Cultivating Place
Cultivating Place is a weekly public radio program and podcast that explores the intersection of gardens, natural history, and human culture. Through conversations with gardeners, naturalists, scientists, and artists, it examines how gardens serve as agents for positive change. The show delves into the deeper meanings of gardening and its impact on our natural and cultural literacy.
Episodes
Sunchoke Farms, Next in the Cultivating South Bend Series
Cultivating Place well so often comes down to sharing the abundance of growing from a place of love and a strong sense of community and home. Susan Greutman is the founder and owner of Sunchoke Farms, an urban homestead-turned-family farm in South Bend, Indiana, growing chemical-free produce on formerly vacant city lots.
Susan has been farming since 2018 and also happens to be growing right in Be
Following What Flourishes, with Amanda Hannah
Amanda Hannah is the Director of Botanical Garden Horticulture at Holden Forests & Gardens in Cleveland, Ohio.
Amanda’s path into horticulture has taken her from the agricultural landscapes of Idaho and Utah to studying in Argentina, living in Seattle, and moving through the Longwood Fellows Program.
This week, Amanda and Cultivating Place Host, Abra Lee, dive into plants, the role of public gar
Summer Solstice Special–SummerHome Garden's Lisa Negri, Denver, CO
We are finally at peak daylight and the Summer Solstice–which officially takes place June 21st this year.
Summer speaks of garden parties and holidays at the beach, or lake, by rivers, or in the mountains. Summer speaks directly to our connection to the wild places we love and perhaps long for– and which, through our gardens, can be right here at home.
SummerHome Garden in Denver, CO, is a playf
Preparing for International Pollinator Week with Krystle Hickman, Author, Artist, Native Bee Adventurer
The conservation of biodiversity writ large is directly tied to the conservation of native bees, crucial pollinators in our cultivated and wildland ecosystems across most regions of the world.
This week, we look forward to International Pollinator Week, which always falls in the third week of June, tied to the summer solstice.
We’re in conversation with Krystle Hickman, award-winning conservati
Turning Space into PLACE: ReGen South Bend
What makes a place a place, versus just any space?
Tyler Kanchazeski is a sustainability advocate and the founder and owner of ReGen South Bend, an incremental development and community catalyst company based in the Near Northwest Neighborhood of South Bend, Indiana.
Tyler brings business leadership, logistics, resiliency, and community experience to his work alongside neighbors to transform sp
Sustainability and Stewardship – A Conversation with Brent “Fig” Figlestahler
This week on Cultivating Place, public gardens as living classrooms, the quiet power of trees in city life, and how tending landscapes can cultivate resilience, curiosity, and belonging.
Host Abra Lee is in conversation with Brent “Fig” Figlestahler, horticulturist, landscape architect, educator, and devoted steward of public green spaces from the cultivated collections and urban woodlands of Cyl
A Radical Plan: Village Homes in Davis, CA turns 50!
This week, we continue plumbing the potential of gardens and gardeners for growing a future we want to cultivate- for the benefit of all. In order to look forward, we look back to the radical plan of a 50-year-old intentionally-designed community and sustainability-oriented housing development, Village Homes, in Davis, California.
Central to the intelligent design? You got it, Gardens and Green
Tiny Gardens Everywhere, with MIT's Kate Brown
Kate Brown is an MIT Distinguished Professor in the History of Science. Across her career, her research has sometimes inadvertently documented the impact of urban, often small and under-resourced gardens and gardeners in our world.
Her new book, Tiny Gardens Everywhere: The Past, Present, and Future of the Self-Provisioning City, compiles this research and her own lived experience of its truth a
Flora Culture with Christin Geall of Cultivated by Christin
This week on Cultivating Place, we continue with our flower theme as we celebrate May, looking toward the most floral of celebrations, Mother’s Day in the US.
We discuss not us as gardeners growing flowers, but rather, how flowers shape our world, our cultures, our economies, our thinking and outlooks.
