his position as director of the Polly Hill Arboretum, Tim guides the principal program areas of Living Collections, Education, Plant Conservation, and Community Ecology.

He is thrilled to see the transformation over the last several years of the Polly Hill Arboretum from a private garden to a community, regional, and national resource. A big part of this transformation is the dedicated work of the board, staff, and volunteers who so generously support the Polly Hill Arboretum through their time, and enthusiasm!

Jason Ross is the Managing Publisher of Wood Central - the world's largest news platform for forest-based news! Wood Central has more than 170,000 users, with over 75% of users under 45, and 47% under 35! We cover all the news on the Wood Central website, across all media channels that interest our users, with fresh content from across the world updated all day, every day.

So whether it's the next generation of mass timber buildings, the carbon power in our lithium batteries or even the use of Cold War technology in monitoring carbon stock across the world's forests - scroll over to Wood Central to stay informed about all the news that matters!

Jason has a passion for green buildings - probably why Wood Central is the only platform dedicated to writing up a new and unique project case study every day! As a former Green Star Accredited Professional (GSAP), he has been an active member in driving the adoption of Green Star projects in Australia - and is pushing for greener, cleaner and more sustainable building materials ahead of the Brisbane Olympic Games. He has advised the Queensland State Government on environmental protection, heritage, housing and public works.

From 2018 until 2022, Jason managed the PEFC brands in the Australian and New Zealand markets and is passionate about growing the certification awareness and compliance across the Asia-Pacific region. Still, trying to figure out what forest certification is and why it matters?

An experienced spokesperson, Jason has presented to a variety of forums, including the United Nations (Australia and New Zealand), the Property Council (Australia), Master Builder (Australia), the Building Designer Association of Australia (BDAA), the Australian Institute of Building, the National Retailers Association, the Green Building Council of Australia (GBCA) and New Zealand (NZGBC), the PEFC Council (Geneva, Switzerland), the Wood Processors Manufacturing Association (New Zealand) and the Australian Institute of Packaging (AIP).

Alec Charais is one of the most passionate people in horticulture today. Having grown up on a family farm, his love for plants grew into a rewarding career that today finds him collaborating with breeders and agents across the globe, searching for trees and shrubs that will beautify the outdoor living experience for everyone.
At Bailey Nurseries, a family-owned fifth-generation nursery with growing operations in Minnesota, Oregon, Washington, Illinois, and Georgia, Alec leads the marketing and product development functions across the company. This includes successful consumer brands including First Editions® Shrubs & Trees, Endless Summer® Hydrangeas, and Easy Elegance® Roses – all brands that Bailey owns and manages worldwide. These brands are well known in many parts of the world and Bailey continues to breathe new life into their plants through extensive breeding and trialing to ensure people have lasting success.
In addition to his role as Chief Marketing & Product Development Officer at Bailey, he also serves on the Board of Directors of the National Garden Bureau and the Corporate Membership Committee of the American Society of Landscape Architects. Alec is passionate about bringing new ideas, people, and plants, to life!

Hal and I talk some of the highlights of the podcast thus far. We think you will enjoy the overview if you have never listened to our podcast before. Below you will find a short list of some of the podcasts that you might want to listen to or relisten to if you are a regular listener. You’ll hear how our guests are making a dent in the climate crisis by their positive actions. We are grateful to all of our guests for sharing their amazing work! And we thank our listeners for tuning in and for all of your wonderful comments and suggestions.

We thank you!!

Seth Lieberman

Seth Lieberman co-founded Quiet Clean Philly; an all-volunteer organization dedicated to phasing out gas leaf blowers in the City of Philadelphia. Seth’s activism and articles on the harms of gas leaf blowers have been featured in the Philadelphia Inquirer, WHYY’s Studio 2 and Radio Times, Channel 6 ABC Action News, The Chestnut Hill Local, The Weavers Way Shuttle, Planet Philadelphia, and The Jewish Exponent. Seth is also active as part of a national network of municipalities seeking healthier and more sustainable communities through changing how we think about lawncare. When not volunteering, Seth runs Leadership Breakthroughs, a leadership and strategy development business focused on academic medical centers.
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Dr. Bonnie Sager

Dr. Bonnie Sager is a Consulting Clinical Physician to the New York State hospital system. She has lectured internationally on eyecare and has served as Vice President and advisor to several Visioncare companies. As a clinician, she is concerned with the many detrimental health impacts that gas powered lawn equipment have on landscape workers and the general public. She is actively working with communities, medical professionals, environmental groups, and legislators to change policy and promote more sustainable landscaping practices. Dr. Sager and Dr. Lucy Weinstein are co-founders of Huntington CALM, (Clean Alternative Landscaping Methods) a Long Island-based citizens’ advocacy organization. She is also a co-founder of QCA (Quiet Clean Alliance) a national organization dedicated to educating and changing public policy on gas lawn equipment. Dr. Sager served on the advisory board of Noise Free America and has been featured in print, on television and radio addressing the topic Landscaping and Your Health.

