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A NEW GARDEN SOCIETY, with ERIKA RUMBLEY AND RENEE PORTANOVA

Updated: 17 hours ago




  • Renée brings flowering plants to gardeners at Pondville Correctional Center; Norfolk, MA
  • Early summer harvest from a prison garden
  • Erika in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Courtyard; Boston, MA; Photo Credit: Derrick Zellmann

There are established Garden Societies and then there are new garden societies. At THE NEW GARDEN SOCIETY, the very name invites us to consider how gardens, and access to garden spaces and acts of gardening, can actually transform society writ large. I like it.


This week, I am in conversation with two members of the Boston-based New Garden Society, who seek to expand green industry opportunities for their incarcerated and formerly incarcerated neighbors. They believe in the transformational potential of working with plants, and in connecting incarcerated people with green industry professions to transform landscapes within and beyond prison walls.


Erika Rumbley and Renee Portanova are Co-Founders and Directors of The New Garden Society. Together, they tend to green spaces where both people and plants can flourish.


The two women join Cultivating Place host Jennifer Jewell this week to share more about their intersectional work and why it matters in growing our world better.


Listen in!


Follow The New Garden Society online:

and on Instagram:


All photos courtesy of The New Garden Society, all rights reserved. Individual photographer credits in image captions.


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JOIN US again next week when we consider "doing time in the garden" from another angle. Alcatraz is a name rich with story, myth, and drama. It is also a dramatic sight where history, gardens, and how gardens grow us better come together. Coming up this week, Jennifer is joined by Shelagh Fritz, Senior Program Manager Alcatraz Historic Gardens, a dramatic and growing garden site. That's right here, next week. Listen in!



Cultivating Place is made possible in part by listeners like you and by generous support

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in honor of Bailey Shaw


supporting initiatives that empower women and help preserve the planet through the intersection of environmental advocacy, social justice, and creativity.


We are also made possible through support from HEIRLOOM, a fabulous source for roses and so much more to cultivate the garden of your dreams.



  • Erika with student in gardens at Old Colony Correctional Center Minimum; Bridgewater, MA. Photo cred
  • Sydney carries kale seedlings into the gardens at Boston Pre Release Center; Boston, MA
  • Renée, Sydney, Emily, Rachel and Alexandra gather to teach horticulture in the county jail; Boston,
  • Erika and a student carry compost into a prison; Bridgewater, MA. Photo credit: Lisa Kessler
  • Incarcerated gardener bring peppers out of their greenhouse to harden off; Bridgewater, MA. Photo cr
  • Erika with incarcerated gardeners at Old Colony Correctional Center Minumum; Bridgewater, MA. Photo
  • Flower gardens at Massachusetts Treatment Center; Bridgewater, MA. Photo credit: Michael Piazza
  • Crop plan drafted by an incarcerated gardener for future stewards at Old Colony Correctional Center
  • Sheet mulching beds for a new student-designed garden at Pondville Correctional Center; Norfolk, MA
  • Sketches from a botanical postcard exchange between incarcerated gardeners and gardeners outside; Bo
  • Renée and Erika gather with students for a bulb planting lesson outside the county jail; Boston, MA
  • Renée teaches students about bulbs in the gardens at Massachusetts Treatment Center; Bridgewater, MA
  • Hannah and her tomato plants for the gardens at Boston Pre Release Center; Boston, MA
  • TNGS staff and volunteers gather in the parking lot outside Boston Pre Release Center; Boston, MA
  • Huey bring sweet potato slips into the women’s unit at the jail; Boston, MA
  • Erin brings donated plants into Pondville Correctional Center; Norfolk, MA
  • An incarcerated gardeners’ words; Boston, MA


Thinking out loud this week...


Hey, it's Jennifer—


Mutual Flourishing; hard questions; Hard work, ritual and responsibility; gardening as a moral act; If you are down on your knees, you might as well scrub the floor – or plant corn, or beans, or carrots. These are the phrases that are jumping out at me from this conversation. They are making me THINK-and think differently!


AND, that is exactly the kind of thinking, considering, envisioning, and manifesting the Cultivating Place Symposium is intended for.


Are you in?


I hope so, and if you are not a sustaining supporter, I hope your calendars are

marked for this coming Saturday, August 15th – when registration will be open

to the public for the Inaugural Power of Gardeners Symposium – this year focused on cultivating place in South Bend, Indiana!


Coming together is how we grow, and it is how we grow better together.


Head over to this link for more details on speakers and field trips, receptions, and time in community!


There are two additional phrases that Erika and Renee share in our conversation and which are really sticking with me: the first is the one about how so "much of work is an act of translation" –


our gardens are very much acts of translation:

of our histories, our hopes, our dreams,

our fears, our preferences.


The second comes later and is about the incarcerated residents coming away from work and classes in the gardened spaces with a renewed and remembered "sense of being".


Did you notice that?


Erika did not say a sense of well-being, but a sense of being.


Every act of gardening is opportunity to remember we are alive, on this planet, and one of many lives here.


Every act of gardening grants us access to a grounded sense of being.


May it be so for every one of us, may we help it to be so for many many more. Keep gardening Gardeners.


WAYS TO SUPPORT CULTIVATING PLACE

Cultivating Place is a co-production of North State Public Radio, licensed to Chico State Enterprises. Cultivating Place is made possible in part listeners just like you through the support button at the top right-hand corner of every page at Cultivating Place.org


The CP team includes producer and engineer Matt Fidler, with weekly tech and web support from Angel Huracha, weekly communications support by Sheila Stern and Carley Bruckner, and regular hosting by Founder, Jennifer Jewell, as well as Abra Lee in Atlanta, Georgia, and Ben Futa in South Bend, Indiana. We’re based on the traditional and present homelands of the Mechoopda Indian Tribe of the Chico Rancheria. Original theme music is by Ma Muse..


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PO Box 37

Durham, CA 95938


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