Cultivating Place: Cultivating America's Gardens - Smithsonian Gardens

Over the past year of Cultivating Place interviews, we’ve heard references to the importance of the Smithsonian Gardens archives for the research of such historians, writers and gardeners as Marta McDowell while writing "All the President’s Gardens", as Andrea Wulf while she was writing "Founding Gardeners" and "The Invention of Nature", and as Ryder Ziebarth as she was working to document and preserve 5 generations of her family working and gardening on one piece of land. This past May, the Smithsonian Gardens – a branch of the Smithsonian Institution dedicated to enriching the Smithsonian experience through exceptional gardens, horticultural exhibits, collections, and education – launched a new exhibition entitled “Cultivating America’s Gardens”. The exhibition will be on view at the National Museum of American History through August of 2018. In honor of our country’s birthday this week, and the hand-in-hand role gardens play in the history of our country – this week on Cultivating Place I’m pleased to be joined by the curator of the exhibit, Kelly Crawford. In the second half of today’s program we’ll be joined by Cindy Brown, Manager of Education and Collections Management at Smithsonian Gardens to learn more about the gardens and their on-going mission and activities. Happy birthday to the United States of America – seems to me an exhibit celebrating our shared garden history is a perfect gift.

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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. They change the world, for the better. Take a listen.