top of page
Jennifer Jewell

SHROUDED IN LIGHT, WHAT OUR NATIVE SHRUBLANDS CAN TEACH OUR GARDENS, with KEVIN PHILIP WILLIAMS & MICHAEL GUIDI


FOODSCAPING - with Brie Arthur. Photo courtesy of Brie Arthur, all rights reserved.
 

 

Late July, August, and September (with the constellation Sirius high in the night sky) is perhaps the stretch of the year in most climates of the Northern Hemisphere that really show you what your garden and plants are made of (for better or worse) after months of them producing and growing under long hours of sun, high heat, and either humidity or drought. Or smoke.


And it’s the season as well when many of our most durable and prismatic shrubs are showing off to great advantage in rounded forms, seed, fruit, and foliage colors certainly in our wildlands. And possibly in our gardens?


This is where Kevin Philip Williams and Michael Guidi of the Denver Botanic Gardens come in. Kevin is the DBG's Manager of Horticulture; Michael is their Manager of Horticulture Research. Their new book Shrouded in Light: Naturalistic Planting Inspired by Wild Shrublands is all about celebrating the great diversity, incredible beauty, and many gifts and lessons that the wild shrublands of our world have to offer our gardens and cultivated landscapes - environmentally and aesthetically - no matter where you garden.


As we head into the dog days of summer, these two fabulous

horticulturists share with us their powerful enthusiasm for the

adaptability and diversity of the shrubs of our world.


I want to echo Kevin and Michael’s email greeting to me when I invited them to be guests on Cultivating Place: Welcome to the Shrub Club!


Enjoy!


You can follow Kevin and Michael's work on line at https://www.botanicgardens.org/:

and Instagram:



HERE IS THIS WEEK'S TRANSCRIPT by Doulos Transcription Service:




Images courtesy of Kevin Philip Williams and Michael Guidi, photo credits in image file titles. All rights reserved.  



 

If you enjoyed this program, you might also enjoy these

Best of CP programs in our archive:




 

JOIN US again next week, when it’s back to school time and we’re joined by Sean Doherty, Vice President of Education at the Missouri Botanical Garden. From school groups to mindfulness walks, botanical classes to Horticultural Therapy, seed banking to historic herbarium collections, the Missouri Botanical is expanding how they and we think about the phenomenal educational capacity of conserving plants. That's right here, next week.


 


Cultivating Place is made possible in part by listeners like you and by generous support from



supporting initiatives that empower women and help preserve the planet through the intersection of environmental advocacy, social justice, and creativity.



 


 

Thinking out loud this week...


There is a moment in our conversation where Michael notes that much

of their book, Shrouded in Light, is a "reflection of the journeys that we

took.”


Now he is of course talking about all of the journeys he and

Kevin took to find, meet, visit, photograph, get to know and understand

better the shrublands of the U.S. and the world – from the chaparral in

California to the shrub marshes in the southeast and shrubs associated

with the pine barrens in the mid-Atlantic region… but something about

the statement – "a reflection of the journeys we took" called to mind Tim

Johnson speaking last week of the arc and journey of so many of us as

gardeners from first love growing vegetables or flowers to becoming

organic if we didn’t start there, to adding natives for wildlife forage and

habitat if we didn’t start there….and it struck me that just as I noted in

our conversation with Janisse Ray that our gardens are in many ways

their own narratives.


And, I am moved here to note that they (our gardens) too are

reflections of the journeys we have taken. Our gardens are maps of the

journeys we have taken – physically, literally, intellectually and

spiritually. When you look at your garden, which of your own journeys

are most well represented?

Which ones are yet showing up clearly?

It's illuminating to consider this as I look at my own garden….


And my own journey – with that in mind, a little glimpse into the next

journey of Cultivating Place is now live over at the website – a video

introduction to the Cultivating Place Live Project underway….I hope

you check it out – and I hope you love it. I do. I cried when I saw what

Myriam and Khoa at EmEn put together…. CP Live Video Intro


Finally, toward the end of this conversation, I was intrigued by Kevin’s

reference to the “spirit of non-contradiction….and object-oriented

ontology.” Wherein object does not mean a physical thing but rather the

counterpart (and counterweight perhaps) to ourselves as the primary

subject in our thinking and understanding of the world. Wherein we try,

we begin, we practice, we move toward really seeing all else (that

previously unseen) as being their own subjects, with their own value,

agency, and journey in the universe. Beside us. All around us. All the time.


Wherein our gardens, the landscapes of our world, and each plant and

animal, rock, and community of these have their own lives and journeys.


It’s heady stuff to live, learn, and grow in such an animated amazing

world. How do we journey differently with this as our mindset?


This is the kind of thing I like to ponder as I water or weed or rake up the dry

leaves to reduce fire fuel on a hot dry afternoon in my garden

journey.



 

WAYS TO SUPPORT CULTIVATING PLACE

 

Cultivating Place is a co-production of North State Public Radio, a service of Cap Radio, licensed to Chico State Enterprises. Cultivating place is made possible in part listeners just like you through the support button at the top right-hand corner of every page at Cultivating Place.com.


The CP team includes producer and engineer Matt Fidler, with weekly tech and web support from Angel Huracha, and this summer we're joined by communications intern Sheila Stern. We’re based on the traditional and present homelands of the Mechoopda Indian Tribe of the Chico Rancheria. Original theme music is by Ma Muse, accompanied by Joe Craven and Sam Bevan.


SHARE the podcast with friends: If you enjoy these conversations about these things we love and which connect us, please share them forward with others. Thank you in advance!

RATE the podcast on iTunes: Or wherever you get your podcast feed: Please submit a ranking and a review of the program on Itunes! To do so follow this link: iTunes Review and Rate (once there, click View In Itunes and go to Ratings and Reviews)

DONATE: Cultivating Place is a listener-supported co-production of North State Public Radio. To make your listener contribution – please click the donate button below. Thank you in advance for your help making these valuable conversations grow.

Or, make checks payable to: North State Public Radio - with Cultivating Place in subject line

and mail to: Cultivating Place

PO Box 37

Durham, CA 95938


Comments


Commenting has been turned off.
bottom of page