Cultivating Place

The best public gardens are in fact community gardens at some level, this week on Cultivating Place we’re speaking with gardeners from New York City’s Borough of Brooklyn where for 25 years the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens has hosted the Greenest Block in Brooklyn competition. Promoting streetscape gardening, tree stewardship, and community development in New York’s borough of Brooklyn through block a...

LIFE FORCE: In honor of mother’s day here in the US this coming weekend, we’re joined by artist, floral designer, textile designer and all around creative Louesa Roebuck, co-author of the beautiful book Foraged Flora – A year of Gathering and Arranging Wild Plants And Flowers - exploring the life force to be found in our mothers - biological and earthly. Join us. Cultivating Place now has a donate...

TRUTH, BEAUTY, CHAOS & PLANTS - May Day is upon us and we celebrate in conversation with Australian gardener and writer - Georgina Reid. Based in Australia, her work under the name of The Planthunter finds truth beauty chaos and what it is to live an important life – in constant relationship with Plants. Join us. Cultivating Place now has a donate button! We thank you so much for listening over th...

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 A...

In our fifth episode in our five part series on our gardens as habitat and we gardeners as powerful land stewards and biodiversity protectors, we visit a remarkable public garden in California during California Native Plant Week. The Nature Gardens at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County are testament to just how much one garden can do to turn back time and help restore habitat even in...

Hummingbirds are a beloved and charismatic creature of the Americas, the more than 350 species of which have coevolved with the flora of the Americas for millions of years. Cultivating Place is joined in our ongoing discussion of our gardens as important refuge habitats by Dr. Susan Wethington, research scientist, Program Developer, and Executive Director of the Hummingbird Monitoring Network. Cul...

In this our third in a five part series, on our gardens as important habitat links for the wildlife of our regions we’re joined by Horticulturist Christine Nye of Chicago’s historic – and state of the art 21st century - lakeside Shedd Aquarium. Christine’s visionary gardens there reminds us that the “healthy habitat” of our gardens expansively includes the fish in our waters and the bird’s in our...

In 2018, scientists reported dramatic losses in populations of one of North America’s most charismatic insects, the Monarch butterfly, with an estimated 14.8 percent decline of Eastern Monarchs and a precipitous 86% percent 1-year decline in Western Monarchs. While Monarchs are known for seasonal fluctuations in their numbers, this week we speak with Monarch researcher Dr. Anurag Agrawal of Cornel...

The news goes from bad to worse when we’re talking about biodiversity, insect declines and habitat loss in our world. This week we kick off an all new five-week curated series on the critically important habitat our gardens provide - what it means, what it looks like, how we can improve it – we start with an overview in conversation with with Scott Black, and by Phyllis Stiles of the Xerces Societ...

Spring is right around the corner and Spring Break Season is here – have you been outside lately? Have you been outside to play? Our guests this week on Cultivating Place are Amanda Thomsen of Kiss My Aster and Backyard Adventure, and Nancy Striniste of Nature Play At Home. They both remind us of the health and wellbeing involved in the activity of going outside to play. Join us. Cultivating Place...

On Cultivating Place this week – we’re joined by Pam Penick of the garden blog Digging, and founder of the Garden Bloggers Fling, together with Judy Seaborn co-owner of Botanical Interest Seeds in Denver, Co and organizer of this year’s Fling. We explore the intimacy and generosity of Gardeners - specifically garden bloggers - when they gather. The Garden Bloggers Fling has been gathering since 20...

Working to ensure a bright and just future for U.S. Agriculture – that’s the work of the The National Young Farmers coalition whose advocacy, trainings and PODCAST are educations in themselves. Cultivating Place is in conversation this week with Lindsey Lusher Shute, Executive Director of the coalition and a vibrant young, independent farmer and gardener herself. Join us – Thursday at 10 am, Sunda...

Home of the famed spring plant sale HORTLANDIA, The Hardy Plant Society of Oregon is a thriving community of gardeners and Hort Heads who offer year round, life long learning and plant nerd opportunities. Cultivating Place is joined this week by Nancy Goldman of the HPSO to continue our exploration of the different ways in which we gardeners gather, learn and grow together. There’s always more to...

