Episodes

  • Life is Big: To Be A Poet Gardener, Tess Taylor

    Life is Big: To Be A Poet Gardener, Tess Taylor
    Mar 13 2025
    Tess Taylor is a self-described Poet Gardener – and if there is ever a season to feel the poetry of life in the garden and with the plants in every cell of your body, it’s springtime! An award-winning poet with many collection titles to her name and editor of the life-supporting anthology Leaning Toward Light Poems for Gardens and the Hands that Tend Them, Tess is also the Poet Laureate of El Cerrito, California. In honor of Women’s History Month AND the vernal equinox arriving next week on March 20th, I thought we could all use some poetic focus. I am so pleased to share this conversation with Tess forward. Enjoy! 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 and iTunes. To read more and for many more photos, please visit www.cultivatingplace.com.
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    1 hr and 5 mins
  • The Curious Dr. Margaret Funk, Flora & Frost

    The Curious Dr. Margaret Funk, Flora & Frost
    Mar 5 2025
    Dr. Margaret Funk is the curious Midwest gardener (and doctor) behind the online name Flora & Frost. Cultivating her Minnesota garden for years, like so many of us, she really dove in deep in 2020. She and her family have now converted most of their lawn into a vibrant garden with a small greenhouse, raised beds for veggies, ornamental plants, and a growing collection of native plants. As an online communicator herself, Margaret combines her love of gardening with her with her love of science AND laughter. She has a remarkable skill at presenting often complex topics in an accessible, authentic, inspiring, and entertaining way. In honor of Women’s History Month, Margaret joins Guest Host Ben Futa this week on Cultivating Place - 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 and iTunes. To read more and for many more photos, please visit www.cultivatingplace.com.
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    57 mins
  • From East Africa to the World, landscape design's Wambui Ippolito

    From East Africa to the World, landscape design's Wambui Ippolito
    Feb 27 2025
    From East Africa to the World, landscape design's Wambui Ippolito by Jennifer Jewell
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    53 mins
  • The Curiosity Driven Growing Life of Australia's Michael McCoy

    The Curiosity Driven Growing Life of Australia's Michael McCoy
    Feb 12 2025
    Many things motivate and drive us to love gardening, plants, and nature. Australia’s Michael McCoy, also known as The Gardenist, is a Gardener, botanist, designer, teacher, and international garden tour guide. In his garden life, motivation always comes back to curiosity. He says: "Behind any answer are 10 more questions leading me forward in the garden, in life!” And, in his garden, "a lot of soul searching goes on." (As it should!) As The Gardenist, he considers his work a “hub for curious gardeners on a lifelong learning curve.” Here, Here! He joins us this week to share more and his enthusiastic curiosity might just spark yours! 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 and iTunes. To read more and for many more photos, please visit www.cultivatingplace.com.
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    1 hr
  • The Power of Public Green Spaces: NY's Elizabeth Street Garden with Joseph Reiver

    The Power of Public Green Spaces: NY's Elizabeth Street Garden with Joseph Reiver
    Feb 6 2025
    The Elizabeth Street Garden in New York City’s Little Italy and SoHo neighborhoods is a one-acre public garden founded in 1991 by Allan Reiver, an artist and art dealer who passed in 2021. The lot on which the garden has grown these many years is owned by the city and managed by the non-profit community group, Elizabeth Street Garden. Joseph Reiver, Allan’s son, is the current director of the group. Since 2013, Joseph, along with the Garden’s community, has been fighting to preserve and protect this special art and community-filled green space - one of few in this section of the city. In 2024, the Garden came under renewed threat of development, this time with increased vigor. In today’s conversation between guest host Ben Futa and Joseph Reiver, we learn how the inspiring story of how the Garden is fighting back - taking a stand against the powerful interests that seek to erase more than 30 years of community, growth, and beauty. This is something of a David and Goliath story: the modest community garden with surprising strength and agility going up against the many giants of New York City bureaucracy, lobbyists, developers. And while this is the story of one green space in one city, it serves as a call to action and a cautionary tale for all green spaces in all urban areas, where they are desperately needed, incredibly valuable to the quality of life for all, and easy to lose if we’re not paying attention. The Elizabeth Street Garden was featured in the 2023 book New York Green by acclaimed writer and photographer Ngoc Minh Ngo. 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 and iTunes. To read more and for many more photos, please visit www.cultivatingplace.com.
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    54 mins
  • Creativity, Self-Knowledge, and Artistic Ingenuity: Passionflower Sue

    Creativity, Self-Knowledge, and Artistic Ingenuity: Passionflower Sue
    Jan 29 2025
    Creativity is one of those anchors-to-windward in unsettled and worrisome times. So is a hands-on, creative project – with bonus points for working with organic materials (natural fibers, clay, or – flowers)! Just in time for Valentine’s Day, and all the spring events cascading from there in the coming months, we’re joined this week by a woman who has artistry, creativity, and hands-on project inspiration in spades to share with us – Passionflower Sue is our guest – and her work might be the end of January inspiration and gift to yourself you didn’t know you needed – but I knew. Passionflower Sue, aka Sue McLeary, is an artist. Very specifically an artist with flowers, and she thinks you probably are too. Whether you’re a professional florist, a friend helping friends with flowers, a parent helping a child (and all their friends) with their corsages and boutonnieres, or a gardener looking to have fun with flowers for your table or your hair, you’re going to enjoy meeting Sue in conversation this week. With a long career in floristry, from designing to event management, to sustainable floristry advocacy and lots of teaching, Sue believes that floristry is an art form, and those of us engaged in it are artists! She “aims to offer immediately useful and relevant educational information that equips and empowers florists- allowing them to express their creativity and make what they crave to see.” She believes (and I am with her): “When we harness our creativity, we create more interesting, artful work that fills us and lifts us.” Her goal is to empower the floristry artist. And it's her “passion to help push floristry forward!” Having had the great pleasure of attending events and learning from Sue – it is my even greater pleasure to welcome her to Cultivating Place this week. 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 and iTunes. To read more and for many more photos, please visit www.cultivatingplace.com.
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    1 hr and 5 mins
  • Got Topiary? A conversation with plantsman/artist Mike Gibson

    Got Topiary? A conversation with plantsman/artist Mike Gibson
    Jan 23 2025
    This week, Guest host Abra Lee is in conversation with legendary topiary artist and star of the HGTV hit show Clipped, Mike ‘Gibby-Siz’ Gibson. Mike is based out of sunny Columbia, South Carolina, where he owns and operates his own business, “Gibson Works.” Abra and Mike talk about all things Topiary arts in their lively conversation! Diving into Mike’s time on HGTV’s hit show Clipped, how he built his company, and where his love of the plant arts germinated. 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 and iTunes. To read more and for many more photos, please visit www.cultivatingplace.com.
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    54 mins