Cultivating Place

In honor of the one year anniversary of the Camp Fire, Cultivating Place is joined this week by Douglas Kent, author of Firescaping, and Calli-Jane DeAnda and Ben Hart of the Butte County Fire Safe Council to talk about the importance of gardening and gardeners modeling important land care and stewardship ethic in fire country. Join us. Cultivating Place now has a donate button! We thank you so mu...

From his "Growing with Plants” blog to his first book "Mastering the Art of Vegetable Growing”, which he researched, photographed and wrote – plantsman Matt Mattus is inspiring. He joins us this week on Cultivating Place to share more on the different twists, turns and fertile offshoots of his plant journey. We talk about his first book AND get some hints about his new book coming out soon on unus...

Misti Little is an environmental consultant working in GIS services. As a naturalist, gardener, explorer and fellow garden audio producer, she (and her garden) help us to map where we are – and how to see that more clearly – connecting the dots of ecosystems large and small, public and private, through watersheds and through-hikes right back to our own homes. Misti Joins Cultivating Place this wee...

Tucker Fitzpatrick is a home gardener who thinks a lot about how cultural norms and biases directly impact how and why we garden in interesting ways. A father, a lawyer, a gardener and a gardening culture observer, he joins us today from his home and garden in Southern California to share more about his gardening journey and his curiosity and observations on his garden and the broader 'gardening c...

Irish plantswoman Mary Reynolds has cultivated a deep love of her place in the mountains of Wicklow, Ireland - in all its complexity and mystery. As a plantswoman and guardian/gardener - she listens to her place and works in partnership with her place to move us all forward towards a better world. Mary is a nature activist, a self-described reformed Landscape Designer, the author of "The Garden Aw...

This week Cultivating Place is joined by award winning architect David Abelow. David asks us look at our gardens from the inside out and his exploration of our gardens as the “first next room” out of every door and window gets us re-viewing what our gardens are and can be. Listen in! Cultivating Place now has a donate button! We thank you so much for listening over the years and we hope you'll sup...

"Loss is the twin of love" – so writes Margaret Renkl in her human and moving memoir of place, plants, people and life entitled "Late Migrations – A Natural History of Love and Loss". Margaret is a gardener, an observer, a contributing writer at the New York Times, and she joins Cultivating Place this week from her home in Tennessee. Cultivating Place now has a donate button! We thank you so much...

Dean Kuipers has studied and written about the field of environmental politics and the human-nature relationship for decades. His most recent book "The Deer Camp" is a memoir of both place and people - recounting how restoring a piece of land with his father and his brothers also restored their family bonds and abiding love. He joins Cultivating Place this week to share more - LISTEN IN! To read m...

Baylor Chapman loves plants and she’s spent a good part of her career helping people to learn about, see, love and care for plants wherever people might need them – in their homes, offices, work spaces, apartments. She believes they make us healthier, happier, better people and I agree. As students return to dorms and workers return to offices post summer – Baylor joins Cultivating Place this week...

Dr. Lauren E. Oakes is a conservation and adaptation scientist working to model and communicate how people can adapt at local levels to the GLOBAL climate crisis. Her book In Search of the Canary Tree: the Story of a Scientist, a Cypress and a Changing World is the chosen Book in Common for Chico and California State University, Chico this coming academic year. Lauren joins Cultivating Place this...

As we head into the month of September, and we tend toward the Autumnal Equinox later in the month, I am reminded of this being one of the best seed seasons in our gardens and in our wildlands. Ecosystems everywhere in the Northern Hemisphere are reminded by the light of the need to set seed before growing season’s end. I thought this was a perfect moment to return to one of the episodes from our...

Alpine and Steppe plants are uniquely interesting individuals and communities of plants that thrive in extreme conditions of high elevations and dry locations around the globe. This week on Cultivating Place, we head to high ground with Mike Kintgen, Curator of Alpine Plants at the Denver Botanic Gardens in Denver CO and member of the American Penstemon Society to learn more about these charismati...

