Gardens are more than collections of plants. Gardens and Gardeners are intersectional spaces and agents for positive change in our world. Cultivating Place: Conversations on Natural History and the Human Impulse to Garden is a weekly public radio program & podcast exploring what we mean when we garden. Through thoughtful conversations with growers, gardeners, naturalists, scientists, artists and thinkers, Cultivating Place illustrates the many ways in which gardens are integral to our natural and cultural literacy. These conversations celebrate how these interconnections support the places we cultivate, how they nourish our bodies, and feed our spirits. They change the world, for the better. Take a listen.
Original Theme Music by Ma Muse, Engineer and Producer Matt Fidler, Executive Producer Sarah Bohannon.
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The combining of sculpture and gardens dates back centuries if not millennia, and there are few public gardens I know of that do not incorporate sculpture into their aesthetics and identity at some point. This week we are in conversation with an exemplary public garden, whose identity grows out of this pairing: the art of horticulture and the art of sculpture.
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To kick Women’s History Month off on Cultivating Place, we visit with the woman known as the Queen of Herbs, Jekka McVicar of Jekka’s Herb Farm in the UK this week. Her long and notable career has brought the gardened world the best the herbs of the world have to offer to our gardens, to our environments, to our kitchens, and to our souls.
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Writer and gardener Marta McDowell is with us this week for our Leap Day Special - sharing more about her newest title, Gardening Can Be Murder: How Poisonous Poppies, Sinister Shovels, and Grim Gardens Have Inspired Mystery Writers, in which she delves into the literary history of mysteries and crime fiction being long inspired by life and death in the garden.
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We’re in conversation with Jane Perrone, host of the “On The Ledge” Podcast and author of “Legends of the Leaf: Unearthing the secrets to help your plants thrive.”
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In our ongoing exploration of who gardeners are, where gardeners are, what they are growing in this world, and why that matters to all of us, we are joined this week by Brent Leggs, Senior Vice President of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and Executive Director of the Trust’s African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund, whose mission focuses on telling the full American story.
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Staci Catron has been the Library’s Director since 2000, and Jennie Oldfield is the collection’s Senior Technical Librarian/Supervisory Archivist. The two join Cultivating Place this week to share so much more about the fertile ground of their work – enriching all of our garden lives.
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Camille Dungy is perhaps best known for her remarkable and award-winning, often environmentally focused poetry and editing of collections of environmentally focused poetry and writing by people of color exploring the intersections of gender, race, art, environment, and culture. In honor of Black History Month, we revisit this best-of conversation with Camille from May of 2023.
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In our ongoing exploration of who gardeners are, where gardeners are, what they are growing in this world, and why that matters to all of us, I am pleased to be joined this week by three members of the team at The Institute for Applied Ecology – literally ecology in action.
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Ecologist and educator Dr. Justin Luong of Cal Poly Humboldt joins Cultivating Place this week to share more about his journey in science, practice, and education focused on biodiversity and climate resiliency, most recently through grassland restoration ecology. Listen in!
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This week on Cultivating Place, we hear the magical story of how two gardeners, separated by time, came together to grow all of our imaginations.