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FLORA CULTURE with CHRISTIN GEALL OF CULTIVATED BY CHRISTIN






This week on Cultivating Place, we continue with our flower theme as we celebrate May, looking toward the most floral of celebrations, Mother’s Day in the US. We discuss not us as gardeners growing flowers, but rather, how flowers shape our world, our cultures, our economies, our thinking, and outlooks. We're in conversation with Christin Geall, author of "Cultivated: Elements of Floral Style"'. 


We last spoke with Christin about her first book and she joins us again today to talk about her newest book, "Flora Culture, How Flowers Shape our World", a compendium exploring the prismatic nature of our global relationships to flowers and plants.


Christin Geall is the writer and thinker behind Cultivated by Christin, a Canadian and now US-based online platform for how think about and therefore treat and value flowers and their human purveyors in this world.



Follow Christin online:

and on Instagram:


All photos courtesy of Christin Geall and Flora Culture, all rights reserved.


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JOIN US again next week, when we’re joined by MIT Distinguished Professor in the History of Science. Across her career, her research has documented the impact of urban, often small and under- resourced gardens and gardeners, in our world. Her new book is Tiny Gardens Everywhere: The Past, Present, and Future of the Self-Provisioning City, a concept I am thrilled to explore. Join us! That's right here, next week. Listen in!


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

from

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.






Thinking out loud this week...


Hey, it's Jennifer—


“All that you touch you change, all that you change, changes you. The only lasting truth is change.” Wow, this lands with me. Our gardens change the world, as gardeners we are changed by our gardens, and our gardens really do change the world. If we do it intentionally, we can change the world for the better. Is it really necessary to unravel how hegemony interacts and plays out in our gardens and gardened world? Maybe not. But if we do wrangle with this unraveling, I think we become more informed, interested, and impactful in our own plant relationships. What do you think?


I think you should be on the Cultivating Place mailing list haha. Because you will want to be the first to know about new conversations, upcoming gatherings with your cultivating place people, and updates on all that we are growing. As we work to roll out The Power of Gardeners documentary film series on PBS stations in 2027, we have SO Much in store for you. If you’re subscribed to the mailing list, you’ll be the first to hear, and if you’re a sustaining supporter, you’ll get discounted first dibs on all in person events we host….check it out! We literally can’t grow this alone, and we know we all grow better together.


One of our community offerings is our now monthly virtual gathering – the third Tuesday of every month. Our next gathering is Tuesday, May 19th at 3pm Pacific 6pm EST. I’ll be hosting this month’s when we’re reading Terry Tempest William’s "The Glorians Visitations from the Holy Ordinary". I mean, is there anything more holy and ordinary, where we are visited by the spirits of the universe than in our gardens or green spaces? When we smell the soil, the chlorophyll, the aromatherapy of our plant friends and their animal friends? I know of few more holy spaces than when my nose is in a flower or my eyes are lifted the sound of wings or the feel of the breeze through a tree canopy.


Hoping you’ll join me to share more on your experience with Terry Tempest’s newest gift to our thinking and your own garden and plant life. It is in circles like this one that we perhaps most fully engage, encourage, empower one another to cultivate our own places most powerfully. The gathering is free, but space is limited, so sign up now by heading HERE. Even if you can’t attend, be sure to RSVP to receive the recording. You’re also welcome to send passages or questions you’d like to engage around: cultivatingplace@gmail.com


How do we navigate our garden world and our garden lives now – with all of the many enormous realities challenging us at every turn? War in Ukraine, in Iran, the ongoing war in Gaza, and against our planet and her health and gifts, including the richness of plants, all of which we as humans need for our survival and longterm health and well being. With that in mind, my answer to you is always: go back to your garden. Engage with her health and well-being and you will be beneficially contributing to the greater good.


With this in mind, I want to leave you with a quote from Wendell Berry’s 2019 book titled, "Think Little"…..


“Odd as I am sure it will appear to some, I can think of no better form of personal involvement in the cure of the environment than that of gardening. A person who is growing a garden, if they are growing it organically, is improving a piece of the world.”


Which is from a small book in size, which I bought at one of my favorite independent (small) bookstores Point Reyes Books, in the small town of Point Reyes Station.


Who holds the power? WE GROW THE POWER


I am with Wendell Berry in thinking small and with your Garden heart.


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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DONATE: Cultivating Place is a listener-supported co-production of North State Public Radio. To make your listener contribution – please click the donate button below. Thank you in advance for your help making these valuable conversations grow.

Or, make checks payable to: Cultivating Place Foundation EIN #33-1665277

PO Box 37

Durham, CA 95938


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