Cultivating Place : The Power of Gardeners
The Film
A curated series of Gardener-supporting interviews recorded and filmed live in front of an audience in select locations around the country, exploring some of the most compelling & important lessons learned in the first 10 years of Cultivating Place about who Big G-Gardeners are and what they are growing in our world.
Since 2020, a near-record number of Americans self-identify as engaging in gardening.
That’s around 100 MILLION US households.
Approximately 1.3 billion acres of land in the US are privately owned by individuals.
More than 40 million of those acres, however, are non-native, chemically dependent, over-irrigated, turf grass or non-ecologically functional or intentionally decorative non-native plants with little to no connection to culture, care, or community.
When we collectively understand “gardening” beyond toxic lawn care and superficial decoration, numerous beneficial pathways are activated in our world. Progress towards solutions to some of the tragedies and horrors that worry us most: biodiversity loss; climate change; chemicals in our soil, water, food; food insecurity; the insect apocalypse; the decline of distinct languages and cultures, richly imbued with by the wealth of the natural world; a sane economic model; war versus life; loneliness versus community; loss of Faith in something bigger than us.
If even a fraction more of those 1.3 billion acres of privately owned land were tended for healthy food, for native plant habitat, for cultural and community knowledge stewarded for the future, for less resource use and greater community-based economic health, think what we might achieve: biodiversity gain, carbon stored, watersheds replenished, cultures strengthened, communities reconnected, scientific and sacred knowledge reintegrated into our daily lives.
The Message
OUR PURPOSE:
Cultivating Place elevates and expands the way we collectively think and talk about Gardening and Gardeners in our world to make visible the myriad, often surprising, ways that these cultivating humans (from backyard gardeners to artists to cultural land stewards) and their tended spaces grow our world better: socially, culturally, environmentally, economically, and spiritually.
When we see ALL that the best of Gardens and Gardeners grow, we value them more appropriately: in word, in deed, in pay, and protection for Gardens and Gardeners of all kinds.
When we value these growing people and spaces more appropriately, they can grow us all more intentionally, effectively, and beautifully.
JOIN US
As a partner/investor, we’d like to collaborate with you as we release Cultivating Place: The Power of Gardeners to audiences across the country through our National Outreach Campaign.
Our release will reach a broad audience and achieve our purpose and objectives through the following initiatives:
Festivals
Screening nationally to engage nationally.
Gardens & Groups
Garden & Environmental Groups Screening Campaign reaching
Gardeners, not-yet Gardeners, and their communities, through conferences, conventions, and local events.
Educational Organizations
Horticultural, Environmental, & Garden educational organizations
Screening Campaign reaching educational organizations and their communities (Administrations, teachers/professors, and students at the beginning of their Garden-life journeys).
Policymakers
Policymaker Engagement Campaign in local, state, and national spaces across the country advocating for recognition and support of professional Gardeners & Gardened spaces (parks, municipal campuses, museums).
Streaming
Digital Release through strategically targeted platforms and audiences.
Public Television Broadcast
Public Television Broadcast reaching millions of viewers.
Jennifer Jewell
Creator & Host
This film project is a milestone in the legacy of writer Jennifer Jewell. Jewell conceived the project as a celebration of the many lessons she has learned over 10 years of hosting the award-winning public radio program & podcast, Cultivating Place: Conversations on Natural History & The Human Impulse to Garden. Jewell’s greatest passion is the empowerment of Gardeners, and the possibility inherent in the intersection between places, environments, cultures, individuals, and the gardens that bring them together beautifully, for the betterment of ALL the lives on this generous planet.