This Week's Podcast: A Rebroadcast: We're All Connected: Kathy Salisbury
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My guest this week is Kathy Salisbury. Throughout her career, the one thing that has guided Kathy’s passion has been helping people connect with growing things. 
She did that in Newark, NJ, where she oversaw the development of a 1.5-acre-teaching garden and coordinated hundreds of volunteers to help with the installation and maintenance of this site. Then, Kathy became the horticulturist for the Essex County Parks Commission (originally planned by the Olmsted firm). During her time in Essex County, she oversaw significant forest restoration projects (for which she earned a Conservation Commendation from the Garden Club of America).
Kathy is now President of the Board of the NPSNJ, the all-volunteer Native Plant Society of New Jersey, and Team Leader of Education at Duke Farms – the 2,740-acre former estate of the late heiress Doris Duke – now an environmental center.
Some states in the US have very progressive native plant societies and active anti-invasive plant initiatives. 
It surprised me to hear that New Jersey does not. According to Kathy, no plant has ever been banned from sale in the Garden State. (You can find a guide to New Jersey’s invasive plants here.) Undaunted, the Society has chapters in every corner of the state where people work to protect habitat, threatened and endangered plants like the swamp pink, Helonias bullata (left).
Kathy is also a New Jersey native, having grown up in the bio-diverse Pine Barrens region in the southern part of New Jersey, where the nutrient poor, sandy soil supports hundreds of remarkable plants including the swamp pink, carnivorous species, acid-loving blueberries and cranberries.
The Native Plant Society of New Jersey presents lectures, workshops, classes and symposia throughout the year and intends to spread its influence to as many people as possible – to help them learn that every thing is important and everyone is connected to the natural world.
OMG! THANK YOU! I walk around my yard at least 5 times a week in the height of summer after I get home from work armed with my ANTI-DANDELION WEAPON and a mission to uproot anything that doesn’t belong in my yard. It was just this past summer that I noticed more and more of this “purple loosestrife” and had absolutely no idea what it was even called at the time but that i knew that I have a problem because it just kept growing and growing and I found myself going on the offensive with pulling that more than with the stupid ugly dandelions! I have no idea where it even came from and how it ended up infesting my lawn because it’s not anywhere near my flower beds and any mulch that I refresh in patches each spring. I also found the occasional giant black Japanese beetle that I would freely feed to the sunnies in my lake. When it comes to my lawn (which is the bane of my existence even though you would think grass – a weed in it’s own rite – would be the easiest plant to grow) I am committed to keep anything that doesn’t belong, OUT. I am hoping that with as much snow as we have had this year in the Highlands Region of NJ will squash it, but it sounds to me that this weed species is a whole lot hardier than are my hostas. What’s a woman to do? I don’t like to use harsh chemicals anywhere on my property because 1) I think it’s cheating (my motto: do the work, or don’t!) 2) I have cats that like to graze the lawn on occasion, and 3) I do not want any chemicals to taint my well water supply (I know in small amounts that wouldn’t really happen, but please refer back to reason #1). There’s no chemical warfare in my yard! Miracle Grow is flat-out cheating!
I am planning on going to Springfest on March 15th not only to sit in on your lecture but to also ask the fine folks at Rutgers Extension about this invasive plant and what to do about it. The Township of West Milford has put some serious restrictions on things that a home owner can use on their property so perhaps you or Kathy or Rutgers has some sort of non-toxic alternatives that can speed up the eradication process rather than just crouching down and yanking out from the root. I had planned to try to turn over my entire yard anyway to replant a new lawn, but haven’t fully committed to date to doing it. So just in case I don’t gut out my existing lawn, what can I look out for in keeping the spreading from happen early on in the spring?
I really enjoy your podcasts and catch up when I can on the weekends. Thank you to you both for shedding light on this tough-rooted subject; you’ve really helped me. As the saying goes “knowledge is power!”
Sandra P.
West Milford, NJ where the late-bloomers live!