
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

Aug 22, 2019 • 56min
High Ground: Penstemons & Other Alpine Plants, Mike Kintgen, Curator at Denver Botanic Gardens
Alpine and Steppe plants are uniquely interesting individuals and communities of plants that thrive in extreme conditions of high elevations and dry locations around the globe.
This week on Cultivating Place, we head to high ground with Mike Kintgen, Curator of Alpine Plants at the Denver Botanic Gardens in Denver CO and member of the American Penstemon Society to learn more about these charismatic plant communities. 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.

Aug 15, 2019 • 56min
Plant Me A Rainbow, Meg Herndon And Sandra Nam Cioffi
On Cultivating Place this week, we speak with two Landscape Architects who came together to create and offer out to the gardening world beautiful, functional gardens that are inspired, interesting, innovative and accessible to all.
Meg Herndon and Sandra Nam Cioffi share more about the concept behind their Plant Me a Rainbow, based on this garden life as a crucible in which your own values become clear, these two women created a plan to help more people create richly flowering gardens.
Starting with mostly native plants suited for climates and soils of the Northeast, these gardens have as their foundation principles applicable no matter where you garden. Including really interesting correlations with the age old art and science of perfumery. 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.

Aug 8, 2019 • 57min
Where The Wild Things Are: The Wild Yards Project, With David Newsom
David Newsom is a filmmaker, storyteller, and outdoorsman. But when his daughter was born he realized he wanted to bring her butterflies, bees and all the rich diversity of the world, and so he became a gardener to a wild backyard.
That very human impulse led to his founding of the Wild Yards Project – a non profit organization working to encourage and support the creation of native plant habitat gardens through audio visual stories of native plant visionaries and webbuilding. He shares more on cultivating place this week. 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.

Aug 1, 2019 • 54min
Reading A Landscape, Courtney Allen Of The Native Plant Trust
This week we dive deep into a conversation on being more observant in our places with historic preservationist Courtney Allen, Director of Public Programs at the Native Plant Trust. Together we explore all that we can learn from really seeing and READING our landscapes: lessons and insights on history, culture, climate, integrity, humility, and accountability are all there. 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.

Jul 25, 2019 • 55min
TO BE A PLACEMAKER With Gardener And Spiritual Memoirist Christie Purifoy
As gardeners we are many things, among these we are place makers. What does it mean to be a placemaker – what is learned, what is lost, what is gained in the making of any place. This week on Cultivating Place we consider the nature and meaning of placemaking with mother, gardener, and spiritual memoirist Christie Purifoy.
She lives and gardens with her husband and four children at Maplehurst, a Victorian red brick farmhouse in southeastern Pennsylvania. 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.

Jul 18, 2019 • 56min
PLANTING YOUR TRUTH with Horticulturist and Public Horticulture Leader in the Making, Abra Lee
Abra Lee is a public horticulture leader in the making. From rural roots in Georgia, to a passion for pop music and style, she sees the interweaving of horticulture and our everyday lives as a path to increasing horticulture’s relevance and importance for everyone. An advocate for Planting Your Truth – she shares more on Cultivating Place this week. 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.

Jul 11, 2019 • 52min
On Posh Cow Parsley & Other Adventures In Growing Flowers From Seed, Clare Foster
There are few things so affirming as growing plants from seed, this week on Cultivating Place, we talk about the adventures of growing flowers from seed with Clare Foster, Garden Editor of House & Garden, UK. A gardener, author, and seed-sower herself, Clare’s newest book (with co-author, with Sabina Rüber) is "The Flower Garden: How to Grow Flowers From Seed” (Laurence King, 2019). It’s fun, colorful, and easy! 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.

Jul 5, 2019 • 55min
Robin Wall Kimmerer On Gardening And Citizenship
On this Fourth of July – Cultivating Place is pleased to be in conversation with Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer, author of “Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge And The Teachings Of Plants.” Together we explore the interrelationship between gardening and citizenship. She states: "I think that is our deepest longing - to belong to each other and to belong to this larger community of life and for me this notion of tending the garden at all the scales we’ve been implying here is a powerful way to belong." Join us!
Cultivating Place now has a donate button! You can find it at cultivatingplace.com. We thank you so much for listening over the years and we hope you'll support Cultivating Place.

Jun 27, 2019 • 54min
A Garden Can Be Anywhere, With Lauri Kranz Of Edible Gardens LA + More
As summer heats us up and slows us down, the garden and in particular the edible garden is front and center. This week Cultivating Place is joined by Lauri Kranz, of Edible Gardens LA conversing about how growing your own food is one of the most empowering things you’ll ever do. Stay With 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.

Jun 20, 2019 • 55min
A Father Daughter Horticultural Conversation with Robert & Catherine Hanss
Robert Hanss and his daughter Catherine are a father-daughter duo in the Northeast working together to create and care for gardens and horticulture traditions and relationships that will last for generations to come.
In this week following Father’s Day, and day before the Summer Solstice, they join us to talk about the changing nature of horticultural business models and the lasting legacy of family – landscapes included. 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.
For photos visit www.cultivatingplace.com. The show is available as a podcast on SoundCloud, iTunes, Google Play and Stitcher.