Dr. Alan Weakley is a career-long botanist and conservation biologist firmly rooted in the southeast region of the U.S. For a little over 23 years, Dr. Weakley has served as the director of the UNC Chapel Hill Herbarium, which since 2000 has been under the umbrella of the North Carolina Botanical Garden. Throughout his career, from his PhD work to his professorial & director duties, as well as his community engagement work, Dr. Weakley’s focus has remained on the rich biodiversity of plants and plant community systems of the Southeast. In his experience, this is one clear way to work toward conserving biodiversity writ large.
In the course of our conversation, Alan talks about what an herbarium is and why they continue – even after centuries – to be not only relevant to ongoing plant science, but also fascinating and important reservoirs of needed data in these times of accelerating climate change and biodiversity loss.
Alan also describes the expansive collaborative relationship possible between the Herbarium and North Carolina Botanical Garden as a result of their being fully integrated. One example of that is a new exhibit co-curated by the Garden, Alan, and the Herbarium: Saving our Savannahs, Stories of the Longleaf Pine, designed for engaging and educating the public about this beloved ecosystem of the Southeast. Saving our Savannahs, Stories of the Longleaf Pine, will be at the NC Botanical Garden through December 2024.
As a researcher, as a director, and as an enthusiastic and passionate educator sharing his passion and his knowledge, the legacy of Alan’s career is much like a trusted field guide - something we carry with us to know more about where we are.
You can follow Dr. Weakley’s work, the UNC Chapel Hill Herbarium, and the North Carolina Botanical Garden online:
And on Instagram:
@ncbotanicalgarden
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JOIN US again next week, when Cultivating Place guest host Ben Futa will be sitting in for Jennifer, kicking off an intermittent series of conversations focusing on the business-side of Cultivating Place. Ben will be in conversation with plant shop owner and cultivator of community, Amanda Thomsen of Kiss My Aster’s Aster Gardens in Lemont, Il. That's right here, next week.
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Thinking out loud this week...
Heads up! I will be delivering the annual Jenny Elder Fitch Memorial Lecture at the North Carolina Botanical Garden on Sunday, November 3rd. For more information on this and all of CP’s Fall events around the country, make sure to check out: https://www.cultivatingplace.com/events
And........I feel like I need a drum roll here – and I know I have mentioned this idea before earlier this year, but next week – on the energetic waves of the Autumnal Equinox and the Full Harvest Moon of September 17th, I am so excited to usher in the next chapter of Cultivating Place, a heartfelt endeavor nearly a decade in the growing so far. Based on a mission of Elevating and Expanding the way we think and talk about gardening, engaging, encouraging, emboldening, and empowering gardeners in our world. The idea of focusing on the great diversity of our stories and what our gardens mean to us has always been more important than how pretty our gardens are. In this first nearly decade, one thing that has remained constant – and that has been my voice. Here with you week in and week out – and I love this work with my whole garden heart. And in looking to the future with some legacy goals in mind, my voice will remain a constant – but I am also so excited to share that two new voices and perspectives will be joining mine here!
For the past few months, I have been working behind the scenes training, trialing, onboarding, and practicing with two new additions to the CP Team and we are finally ready to go live! Beginning in October, Abra Lee of Conquer the Soil based in Atlanta, and Ben Futa of Botany, based in South Bend, Indiana will be joining the CP team as alternate hosts to me. With their very enthusiastic garden and plant love, their deep and fascinating lived experiences, from their very different geographic and plant community places, these two humans will bring us as a CP community each week that they are with us a whole new level of knowledge and understanding about the importance of plants, and plants people in our beautifully plant-based world.
I will be interested to hear feedback from you all as to this new branch of the work – and the new perspectives Ben and Abra bring to the conversations. You will even hear me interview both of them as part of our new Cultivating Place Live curated series rolling out in the coming year. I hope you will love their voices and the insights they bring to this Cultivation of Place as much as I already do.
AS ever, thank you for being out there listening and growing along, thank you for subscribing, for sharing the episodes that move you – so grateful to be here growing together.
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