From botanical illustrations and herbarium specimens to illustrated manuscripts and contemporary photographs, images shape how plants are named, understood, and valued. They also reveal deeper stories about exploration, colonialism, science, and whose knowledge is preserved.
Join Tracy Qiu and Catherine Seavitt on October 13 at noon Eastern for an interactive lunchtime virtual conversation that uses four images to explore how botanical knowledge is created, shared, and challenged. Together, they will examine the colonial legacies of botanical gardens and plant science, consider how terms like native, exotic, weed, and invasive influence our thinking, and highlight the contributions of Indigenous communities and other often-overlooked knowledge holders.
Held the day after Indigenous Peoples’ Day, this timely conversation invites participants to reconsider the stories we tell (and the ones we don’t) and discover how the ways we picture plants continue to shape our relationships with the living world.
Wellfleet Gardeners host a free program at the Wellfleet Public Library, 55 West Main Street in Wellfleet, on Wednesday, October 21 from 10 – 11:30 with Beth Taylor. She is a Master Gardener who loves dahlias! Learn how to plant, grow, maintain and overwinter these beautiful flowers for years to come.
Registration Deadline November 2! The Massachusetts Master Gardener Association sponsors the Winter Gardening Know-How Series online starting November 4 and continuing through December 2 (no meeting November 25.) Gardeners with all levels of experience and lots of questions, new homeowners starting from scratch, garden “rehabbers”, everyone can benefit from some know-how. Lectures will include Invasives in Massachusetts, Creating Pollinator Habitat Anywhere, Where Our Vegetables Come From, and A Holistic Approach to Gardening. Virtual sessions include a question and answer time live with speakers, and a number of handouts to read in advance or to revisit in the future. Register at https://www.massmastergardeners.org/educational-resources/gardening-know-how-series
Barbara McIntosh is a Lifetime Master Gardener and has been a Master Gardener since 2016. She has been the coordinator of the prison programs, having created partnerships with MCI Framingham, MCI Concord, Pondville, and NECC. She has also organized volunteers for MCI Shirley and Gardener. Barb has mentored numerous master gardeners, and has contributed to sourcing the How-to and Project Garden articles for The Dirt. Barb currently is coordinating the renovation of the Bedford VA serenity, memorial, and healing gardens in partnership with the Wellesley Boy Scouts and the Bedford garden club. Barb is also on the Speakers Bureau and the education committee.
Bonnie Power has been a Massachusetts Master Gardener since 2016 and member of the MMGA Speakers Bureau since 2018 … and a serious outdoor/indoor gardener most of her life. Curious and research-oriented by nature, she has many horticultural interests and areas of expertise. Bonnie holds both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in Zoology, which informs her perspective on the management of garden insects. She spent the past year as manager of the MMGA Soil pH Testing team and while she has passed this on to a new manager, she continues as a member of the team. She also volunteers at Garden in the Woods, a Native Plant Trust botanical garden in Framingham, where she is a guide. She learned to grow vegetables as a child from her father, and flowers and houseplants from her mother. Early in her marriage, her father-in-law provided her first lessons in organic gardening. At home in Marlborough, Bonnie grows a variety of vegetables and ornamentals (with a bias for natives).
Denise Guérin is a Certified Massachusetts Master Gardener, graduating in the class of 2022. She fell in love with gardens (and their contents) at a young age while “helping” her father and grandmother in their large family gardens. She volunteers regularly at the Wakefield Arboretum, the Medford Food Pantry Garden, and the MMGA’s new Ohrenberger School Pollinator Garden. Her primary focus is on growing native plants and creating habitat for native bees, birds and insect pollinators. She is a graduate of the MMGA Speakers Bureau Training Program.
Tony Bonnano has been a Massachusetts Master Gardener since 2007. He designed, built, and oversees the Victory Gardens at the Veterans Community Health Care Center in Lowell and is the horticulture leader for the Massachusetts Correctional Institution at Concord’s Outreach Organization, teaching and running a volunteer program at the facility’s farm. Tony also chairs the Topsfield Fair Home Garden committee and is a Certified Massachusetts State Fair Judge. An accomplished vegetable grower, he was named a Top Vegetable Exhibitor at the 2017 and 2019 Topsfield Fairs.
COST: The cost of the four-lecture Fall Gardening Know-How Series is $75.00, payable online by credit/debit card or PayPal. Classes are not available individually.
