Winter Lecture Series 2019: Margaret Roach

A Way to Garden

 “I garden because I cannot help myself.”

Called back to her childhood home at age 25 to care for an ailing widowed parent, Margaret Roach sought refuge in self-prescribed backyard horticultural-therapy experiments. Thirty years ago she dug up her young Sciadopitys from that first foray, to transplant at the overgrown place she bought in the Hudson Valley, where she lives fulltime. There, the birds taught her to truly garden, offering a window into natural sciences and organic practices, and she strives to create a 365-day garden to sustain them—and herself. The 2.3-acre place juxtaposes habitat-style and collector plantings, the latter emphasizing foliage, including much that is large or gold.

After stints as garden editor at Martha Stewart Living and Newsday, Margaret Roach now creates the nationally-acclaimed website A Way to Garden and its companion public radio show-podcast, where she shares her deep garden knowledge and the unique approach she describes as “horticultural how-to and woo-woo.” Roach has authored three books—her first, also titled A Way to Garden, is being released as an all-new 21st anniversary edition in spring 2019.