We're in conversation with Christin Geall, author of Cultivated: Elements of Floral Style. H
REALLY ROSES, with Robin Jennings of Oregon-based Heirloom (Roses)
Roses are one of those topics in the garden world: they can be polarizing or energizing. And yet, given that there are roses native to most environments of North America, Europe, Asia, and Africa, and humans have revered this family and genus and the hundreds of rose species for millennia, they can also be connective tissue for so much–generationally, culturally, environmentally, medicinally, and
Between Soil and Self - A conversation with John Sonnier
This week, Cultivating Place host Abra Lee explores diplomacy and gardens. She’s in conversation with John Sonnier, Head Gardener at the British Ambassador's residence in Washington, D.C. There since 2009, John focuses on organic and sustainable methods of care AND he has created one of the United State’s most significant historic orchid collections.
Orchids are known for their extraordinary form
Mid-Atlantic Regional Seed Bank (MARSB) with Ed Toth and John Price
This week, when we think about Cultivating Place well, we get to the seed of the matter in conversation with the team at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Seed Bank, also known as MARSB. We’re in conversation with Ed Toth the Executive Director, and John Price, MARSB’s Associate Director and Native Seed Collection Coordinator.
As a collective, MARSB is wisely managing and conserving its region’s wild see
Gardens as Social Infrastructure, Gardeners as Public Servants, with Chris Felhaber
Chris Felhaber is a gardener, a husband, and a father. Now based in the Chicago area, Chris has worked in public horticulture in a variety of capacities and with well-known organizations, including with plantsman Roy Diblik in Wisconsin, at Chanticleer Garden outside of Philadelphia, with the Perennial Plant Association, and as the host of the Native Plant Podcast.
After nearly 2 decades working
Pansies! It's What's for Spring! with Brenna Estrada
Brenna Estrada is the owner and founder of Three Brothers Blooms, a flower farm located on 2.5 acres of Camano Island in the Pacific Northwest.
Brenna is also the author of Pansies, How to Grow, Reimagine, and Create Beauty with Pansies and Violas, published by Timber Press just over a year ago. Brenna makes a compelling case for revisiting our relationship to pansies, and her book was CP Host B
Spring's Wild Dreams, with Jen Williams
Spring is, of course, perfect for some wild dreams about what we can and will sow in the seasons to come.
With plants, and with ourselves. Jen Williams’ vision for her work as the founder of Wild Dreams Farm and Seed on Washington’s Vashon Island is to ensure abundance and biodiversity in our culture, and in our gardens, by growing and breeding open-pollinated vegetable, flower, and herb seeds t
Vernal Equinox Special: The Glorians, with Terry Tempest Williams
In honor of the Vernal Equinox, and the balance we long for, we are joined this week by humanist, conservationist, Professor, and writer in residence at the Harvard Divinity School, Terry Tempest Williams.
From her 1991 classic, Refuge, An Unnatural History of Family & Place, published in 1991, to her newest title out now from Grove Atlantic, The Glorians, Visitations from the Holy Ordinary, and
Vital Energy: Omar Al Shafie on Innovative Re-Thinking and Growing
Spring is stirring, buds are swelling, and soil is warming.
This week, we celebrate the joys of healthy living soil in conversation with Omar Al Shafie, co-founder of Northern California-based Teregen Ag, a purpose-driven, innovative soil and plant nutrient producer and researcher dedicated to advancing our collective transition toward sustainable, regenerative farming. Listen in!
Cultivating P
Public Service: John Little's UK-based Grass Roof Co
This week on Cultivating Place, host Ben Futa is in conversation with John Little, an ecological designer and public horticulture advocate living and working in the UK. His firm, the Grass Roof Company, launched in 1998.
Ever since, they have been expanding and broadening ideas around public plantings, habitat, and those who care for them. John's not-for-profit, Care, Not Capital, is training th
Blooming Beyond Barriers, the flourishing legacy of South Carolina Floriculturist
This week on Cultivating Place, Abra Lee is in conversation with Laverne Brockington and Vance Davis, great nieces of Annie Mae Vann Reid, an historic florist and entrepreneur based in Darlington, South Carolina. From the 1920s to the 1960s, Annie Mae tended a thriving floral business that grew out of her hobby flower garden, and grew her community with her.
For Laverne and Vance, their aunt's l
For the Love of Orchard Mason Bees, with Thyra McKelvie
As the earliest signs of spring unfurl in the mild climates, think snowdrops, manzanita, the earliest narcissus, wild iris, and Daphne odora – hmmm, the earliest pollinators are paying even more attention than we are.
