January is prime seed-dreaming and seed-catalogue season. With that in mind we’re revisiting a favorite conversation all about generosity, mutual care, good seeds, and seed people. Who doesn’t need more of all those as we continue to lay the foundation for this new year? Ken Greene – who goes by K - is a seed person. He is the co-founder of the Hudson Valley Seed Library , which in 2004 became the first public library based seed lending library in the US; in 2008 he went on t

As we continue our new year, we’re once again gaining elevation and new growing thinking. We’re in conversation with Jim Tolstrup, Executive Director of the High Plains Environmental Center in Loveland, Colorado, where, by development design, they caringly cultivate Suburbitat. Suburbitat is a land ethic, a mind-set, and a book that all hold a vision of a built environment where suburbia and native ecosystems exist side by side and intertwined. It is magical in all seasons!

In honor of the new year fresh-faced and open-hearted in front of us, Ben Futa, Abra Lee and I together this week for a first-ever check in as we review 2025 and look forward to all that we will grow together in 2026.\   Including now being on the airwaves on the Western Slope of Colorado on KVNF Community Radio for their winter months! So glad to meet all you Western Slope Gardeners!   Happy Holidays! Follow Us Online: cultivatingplace.org and on Instagram: @cultivating_Plac

For our final Cultivating Place episode of 2025, Abra Lee is looking forward by looking back. She’s in conversation with Philip Norman, a gardener, an historian, and a longtime curator at the Garden Museum in London. From New Zealand to London, Philips's life is shaped by gardens, plants, and the stories behind them. Philip grew up on a family farm in New Zealand, where he learned to garden alongside older neighbors who loved sharing their knowledge. Philip eventually trave

In honor of the Winter Solstice happening this coming weekend on December 21st at 10:03 AM Pacific, we celebrate land and place-based cultivation from a foundation of cultural and spiritual care leading the way. We’re joined in this by Dr. Don Hankins, Professor of Geography and Planning at California State University, Chico. Of Miwok ancestry, Don, for decades now, has focused on applied research of indigenous stewardship practices as a “keystone process to aid in conservati

This week on Cultivating Place we celebrate one woman’s long-standing and loving cultivation of place in rural New Jersey. Janet Mavec is the steward and student of Bird Haven Farm, which after many years of learning from and loving, she now celebrates in word and image in her new place-based memoir: "Bird Haven Farm: The Story of An Original American Garden" . Bird Haven Farm is written by Janet and photographed by Ngoc Minh Ngo , out now from Rizzoli Press. This week's is

“Ecological restoration is no longer a nicety, it’s a necessity,” proclaims the Blackland Collaborative , a group working to help make cities more biodiverse and inclusive, and to help heal human communities while restoring vulnerable species. Bridging science and design, the Collaborative "brings people and nature home"; and they believe in"humans’ capacity to improve and protect". John Hart Asher is a co-founder and senior environmental designer with the Blackland Collabor

Dr. Jared Barnes is a big G gardener – and has been since his earliest expressions of self as a toddler. Now a professor of horticulture at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas, Jared is also a writer under the name of Meristem , and the host of The Plantastic podcast . where he exclaims that: "Plants can’t talk, but we can! The Plantastic Podcast is a show for plant killers, green thumbs, and everyone in between." He wants everyone’s expression of self t

This week on Cultivating Place , host Ben Futa is in conversation with Rebecca McMackin, a dedicated public servant working in the context of ecological horticulture. Rebecca is on a mission to empower more people to grow more plants in more places while cultivating empathy, compassion, and advocacy for the natural world. We last heard from Rebecca here on CP in 2021, and a lot has happened in her growing life since then! Rebecca is an ecologically obsessed horticulturist and

This week, we finish up Artober on CP, in conversation with artist Mary Jackson, a renowned  sweetgrass basket weaver known for combining traditional methods with contemporary designs.  Based in the Low Country of South Carolina, Mary is the descendant of generations of Gullah basket weavers. Born in 1945, in 2008, Mary was awarded a MacArthur Foundation fellowship ("Genius Grant") for "pushing the centuries-old tradition in stunning new directions" .  From the 1970s throug

This week on CP, host Abra Lee is joined in conversation by Tracy Qiu, a horticulturist, researcher, advocate, and artist who explores how plants, stories, and culture intersect. Tracy holds a masters in Public Horticulture from the University of Delaware, is a Longwood Fellow , and is finishing her doctoral thesis at Concordia University in Montreal. Tracy's work explores the colonial roots of botanical gardens, and in this conversation, Tracy and Abra will follow Tracy’s jo

Welcome to our next airing of a CP LIVE* , this time in celebration of Artober in conversation with Sofia Laçin and Hennessy Christophel, of LA-based Studio Tutto . On highway underpasses, school walls, public park welcome centers, and city water towers, the epic hand-crafted murals of Studio Tutto are telling visual stories of invisible nature to help people connect and become familiar with what is surrounding us, but we often do not notice. Their “ thoughtful site-specific

In a world that needs a great deal from us right now, we can almost never go wrong by igniting our creativity. This week on CP we dive...

This week on CP we kick off ARTOBER. Host Ben Futa is talking all things Wild By Design, the Art of Planting, in conversation with Ben...

This week on Cultivating Place , in honor of this first week of Autumn, and the idea of passing time, looking back, and the importance of...

This week on Cultivating Place , we lean into The Art of CP, exploring how the act of Cultivating Place is artful, and how the creative...

In 2008, Cincinnati, Ohio, AKA the Queen City, developed the program that has earned them their secondary nickname: Green City. The Green...

This week on Cultivating Place , we celebrate late summer and fall on the horizon in conversation about one of fall’s stars in the...

This week on Cultivating Place , host Abra Lee dives into the world of pathways to plant professions with Jazmin Albarran, Executive...

As autumn and harvest begins to color the edges of our awareness, this week on Cultivating Place we’re joined by two people whose work...