Net-Zero Hero: Colleen Dieter

I’m helping to make Austin Net-Zero by sharing exactly what you should be doing right now to keep your plants and trees happy.

Meet our newest Net-Zero Hero, Colleen Dieter! With more than two decades of experience helping Austinites understand our region’s unique climate, Colleen has dedicated her career to making gardening accessible and joyful. As a landscape consultant, certified arborist, and founder of Central Texas Seed Savers, she’s taken her passion for local, seasonal, and sustainable gardening and turned it into a resource for gardeners of all levels through her consulting work and growing ATXGardens podcast. By sharing practical, Austin-specific guidance on everything from tree care to vegetable planting timelines, Colleen is empowering residents to grow healthier landscapes and support local ecosystems.

What inspired you to take action?

There’s not much information available to gardeners about when to plant or trim plants in Austin. Gardening is very confusing here, and most gardening information applies to other parts of the world. Our climate is unlike any other on Earth, and the proper timing of gardening tasks is puzzling. Throughout my career, I found gardeners were asking me the same questions repeatedly, and I saw folks making the same mistakes — like planting at the wrong time of year, and trimming at the wrong times. These mistakes were leading folks to give up on gardening and say, “I have a brown thumb,” or “I kill everything.” With just a few key bits of information, they could be awesome gardeners. I started wondering how I could reach a larger audience and have a bigger impact.

How did you do it?

Lots of practice! I have over 20 years of experience helping Central Texans with their yards as a landscape consultant at ATXGardens. I am also a certified arborist, sustainable landscape designer, and founder of Central Texas Seed Savers. You may have seen me on PBS Austin’s Central Texas Gardener, KXAN’s Weekend Gardener, or Spectrum News’ Garden Journeys, or heard me on The Horticulturati podcast and KLBJ’s Horticulture Hangover. I am passionate about making gardening approachable. I needed a steady outlet for specific how-to information for local gardeners. Podcasts are low-cost and easy to DIY compared to other types of media, so I borrowed a microphone from a friend and got started recording on Zoom.  I was connected to a podcast manager through a friend. She walked me through the steps to get started, and I hired her to edit my show.

What’s been most rewarding about getting involved in this way?

It’s rewarding to get the information about all kinds of plants — vegetables, fruit trees, native plants, and more — on one platform. Often, gardening information is too esoteric for an average gardener, with experts on one type of plant, drilling down into intense details that don’t really apply to hobby growers. I combined the gardening information with updates from the gardening community about upcoming events, like seed swaps. There’s a strong need for Austin-specific gardening information, and I am happy to be filling that gap. It feels sort of old-fashioned and quaint — like a farmer’s almanac combined with a community calendar — but on a high-tech platform. 

What’s been the toughest part?

Just getting started from scratch and figuring it out as I go along. I didn’t have any great examples to follow for creating a local, calendar-based gardening podcast, so I am making notes on what works and what doesn’t as I go, always wanting to grow and improve.

How do you see gardening and landscape design playing a role in Austin’s larger sustainability and climate resilience goals?

I believe that gardening is key to solving global, local, and personal problems. I want to empower more Austinites to start gardening and help them succeed. Trees and plants are crucial to fighting climate change because they pull carbon out of the atmosphere and use it to make their body parts. They breathe out oxygen that we need to survive. They also have relationships with soil microbes that store even more carbon in the soil.

Native trees and plants are crucial for preventing mass extinction because they provide food and shelter for insects that are food for larger animals. These same plants also support pollinators that we need to produce our own food. Speaking of food, I also believe it’s important for Austin gardeners to produce more of our own food locally, rather than bring food in from out of state. Importing food into Texas requires more energy for shipping and refrigeration, which contributes to climate change. The key to growing fruits and vegetables in Austin is knowing the right time to plant, so I am sharing that information on my podcast. Trees and plants prevent flash flooding, erosion, and filter pollution out of our air and water.

On a personal level, gardening is great for your physical and mental health. It builds confidence, teaches you how to overcome adversity, and accept what you can’t control. Environmentalists often feel discouraged about humanity and can be weighed down by cynical ideas about humans only as destroyers, but I see humans as gardeners who plant seeds to nurture other forms of life.

What advice do you have for others?

Get out of your own way. For years, I talked myself out of this type of project. I made a lot of excuses for not putting myself out there. I was worried about indulging in something that didn’t directly make money, and I thought that I needed to focus only on my income. I was also worried about looking like an egomaniac just talking by myself to an audience without sharing the podcast with another host, which is something I think a lot of women or other marginalized folks feel is improper or immodest. If you find yourself trying to talk yourself out of a passion project that could truly help others or improve your community, try to be real with yourself instead.

Is there a book, documentary, or other piece of media you would recommend for folks wanting to learn more about these topics?

My ATXGardens podcast! And learn more about my business at ATXGardens.com. Central Texas Gardener is the best TV show. Everyone should watch it on KLRU! For seed saving, check out centexseedsavers.org.

Dive deeper

Colleen’s work shows how simple actions — like planting at the right time, caring for native species, and saving local seeds — can make a meaningful difference. Explore her ATXGardens podcast and Central Texas Seed Savers to keep learning, and visit the Austin Climate Equity Plan to discover more ways you can take action toward our community’s net-zero future!

Know a sustainability superstar?

Nominate them as a Net-Zero Hero by emailing Climate@AustinTexas.gov.