Cultivating our places with attention, intention, thought and care is certainly an ethos I hold dear and advocate for with some measure of ferocity. When student and gardener Félix de Rosen reached out to me in 2021 seeking advice on a new book project. 

His thinking and design resonated with me, and we have communicated back and forth ever since. 

Now an ecological designer and artist, and graduate of UC Berkeley and Harvard University, Félix’s design practice, Polycultura Studio, is based in Oakland, California, on traditional Ohlone territory. His now published book is: A Garden’s Purpose, which invites us to understand gardens as places where we build mutually beneficial relationships with the living world around us. Amen to that. 

Félix joins me this week on Cultivating Place to share much more about his garden life journey, his philosophy, and the experience of considering the idea of "a Garden’s purpose” from a multitude of perspectives. Listen in!

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A Garden's Purpose, with Félix de Rosen

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. Take a listen.

A Garden's Purpose, with Félix de Rosen

Cultivating Place: Natural History & Our Gardens