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Cultivating Life Series

Lectures curated around Cultivating Life, a weekly program that demonstrates inspiring ideas for integrating the outdoors into daily living.

Landscape designer Sean Conway's easy-to-do projects explore various trends and how they relate to garden, home, table, craft and land. Viewers nationwide learn timely ideas for outdoor living, cooking, gardening and entertaining. A production of Ginkgo Leaf Productions in association with WETA.

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Paths of Desire: Passions of a Suburban Gardener

Dominique Browning

Dominique Browning discusses her latest book, Paths of Desire: Passions of a Suburban Gardner.

Startup Garden: Growing a Business to Fit Your Life

February 6, 2002

Tom Ehrenfeld explores starting a business that matches your dreams, hopes, and values with your skills and experience to bring lifelong fulfillment.

Judith B. Tankard: Gardens of the Arts and Crafts Movement

Judith B. Tankard

Noted garden design scholar and author Judith B. Tankard examines the philosophy of landscape design that originated in the late 1800s and redefined the relationship between the garden and the house.

Timeless Landscape Design: The Four-Part Master Plan

February 22, 2007

Hugh Dargan and Mary Palmer Dargan, ASLAs, explore the depth of visual art in landscape design in their new book, Timeless Landscape Design: The Four-Part Master Plan. A well-designed garden takes more than plants and flowers to consider it eye-catching.

Landscape Design: New Garden Paradise

Dominique Browning

January 19, 2006

Dominique Browning takes us on a private tour of 35 of the world's most exquisite examples of cutting edge garden design. Astonishing in their range, vibrancy, and attention to detail, many of the featured gardens have never before been shown to the public.

Julie Moir Messervy on the Toronto Music Garden

Julie Moir Messervy

Julie Moir Messervy, creator of inspirational gardens, talks about her collaboration with cellist Yo-Yo Ma on the Toronto Music Garden inspired by Bach.

From Beethoven to Ballads: Music of Landscape

Musicians and music experts explore the many connections between landscape and music, both historically and for present-day songwriters, composers and musicians.

Creating Green Cities & More Sustainable Landscapes

September 17, 2006

Planners, architects, and advocates discuss the broader issues surrounding the needs for more sustainable living spaces, specifically focusing on urban and suburban areas.

Creating Green Cities

November 16, 2005

Peter Smith of the Boston Society of Architects, Larissa Brown, chief planner for urban design firm Goody and Clancy, and Kristina Egan, director of the Massachusetts Smart Growth Alliance discuss transit oriented development and "smart growth" are new initiatives in urban design aimed at creating "

Facets of Mount Auburn: Horticulture

Daniel J. Hinkley

Daniel J. Hinkley, celebrated horticulturist, plant explorer, and author, looks at the influence of Asian horticulture on Western landscapes such as Mount Auburn Cemetery.

Nancy Lancaster: English Country House Style

October 10, 2006

Martin Wood explores Nancy Lancaster's substantial contribution to the arts of interior decoration and garden design.

Revealing Kew Palace: A Royal Retreat

November 9, 2006

Lucy Worsley explores the role of Kew and its gardens in the lives of the Georgian royal family.

Lives and Landscapes of the French Monarchy

French historian William Beik of Emory University explores the lives of the monarchs, including Kings Louis XIV, Louis XV, and Louis XVI, and the transformation of French culture into the pinnacle of art and refinement.

Building Cities of Aspiration

Joel Kotkin describes the notion of the City of Aspiration, and the historical roles of cities in nurturing and growing a middle class.

Public Spaces and the Art of Placemaking

Ronald Lee Fleming

November 15, 2007

In his book The Art of Placemaking, Ronald Lee Fleming adopts a practical approach to public art and community planning in the United States.

Andre Dubus III: Garden of Last Days

Andre Dubus III

Andre Dubus III, author of The House of Sand and Fog, discusses his new novel, The Garden of Last Days. Its themes include sex, parenthood, honor, and masculinity.

Claude Monet and the Landscape Tradition

David Brenneman

January 10, 2008

David Brenneman, director of collections and exhibitions at Atlanta's High Museum of Art, draws comparisons between Monet's work and the masters of the Dutch landscape tradition, as well as other Old Master traditions.

Hudson River School of American Landscape Painting

David B. Dearinger

David Dearinger, a curator at the Boston Athenaeum, lectures on history and technique of the the Hudson River School style of landscape painting.

Six Good Reasons Not to Paint a Landscape

September 19, 2002

Wolf Kahn, an influential modern landscape painter, explains why people become artists, despite the apparent impracticality of art. Wolf Kahn's work infuses the landscape tradition with a new vitality.