From Columns to Clicks: A Virtual Roundtable Discussion on Navigating the New Media Landscape

Join the Garden Conservancy for a virtual roundtable exploring the evolving state of garden media. Our distinguished panelists and moderator will examine the forces shaping today’s information ecosystem and share practical guidance on finding trusted, useful, and inspiring resources for your gardening questions. 

Where can gardeners turn for reliable news and information today? What seems like a simple question has anything but a simple answer. Gardeners are more information-hungry than ever as our aesthetic sensibilities broaden, and the sources we rely on continually shift and evolve. Our questions, often driven by climate and ecology, are increasingly specific to region and context, even as many local newspapers retire longtime garden columns or disappear altogether. At the same time, other legacy media are adapting and even thriving with new niche magazines and an expanding roster of gardening titles from major book publishers.Then there’s digital sleuthing! AI-enhanced search results appear wonderfully authoritative but have been shown to hallucinate answers. And online plant databases (though invaluable) can be unwieldy, opaque, or intimidating. Blogs may be waning in popularity as Substack and social media rise, but the explosion of voices makes it harder than ever to distinguish sound advice from sponsored content. In short, garden media has reached an inflection point—and it’s time to take stock.

About the Moderator:

MARGARET ROACH is a longtime garden writer—first for Newsday newspaper, then for Martha Stewart Living (where she became the company’s EVP/Editorial Director) and the last six growing seasons for The New York Times. She also creates a website, podcast, and weekly newsletter called “A Way to Garden,” the title of her 1989 book that was reissued in 2019 in an all-new edition. Margaret has written several other books, including in 2013 The Backyard Parables. Her public-radio podcast, called A Way to Garden, is in its sixteenth year.

Panelists include:

KEVIN CLIFF (aka @theplantpapi) is a plant enthusiast, therapist, content creator, and storyteller who explores the intersection of plants, mental health, and everyday life. Through humor, honesty, and lived experience, he reframes houseplants not just as decor but as tools for grounding, routine, and self-connection. His work invites people to slow down and find meaning in the small.

ROCHELLE GREAYER is the editor of American Gardener, the flagship publication of the American Horticultural Society. Rochelle is also the founder of PITH + VIGOR and ran an independent landscape design firm for more than 20 years. In addition to her editorial work, Greayer was the on-air gardening expert for HSN. She is the author of Cultivating Garden Style, a contributor to several other garden books, and the creator of widely used online courses in garden design.

REBECCA McMACKIN an ecologically obsessed horticulturist, garden designer, and writer. She is Lead Horticulturist for the American Horticultural Society and produces the monthly newsletter and podcast Grow Like Wild! Previously she was Arboretum Curator at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, a Loeb Fellow at Harvard, and managed Brooklyn Bridge Park. She has written for and been featured in Gardens Illustrated, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, NPR, and PBS, and her TED talk on ecological gardening has been watched more than a million times.

STEPHEN ORR is the author of three books, including an upcoming book of essays, The Gardener’s Mindset: Connecting with Nature through Plants (Clarkson Potter/Random House, May 2026). Previously he was the editor in chief of Better Homes and Gardens. He was also executive at Condé Nast Traveler as well as garden editor at Martha Stewart Living, House & Garden, and Domino magazines. He writes regularly for his local newspaper the Provincetown Independent.

You will receive the webinar link directly from Zoom. A recording of this webinar will be sent to all registrants a few days after the event. We encourage you to register, even if you cannot attend the live webinar.