Lee Buttala

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Lee Buttala

Lee Buttala is the Executive Director of Seed Savers Exchange, which is dedicated the preservation of America’s garden and farming heritage. He is an Emmy Award-winning television producer of Martha Stewart Living and was the creator, producer and director of Cultivating Life, a PBS series on outdoor living and gardening. He has written for The New York Times, Martha Stewart Living, New York, and Metropolitan Home. As an editor, he has worked for Saveur, Garden Design and Interview, and for the book publisher Alfred A. Knopf. He also served as the preservation program manager for the Garden Conservancy and has studied garden design at Kyoto University of Art and Design, the English Gardening School at London’s Chelsea Physic Garden and the New York Botanical Garden. He is the author and editor of the books Cultivating Life: A Guide to Outdoor Living and The Seed Garden: The Art and Practice of Seed Saving. You can also follow him on Instagram (http://www.igcol.com/user/leebuttala)

Articles by Lee Buttala

The Self-Taught Gardener: Of cabbages and kales

Thursday, 28 Sep 2017 - For years I have been confused by the concept of ornamental cabbages and kales that are planted but not eaten. Now I have arrived at the perfect balance of beauty and edibility.

The Self-Taught Gardener: Flower power

Thursday, 21 Sep 2017 - Flowers from the composite family, actually hundreds of flowers held tightly together to look like one, gave me a vision of how we can all come together to provide the world with a little color and beauty.

The Self-Taught Gardener: Slow Flowers

Thursday, 10 Aug 2017 - Of late, a new movement, Slow Flowers, has been giving local a new dimension. Local flowers have become just as popular as their vegetable counterparts.

The Self-Taught Gardener: The lineup     

Thursday, 3 Aug 2017 - The only time plants look good set in tightly spaced rows in the garden is in an allée of trees, or in the vegetable or cutting garden. Or perhaps in Victorian bedding schemes at historic houses.

The Self-Taught Gardener: Long-term investment

Thursday, 29 Jun 2017 - So often we allow mundane garden tasks like weeding or raking up fallen leaves and spent magnolia flowers to distract us from the garden activities that would benefit us more greatly in the future.