GROW LIKE WILD with REBECCA MCMACKIN
- Jennifer Jewell
- 4 days ago
- 6 min read
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 garden designer. She lives in the woods of Connecticut, writing, lecturing, and designing gardens. She is a public servant, dedicated to bringing beauty and biodiversity to all corners of our cities. Her TED Talk has been viewed more than a million times.
She has a widely-read monthly Full Moon Newsletter entitled "Grow Like Wild", sharing forward ecological horticulture research around the world, general horticultural dismay, and growing “gossip,” as she likes to say, all of which you can subscribe to on Substack as writing and now a podcast version as well.
Prior to all this, Rebecca spent a decade as Director of Horticulture of Brooklyn Bridge Park, where she managed 85 acres of diverse parkland organically and with an eye towards habitat creation for birds, butterflies, and soil microorganisms. Their research into cultivating urban biodiversity and ethical management strategies has influenced thousands of people and entire urban park systems to adopt similar approaches.
From Ben: You know that feeling you get when you recognize a kindred spirit? The conversation flows, the ideas germinate with ease, and shared experiences feel multiplied, enhanced, and sharpened. It is in these moments we’re reminded we’re not alone, and that the “crazy ideas” that we hold and the hope we embody is neither futile nor foolhardy.
Maybe you can relate… ?
My professional career began in traditional public horticulture, living museums and institutions. The gardens I loved then and continue to love most today, were the ones that embody the modern ethos of public service which Rebecca articulated so well.
I never considered the work I was doing to be a “public service” – that was a term I associated with agencies like PBS or NPR or the National Parks. But – Rebecca is absolutely correct. Gardens like those at the Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn Bridge Park, and so many other free, gate-less, and always-open public and cultivated spaces across our planet are bastions of some of the best public service, and they do indeed rank right up there with PBS and NPR.
I want to call out just a few of my favorites, as I hope you’ll find them, follow them, and if you’re local – support them. Right here in South Bend, Indiana – Milkweed Gardens is building a brand-new community garden and park on a former vacant lot downtown, and the South Bend Greenway Conservancy a few blocks away is working to build a connected “string of pearls” made up of parks and parklets, green alleyways, historic cemeteries, and more. Then there’s Arlington Garden in Pasadena, California.
Summer Home Garden in Denver, Colorado – I’ve never been but I joyfully follow them via Instagram. Also, Elizabeth Street Garden in New York, and you might remember we spoke with them earlier this year on Cultivating Place. After a successful, community-driven, grassroots campaign to protect this treasured space from special interests, it is once more in the spotlight of the city’s mayoral race and may again require the support of its community to remain intact.
I also want to congratulate and celebrate everyone who has turned their front lawn in to a garden. I see you. I see your bravery, your courage, your passion, and your vision. One yard at a time, we’re knitting communities back together so that we no longer “go visit” a garden. Rather, we simply just live in one.
Everywhere. All the time.
Rebecca reminded me – and I hope, you as well – that complexity isn’t a vice, and this movement towards greater biodiversity, ecology, community, empathy, kindness, compassion, and connection, really can – and often does – begin by watching a single bumble bee walking in circles on an Echinacea flower.
I'm so pleased to welcome Rebecca back to Cultivating place.
Follow Rebecca online:
and on Instagram:
All photos courtesy of Rebecca McMackin, all rights reserved.
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Thinking out loud this week...
Hey ,y'all, it's Ben—
“How can I be part of the solution?”
I love that this is the energy Rebecca brings to this moment, because it’s inclusive and welcoming rather than prescriptive and exclusionary. So often, I think, both within gardening and also life in general, we’re confronted with so many “shoulds” (and, perhaps you’ve heard the phrase, “don’t SHOULD on yourself”). Rather than saying, “I should plant native plants,” try reframing
that to, “How can I share my outdoor space with more creatures?”
In my own gardening this year, I’ve been leaning in to this question and some really fun and interesting things have bubbled up. I’m seeing habitats and microclimates in greater detail beyond “just” the plants (even though yes, plants are a BIG part of it). I’ve been crafting intentional interventions and invitations to support a wider range of wildlife, from adding more trees and shrubs to changing how I do my spring cut back to embracing the black walnut growing along our back fence (a tree I grew up hearing nothing but hatred and loathing for from gardeners at that time).
In point of fact, black walnuts are keystone species, and suddenly I have a new best friend in the back yard (but, do be mindful of the falling nuts this time of year – they’re treacherous).
How can you be part of the solution? And, more specifically, how can you – like Rebecca and myself and so many of the guests we’ve welcomed on Cultivating Place over the years – continue to be part of the “welcoming committee” for new gardeners, just stepping in to this world for the first time?
If I can make a suggestion, begin with HOW, and avoid SHOULD.
I think there’s a recurring theme in this conversation – we keep coming back to HOW.
Gardeners and gardening are really well-positioned to address so many of the challenges in our world right now. Rebecca said she didn’t want to oversell it – I, on the other hand, absolutely will.
I’ve long believed and witnessed the super powers of gardening – how plants act as social mediators between two different people, how they can foster new connections, channel knowledge, inspire ideas, and feed our bodies and our souls.
There’s so much pent-up potential energy in gardening, and I can’t help but daydream about what might happen when all of us, in all of our spaces, in all of our ways, continue to grow towards the light.
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