On Cultivating Place this week, we speak with two Landscape Architects who came together to create and offer out to the gardening world beautiful, functional gardens that are inspired, interesting, innovative and accessible to all. Meg Herndon and Sandra Nam Cioffi share more about the concept behind their Plant Me a Rainbow, based on this garden life as a crucible in which your own values become...

David Newsom is a filmmaker, storyteller, and outdoorsman. But when his daughter was born he realized he wanted to bring her butterflies, bees and all the rich diversity of the world, and so he became a gardener to a wild backyard. That very human impulse led to his founding of the Wild Yards Project – a non profit organization working to encourage and support the creation of native plant habitat...

This week we dive deep into a conversation on being more observant in our places with historic preservationist Courtney Allen, Director of Public Programs at the Native Plant Trust. Together we explore all that we can learn from really seeing and READING our landscapes: lessons and insights on history, culture, climate, integrity, humility, and accountability are all there. Listen in! Cultivating...

As gardeners we are many things, among these we are place makers. What does it mean to be a placemaker – what is learned, what is lost, what is gained in the making of any place. This week on Cultivating Place we consider the nature and meaning of placemaking with mother, gardener, and spiritual memoirist Christie Purifoy. She lives and gardens with her husband and four children at Maplehurst, a V...

Abra Lee is a public horticulture leader in the making. From rural roots in Georgia, to a passion for pop music and style, she sees the interweaving of horticulture and our everyday lives as a path to increasing horticulture’s relevance and importance for everyone. An advocate for Planting Your Truth – she shares more on Cultivating Place this week. Listen in! Cultivating Place now has a donate bu...

There are few things so affirming as growing plants from seed, this week on Cultivating Place, we talk about the adventures of growing flowers from seed with Clare Foster, Garden Editor of House & Garden, UK. A gardener, author, and seed-sower herself, Clare’s newest book (with co-author, with Sabina Rüber) is "The Flower Garden: How to Grow Flowers From Seed” (Laurence King, 2019). It’s fun, colo...

On this Fourth of July – Cultivating Place is pleased to be in conversation with Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer, author of “Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge And The Teachings Of Plants.” Together we explore the interrelationship between gardening and citizenship. She states: "I think that is our deepest longing - to belong to each other and to belong to this larger community o...

As summer heats us up and slows us down, the garden and in particular the edible garden is front and center. This week Cultivating Place is joined by Lauri Kranz, of Edible Gardens LA conversing about how growing your own food is one of the most empowering things you’ll ever do. Stay With us! Cultivating Place now has a donate button! We thank you so much for listening over the years and we hope y...

Robert Hanss and his daughter Catherine are a father-daughter duo in the Northeast working together to create and care for gardens and horticulture traditions and relationships that will last for generations to come. In this week following Father’s Day, and day before the Summer Solstice, they join us to talk about the changing nature of horticultural business models and the lasting legacy of fami...

Nadia Ruffin is an entomologist, gardener and educator. She is the founder of Agricademy Inc, and Urban Farm Sista based in Cincinnati, Ohio. A lover of bugs and all life forms since very young herself, Nadia loves sharing this admiration and curiosity, with youth especially. In 2018 the Cincinnati City Council honored Nadia’s farming and agriculture initiatives, the primary focus of which is to s...

Soul Fire Farm is a working farm in upstate New York. Co-founded by Leah Penniman, the farm and all its work is committed to ending racism and injustice in the food system. Leah is also the author of “Farming While Black,” in which she documents her work and passion for black and brown people coming back into healthy relationship with land and good food. As we enter the month of June, graduations,...

For many gardeners, Margaret Roach will need no introduction. Longtime Garden Editor of Martha Stewart Living and Editorial Director of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Margaret is the author of several well-known gardening books and the host of the gardening website and podcast A Way To Garden. Her first book also titled A Way To Garden has been updated and re-issued in honor of its 21st Birthday...

In a variation on the Dispatches from the Home Garden series, this week we enjoy a Dispatches from the Home Gardener and Plantsperson. Self-described Happy Wanderer, plantsman Bob Hyland of Hyland Garden design currently of Portland Oregon has lived and worked at some of the most prestigious horticultural institutions in the U.S. Along with his partner, Andrew, he founded and ran a successful spec...