Cultivating Place

At a time in the gardening world when we're hearing the phrase "ecologically functional gardens" and "ecological landscape design" with great regularity, Cultivating Place is pleased to be joined this week by Kelly Norris. Kelly is an avid gardener, a former nursery owner and plant breeder, and an award-winning author. Based in Des Moines Iowa, he is recently retired from his role as Director of Horticulture and Education at the Greater Des Moines Botanical Garden and his newest book, "New Naturalism, Designing and Planting a Resilient, Ecologically Vibrant Home Garden” (Cool Springs Press, 2021) helps all of us to demystify what an ecologically functional and still incredibly beautiful and gratifying home garden means. It’s a perfect listen for the long hot gardening days of the Summer Solstice season. Cultivating Place now has a donate button! We thank you so much for listening over the years and we hope you'll support Cultivating Place. We can't thank you enough for making it possible for this young program to grow even more of these types of conversations. The show is available as a podcast on SoundCloud, iTunes, Google Podcast, and Stitcher. To read more and for many more photos please visit ww.cultivatingplace.com.

Jessica Walliser is an avid gardener and professional horticulturist – working in the business of plants and gardening since the tender age of 15. As she has matured as a gardener, so too have her understandings and passions, and she now considers herself a devoted bug lover as well as a devoted plant lover because, you know, these two groups of lives we love are wholly interdependent. Jessica is a former garden podcaster, a co-founder of the online gardening resource Savvy Gardening, and the author of many books reflective of her journey and knowledge, including "Good Bug, Bad Bug"; "Attracting Beneficial Insects to your Garden", and most recently, "Plant Partners: Science-Based Companion Planting Strategies” (Artisan Press, 2020). Listen in this week as we discuss how far we’ve come in our mainstream gardening practices this past 50 years, from companion planting to cover cropping, interplanting to the joys of watching predatory robber flies help control Japanese beetles. We also cover the even greater joy of knowing that more life in your garden equals more health in your garden life. Cultivating Place now has a donate button! We thank you so much for listening over the years and we hope you'll support Cultivating Place. We can't thank you enough for making it possible for this young program to grow even more of these types of conversations. The show is available as a podcast on SoundCloud, iTunes, Google Podcast, and Stitcher. To read more and for many more photos please visit www.cultivatingplace.com.

Through the many twists and turns of life, hers including a life-threatening battle with an auto-immune disorder and lung cancer, Claire’s organizing ethos has become: “Go Gently." An environmental advocate before turning to flowers as her life path, Claire is also the author/co-creator of a new book entitled “The Healing Power of Flowers”, which looks around the year at the meaning, magic, and medicine of 80 flowers. The book, photographed by Eva Nemeth, is an update and expansion on the Victorian Language of flowers, with seasonality and sustainability at its heart. As we in the Northern Hemisphere approach the Summer Solstice, Claire shares more about her gentle garden and floral life journey. Cultivating Place now has a donate button! We thank you so much for listening over the years and we hope you'll support Cultivating Place. We can't thank you enough for making it possible for this young program to grow even more of these types of conversations. The show is available as a podcast on SoundCloud, iTunes, Google Podcast, and Stitcher. To read more and for many more photos please visit www.cultivatingplace.com.

Debra Prinzing is the founder and leader of The Slow Flowers Society – She joins Cultivating Place in this first week of summer (after Memorial Day in the US and before the Summer Solstice in a few weeks) to share more about the many facets of her passion for being a voice for the floral world. Debra Prinzing is the founder and leader of The Slow Flowers Society. As a Seattle-based writer, speaker and leading advocate for American Grown Flowers, Debra’s many Slow Flowers-branded projects have convened a national conversation that stimulates consumers and professionals alike to make conscious choices about the flowers in their lives. Cultivating Place now has a donate button! We thank you so much for listening over the years and we hope you'll support Cultivating Place. We can't thank you enough for making it possible for this young program to grow even more of these types of conversations. The show is available as a podcast on SoundCloud, iTunes, Google Podcast, and Stitcher. To read more and for many more photos please visit www.cultivatingplace.com.

