Cultivating Place

Jennifer Jewell / Cultivating Place

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.

  1. The Klamath Mountains, A Natural History, Michael Kauffman & Justin Garwood

    04/12/2025

    The Klamath Mountains, A Natural History, Michael Kauffman & Justin Garwood

    The Klamath Mountains are a rich site of diversity in Northern California and Southern Oregon, celebrated in Michael Kauffmann and Justin Garwood’s book The Klamath Mountains, a Natural History, from Kauffmann’s Back Country Press.  Kauffmann’s most recent book, co-written with Matt Ritter, is California Trees, was just awarded The National Outdoor Book Award, and in honor of the seeds of that book being planted by all that Back Country Press does in this world, this week we revisit the fertile Klamath Mountains and our last conversation with Michael and Justin Garwood! Enjoy! This week, we take a broader look at the mighty, now-undammed Klamath River and its namesake region, exploring the importance of knowing any place better from multiple perspectives for truly effective and durable conservation to be possible.  We’re in conversation with Michael Kauffman, research plant ecologist, educator, and founder with his botanist wife Allison of the ecologically focused Backcountry Press, and Justin Garwood, Environmental Scientist for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, with a focus on fisheries. Michael and Justin have spent the better part of the last decade curating and editing a cohort of 34 expert contributors to a new, and, really, the first comprehensive, Natural History of the Klamath Mountains, one of the most biodiverse temperate mountain ranges on earth. 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.

    1 h y 8 min
  2. Seasons of our Joy, with Rabbi Arthur Waskow

    27/11/2025

    Seasons of our Joy, with Rabbi Arthur Waskow

    This week on Cultivating Place, we look towards the heart of the thankful season in memory of the enormous, fierce, and grateful soul of Rabbi Arthur Waskow, who passed from this world on October 20th, fighting for the beauty of the world right up to the end. In his honor, we revisit our 2021 conversation with him, focusing on the sacred in the everyday and in the seasonal.  Rabbi Waskow was the co-founder of The Shalom Center in Philadelphia, which equips spiritual leaders with the awareness and skills needed to lead a "transformed and transformative Judaism that can help create a world of peace, justice, healing for the earth, and respect for the interconnectedness of all life."  A long-time activist for social and environmental justice, Rabbi Waskow is also the author of Seasons of our Joy, which brings reverent renewal to the ancient agricultural and season-based celebrations of the Abrahamic religions.  Enjoy, and give thanks for such souls in this world. Photo cover art from the 2012 Edition of Seasons of Our Joy, The Jewish Publication Society. Illustration from paper cuts by Martin Farren and Joan Benjamin-Farren; Photo of Rabbi Waskow benching Luvav from Slate.com; and Photo In Conversation, by Jennifer Jewell, 2021. 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.

    56 min
  3. YES/AND: Practicing the Art of Becoming A Cultivator of Place, John Hart Asher

    20/11/2025

    YES/AND: Practicing the Art of Becoming A Cultivator of Place, John Hart Asher

    “Ecological restoration is no longer a nicety, it’s a necessity,” proclaims the Blackland Collaborative, a group working to help alter cities so that they are biodiverse and inclusive, and helping 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 Collaborative. And he understands cultivating place well as a process of constantly practicing the art of becoming a cultivator. As we continue this month’s focus on ecological horticulture as it is practiced across the country, we welcome John Hart to the program this week. His work is currently featured in two new ecological-minded books: The Gardens of Texas, by Pam Penick, and Gardenista’s delicious and catalyzing newest title, The Low Impact Garden, by Kendra Wilson, photographed by Caitlin Atkinson. John Hart has over 13 years of experience designing and building functional ecosystems within urban conditions. He has conducted basic research in ecological engineering, ecological restoration, and land management. His work includes: tall grass prairie restoration in an urban riparian corridor, the George W. Bush Presidential Center’s Laura W. Bush Native Texas Park, native prairie green roof design, residential pocket prairies, sustainable roadsides, and green infrastructure. Since 2019, John Hart has also served as a host of the PBS program Central Texas Gardener – and yes, he’s got a pocket prairie in his garden! 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.

    1 h y 7 min

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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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