Cultivating Place

Hosted by Jennifer Jewell / Cultivating Place

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Episodes

500

Latest episode

Aug 2026

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About the show

Gardens are more than collections of plants. Gardens and Gardeners are intersectional spaces and agents for positive change in our world. Cultivating Place: Conversations on Natural History and the Human Impulse to Garden is a weekly public radio program & podcast exploring what we mean when we garden. Through thoughtful conversations with growers, gardeners, naturalists, scientists, artists and thinkers, Cultivating Place illustrates the many ways in which gardens are integral to our natural and cultural literacy. These conversations celebrate how these interconnections support the places we cultivate, how they nourish our bodies, and feed our spirits. Take a listen.

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60 recent

August 13, 20261 hr 5 min

A New Garden Society, with Erika Rumbley and Renee Portonova

Erika Rumbley and Renee Portanova are Co-Founders and Directors of The New Garden Society. Now, you may hear that phrase and think of a garden club or a plant society. But this organization’s very name invites you to consider a new angle on the words Garden + Society. The New Garden Society is a Boston-based organization run by horticulturists, landscapers, and farmers who seek to expand green industry opportunities for their incarcerated and formerly incarcerated neighbors in greater Boston. 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. Together, they tend to green spaces where both people and plants can flourish. Erika and Renee 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! Cultivating Place now has a donate button! We thank you for listening over the years, and we hope you'll continue to support Cultivating Place. We can't thank you enough for making it possible for this young program to grow and engage in even more conversations like these. The show is available as a podcast on SoundCloud and iTunes. To read more and for many more photos, please visit www.cultivatingplace.com.

August 6, 20261 hr 6 min

We're all history in the making, life lessons from garden history

All history reminds us that we are all history in the making! Garden history reminds us that we as gardeners, our gardens, our gardening, and how our culture tends to and stewards land are all that, too! What is the historical context of gardens in this moment-especially given some of the changes and impacts on national or public shared landscapes? What does garden history specifically teach us about this moment? Join us this week as Cultivating Place hosts Ben Futa and Abra Lee consider these questions through the lens of garden history and their own garden lives: from plants to quilts, from potbelly stoves to richly rewarding stories from the past. Listen in! Cultivating Place now has a donate button! We thank you for listening over the years, and we hope you'll continue to support Cultivating Place. We can't thank you enough for making it possible for this young program to grow and engage in even more conversations like these. The show is available as a podcast on SoundCloud and iTunes. To read more and for many more photos, please visit www.cultivatingplace.com.

July 30, 20261 hr 3 min

High Elevation Balancing Act, Jennifer Bousselot, Colorado State University

At the height of summer, we head to the mile-high city to think more about cultivating place at elevation: human-made and natural elevations, in the service of people and their places. We’re in conversation with Professor Jennifer Bousselot, who leads the Green Roof and Urban Agriculture Program, Growing Food for People and Pollinators, at Colorado State University. Dr. Bousselot is motivated by balance. The author and co-author of many titles, including Trees & Shrubs of Colorado and Trees and Shrubs of New Mexico, she has also published widely on the power (pun intended) of green roofs and agrivoltaics, a stacking-functions, mixed-use approach that combines solar power and agriculture. And that’s all while introducing students to the mix. Join us! Cultivating Place now has a donate button! We thank you for listening over the years, and we hope you'll continue to support Cultivating Place. We can't thank you enough for making it possible for this young program to grow and engage in even more conversations like these. The show is available as a podcast on SoundCloud and iTunes. To read more and for many more photos, please visit www.cultivatingplace.com.

July 23, 202653 min

Rooted in Relationships, Plantsman Allen Bush

Allen Bush is an esteemed plantsman and lifelong advocate for the joy of gardening. He joins Cultivating Place Host Abra Lee in conversation this week to share more. From his work with Jelitto Perennial Seeds to his decades sharing rich garden stories as a Garden Rant writer, Allen’s life and work invite us to look more closely at the remarkable diversity of plants and the endless opportunities they offer for curiosity, discovery, and connection. Through decades of sharing plants and knowledge with gardeners, he reminds us that our gardens are never truly finished; they are living places that continue to teach us, season after season, and our local garden histories matter. Listen in this week! Cultivating Place now has a donate button! We thank you for listening over the years, and we hope you'll continue to support Cultivating Place. We can't thank you enough for making it possible for this young program to grow and engage in even more conversations like these. The show is available as a podcast on SoundCloud and iTunes. To read more and for many more photos, please visit www.cultivatingplace.com.

July 16, 202659 min

A Path For All, Reeves-Reed Arboretum, Summit, NJ

What does accessibility mean in the garden? In a public garden? Reeves-Reed Arboretum in Summit NJ, an historic estate and garden, has been considering these questions intensely. How to increase accessibility for visitors and yet maintain the equally important sense of being in and with nature. One result of their thoughtful deliberations is their Path For All, which opened in May of 2026. Three members of their team join Jennifer Jewell this week to share more about their 130-plus-year history as a garden and their 50+-year history of increasing accessibility for all to loving, living with, and learning from wild and cultivated landscapes. Listen in! Cultivating Place now has a donate button! We thank you for listening over the years, and we hope you'll continue to support Cultivating Place. We can't thank you enough for making it possible for this young program to grow and engage in even more conversations like these. The show is available as a podcast on SoundCloud and iTunes. To read more and for many more photos, please visit www.cultivatingplace.com.

