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Cultivating Place: Rooted in Education, Richard M. Smith, Director, NYBG School of Professional Horticulture

All photos are courtesy of Richard Smith, all rights are reserved.
All photos are courtesy of Richard Smith, all rights are reserved.

This week on Cultivating Place, guest host Abra Lee is joined in conversation by someone whose path into horticulture is both inspiring and honest—Richard M. Smith, director of the School of Professional Horticulture at the New York Botanical Garden.

All photos are courtesy of Richard Smith, all rights are reserved.
All photos are courtesy of Richard Smith, all rights are reserved.

Richard grew up in Belle Glade, Florida—folks there call it Muck City, thanks to their deep, rich soil. And while Richard didn’t start off in horticulture, that love for plants was always in him. Now his career is focused on helping people from all walks of life find their way into this field—building careers, finding purpose, and growing something meaningful.

As someone who is growing more than just plants, Richard is all about access, mentorship, and ensuring the door stays open behind him. Enjoy!

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We can't thank you enough for making it possible for this young program to grow and engage in even more conversations like these.

The show is available as a podcast on SoundCloud and iTunes. To read more and for many more photos, please visit www.cultivatingplace.com.

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Jennifer Jewell is the creator and host of the national award-winning, weekly public radio program and podcast, Cultivating Place: Conversations on Natural History & the Human Impulse to Garden, Jennifer Jewell is a gardener, garden writer, and gardening educator and advocate. Particularly interested in the intersections between gardens, the native plant environments around them, and human culture, she is the daughter of garden and floral designing mother and a wildlife biologist father.
Matt Fidler is a producer and sound designer with over 15 years’ experience producing nationally distributed public radio programs. He has worked for shows such as Freakonomics Radio, Selected Shorts, Studio 360, The New Yorker Radio Hour and The Takeaway. In 2017, Matt launched the language podcast Very Bad Words, hitting the #28 spot in the iTunes podcast charts.