This week, we learn more about some of our earliest and BEST native pollinating bees – the orchard mason bees. We’re in conversation with Thyra McElvie, who loves “these sweet littl
Gardening for Comfort & Tea: Golden Feather Tea, Mike Fritts
In these dark, cold days of February, when too much rain or snow, and WAY TO MUCH ICE, or not enough rain or snow, might be getting you down, we take this week, just in time for Valentine’s Day, to embrace, lean into, and love, the comforts of tea.
We're in conversation with Michael Fritts, founder of Golden Feather Tea in Concow, CA, exploring some of the history and cultivation, the rituals, an
The Healing Power of Communal Acts of Gardening, Tanja Hollander
Coming up this week on Cultivating Place, host Ben Futa is in conversation with artist & activist Gardener, Tanja Hollander. Tanja works with gardens, social practice, photography, video, and installation to understand how cultural and visual relationships help us make sense of our chaotic world.
Very specifically, her Mourning Flowers and Ephemera projects bring awareness, often through flowers
After the Fires: Cultivating Place in LA with Studio Petrichor
It’s been a full year since the devastating fires in Los Angeles, CA. Many lives were lost, and many acres and homes were burned.
Many gardens, cultivated spaces, and gardeners were profoundly affected. This week, Cultivating Place checks in with two humans who are cultivating their place with care in the wake of this catastrophe.
Leigh Adams and Shawn Maestretti are Studio Petrichor, based in
Mid-Winter Pick-Me-Up w/ The Orchid Rescuer, Terry Richardson
This week, Cultivating Place welcomes Terry Richardson in conversation with Abra Lee. Terry is known to many as The Black Thumb: Orchid Care Made Simple, an intrepid, enthusiastic, and encouraging orchid rescuer, educator, and storyteller.
Terry has helped thousands of people rethink what it means to care for plants, specifically orchids! Terry’s journey began not with expertise, but with curiosi
Seed Dreaming Season: revisiting a conversation with Ken Greene & Hudson Valley Seeds
January is prime seed-dreaming and seed-catalogue season.
With that in mind, we’re revisiting a favorite conversation all about generosity, mutual care, good seeds, and seed people. Who doesn’t need more of all those as we continue to lay the foundation for this new year?
Ken Greene – who goes by K - is a seed person. He is the co-founder of the Hudson Valley Seed Library, which in 2004 became t
New Year, New Systems Thinking: Suburbitat, with Jim Tolstrup
As we continue our new year, we’re once again gaining elevation and new, growing thinking. We’re in conversation with Jim Tolstrup, Executive Director of the High Plains Environmental Center in Loveland, Colorado, where, by development design, they caringly cultivate Suburbitat.
Suburbitat is a land ethic, a mindset, and a book that all hold a vision of a built environment where suburbia and nat
Making the Rounds: A New Year's Conversation with the CP Host Team, Jennifer, Abra & Ben
In honor of the new year, fresh-faced and open-hearted in front of us, Abra Lee, Ben Futa, and Jennifer Jewell are together this week for a first-ever CP Host check-in. We’re chatting about what we’re looking back on, what we’re looking forward to, and what we’re looking to grow in 2026! Join us!
Cultivating Place now has a donate button! We thank you for listening over the years, and we hope you
Looking Forward by Looking Back: New Zealand to London, Philip Norman's Life Shaped by Gardens
For our final Cultivating Place episode of 2025, Abra Lee is looking forward by looking back. She’s in conversation with Philip Norman, longtime curator at the Garden Museum in London. From New Zealand to London, Philips' is a life shaped by gardens. Happy Holidays and New Year!
Cultivating Place now has a donate button! We thank you for listening over the years, and we hope you'll continue to su
Solstice Season: Abundance & Connection, Dr. Don Hankins
In honor of the Winter Solstice happening this coming weekend on December 21st at 10:03 AM Pacific, we celebrate land and place-based cultivation from a foundation of cultural and spiritual care leading the way. We’re joined in this by Dr. Don Hankins, Professor of Geography and Planning at California State University, Chico.
