This page lists some of the authors who inspire us as gardeners, and as human stewards of this wonderful planet.
Robin Wall Kimmerer
Robin Wall Kimmerer is a scientist, decorated professor, and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. She is the author of many acclaimed books, including The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World and Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants.
Rebecca McMackin
Rebecca McMackin is a force of nature. She’s a former Loeb Fellow at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, an author, a public speaker, and an accomplished native garden designer and curator. She publishes a monthly newsletter that includes a flurry of ideas and links to fascinating news stories and other resources. Please check out her site and subscribe to her newsletter. And check out her TED talk, Let Your Garden Grow Wild!
Piet Oudolf
Piet Oudolf is a Dutch landscape designer who pioneered perennial plantings, focusing on all-season interest. He’s the designer of the High Line on the west side of Manhattan, where you’ll find many native plants, and lots of bees and butterflies!
Margaret Rinkl
Margaret Rinkl, a New York Times contributing Op-Ed writer, covers flora, fauna, politics and culture in the American South. She’s also the author of The Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year, which was published in October 2023 and which won the 2024 Southern Book Prize. Her earlier books are Late Migrations: A Natural History of Love and Loss (2019), which won the Reed Environmental Writing Award in 2020; and Graceland, At Last: Notes on Hope and Heartache From the American South (2021), which won both the Southern Book Prize and the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay in 2022.
Douglas Tallamy
Douglas Tallamy is a professor of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Delaware. He’s written many books about the complex relationships between native plants and pollinators, including Nature’s Best Hope, required reading for those of us who want to do our part to restore and nurture the environment. He’s also the creator of the Homegrown National Park.
Heather Holm
Heather Holm is a pollinator conservationist and award-winning author of four books: Pollinators of Native Plants (2014), Bees (2017), Wasps (2021), and Common Native Bees of the Eastern United States (2022). Both Bees and Wasps have won multiple book awards including the American Horticultural Society Book Award (2018 and 2022 respectively). Heather’s expertise includes the interactions between native pollinators and native plants, and the natural history and biology of native bees and predatory wasps.
Ashford Pollinator Pathway 