Gardeners and naturalists are remarkably ardent self-directed, life-long learners and doers. And the winter season is well-adapted to gardeners’ continuing education and community building, this week we’re joined by Louis Bauer of Wave Hill a New York Public Garden and Cultural Center. Their annual 3 part winter lecture series is under way now. Join us! Cultivating Place now has a donate button! W...

As an early Valentine to this garden life and plant loving community, Cultivating Place offers out a conversation with Melina Sempill Watts, author of Tree – a labor of audacity and arborphilia, Tree invites us to remain wide open, to listen and absorb what is shared with us, and thereby see the truth, beauty, and meaning in other being's existence. Join us! Cultivating Place now has a donate butt...

Just three months since California’s November 2018 Fires made global headlines, the great winter greening of our state is underway and with it the urge to GROW - in humans as in plants. On the opposite side of the globe from us are holding their breath for the first rains of late autumn and an end to their annual fire season. Fire is fact of life – this week on Cultivating Place we’re joined by Ju...

Danger Ahead: Home gardener and garden blogger Loree Bohl loves a garden with stand-out foliage and bold form. But pay attention - it can be dangerous out there! Loree writes: "Nice plants are boring – my love is for plants that can hurt you. Agave, yucca, anything with a spike or spur!” This week on Cultivating Place, the next in our series of Dispatches from the Home Garden. Join us. Cultivating...

For Sara Bir – food librarian, forager, chef and author – fruit are sweet, delicious, sexy and tactile – but every bit as important – they among her currency of memory. Sara, whose new book The Fruit Forager’s Companion is out now from Chelsea Green, joins Cultivating Place to share her fruit foraging philosophy and practice. Listen in! Cultivating Place now has a donate button! We thank you so mu...

Plants are all around us, and wherever there are plants, there are likely to be botanists at work trying to study, know and understand them better for us all. This week on Cultivating Place, botanist Linnea Hanson joins us to talk about the life of a botanist and the upcoming Northern California Botanist Symposium taking place in Chico Jan 14 – 16. Join us! Cultivating Place now has a donate butto...

As an exercise in intimacy for the New Year – this week on Cultivating Place, we visit an artistic and botanical project in South Africa known as Turning Into Flowers, which strives to combine a wide variety of cultural perspectives to create a new relationship between human and plant communities. Cultivating Place now has a donate button! We thank you so much for listening over the years and we h...

Some Floral tete a tete fun visits Cultivating Place this week just in time for the New Year. Josh Werber – founder of Floral Tete a Tete, a creative journey that began with a challenge to create an artistic floral headpiece every week for a year - three years ago now. The florals are really fun and the weekly practice led Josh to the heart of his creative inquiry. Fun and Creative Practice for th...

Recalibrating our nervous systems and the art of seasonal, local floral design is what we’re exploring On CP this week with Max Gill, floral designer perhaps best known for his weekly floral artistry at Chez Panisse in Berkeley California. On the eve of the Winter Solstice, Max is inspiring and instructional for us all this holiday season. Join us! Cultivating Place now has a donate button! We tha...

In constant conversation with her home garden, our guest this week on Cultivating Place is committed to both the listening and the speaking roles. In this newest episode in our occasional series, Dispatches from the Home Garden, Ilene Flax of Boulder, Colorado shares how she visits with her plants while watering them, and how she is grieving the impending loss of her beloved Ash trees to the Emera...

Did you say you needed a good Garden Book Recommendation?! The holidays and end of year are upon us – and with them, all those lists. Things to do, food to cook, intentions to make, gifts to consider. To help in your deliberations, this week, I’ve gathered a handful of gardeners from ranging interests and locales to offer some thoughts on good books that catch their eyes and imaginations this seas...

Do you ever stop to wonder where your garden tools came from? The history behind plant and garden trends or techniques? Gardens and garden history are microsms of world history and every story illuminates the larger course of humanity. In her new book "The Compendium of Amazing Gardening Innovations," Abigail Willis highlights 50 important gardening innovation. Host Jennifer Jewell also share her...