Of Miwok ancestry, Don, for decades now, has focused on applied researc
Bird Haven Farm, with Janet Mave
This week on Cultivating Place we celebrate one woman’s long-standing and loving cultivation of place in rural New Jersey. Janet Mavec is the steward and student of Bird Haven Farm, which after many years of learning from and loving, she now celebrates in word and image in her new place-based memoir: Bird Haven Farm the Story of An Original American Garden, written by Janet and photographed by Ngo
The Klamath Mountains, A Natural History, Michael Kauffman & Justin Garwood
The Klamath Mountains are a rich site of diversity in Northern California and Southern Oregon, celebrated in Michael Kauffmann and Justin Garwood’s book The Klamath Mountains, a Natural History, from Kauffmann’s Back Country Press.
Kauffmann’s most recent book, co-written with Matt Ritter, is California Trees, was just awarded The National Outdoor Book Award, and in honor of the seeds of that bo
Seasons of our Joy, with Rabbi Arthur Waskow
This week on Cultivating Place, we look towards the heart of the thankful season in memory of the enormous, fierce, and grateful soul of Rabbi Arthur Waskow, who passed from this world on October 20th, fighting for the beauty of the world right up to the end.
In his honor, we revisit our 2021 conversation with him, focusing on the sacred in the everyday and in the seasonal.
Rabbi Waskow was th
YES/AND: Practicing the Art of Becoming A Cultivator of Place, John Hart Asher
“Ecological restoration is no longer a nicety, it’s a necessity,” proclaims the Blackland Collaborative, a group working to help alter cities so that they are biodiverse and inclusive, and helping heal human communities while restoring vulnerable species. Bridging science and design, the Collaborative brings people and nature home; and they believe in humans’ capacity to improve and protect. John
Visions of Resilience and Neighborliness, Dr. Jared Barnes
Dr Jared Barnes is a big G gardener – and has been since his earliest expressions of self as a toddler. Now a professor of horticulture at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas, Jared is also a writer under the name of Meristem and the host of the Plantastic podcast.
He wants everyone’s expression of self to include a love of plants and place. In fact, he wants us to see them,
Grow Like Wild, with Rebecca McMackin
This week on Cultivating Place, Host Ben Futa is in conversation with Rebecca McMackin, a dedicated public servant working in the context of ecological horticulture.
Rebecca is on a mission to empower more people to grow more plants in more places while cultivating empathy, compassion, and advocacy for the natural world. We last heard from Rebecca here on CP in 2021, and a lot has happened in he
FINAL ARTOBER Conversation -The Ecology of Gullah Sweetgrass Baskets, Mary Jackson
This week we finish up Artober on CP, in conversation with artist, Mary Jackson, a renowned sweetgrass basket weaver known for combining traditional methods with contemporary designs.
Based in the Low Country of South Carolina, Mary is the descendant of generations of Gullah basket weavers. Born in 1945, in 2008, Mary was awarded a MacArthur Foundation fellowship (“Genius Grant”) for "pushing th
Artober: Tracy Qui, artfully exploring how plants, stories, and cultures intersect
This week on CP, host Abra Lee is joined in conversation by Tracy Qiu, a horticulturist, researcher, and advocate who explores how plants, stories, and culture intersect.
Tracy holds a masters in Public Horticulture from the University of Delaware, is a Longwood Fellow, and is finishing her doctoral thesis at Concordia University in Montreal.
Her work explores the colonial roots of botanical g
Artober & CP Live, "Invisible Neighbors" with LA-Based Studio Tutto
Welcome to our next airing of a CP LIVE* conversation, this time in celebration of Artober in conversation with Sofia Laçin and Hennessy Christophel, of LA-based Studio Tutto.
On highway underpasses, school walls, public park welcome centers, and city water towers, the epic hand-crafted murals of Studio Tutto tell visual stories of invisible nature to help people connect and become familiar with
ARTOBER: An Artful Life with Flowers, Frances Palmer
In a world that needs a great deal from us right now, we can almost never go wrong by igniting our creativity.
This week on CP we dive deeper into ArtTober in conversation with one of our favorite creatives, artists, gardeners, writers, teachers, and flower lovers.
We’re speaking once again with writer, photographer, and potter Frances Palmer about her new book Life with Flowers, inspiration an
Kicking off ARTOBER ON CP, Wild By Design, the Art of Planting with Ben O'Brien
This week on CP, we kick off ARTOBER. Host Ben Futa is talking all things Wild By Design, the Art of Planting. He’s in conversation with Ben O’Brien of Wild By Design, who creates "artfully crafted, richly planted, lovingly tended gardens".
