Wednesday, January 22, 2025

News and Ideas Worth Sharing

Lee Buttala

Lee Buttala is a writer and organizational consultant. He is the former Executive Director of Seed Savers Exchange, an organization dedicated to the preservation of America’s garden and farming heritage, an Emmy Award-winning television producer of Martha Stewart Living and 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 (https://www.igcol.com/user/leebuttala)

written articles

THE SELF-TAUGHT GARDENER: Talking heads tour

Winter is a time when gardening is happening primarily in one’s head. But winter is also the time when we need to see other gardeners.

THE SELF-TAUGHT GARDENER: Year’s end

With my mother’s death in October, I became a member of the oldest living generation in my family. As bleak as that can sound, it also has its merits.

THE SELF-TAUGHT GARDENER: Resilience—Sunday with the Johnsons

While we feel the burn of these moments, we must have faith in our ability to regenerate along with the world around us, and care about and fight for what we want the future to hold.

THE SELF-TAUGHT GARDENER: Responding to loss

The gardening tools from my parents and the values embodied in my father’s family are with me still, and they give me direction about how to move on in challenging times.

THE SELF-TAUGHT GARDENER: The end of the season

While I fondly remember the summers at our cottage, eating from the vegetable garden, living on corn and tomatoes and anything on the grill, it is the late season harvests of fall that come to mind when I think of my parents.

THE SELF-TAUGHT GARDENER: Dewey Hall dahlias

The Dewey Hall Dalia Festival demonstrated the power of flowers to cast a spell on people captivated by the sheer beauty and range of the varieties of flowers within the genus of Dahlia.

THE SELF-TAUGHT GARDENER: In the bank

Soil is filled with dormant seeds that will sprout and grow when their conditions for germination are met. This is both a blessing and a curse, and occasionally somewhere in between.

THE SELF-TAUGHT GARDENER: Wild for bulbs

I have always been fascinated by flowering bulbs. There is something magical in these swollen roots that can be transported and set into the ground to put forth foliage and flowers in the months ahead.

THE SELF-TAUGHT GARDENER: Night life and night lights

Before now, I never really thought about the darkness of the night and what role it played in my garden.

THE SELF-TAUGHT GARDENER: The sea garden

In Varna, Bulgaria, the Sea Garden places a forest between the edge of the city and the edge of the sea, so the heavily used beaches feel not a part of the urban footprint, but rather a summer resort.

THE SELF-TAUGHT GARDENER: The desegregated garden

I love maintaining seed strains and sharing them with others, but I also think there is room in the garden to allow for a mixed strain of poppies – red, pink, purple, white, gray and salmon – that celebrate the genetic diversity of their species.

THE SELF-TAUGHT GARDENER: Editing the view

A good editor knows what to excise, and what to enhance. With that in mind, I grabbed my chainsaw, and removed a magnolia.

THE SELF-TAUGHT GARDENER: Life is a beech

When it comes to woody plants, I feel more strongly about protecting them from insects and managing diseases than I do about perennials and annuals.

THE SELF-TAUGHT GARDENER: A gardener’s progress

The gardener at Hollister House Garden in Washington, Conn., approaches garden maintenance in a manner that is well worth considering.

THE SELF-TAUGHT GARDENER: This is it

Lee visits a childhood home and learns a lesson about how a connection to nature and the land can lead us forward in our lives.

THE SELF-TAUGHT GARDENER: In the greens

As we think about lawns, we should question their purpose—are they going to be heavily trafficked, are they simply an open space that we want to look across, or do they serve an additional purpose, such as helping to absorb rainwater or to feed pollinators? And most importantly, how much energy do we want to spend on maintaining them?
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The Edge Is Free To Read.

But Not To Produce.