Gardens as Social Infrastructure, Gardeners as Public Servants, with Chris Felhaber

·56 min·5 clips

A Drexel study found greening vacant lots can cut gun violence by nearly a third.

Host Jennifer Jewell introduces the episode's guest, Chris Fellhaber, a gardener based in Chicago who views gardens as social infrastructure and gardeners as public servants. Fellhaber begins by distilling his philosophy of gardening as intentional, passionate, generous, and humble. He traces his horticultural roots to his mother and grandmothers in Wisconsin, where he started a vegetable garden at age six and later ran a landscaping service in high school. Initially pursuing secondary education in college, he was drawn back to plants during student teaching in a nature-deprived Milwaukee neighborhood. Fellhaber shifted to landscape architecture but found it too office-bound, eventually focusing on natural resources and volunteering at gardens like Allen Centennial Gardens and the Morton Arboretum. After graduation, he worked at Growing Power, an urban farm in Milwaukee, where he managed multiple sites on vacant lots. There, he realized that fencing and gating these sites without community input alienated neighbors, who had used the lots as de facto parks. This experience taught him the importance of listening to community needs and beautifying spaces with perennials. Fellhaber later worked with Roy Diblick on projects like the Lake Geneva Library garden, which extended the library's welcoming space outdoors. He then interned at Chanticleer Garden, where the mission is to improve visitors' moods, prompting him to question why such spaces are rare. Listening to a podcast on social infrastructure crystallized his thinking, leading him to define gardens as physical spaces that shape social interaction. Fellhaber discusses applying this concept through side projects with schools, libraries, and nonprofits, emphasizing low-maintenance, plant-community-focused designs. He highlights the Perennial Plant Association's supportive community and his role on its board. Becoming a father clarified his mission to make the world better, leading him to move to Chicago and pursue various initiatives, including greening violent blocks and advocating for garden taxes and school gardener positions. Fellhaber encourages gardeners to act fearlessly, leverage privilege, and lead with empathy, while cautioning against framing gardening as overly political to avoid alienating potential allies. The episode concludes with information about an upcoming Cultivating Place symposium.

As heard by us

Chris Fellhaber connects public horticulture, libraries, and pleasure gardens to a broader civic duty.

Chris Fellhaber frames gardens as social infrastructure through nearly two decades in public horticulture, side work with libraries and community organizations, time at Northwind, and a spring 2016 internship at Chanticleer.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

Want to hear why a garden can sit in the same civic conversation as a library?

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from Cultivating Place