Based in Ontario, Ben O’Brien believes that the best gardens captivate, delight, and deeply resonate with people; they respond to, reveal, and amplify the ma
The Hidden Histories of Garden Legacies, with Rose Vincent Resource Librarian NYBG
This week on Cultivating Place, in honor of this first week of Autumn, and the idea of passing time, looking back, and the importance of memory and history, host Abra Lee welcomes someone whose work reminds us that gardens are not only grown in the soil but also in the stories we keep and share.
Abra is in conversation with Rose Vincent, Resource Sharing Librarian at the New York Botanical Garden
The Adventurous Art of Cultivating Place, with Peg & Awl
This week on Cultivating Place, we lean into the Art of CP, exploring how the act of Cultivating Place is artful, and how Art can be one our most beautiful acts of Cultivating Place.
How acts of Cultivating Place and acts of making Art both offer us the agency to create new worlds, or new versions of our current world.
These human impulses are simultaneously miraculous and represent the endles
Great Green Heights: Cincinnati's Green Roofs and Rooftop Garden with Rose Henry Seeger
In 2008, Cincinnati, Ohio, developed the program that has earned it the nickname: Green City. The Green Cincinnati Plan (GCP) is a now-17-year-running community vision updated regularly to address climate change and build a more sustainable, equitable, and resilient future for its citizens.
2008 was also the year that garden/grower by nature and engineer by profession, Rose Henry Seeger, was intr
Mum's the Flower of Fall, with Jessica Hall of Harmony Harvest Flower Farm
This week on Cultivating Place, we celebrate late summer and fall on the horizon in conversation about one of fall’s stars in the garden… past, present, and future.
CP host Ben Futa is in conversation with Jessica Hall of Harmony Harvest Flower Farm, based in Weyers Cave, Virginia, to explore their "Mum Project," which aims to revive chrysanthemum production in the US by preserving, sharing, and
Seed Your Future, with Jazmin Albarran
This week on Cultivating Place, host Abra Lee dives into the world of pathways to plant professions with Jazmin Albarran, executive Director of Seed Your Future, a non-profit whose vision is a world where Everyone understands the power of plants and is aware of the promising careers in the art, science, technology, and business of horticulture.
Horticulture is the art, technology, and science of
The Generosity of an Orchard: The Giving Grove
As autumn and harvest begins to color the edges of our awareness, this week on Cultivating Place, we’re joined by two people whose work is all about perennial and abundant harvest as represented by the concept, and the endless generosity, of an Orchard.
The Giving Grove, based in Kansas City, lives a purpose of providing healthy calories, strengthening community, and improving the urban environm
Back to a Source: the Somme Prairie Grove Nature Preserve
Looking back, even just this year, Cultivating Place has had multiple conversations with plantspeople from around the country about the inspirational plants from, and places known as, prairies.
An iconic and beloved ecosystem strongly identified with the American Midwest. As summer warms and mellows into its Augustness, we’re in conversation this week with two humans who are cultivating their pl
Bright Autumn Nights - GLEAM at Olbrich Botanical Gardens
Hot August nights turn to bright August nights at the Olbrich Botanical Gardens in Madison, WI.
The Garden's annual GLEAM light show is celebrating its 10th anniversary and opens August 30th, transforming the very bright-by-day gardens into equally bright in a different way by night.
The award-winning display runs through October 25th, and this year’s exhibit will center on the concept of refl
Prairie Up! With Plantsperson Benjamin Vogt (BEST OF)
Ahhh, high summer, my friends – this week we continue with our CP summer-break reprisals, reminding us of the importance of the great outdoors and the care and cultivation of it, revisiting ecological-plantsman Benjamin Vogt’s great work Prairie Up!
To inspire your planting and designs for the season ahead, a fierce advocate on behalf of our gardens being critically important links in our world’s
Coming to our Senses: Wildscape, with Master Naturalist Nancy Lawson (BEST OF)
The garden in summer is at its fullest sensory delight and overwhelm – the peak of sunlight, growing hours, heat, and growth, ripening, and even rotting.