Just outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, a team of plant folks known as Refugia is growing connection among places and people from their beautifully designed native plant gardens and radiating out from those. This week, Cultivating Place is joined by Refugia founder Jeff Lorenz, by stewardship manager Esther Scanlon, by Lead Project Manager Ronnie Ludwig, and Melissa Nase Refugia’s lead Landscape Designer and Greenhouse Manager. The team shares the process and ethos of Refugia as they design, create and help to steward functional landscapes that are ecologically beneficial, beautiful, and resilient - and perhaps most importantly, connective. Cultivating Place now has a donate button! We thank you so much for listening over the years and we hope you'll support Cultivating Place. We can't thank you enough for making it possible for this young program to grow even more of these types of conversations. The show is available as a podcast on SoundCloud, iTunes, Google Podcast, and Stitcher. To read more and for many more photos please visit www.cultivatingplace.com.

Loree Bohl is the Portland Oregon-based founder and visionary gardener behind the well-known and well-loved Danger Garden Blog. In true Danger Garden fashion, Loree’s new book Fearless Gardening empowers us all to be bold, break the rules and grow what you love. Loree joins Cultivating Place this week to empower all of us with a sense of boldness in the garden. Cultivating Place now has a donate button! We thank you so much for listening over the years and we hope you'll support Cultivating Place. We can't thank you enough for making it possible for this young program to grow even more of these types of conversations. The show is available as a podcast on SoundCloud, iTunes, Google Podcast, and Stitcher. To read more and for many more photos please visit www.cultivatingplace.com.

This week on Cultivating Place, we have the second of a two-part series celebrating the publication of Under Western Skies in conversation with landscape architect Christie Green, of Radicle landscape architecture based in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Radicle as in the first intrepid and primary growing root of a seedling and the idea of advocating for fundamental or revolutionary changes in current practices, conditions, or institutions. Cultivating Place now has a donate button! We thank you so much for listening over the years and we hope you'll support Cultivating Place. We can't thank you enough for making it possible for this young program to grow even more of these types of conversations. The show is available as a podcast on SoundCloud, iTunes, Google Podcast, and Stitcher. To read more and for many more photos please visit www.cultivatingplace.com.

CAITLIN ATKINSON is a photographer of places, spaces, and all things botanical. She has been my partner this past 2 + years in creating our new book Under Western Skies, Visionary Gardens from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Coast, publishing on May 11 of 2021. Conceived by Caitlin, the book is really an expression of our shared love for the places and plants and plantspeople of the West crafting garden spaces of soul, and this week on Cultivating Place, Caitlin joins me in conversation to discuss more deeply this passion project of ours. Listen in - the views are stunning (and soulful). Cultivating Place now has a donate button! We thank you so much for listening over the years and we hope you'll support Cultivating Place. We can't thank you enough for making it possible for this young program to grow even more of these types of conversations. The show is available as a podcast on SoundCloud, iTunes, Google Podcast, and Stitcher. To read more and for many more photos please visit www.cultivatingplace.com.

Claire Ratinon is a gardener, a writer, and a passionate advocate for the growing a food no matter where you live or how small a space you might live it. She herself first fell in love with growing her own food while living in a one-room flat. Born in Mauritius and raised in England, her horticultural work is deeply interested in how the hunger and heartache of our times, and of re-finding or rooting our own senses of identity starting in the vegetable garden. Listen in! Cultivating Place now has a donate button! We thank you so much for listening over the years and we hope you'll support Cultivating Place. We can't thank you enough for making it possible for this young program to grow even more of these types of conversations. The show is available as a podcast on SoundCloud, iTunes, Google Podcast, and Stitcher. To read more and for many more photos please visit www.cultivatingplace.com.

It’s spring in the northern hemisphere (even though snow is still making visitations to parts of North American right now), and gardeners across the hemisphere are itching to get started with their summer vegetable gardens. That age-old and annual question of “when warm summer crops can safely be planted outside" is already high on peoples' lists of garden excitements and anxieties. Cultivating Place is joined this week by the leader of an event and author of a book both known as TOMATOMANIA. Scott Daigre is the owner of PowerPlant Garden Design in Ojai California, and he is a dedicated home gardener and self-proclaimed tomatomaniac. It's earth week and among the garden’s earthiest pleasures are these succulent summer fruits. Scott joins us from his home and trial garden in Ojaiwhere he is deep into the planning for the warm season vegetable garden and all her delights. Join us! Cultivating Place now has a donate button! We thank you so much for listening over the years and we hope you'll support Cultivating Place. We can't thank you enough for making it possible for this young program to grow even more of these types of conversations. The show is available as a podcast on SoundCloud, iTunes, Google Podcast, and Stitcher. To read more and for many more photos please visit www.cultivatingplace.com.