July 9, 20261 hr 9 min

Slow Design, Thoughtful Places, Andrew Fisher Tomlin

Planting design is an essential skill in garden design writ large, for the health and beauty of a site– functionally, environmentally, and psychologically. Andrew Fisher Tomlin is widely acknowledged as leading the development of a distinct professional career path in planting design through his own work and as a Director of Environmental Design at the London College of Garden Design in London and Melbourne, where he has mentored some of the most exciting new designers coming out of the UK and Australia over the past 20 years. His work bridges design, education, and industry, and he is especially known for his planting design skills and experience on outstanding landscapes over his 30-year career. A synthesis of his understanding and teaching about planting design to date, Andrew’s new book, “The Modern Professional Planting Designer,” was published by Rizzoli, New York, in September of 2025. In March of this year, Andrew received the Royal Horticultural Society’s highest honour, the RHS Elizabeth Medal of Honour, an award conferred on "those of any nationality who have significantly impacted the advancement of the science, art, or practice of horticulture for the benefit of all generations and the environment.” Andrew joins Cultivating Place this week to share more. Listen in! Cultivating Place now has a donate button! We thank you for listening over the years, and we hope you'll continue to support Cultivating Place. We can't thank you enough for making it possible for this young program to grow and engage in even more conversations like these. The show is available as a podcast on SoundCloud and iTunes. To read more and for many more photos, please visit www.cultivatingplace.com.

July 2, 20261 hr 7 min

Sunchoke Farms, Next in the Cultivating South Bend Series

Cultivating Place well so often comes down to sharing the abundance of growing from a place of love and a strong sense of community and home. Susan Greutman is the founder and owner of Sunchoke Farms, an urban homestead-turned-family farm in South Bend, Indiana, growing chemical-free produce on formerly vacant city lots. Susan has been farming since 2018 and also happens to be growing right in Ben Futa and Botany's neighborhood. Their conversation is filled with so many lessons derived from all of this abundance of place, and is the second in Ben’s Cultivating South Bend series, leading up to the Cultivating Place: The Power Of Gardeners, South Bend 2026 Symposium this September! Listen in! Cultivating Place now has a donate button! We thank you for listening over the years, and we hope you'll continue to support Cultivating Place. We can't thank you enough for making it possible for this young program to grow and engage in even more conversations like these. The show is available as a podcast on SoundCloud and iTunes. To read more and for many more photos, please visit www.cultivatingplace.com.

June 25, 20261 hr 0 min

Following What Flourishes, with Amanda Hannah

Amanda Hannah is the Director of Botanical Garden Horticulture at Holden Forests & Gardens in Cleveland, Ohio. Amanda’s path into horticulture has taken her from the agricultural landscapes of Idaho and Utah to studying in Argentina, living in Seattle, and moving through the Longwood Fellows Program. This week, Amanda and Cultivating Place Host, Abra Lee, dive into plants, the role of public gardens, conservation, and how following an unexpected passion can transform the course of a life. Listen in! Cultivating Place now has a donate button! We thank you for listening over the years, and we hope you'll continue to support Cultivating Place. We can't thank you enough for making it possible for this young program to grow and engage in even more conversations like these. The show is available as a podcast on SoundCloud and iTunes. To read more and for many more photos, please visit www.cultivatingplace.com.

June 18, 202656 min

Summer Solstice Special–SummerHome Garden's Lisa Negri, Denver, CO

We are finally at peak daylight and the Summer Solstice–which officially takes place June 21st this year. Summer speaks of garden parties and holidays at the beach, or lake, by rivers, or in the mountains. Summer speaks directly to our connection to the wild places we love and perhaps long for– and which, through our gardens, can be right here at home. SummerHome Garden in Denver, CO, is a playful and powerful twist on the idea that our gardens can be our summer homes. Lisa Negri of SummerHome Garden joins us this week to share more. Listen in! Cultivating Place now has a donate button! We thank you for listening over the years, and we hope you'll continue to support Cultivating Place. We can't thank you enough for making it possible for this young program to grow and engage in even more conversations like these. The show is available as a podcast on SoundCloud and iTunes. To read more and for many more photos, please visit www.cultivatingplace.com.

June 11, 20261 hr 8 min

Preparing for International Pollinator Week with Krystle Hickman, Author, Artist, Native Bee Adventurer

The conservation of biodiversity writ large is directly tied to the conservation of native bees, crucial pollinators in our cultivated and wildland ecosystems across most regions of the world. This week, we look forward to International Pollinator Week, which always falls in the third week of June, tied to the summer solstice. We’re in conversation with Krystle Hickman, award-winning conservation photographer, author, artist, and National Geographic Explorer. Her passion is native bees wherever she finds them, starting in her home place of California. Known online as BeeSip, Krystle’s newest book, including her extraordinary photography, is The ABCs of California’s Native Bees. Listen in for so much more! Cultivating Place now has a donate button! We thank you for listening over the years, and we hope you'll continue to support Cultivating Place. We can't thank you enough for making it possible for this young program to grow and engage in even more conversations like these. 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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