This week, we revisit a BEST OF conversation that embraces this sublime sensuality from a variety of perspectives, in conversation with master naturalist Nancy Lawson.
Nancy is perhaps best known as "The Humane Gardener", the title of her fir
The Nature Place–La Crosse, WI, with Rebecca Schwarz & Paige Manges
This week we’re getting back to nature for summer camp: ALL ages invited.
We’re in conversation with Rebecca Schwarz and Paige Manges of The Nature Place in La Crosse, WI. It’s a place where we all belong and can keep growing – for sustenance, for survival, and for joy.
The Nature Place is dedicated to inspiring and cultivating meaningful connections between people and nature, for the benefit
A Global Garden Adventurer, Plantswoman Lucie Willan
This week on Cultivating Place, you are in for a real summer adventure on a global garden armchair tour of sorts with a plantswoman who has studied and gardened at some of the Western world’s best from Sissinghurst, Hidcote, and Monk’s House in the UK to Sparoza in Greece.
Lucie Willan has great garden tales to tell. A perfect summer garden beach, listen if there is one. Enjoy!
Cultivating Plac
July 4th Special: Great Expectations, CP LIVE with Ben Futa of Botany & CO, South Bend, IN
THIS WEEK on CP - OUR NEXT CP LIVE podcast! And we head to Indiana with our very own Ben Futa. Botany & Co. in South Bend, Indiana is dedicated to “empowering more people to plant more plants in more places!”
In a town that has seen more than its share of social, economic, and environmental challenges in the past few decades, Botany & Co., Ben’s dream come true, is stimulating community, biodive
Rooted in Education, Richard M. Smith, Director, NYBG School of Professional Horticulture
This week on Cultivating Place, guest host Abra Lee is joined in conversation by someone whose path into horticulture is both inspiring and honest—Richard M. Smith, director of the School of Professional Horticulture at the New York Botanical Garden.
Richard grew up in Belle Glade, Florida—folks there call it Muck City, thanks to their deep, rich soil. And while Richard didn’t start off in hortic
Midsummer's Night Magic, with Leigh Ann Henion
Have you ever heard of a Moth-er? Yes, it is the moth equivalent of a birder – someone who loves and follows and studies the incredible diversity of moths.
Creatures whose lives benefit ours and yet take place primarily under the cover of the dark of night.
In this week of the Summer Solstice, in our seasonal period of longest days and shortest nights in the Northern Hemisphere, we pause to con
Getting to know our neighbors: Preparing for National Pollinator Week with Colorado's PPAN
Every year since 2007, when the US Senate passed sanctions declaring it, the third week of June is celebrated as National Pollinator Week.
It is no accident that this is the same week as the Summer Solstice, when many pollinators reach their peak. Since 2017, however, the state of Colorado has celebrated June as National Pollinator Month, and this week we hear more, celebrate wins, and focus on
Transformative Beauty: Ben Futa in conversation with Montreal-based floral designer Marc Sardi
To welcome the fullness of June, this week on Cultivating Place, guest host Ben Futa is back and in conversation with Marc Sardi, a Montreal-based scientist turned floral artist who has reinvented his relationship with the natural world, and himself, along with changing careers.
It’s an authentic conversation exploring how rediscovering our most authentic relationship with plants also allows us
Nutritious Movement & The Gardener, with Katy Bowman
Summer makes it easy to move your body – to get out for a walk, to work in the garden, to hike, bike, stroll, boat, climb, swim, dance under the stars. Whatever calls you. But as we know, many of us – most of us?
Do not move enough, and even if we do, we don’t get a balanced diet of movement. Which Gardening can help with, and which physical movement, expert Katy Bowman says, is essential to a he
Raised Beds, Raised Voices: Guest Host Abra Lee in Conversation with Philly's Guina Hammond
Guina Hammond is the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society's program manager of sustainable communities. She is also deeply involved in her hometown of Philadelphia as a certified organic landcare professional, PHS Tree Tender, Penn State Master Gardener, and planning team member for the Mid-Atlantic Woody & Perennial Plant Conference.
In addition to that incredible list of accomplishments, Guina i
That Green Thing Inside US ALL, Jill Mays on Nurturing Nature, Gardening for Special Needs
As the summer gardening season rolls into full-throated song, the idea of who has access to the work, joy, and benefits of this practice also comes into view—and feeds what Occupational Therapist and author Jill Mays calls that "green thing inside of us all."