Ron Kinney is the production manager at Monrovia’s Oregon nursery. Ron has a degree in Ornamental Horticulture from California State Polytechnic University and has been in the industry for more than 30 years. Part of his role as production manager includes responsibility for tree production, both in containers and in-ground field production, at Monrovia’s California and Oregon nursery facilities.

Ron and his wife also manage and operate a 20-acre Hazelnut orchard in Oregon.

Ari Miller, RLA, ISA Certified Arborist - Ari Miller is the director of design at Hinge Collective in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, a public interest design firm that puts community engagement and public participation at the forefront of their practice. As both a landscape architect and arborist, Ari has always advocated for the integration and restoration of natural systems in urban design. Over the course of his 17-year career, Ari has worked as an arborist at Morris Arboretum, as a green roof design specialist at Roofmeadow, and has also led large-scale civic design projects at OLIN Partners. At Hinge, he uses this experience to help communities find design solutions that best support human and ecological health in their own neighborhoods through the enhancement of public space and community-led planning. Some notable projects include the Philly Tree Plan, Resilient Communities Stormwater Initiative, Unity Park, and Frankford Pause Park. Ari has also been adjunct faculty at the Weitzman School of Design at the University of Pennsylvania and Jefferson University.

Steven Kiiskila is the Crop and Growing Team Manager at Arbutus Grove Nursery, located at the southern tip of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. Each year his team grows 15 million container seedlings composed of 18 or more species, primarily for reforestation throughout Western Canada and the Pacific Northwest. He has been involved in reforestation his entire career; from collecting seeds to organizing and monitoring tree planting programs, although his primary focus has been growing seedlings at various nurseries throughout B.C. While employed as a Seedling Reforestation Specialist, he advised nurseries and tree seed orchards on growing practices. In this role, he also guided foresters and others planting trees on seedling stocktype selection and planting practices and established numerous outplanting trials to search for answers in overcoming reforestation challenges.

Steven loves the combination of art and science used to grow forest seedlings, and the fact that as a grower he is always learning something new. One of his favorite tree growing sayings is: “Growing trees is not rocket science, it’s much harder.” He has a Master of Science degree in Forest Biology from the University of Victoria, a Bachelor of Science in Agriculture, horticulture major from the University of Guelph, and a Horticulture Diploma from Olds, College.

Joe Lamb, founder of the Borneo Project, is a writer, activist, and arborist living in Berkeley, California. His poetry and essays have appeared in Earth Island Journal, The Sun, Caliban, Wind, Orion, and other magazines. His work is also included in the anthologies The Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart: A Poetry Anthology, Robert Bly et al editors, and Veterans of War/Veterans of Peace, Maxine Hong Kingston editor.

Joe has degrees in biology, ecology, and film. He has taught biology and ecology in the United States and in Mexico. He worked as a field organizer on the Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign, and as a film distributor for The Video Project. For over forty years he has tended trees in the urban forest as co-owner of Brende and Lamb Tree and Shrub care.

In 1991, under the auspices of Earth Island Institute, Joe founded the Borneo Project, an NGO that helps the indigenous peoples of Borneo secure land rights and protect their forest. Honored by the Goldman Foundation as an “environmental hero,” Joe was featured in the San Francisco public television program, “Green Means.”

For over 30 years the Borneo Project has helped indigenous peoples map their lands, bring their case to the court of public opinion, and press for the preservation of their forests through legal action. Learn more about the Borneo Project – see the link below.

Joe is firmly committed to trees as an essential part of any realistic strategy to help the world limit and mitigate the potentially catastrophic consequences of climate change.

Mark Krawczyk is an applied ecologist, educator, and grower with a background in permaculture design, agroforestry, natural building, traditional woodworking, and small-scale forestry. He co-owns and operates Keyline Vermont LLC, teaching, designing, and consulting for farmers, homeowners, and homesteaders. Since 2008, Mark has taught over 30 Permaculture Design Courses and been a specialist guest instructor in dozens more. He holds Diplomas in Permaculture Design and Education from the Permaculture Institute of North America. He and his wife also co-manage Valley Clayplain Forest Farm - 52 acres of field and forest in New Haven, Vermont, USA.

Asha-Lé Davis joined the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society (PHS) as Trees Specialist in 2021 to pursue her passion for empowering people to grow tree canopy in their communities. Since joining, she has helped grow the PHS Tree Tenders program in Bucks, Chester, Delaware, and Montgomery counties to over 60 active groups who have planted 3,000+ trees. She recently took on the role of facilitating the educational workshops within the program. Prior to her work at PHS, Asha-Lé was introduced to the necessity of healthy urban tree canopy through her work with TreePhilly. Asha-Lé is a PHS Tree Tender leader in her own community, East Parkside, using her knowledge to educate her neighbors about the benefits of tree planting and care.