Cultivating Place

This week on Cultivating Place we hear the story of the first 15 years of the Edible Communities – the umbrella name of the many publishers who bring you the edible communities publications across the US and Canada. Fifteen years ago, two women who cared about food, Tracey Ryder and Carole Topalian, published a 16-page, one-color newsletter to help connect the farmers in their area to the food-lov...

Gardening is a specifically human endeavor. It is a characterizing feature of our species, fairly well documented throughout our evolution. Which fascinates me. And each of us come to this endeavor for our own reasons and needs – sometimes very practical, sometimes very esthetic, sometimes spiritual. Our gardens are like some larger version of our very fingerprints. Today Cultivating Place welcome...

What do we mean when we use the word “wild” and why does it matter? In 2017, the New York City urban landscape commonly known as The High Line celebrates its official 5th birthday. This milestone is being marked by the publication of a new book entitled "Gardens of the High Line: Elevating the Nature of Modern Landscapes" (Timber Press, 2017), coauthored by plantsmen Piet Oudolf and Rick Darke, wi...

Melinda Benson-Valavanis is a floral designer and owner of MCreations in Chico, CA. She recently committed her business to participating in a project called re-bloom – in which she accepts the flowers from a wedding or other large event after the event is over and and re-purposes them for distribution to people and communities who might need a bit of floral energy and cheer in their lives. In this...

This week on Cultivating Place, we’re joined by Jan Johnsen – a gardener, landscape designer and author of the books "Heaven is a Garden" and "The Spirit of Stone,” both published by St. Lynn’s Press. As a speaker for botanical garden show audiences, Jan loves to share her insights on the beneficial effects of informed garden design. Her unique approach — incorporating ancient practices with conte...

Spring is a time of awakening and full sensory immersion in the world around us - even if we aren’t gardeners or nature lovers. It is hard to avoid, ignore or miss Spring’s reckless abundance and generosity. It is the perfect counterpoint to the winter’s restful, healing darkness and dormancy. In appreciation for all of spring’s growing energy, I am pleased to be joined this week by Dr. Raymond Ba...

Close to 21 years ago, a Cordon Bleu trained chef and business woman named Jane Scotter left a busy city life in London and bought a farm. She was joined not long after by another professional chef, Harry Astley. Together the two have taken their 16 idyllic acres in Herefordshire, England and crafted a life fully integrated and interdependent with the land, its plants and animals, their food, thei...

It is California Native Plant Week this week. Officially designated by the California Native Plant Society in 2010, this year the festivities and educational and awareness activities are scheduled all week April 15–23. In celebration of this and in honor of the many native landscapes I love, and native plants that bring beauty, life and a deep sense of place to my home garden, this week I am pleas...

“Useful, with a pleasant degree of humor” — that is the tag line for the Old Farmer’s Almanac, an annual handbook for American growers, farmers and gardeners — celebrating its 225th year in publication this year. Every year for the past 225 years, farmers, gardeners, landholders and growers of all kinds have been consulting the Old Farmer’s Almanac for weather predictions, growing suggestions and...

If you’re like me, you love getting out into your own garden, but visiting someone else’s garden is almost as good — there’s just less weeding required. The end of March/beginning of April is also the unofficial kick off of garden-visiting season, with garden tours and open garden days on local, regional and national levels, and of all shapes and sizes, getting started now and running right throug...

Gardenways and "The Chinese Kitchen Garden" - a conversation with gardener and author, Wendy Kiang-Spray I am fairly accustomed to hearing the phrases “folk ways” and “food ways” and even ‘music ways” to describe the history, traditions, and myths associated with these subject areas in distinct locations or cultures. Only recently have I come to think of the history and traditions one brings to th...

Sometimes when you use the word garden – people immediately conjure up images of the ornamental perennial border, other people however conjure up colorful visions of the summer vegetable garden. In July of 2016, we were joined by Stefani Bittner of Homestead Design Collective discussing her work as ornamental edible landscape designer. Early in 2017, her most recent and beautiful book, Harvest, wa...

