Many things motivate and drive us in our love of gardening, plants, and nature. Australia’s Michael McCoy, also known as The Gardenist, is a Gardener, botanist, designer, teacher, and international garden tour guide. In his garden-life, motivation always comes back to curiosity. He says: "Behind any answer are 10 more questions leading me forward in the garden, in life!” And, in his garden "a lot of soul searching goes on." (As it should!)
As The Gardenist, he considers his work a “hub for curious gardeners on a lifelong learning curve.” Here, Here!
He joins us this week to share more and his enthusiastic curiosity might just spark yours!
In our conversation, Michael shares how after he finished his botany degree, which he was SO excited about, he entered into a professional gardening apprenticeship at a National Trust site in Australia. There, he hit a stretch of disillusionment as a result of the overall lack of passion and respect for the field expressed by some of his peers. He goes on to share about the lifesaving serendipity of being introduced to the famed English gardener Christopher Lloyd, leading him out of disappointment toward ever-increasing adventurous gardening.
Even before traveling to England for a life-changing summer volunteering at Great Dixter under the watchful eye of Christopher Lloyd, Michael began writing about his gardening life in the press, something he specifically did not do as an "expert imparting knowledge", but as a fellow journeyman with questions and interests to share.
After returning home to Australia from his renaissance-style internship and education in Gardens, Gardening, and Gardeners being fully celebrated and valued essential beings in a good and rich life at England’s Great Dixter, Michael expanded his head-gardener role for his previous clients before opening his own design firm in 1996.
While his love of plants and gardening germinated in his mid-teens, it is a profound curiosity about plants and people that keeps his passion fired up and I for one am motivated by the warmth and joy that infuses every story he shares, and every question he is curious about. This is to my mind one of the greatest gifts of the garden and of gardeners to the world.
Michael is one of this year’s highly anticipated speakers at the Hardy Plant Society of Oregon’s much- likewise anticipated Study Weekend in and around Portland June 27th – 30th, 2025. The theme for the weekend is Nimble Gardening in an Evolving World - how great is that as a theme?
Tickets open to the public on March 1st .
Follow along with Michael Online:
And on Instagram:
All Photos courtesy of Michael McCoy. All rights reserved.
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JOIN US again next week, when in celebration and honor of Black History Month, we have the great treat of airing another of our Cultivating Place Live experiences. We’re in conversation with Leslie Bennett of Pine House Edible Gardens, whose interview was recorded by filmmaker Myriam Nicodemus of EM EN in front of an audience in late September 2024. The conversation marked the most recent accomplishments of Leslie’s Black Sanctuary Gardens work and her unveiling of the first 13 Black Sanctuary Garden portraits of remarkable women in their full power and joy centered in the heart of their gardens. That's right here, next week. Listen in!
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Thinking out loud this week...
Hey, it's Jennifer-
Curiosity. While the word has a few facets of meaning, from unusual to interested, the primary meaning as I believe Michael means it here is the desire to see or know more about something, an eagerness to learn. Which strikes me as important. Curious is an interesting and interested way to approach the world and a wide open way. A way full of both openness and an essential optimism – that there is something to be gained from continuing to learn more and know the world around you better, and a humility in keeping a mindset that there is something to be gained by not assuming you know it all already.
This for me has always been one of the greatest gifts of the garden – that I am always a student of the plants, the seasons, the climate – other gardeners, not as Michael says – an expert on any of it.
We are all travelers here on this Garden life journey. Here in my garden life, we are pruning our orchard trees in between winter rain storms. We are harvesting winter greens and carrots, we are feeding the late spring and summer flowering shrubs with compost. The daphne odora is in bloom – soooooo sweet - as are the next set of native Manzanitas – one set, the green leaf I think? – have come and gone – bringing out the first set of at least two different species of foraging bumble bees, sleepy and HUNGRY. At least two of our manzanita varieties, Big Sur, Howard McMinn, and one other, are in full bloom and passing, and we have at least one more set to go – the white leaf.
The native pipevine have on their swelling pipe shaped blooms and it got down to 29 last night, with hard ice on the bird baths.
As a result, we are curious as to how the pipevines fared. As we are curious as to how this current and the coming seasons might instruct us in so much.
We will pay attention, we will take notes, we will try to be present for the plants, the shifting climate, the animals including people of our place so that as we know more we can care and tend and do more caring tending with wide open hearts and mind. With fierce, proactive, protective optimism.
As a Gardener with a capital G – that’s our work. We are all growing each other in the end – aren’t we?
I also LOVE and am inspired by Michael McCoy's clear enthusiasm for sharing Garden Life Stories with humor and candor. This is what gatherings and meetings and Garden life interactions proffer us: stories - that hold us and grow us.
With that in mind here are this week’s PGAs -Public growing Announcements from us here at Cultivating Place:
FEBRUARY 13:
Los Angeles’ Theodore Payne Foundation recently announced a new Executive Director in Amy Greenwood opening an exciting new chapter for the organization. Post the devastation of the LA Fires, the native plant education and restoration work of the TPF will be even more vital – check them out for more information on what they do – and how you can learn more, support, and/or get involved.
Down in the southeast, our friend Nina Veteto at Flora and Forage is hosting a couple of awesome sounding in-person adventures and retreats! Women’s Outdoor Weekend coming up on Feb 20 – 23 at Table Rock State Park, South Carolina. If I lived a little closer, I’d be there! If you go, let me know how it comes together, I think the more we are together in person or virtually at this point the better we grow. Nina has more workshops on the horizon, and if you are in the Southeast or headed there – you might want to follow her work on Substack, I think you will enjoy it!
Registration is open for the 2025 ELA Annual Conference February 26 and 27! This will be two full days of learning happening with both in person and virtual learning opportunities.
Including a keynote address from Kelly D. Norris, award-winning author and plantsman, and Banu Subramaniam, author of Botany of Empire: Plant Worlds and the Scientific Legacies of Colonialism, operations.
Coming up later this summer June 2 – 5 th , the American Public Gardens will host its annual Conference in Denver Colorado with a highly pertinent Theme of ELEMENTAL. In preparation for that, Applications are NOW being accepted for student Garden Scholars to attend the conference. The applications are due by end of Day Saturday, March 15, 2025. AND THE APGA IS hosting their first ever Day of Giving – We Love Our Garden Scholars event on February 14th to raise funding specifically for our Garden Scholars program. SO whether you want to support this investment in garden scholarship or apply to put it to use – head to this LINK.
Also on March 1st , tickets go on sale for the much anticipated Hardy Plant Society of Oregon’s Summer Study Weekend taking place June 27 – 30th– in Portland Oregon. We have two interviews lined up this spring with two of their international speakers – Michael McCoy of Australia’s The Gardenist, and Lucie Willan of the Mediterranean Garden Society and Spain’s Sparoza Garden. The study weekend’s theme is “Nimble Gardening in an Evolving World.” And includes lectures, open garden touring, receptions, and much more. This special event only every two years in the Pacific Northwest.
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