As an occupational therapist by career and calling, over the course of her professional life, it became increasingly clear to Jill how many
A Beautiful Journey, Plantswoman Holly Shimizu, Emeritus Director US Botanic Garden
This second week of May, we welcome gardener and plantswoman Holly Shimizu. Her four decades of work in some of America’s notable public gardens have tracked and traced some of the most impactful changes in public garden standards, expectations, and accountability in that same time frame.
From her visionary leadership roles at the National Herb Garden, the Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden, and the U
Happy May Day! Growing Home: Humble Roots & The Pacific Northwest Native Plant Primer
This week on Cultivating Place we welcome May, with all of her floral and plant profusion, revisiting a conversation we loved with Kristin Currin and Andrew Merritt of Humble Roots Nursery in Oregon’s Columbia River Gorge.
Acclaimed for their native plant passions, knowledge, and integrity, Kristin and Drew are the authors of the Pacific Northwest Native Plant Primer - one of a series of such pr
For the Love of Soil, Start with Soil: Juliet Sargeant
Juliet Sargeant is an award-winning English garden designer who blends beauty with purpose in every space she creates. Juliet’s unique background in medicine, science, and psychology gives her designs a whole new depth, focusing on wellbeing and connection.
You might recognize her name from that time in 2016 when she made history as the first Black Woman garden designer to display at the Chelsea
The Holy Earth & The Nature Study Idea, John Stempien on the Legacy of Liberty Hyde Bailey
In this holy season of spring in the Northern Hemisphere, with the earth reviving herself in greenery and flowers, birds, bees, and butterflies all around us, I am so pleased to be in conversation today with a gardener who will represent another gardener -one in the here now and one from more than a century ago, whose words resonate into the present. I believe in the future, so beautifully.
John
Love Letter to a Garden, Debbie Millman of Design Matters
Debbie Millman has written love letters before. Her 20 years of creating and hosting the popular podcast Design Matters is just one of them.
Her many books, several of them established reference books in the design and branding worlds, are among others. I am guessing she’s written a few to her wife the author Roxanne Gay, who contributed recipes to Debbie’s newest book.
While I enjoy all good l
The Vibrant New Natural Gardening of Kelly D. Norris
You might remember Cultivating Place's first conversation with Iowa-based plantsman, Kelly D. Norris, back in 2021, in celebration of his book New Naturalism, designing and planting a resilient, ecologically vibrant home garden. And we’re so pleased to get him back this week in conversation with CP Guest Host Ben Futa to talk more about this current moment in naturalistic design, and Kelly’s newes
Transformational: From banker to trailblazing IDEA leader in public horticulture, Mae Lin Plummer
This week on Cultivating Place, guest host Abra Lee is in conversation with a horticultural leader with big IDEAs. Mae Lin Plummer is the Director of the IDEA Center for Public Gardens in Denver Colorado.
Mae Lin’s journey into gardening started in her backyard in Charlotte, NC where she simply wanted "a pretty place to throw parties." That blossomed into a full-on plant obsession and a major car
Spring Equinox Special - Practicing re-enchantment: Encountering Dragonflies with Brooke Williams
Happy Spring Equinox!
To welcome Spring – especially this exact Spring in the US - practicing re-enchantment in our world seemed exactly the right focus. I think this is part of what Gardeners do: practice enchantment or love with the natural world we care for.
We’re in conversation this week with Brooke Williams: writer, naturalist, amateur conservation ecologist, thinker, observer, and walker.
Life is Big: To Be A Poet Gardener, Tess Taylor
Tess Taylor is a self-described Poet Gardener – and if there is ever a season to feel the poetry of life in the garden and with the plants in every cell of your body, it’s springtime! An award-winning poet with many collection titles to her name and editor of the life-supporting anthology Leaning Toward Light Poems for Gardens and the Hands that Tend Them, Tess is also the Poet Laureate of El Cerr
The Curious Dr. Margaret Funk, Flora & Frost
Dr. Margaret Funk is the curious Midwest gardener (and doctor) behind the online name Flora & Frost. Cultivating her Minnesota garden for years, like so many of us, she really dove in deep in 2020.
