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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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. -
We celebrate the joys of healthy living soil in conversation with Omar Al Shafie, co-founder of Northern California-based Teregen Ag. -
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. Photos courtesy of GreenRoofCo & Filbert Press, p -
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. -
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 little bees". And it was this love that brought her to gardening in her adulthood. -
We're in conversation with Michael Fritts, founder of Golden Feather Tea in Concow, Calif., exploring some of the history and cultivation, the rituals, and the rewards (which are many) of tea. -
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. -
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 Los Angeles. -
Terry Richardson joins the conversation with Abra Lee. Richardson is known to many as The Black Thumb: Orchid Care Made Simple, an intrepid, enthusiastic, and encouraging orchid rescuer, educator, and storyteller. -
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? -
As the new year progresses, we are currently speaking with Jim Tolstrup, the Executive Director of the High Plains Environmental Center in Loveland, Colorado, which is dedicated to thoughtfully creating Suburbitat through its development plan. -
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.
