Cultivating Place: Conversations on Natural History and the Human Impulse to Garden

“Seed draws you in,” says Micaela Colley. “They capture your imagination,” Kalan Redwood adds.

Seeds are the alpha and the omega, the beginning and end of most plant life. This week on Cultivating Place we’re joined by Micaela Colley, Executive Director of the Organic Seed Alliance based in Port Townsend, WA and Kalan Redwood of Redwood Seeds in eastern Tehama County. Redwood Seeds is a member of the Organic Seed Alliance's national network of organic seed growers. They provide us with environmental health, food, utility and incredible biodversity supporting all manner of life – join us to hear more about maintaining their integrity, diversity and supply.

This week on Cultivating Place, we’re joined by Daniel Atkinson — teacher, student, scholar of the African American Diaspora and Jazz and Rhythm and Blues music and dedicated home gardener. Currently gardening in Puyallup, Wash., Daniel shares his thoughts on saving and sharing the seeds handed down to him by his ancestors — some of which have been in his family for more than 200 years. He also discusses the connection for him between music, surfing, gardening and life.

The first official day of spring is right around the corner, and among other things that means we're in the heart of flower and garden shows around the country.

This week, we speak with Sam Lemheney, Chief of Shows and Events for the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, which annually hosts the famed Philadelphia Flower Show. The longest-running horticultural event in the country (not counting Spring herself), the Philadelphia Flower Show is a pilgrimage destination for many horticulturists and gardeners around the country.

This week our guest is something of a renaissance man. A Colorado native of Greek descent, Panayoti Kelaidis has a background in Chinese literature and as a computer systems analyst in addition to being an expert in — and enthusiastically curious about — most things that photosynthesize and contain chlorophyll.

Cultivating Place: Gardening, Designing and Living With Lorene Edwards Forkner by Jennifer Jewell

For more than 25 years, Julie Moir Messervy has inspired gardeners, readers and thinkers with her garden designs and her garden philosophy. She inspired host Jennifer Jewell years ago when she first read her book “The Inward Garden.” In our interview we hear about her education as a gardener, her seminal work as a designer and some of her deeply held beliefs, including that “deep within each of us lies a garden.”

This week on Cultivating Place, the program’s conversations begin with Bernard Trainor, the Australian-born landscape designer. Known for his iconic California gardens, Trainor is both a hands-on gardener and a big view, large concept designer. His philosophy and work illustrate the power of specific place in any garden or cultivated landscape — no matter how big or small, urban or rural.