Cultivating Place

This week on Cultivating Place we’re joined by gardener, author, activist and entomologist, Doug Tallamy. Ten years ago, his first book "Bringing Nature Home: How Native Plants Sustain Wildlife in our Gardens," made clear how important our own home gardens and landscapes COULD be to improving the outlook for insects, birds and all other wildlife – indeed for the very future and health of our planet. Join us.

As we knock on the door of December, and the garden and its greenery call out to us in very different ways than they do in other seasons of the year, this week on Cultivating Place, we speak with British Gardener, Horticulturist and Floral designer Thomas Broom-Hughes of Thomas Bloom floristry and Petersham Nurseries. He has garden-gathered visions of luxurious winter beauty and traditions to share. Join us.

The late autumn into winter months – from the Harvest Moon rising in October to the Winter Solstice on December 21st and through the beginning of the new calendar year, mark traditional seasons of gratitude, of giving thanks, and of offerings of generous service. For me, my garden itself and my gardening practice are my very best, most consistent acts of both gratitude and service to the world – and I know many other gardeners and cultivators who feel the same. The garden – very much like the grace that writer and thinker Anne Lamott references — rises to meet many gardeners where we are and — sometimes — it does not leave us where we started, but nurtures us along further than we believed was possible. This week on Cultivating Place I am so excited to offer you our first ever seasonal special celebrating this SEASON of harvest, of taking stock, of giving back, of deep GRATITUDE and of preparing for the restorative dark of winter ahead. In this one hour of gratitude and gardening practice and celebration, gardeners from around the world share with us what gratitude in the garden looks like to them. And, our central conversation will be with earth artist Day Schildkret, who makes meaning and beauty with his daily practice of Morning Altars.

The right tools can make all the difference in our lives and in our work. This is as true in gardening as in all other aspects of life. This week on Cultivating Place we’re joined by Dorian Winslow, president of Womanswork, a 35-year-old company which almost 33 years ago now introduced the first work and garden gloves designed specifically for women. Join us.

The 13th century Persian poet Rumi famously wrote: “Let the beauty you love be what you do, there are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.” Ryland Engelhart and Finian Makepeace took these words to heart and in 2013 founded Kiss the Ground. Named in honor of the famed poem, Kiss the Ground works to restore soils worldwide by promoting and developing models that accelerate the adoption of regenerative agriculture — large scale and home scale. Healthy soil has the miraculous ability to sequester carbon from the atmosphere, and it’s not just carbon storage; the ways that soil stands to positively impact lives of billions worldwide are tangible and immediate: Clean water. Healthy food. Drought resistance. Restored habitats. You can download or subscribe to the Cultivating Place podcast on iTunes or Stitcher. For additional photos and more, visit CultivatingPlace.com.

Nurturing – that’s what comes to mind when I think of the work of Blanca Diaz also known as Mama Maiz. Blanca is a practicing doula and herbalist whose work takes her around the country teaching and practicing plant based healing. She nurtures new mothers as they prepare to bring new life into our world, and she nurtures plants for their wisdom, healing and beauty. She nurtures community from the ground up sharing, as she says: “what she has been called and given permission to share.” Blanca believes in, studies and shares with others the power of plants, especially the native plants of our own regions and our relationships to them, in an effort to bring healing, well-being and greater understanding into our lives. Mama Maiz shares with Cultivating Place this week Join us. The show is available as a podcast on iTunes, Google Play and Stitcher. For photos and more, visit CultivatingPlace.com.

This week on Cultivating Place we’re joined by Uk based garden designer Jinny Blom, whose new book is entitled “The Thoughtful Gardener: an intelligent approach to garden design”. After 17 years and more than 250 gardens designed around the globe, Jinny shares with us her thoughtful, creative, musical and heartfelt perspective and process. Join us! You can download or subscribe to the Cultivating Place podcast on iTunes or Stitcher.

No matter where you live, the native plants of that area help define the beauty, history and meaning of all life there – from the soil, to the birds and bugs and mammals – four legged and two legged. On Cultivating Place this week we’re joined by the California Native Plant Society to hear more about the state of our native plants and their upcoming Conservation Conference Jan. 30-Feb. 3, 2018. Join us! Read more and see additional photos at CultivatingPlace.com.

This week on Cultivating Place, we’re joined by a gardener who lives and works beneath the great, big beautiful Sky of Austin, Texas –one of many real gardening epi-centers in our country. Linda Lehmusvirta is a home gardener and gardening advocate in Austin, and as the Producer of a weekly program on KLRU-TV, PBS in Austin she is most well known as The Central Texas Gardener. Join us. Read more and see additional photos at CultivatingPlace.com.

Elizabeth Lawrence was one of the grand dames of American horticulture in the 1900s. She was not only an avid gardener, but the first trained and licensed woman landscape architect out of the landscape architecture program at University of North Carolina, Raleigh. She designed, gardened and experimented with planting zones enthusiastically in her Charlotte, North Carolina, home and garden from the late 1940s through the mid 1980s. Perhaps most importantly, she shared her experiences and knowledge widely through her beautiful and plentiful garden writing in books, articles and correspondence with other gardeners and horticulturists around the globe. This week on Cultivating Place we're joined by Andrea Sprott, Curator since 2010 of the Elizabeth Lawrence House and Garden in Charlotte, NC, to hear more about the garden and an upcoming celebration of the garden, Elizabeth Lawrence and her legacy of garden writing. Join us!