Tuesday, October 27, 2026

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

Self-Taught Gardener: It takes a village

Each element is set before you to change your pace, or cause you to look up at a view, or to simply give you pause to notice a fern, some artfully laid stonework, or to stop and hear the sound of the world around you.

The Self-Taught Gardener: Person of color

A visit to the home of Richard Hartlage in Seattle brought home for our Self-Taught Gardener Lee Buttala the importance of color.

The Self-Taught Gardener: Comfort of other seasons

As the season of rebirth arrives, the 'holy trinity' of the trillium brings forth the mystery of life itself.

The Self-Taught Gardener: The thrill of the Chase

Our Self-Taught Gardener Lee Buttala ponders gardeners whose impact on the world will always be remembered.

The Self-Taught Gardener: Cool and dry

From a James Bond-like structure near the Arctic Circle, our Self-Taught Gardener, Lee Buttala, assures us that seeds and the future of our food sources are safely protected.

The Self-Taught Gardener: The winter landscape

In the snow-covered winter landscape above the Arctic Circle, Lee Buttala realizes that trees connect us to the season we are in, and to the seasons yet to come.

The Self-Taught Gardener: Breeders

As winter drags on, Lee Buttala, our Self-Taught Gardener, finds ways to hurry along his hopes for spring.

The Self-Taught Gardener: Wearing their hearts on their leaves

For Valentine's Day, Lee Buttala, our Self-Taught Gardener, offers us nature's own little love notes.

The Self-Taught Gardener: Seeds

One thing was clear: seeds, and the packages containing them that arrive on our doorstep, hold our dreams and our future.

The Self-Taught Gardener: Snow covers

Our Self-Taught Gardener muses about how a persistent snow cover enables exotic plants to grow in unusual northern climes.

The Self-Taught Gardener: Wilder Times

Living now in Iowa, Lee Buttala ponders the relationship of the prairie, brought alive to many of us in Laura Ingalls Wilder's "Little House on the Prairie" stories, to the cultivated farmland that lies alongside it.

The Self-Taught Gardener: Pinings

Although pine trees have taken a back seat to spruces and firs as Christmas tree choices, for Lee Buttala, our Self-Taught Gardener, they are still the star performers of the winter season.

The Self-Taught Gardener: The Edwardians

Gardening is in the process of evolving and being transformed into something that requires a level of care and nursing different from the highly manicured beds and borders.

The Self-Taught Gardener: Life is sweet (especially once temperatures cool down)

Many vegetables become sweeter with cooler temperatures. So do some gardeners, like our author, in hopes that someone will keep him warm during the winter.

The Self-Taught Gardener: Fifty shades of cool

We can learn a lot from Southern gardeners as we face warmer weather here in the North, such as how to create the illusion of cool.

The Self-Taught Gardener: Seasonal affective disorder

How can we help but be confused if the spring catalogs come out in the dead of winter and the autumn catalogs come out when we're just planting in spring? Do gardeners care?
spot_img

The Edge Is Free To Read.

But Not To Produce.