Lois de Vries' Garden Views

Paul and I at the GWA Awards celebration (Photo: Sara Stine-Brown) Recently, I was privileged to present GWA: The Association for Garden Communicators’ Green Medal to Paul Tukey, whose life, vision, and work embodies the highest ideals in promoting earth-wise gardening. He paid a high price for his early entry into the “better living through chemistry” side of the lawn care profession, but ultimately became one of the anti-pesticide movement’s most ardent proponents. By documenting his up-close and personal experience with lawn chemicals, and the story of dermatologist Dr. June Irwin’s fight to have pesticides banned from her small town of Hudson, Ontario, Canada, Tukey shined a spotlight into the darker corners of the industry. He made some mistakes along the way, but he talks about them with unflinching honesty. Today, Tukey is the Chief Sustainability Officer at Glenstone, a museum that melds art, architecture, and the environment in a 220-acre, organically-managed setti...