Rachel Lindsay on Regenerative Design (#49)
In this month's episode of The Plantastic Podcast, I interview Rachel Lindsay of Regenerative Design Group to discuss how to create productive, resilient landscapes. We dive deep into the Massachusetts Healthy Soils Guide, a wonderful resource that Rachel helped develop and how it's changing the way practitioners approach soil health from the ground up. Rachel shares how ecological design goes beyond plants to integrate soil, water, wildlife, and human needs into one holistic system. We discuss the power of observation as the foundation of good design, why worker-owned cooperatives are a useful approach in the design industry, and how permaculture principles can scale from residential gardens to large conservation projects. Rachel also shares about the magic of identifying dragonflies with her three-year-old and why getting people outside to notice jewelweed for the first time is how we propagate more plant people.
The Plantastic Podcast · Rachel Lindsay, Jared Barnes
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Show Notes
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RACHEL LINDSAY BIO
As Head of Site Design at Regenerative Design Group, Rachel works principally with organizations and homeowners to create productive, resilient landscapes. She draws from her experiences in organic farming, Latin-American sustainable development, and art to approach design with cultural sensitivity and environmental integrity. Rachel approaches projects of all scales through a soil, carbon, and water conservation lens, looking for opportunities to reduce the environmental impact of design installation while meeting the client’s goals and aesthetic preferences. Her projects encourage people to engage deeply with their local ecosystems and apply holistic and low-stress approaches toward gardening and landscaping. A worker-owner at RDG, Rachel was a member of the steering committee that led the ownership transition process and has been the Treasurer of the Board of Directors since its establishment in 2022.
She holds an MS in Ecological Design from The Conway School and a BA in Anthropology from Wesleyan University. When she isn’t working, she may be found messing around in her garden, cooking with the latest harvest, or hiking with her husband and young daughter.
Learn more about Rachel at Regenerative Design Group.
THE PLANTASTIC PODCAST
The Plantastic Podcast is a monthly podcast created by Dr. Jared Barnes. He's been gardening since he was five years old and now is an award-winning professor of horticulture at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, TX. To say hi and find the show notes, visit theplantasticpodcast.com.
You can learn more about how Dr. Jared cultivates plants, minds, and life at meristemhorticulture.com. He also shares thoughts and cutting-edge plant research each week in his newsletter plant•ed, and you can sign up at meristemhorticulture.com/subscribe. Until next time, #keepgrowing!