Worried about the world? According to renowned garden writer and “bordering on obsessed” gardener Tovah Martin, just by being a gardener, you are already making a big difference.

Martin will speak Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2026, at noon, in the Abbott Room of Belfast Free Library, giving the first in 2026’s series of lectures sponsored by the Belfast Garden Club. The talk is free and open to the public. A Zoom link is available on the Club’s website.

According to the Garden Club, in a news release, Martin believes that gardens offer many opportunities to link with nature and rescue the world. Her lecture will be filled with ideas from gardeners who rallied their acreage in backyards large and small to make a difference. She’ll touch on everything from 21st-century versions of Victory Gardens to pollinator plants, native shrubs, and bird forage, with scenic excursions into cover-the-earth density plantings, lawn alternatives, herbs, and drought-tolerant suggestions. Martin will discuss how you can ally with nature to make the world a better place for all creatures, right in your own backyard. She will show you that the results are ravishing—these gardens bristle with beauty and overflow with pride. With a trowel in hand, you can save the earth.

A frequent lecturer, Martin is the author of many gardening books, including the new 2025 book The Contemporary Garden. The Garden in Every Sense and Season received GardenComm’s Gold Medal Media Award in 2019. One of her first titles was the bestselling Tasha Tudor’s Garden. She has also published many books about cultivating houseplants, and is a frequent contributor to The Washington Post, Yankee, New England Home, and CT Gardener as well to Gardens Illustrated in Britain.