
Cultivating Place
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. Take a listen.
Latest episodes

Mar 20, 2020 • 1h 2min
Dr. Elaine Ingham, Soil Scientist - THE EARTH IN HER HANDS #3
Women’s History month on Cultivating Place continues this week, knowing that radio and new voices are especially important to us all right now. Dr. Elaine Ingham is the founder of Soil Food Web Inc.
An early researcher and articulator of the soil food web model, she brings us up to speed on things soil life. Hang in there and Join us! We are committed to being the encouraging and expanding voice in your ear as we all hang in there.
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 Play and Stitcher. To read more and for many more photos please visit www.cultivatingplace.com.

Mar 12, 2020 • 55min
Andrea DeLong-Amaya, THE EARTH IN HER HANDS #2
Women’s History month on Cultivating Place continues this week with Andrea DeLong-Amaya, Director of Horticulture at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in Austin Texas. Two great women’s stories with plants in one!
The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center at the University of Texas at Austin is the botanic garden for the state of Texas. Andrea has been on for over 20 years and has more than 30 years of experience in horticulture, she guides 15 staff in the design and management of 9 acres of native gardens, 275 acres of natural areas and a native plant nursery.
She teaches classes in native plant horticulture and writes and presents on her passion for the field widely. She spoke with us late last autumn to share more about the history and work of the center, including it being the legacy of another extraordinary woman, Lady Bird Johnson, and her own enthusiasm for this field of work. 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 Play and Stitcher. To read more and for many more photos please visit cultivatingplace.com.

Mar 5, 2020 • 54min
Tiffany Freeman, Clinical Herbalist THE EARTH IN HER HANDS #1
This week we wrap up our series on the healing power of gardens and kick off our Women’s History Month all at the same time.
For every episode in March to celebrate the month, Cultivating Place will be highlighting one of the women in The Earth in her Hands, 75 Extraordinary Women Working in the World of Plants, which officially published just two days ago on March 3, 2020!
We start off with the work of herbalist and educator, Tiffany Freeman. Tiffany is a registered acupuncturist, a traditional Chinese medicine doctor, and a registered clinical herbalist, certified by the American Herbalist Guild, She is the co-founder and co-director of the Lodgepole School of Wholistic Studies. She joins us today from her home in Calgary.
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 Play and Stitcher. To read more and for many more photos please visit www.cultivatingplace.com.

Feb 27, 2020 • 55min
Horticultural Therapy At Work: Matt Wichrowski, MSW, HTR Rusk Institute HEALING GARDENS #5
As we start to wind down our series on Healing Gardens and Therapeutic Landscape design, we’re joined by Matthew J. Wichrowski, MSW HTR, Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine and Senior Horticultural Therapist at Rusk Rehabilitation at NYU Langone Health.
A longtime educator and practitioner in the field of horticultural therapy. From acute care bedsides to locked ward psychiatric care, plants make everything better. 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 Play and Stitcher. To read more and for many more photos please visit www.cultivatingplace.com.

Feb 20, 2020 • 54min
THE ELDER - An Ancient Healing Plant Ally, HEALING GARDENS #4
This week the Cultivating Place series on Healing Gardens dives into one of our most ancient healing plant allies – the Elder – it’s genus, its history, its flowers, and berries, with John Moody, father, homesteader, and author of The Elderberry Book.
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 Play and Stitcher. To read more and for many more photos please visit www.cultivatingplace.com.

Feb 13, 2020 • 55min
HEALING GARDEN SERIES #3: Horticultural Therapy - Perla Curbelo, Puerto Rico
Even as a girl growing up in Puerto Rico, Perla Sofía Curbelo recognized that the simple act of picking flowers for her mother to put out in their homemade everything more pleasant. This week, we continue our exploration of the healing and therapeutic effects of gardens, plants, and nature.
We’re joined in this third conversation by Perla who recently received her Horticultural Therapy Certificate from the Chicago Botanic Garden and puts it to ever greater use in her homeland of Puerto Rico. 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 Play and Stitcher. To read more and for many more photos please visit www.cultivatingplace.com.

Feb 6, 2020 • 58min
Healing Gardens Series #2: Therapeutic Landscapes Network, Dr. Naomi Sachs, Founding Director
In our second episode in a series around the healing power of plants and gardens in our world, we get an overview of the professional field of Horticultural Therapy and Healing Garden Design on an institutional basis with one of the field’s leading spokeswomen and researchers, Dr. Naomi Sachs, 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 Play and Stitcher. To read more and for many more photos please visit www.cultivatingplace.com.

Jan 30, 2020 • 55min
Healing Gardens Series #1: Sanctuary, Annie Kirk Of Red Bird Restorative Gardens
This week we kick off a series on the Healing Power of Gardens, in the series we’ll visit with Dr. Naomi Sachs, of the Therapeutic Landscapes Network, with Perla Curbelo, a recent graduate of the Horticultural Therapy certification program at the Chicago Botanic Garden, with Iain Houghton, at the Chelsea Physic Garden, one of the oldest extant botanical and medicinal plant gardens in the UK (and world), and with Matt Wichrowski, a horticultural therapy clinician and educator in New York City.
This week, we start off right where we are - in our own gardens, speaking with P. Annie Kirk about Sanctuary and Healing - beginning with ourselves. The whole world is in need of sanctuary and healing - in varying degrees of urgency and from varying kinds of wounds. Annie Kirk of Red Bird Restorative Gardens starts us off with a conversation about the transformative power of the garden, plants, and nature to offer us healing and health - starting in our own gardens, hearts, and minds. 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 Play and Stitcher. To read more and for many more photos please visit www.cultivatingplace.com.

Jan 23, 2020 • 57min
GROWING EMPOWERMENT - Frailty Myths, with Erinn Carter & Georgia Faye Hirs
This week on CP, we're emboldened to consider our strength and power in the garden and in life generally by Erinn Carter and Georgia Faye Hirsty, two of the co-founders of an organization known as Frailty Myths, based in Oakland, CA.
Their mission is to reimagine femininity and build power by excusing ourselves from the implications, hobbles, and damage wrought by mainstream conceptions of what is naturally feminine or naturally masculine (the dominant ethos of what we know as "patriarchy” and as perpetuated by us all).
At Frailty Myths, they instead model, ask, encourage us to bring our whole heartfelt power and selves into the work of Cultivating our Places - no matter if that is sailing, gardening, woodworking, or singing.
In bringing our open hearts and minds and full power to any situation, we ensure that we are simultaneously cultivating safe and open space for us all. 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 Play and Stitcher. To read more and for many more photos please visit www.cultivatingplace.com.

Jan 16, 2020 • 54min
Emily Dickinson's Gardening Life, Marta McDowell
January and mid-winter indeed feels poetic in its spareness, and while many poets come to mind, for me Emily Dickinson stands out for seasonality and abundance in spareness.
In 2004 writer and gardener Marta McDowell published Emily Dickinson’s Gardens – a celebration of a poet and a gardener; Following up on new research and her own experience as Gardener-In Residence at the Emily Dickinson Museum, Marta updated her original work with Emily Dickinson’s Gardening Life – The Plants and Places that Inspired the Iconic Poet, which was published in 2019.
Marta joins us Cultivating Place this week to share more - 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 Play and Stitcher. To read more and for many more photos please visit www.cultivatingplace.com.