She and her family have now converted most of their lawn into a vibrant garden with a small greenhouse, raised beds for veggies, ornamental plants, and a growing collection of native plants.
As an o
From East Africa to the World, landscape design's Wambui Ippolito
From East Africa to the World, landscape design's Wambui Ippolito by Jennifer Jewell
Portrait of A Black Woman in Her Garden: Leslie Bennett, Pine House Edible Gardens & Black Sanctuary Gardens
In celebration of Black History Month and looking forward to Women’s History Month - this week we’re so pleased to air another of our CP LIVE: Dialogues to Grow By conversations, recorded live in front of an audience on the home ground of the Cultivators of Place with whom we are speaking.
This week’s CP LIVE recording focuses on the paradigm-shifting landscape work of Leslie Bennett, who is ded
The Curiosity Driven Growing Life of Australia's Michael McCoy
Many things motivate and drive us to love gardening, plants, and nature. Australia’s Michael McCoy, also known as The Gardenist, is a Gardener, botanist, designer, teacher, and international garden tour guide.
In his garden life, motivation always comes back to curiosity. He says: "Behind any answer are 10 more questions leading me forward in the garden, in life!” And, in his garden, "a lot of s
The Power of Public Green Spaces: NY's Elizabeth Street Garden with Joseph Reiver
The Elizabeth Street Garden in New York City’s Little Italy and SoHo neighborhoods is a one-acre public garden founded in 1991 by Allan Reiver, an artist and art dealer who passed in 2021. The lot on which the garden has grown these many years is owned by the city and managed by the non-profit community group, Elizabeth Street Garden. Joseph Reiver, Allan’s son, is the current director of the grou
Creativity, Self-Knowledge, and Artistic Ingenuity: Passionflower Sue
Creativity is one of those anchors-to-windward in unsettled and worrisome times. So is a hands-on, creative project – with bonus points for working with organic materials (natural fibers, clay, or – flowers)!
Just in time for Valentine’s Day, and all the spring events cascading from there in the coming months, we’re joined this week by a woman who has artistry, creativity, and hands-on project in
Got Topiary? A conversation with plantsman/artist Mike Gibson
This week, Guest host Abra Lee is in conversation with legendary topiary artist and star of the HGTV hit show Clipped, Mike ‘Gibby-Siz’ Gibson. Mike is based out of sunny Columbia, South Carolina, where he owns and operates his own business, “Gibson Works.”
Abra and Mike talk about all things Topiary arts in their lively conversation! Diving into Mike’s time on HGTV’s hit show Clipped, how he bui
The Collective & The Seed Farmer, Dan Brisebois
This week – in the wind, rain, snow, and fires of early 2025 so far – it is good to be able to focus on SEEDs this week – seeds remind us so tangibly of our ability to get small, to slow down into a fortified dormancy of resilience, rest, and regrowth – and the possibilities inherent in all of those states.
And this week, Cultivating Place does just that in conversation with Dan Brisebois, host o
Resolution Support: The Five-Minute Gardener, Nicole Burke of Gardener
Maybe your New Year’s resolution was to take up gardening, or to garden more, or in a new way? Well, this week’s Cultivating Place conversation is all about making time for gardening even for very busy people!
Nicole Burke, the energy force behind the online forum known as Gardenary, is with us to share more about the philosophy centered in her new book: The 5-Minute Gardener.
It’s the genius o
HAPPY NEW YEAR 2025: Prioritizing Rest, Balance, and JOY, with Dandy Ram Farm
To ring in the New Year, this week on Cultivating Place, guest host Ben Futa is in conversation with Bo Dennis, lead farmer and designer of Dandy Ram farm, located in rural Maine. Dandy Ram is an LGBTQ+ flower farm and floral design studio that sustainably grows and designs florals for weddings and ships evergreen and floral products nationally. Dandy Ram is committed to bringing joy to the world,
WINTER SOLSTICE SEASON SPECIAL: Being Still, with Mary Jo Hoffman (BEST OF)
Happy Winter Solstice season!
In celebration of the planetary moment of the longest night and the shortest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere, which took place on December 21st, this week we revisit a conversation about getting STILL.
We hold a moment of stillness to notice and honor our places, our selves, and our many companions in time and space.
We revisit our conversation with Art
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