It is the eve of St. Patrick’s Day and it does seem that even if you’re not Irish per se, St. Patrick’s Day brings out a little bit of Irish in us all. And while I have no interest in green beer, I do have an interest in the green of the garden. To celebrate this – today we’re pleased to be joined by Fionnuala Fallon, a horticulturist, garden writer, garden designer and organic flower farmer, and...

Every garden has a story as does every gardener. In our next in the occasional series of Dispatches From the Home Garden, today we travel to the Pacific Northwest and cross the border to Canada, where we speak with a gardener, writer and floral designing flower farmer who joins us via skype. Christin Geall is the founder of Cultivated, an urban flower farm and design studio, and a literary gardeni...

There is a flower farming revolution sweeping across our country and I for one am all for it. A few months back, Cultivating Place was joined by Debra Prinzing, the founder of the aptly named “slow flowers” and "American Grown Flower" movement in the floral industry. This week we’re joined by Erin Benzakien – the name and face behind the beautiful and impassioned Floret Flower Farms, based in the...

As gardeners or naturalists, we often share an urge to display our love – flowers or fruits of the season arranged in bottles and vases, in bowls and on platters. The deep beauty of the harvest and the season have a strong call. As gardeners who harvest food and flowers, as nature lovers who gently forage fallen moss, lichen, stones, feathers, or cooks who prepare our fruits, vegetables and forage...

Late winter early spring might be kind of quiet in the garden in terms of flowers, but it is very busy in terms of plant care – especially in the care of keeping of our roses. Roses are a favorite of many gardeners, a staple of many gardens, they have been cultivated, celebrated, bred and judged for more than 5,000 years around the world. Roses can and are grown just about anywhere in the world. T...

Have you ever noticed how every garden has a story? No matter how many gardeners might have worked that spot: just 2 - for instance mother nature AND you, or multitudes: you and the many who known or unknown may have worked that ground before you – the land you cultivate, hike, or gaze at, has a story. Likewise, every gardener has a story – no matter how many gardens they’ve cultivated or at what...

“Anyone who’s gazed at the moon or stood still in a magnificent stand of trees knows what it’s like to experience the Power of Awe – it seems to slow time, proffer reverence for life and connect us to one another. Recent research shows that when we spend time outside in nature, engaging all our senses, our heart rates slow, our stress hormones dip, our thoughts grow both more expansive and less se...

Digging deep: this is a phrase that has a wide variety of meanings and uses – both literal and figurative — in the garden, and in the body, mind and heart. In a new year, many of us have a tendency to generate a to-do list of tasks and projects to start, to get in order or to finally this year complete in our lives – and if we are gardeners, our gardens are not left out of this energetic attention...

It is mid-January. It is deep mid-winter, even in my relatively mild USDA zone 9, Sunset zone 8. While I am fortunate enough to have a year-round Saturday farmer’s market available to me, my own home garden is looking spare. Which is at it should be this time of year, but it could be looking a little less spare while still remaining seasonally appropriate. One of MY New Year’s resolutions is to st...

As a celebration of the many ways that one’s cultivation of place can benefit not only the individual cultivator – gardener or naturalist – this week on Cultivating Place I’m joined by John Carlon, president of River Partners, a nonprofit organization working to create wildlife habitat for the benefit of people (economically and environmentally), water (quality and conservation), wildlife and the...

Happy New Year! For over 100 years Sunset magazine has been inspiring gardens and gardeners in the American West. This year marks the first full year for Sunset’s gorgeous, innovative new demonstration and display gardens at Cornerstone Sonoma. Join me this week when Cultivating Place converses with Sunset’s Garden Editor Johanna Silver - inspiring New Year’s resolutions for garden living. Join us...

There is something inherently satisfying about a full circle – a completion – a beginning brought to its fullness and coming to its natural end, which leads right into the next beginning. This full circle satisfaction is true for cycles of the moon, cycles of the seasons and cycles of the field and garden. For me this is especially apparent at the Winter Solstice and, of course, the full circle of...

In this season of the winter solstice — marked by the beauty and appreciative contemplation that mark the celebrations of winter holidays the world around, I very much wanted this week's Cultivating Place to acknowledge the diversity, value and fragility of our native plants and their communities. No matter where you garden or cultivate place now, or where you might have done so throughout your li...