Join members of Zoo New England’s conservation team and John Berkholtz for a rare field study focused on observing and surveying orange sallow moth eggs and larvae, which rely on fern-leaved false foxglove (Aureolaria pedicularia) for survival.
Spend the day exploring the intersection of herbalism, ecology, art, and cultural tradition at the beautiful Haskell Gardens in New Bedford.
Participate in hands-on workshops, plant identification walks, and creative practices led by local herbalists, artists, + educators.
This is a community centered experience where learning unfolds through connection to plants, to place, to yourself, and to one another. For those of you who remember Alan Haskell and his incredible nursery, a visit to the Wild Heart Herb House will astound you.
The date is Saturday, October 10 from 10 – 4. Register at www.wildheartherbhouse.com. Sliding scale admission from $1 – $90, with a suggested price of $45.
In spring 2027, the American Folk Art Museum is sending its acclaimed recent exhibition An Ecology of Quilts on tour to museums around the Northeast. Join the Garden Conservancy and the museum’s Deputy Director and Chief Curatorial Officer Dr. Emelie Gevalt online on October 22 or a behind-the-scenes look at how this ecologically grounded exhibition was conceived and organized. Emelie will consider the origins of textile production and how it informed the artistry of quiltmaking, exploring the environmental and social impact of cultivating and harvesting raw materials. She will also explore the rich botanical subjects that helped define this quintessential American art form.
Dr. Gevalt is the Deborah Davenport and Stewart Stender Deputy Director & Chief Curatorial & Program Officer at the American Folk Art Museum in New York City. Her exhibitions at AFAM include the critically acclaimed What That Quilt Knows About Me (2023), Unnamed Figures: Black Presence and Absence in the Early American North (2023), and An Ecology of Quilts: The Natural History of American Textiles (2025); her next project, Locating Girlhood: Place and Identity in Early American “Schoolgirl” Art, opens in fall 2026. Gevalt received her B.A. in art history and theater studies from Yale University, her M.A. from the Winterthur Program in American Material Culture, and her Ph.D. in art history from the University of Delaware. Her two decades of art-world experience include positions at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and Christie’s, New York, where she was a Vice President in the Estates, Appraisals & Valuations department.
The mission of The Botanical Society of America is to inspire and promote an inclusive global community committed to advancing fundamental knowledge and innovation in the botanical sciences for the benefit of people and the environment. Diversity and inclusion are core values of the Botanical Society of America. Click here to read BSA’s 2020 Response to Racism Against our Black Colleagues and Community. Click here to read our 2021 Statement Against AAPI Racism.
Be sure to mark your calendar for the Botany 2027 Conference in Buffalo, NY on July 31 – August 4, 2027.
Gain the skills and knowledge needed to include bulbs in your landscape. In this New York Botanical Garden online class on October 6, you’ll explore the diversity of bulbs; their culture, growing requirements, and placement. Learn how to plan and place bulbs in new and existing beds using the fundamental principles of garden design: purpose, style, site analysis, color, balance and rhythm.
Instructor Sheri Forster, Principal of The Scottish Gardener, specializes in custom garden design of residential properties in Westchester & Fairfield counties since 2007. Her client’s gardens have been featured in garden tours and have appeared in national and local publications. This year she was the kickoff speaker for the Connecticut Horticultural Society’s lecture series and The Connecticut Master Gardeners Association annual meeting. Sheri received her certificate in Garden Design from NYBG in 2008.
$64 for NYBG members, $70 for nonmembers. Register at www.nybg.org
Join Freddie Gillespie for a seed collecting workshop at the Beecology Research Garden at Breakneck Hill Conservation Land in Southborough, Massachusetts on October 4 at 1 pm. Learn about ethical collection of wild seeds, how to determine if seeds are ripe, and best seed collection methods for various plants. This Grow Native Massachusetts workshop is part one of a three part seed series, with additional sessions on November 4 and January 7. Grow Native members $15, nonmembers $25. Learn more at https://grownativemass.org/
James Beard Award-winning chef Eric Ripert returns to CitySpace on October 23 at 6:30 to discuss his new cookbook, Mindful Cooking with Morning Edition host Tiziana Dearing. In this inspiring exploration of food, health and gratitude, Ripert shares how cooking can become an act of mindfulness and connection by drawing on his travels to Buddhist monasteries across Japan and Korea, as well as his own culinary traditions. Signed copies of the book will be available to purchase and guests will enjoy a bite from the book after the conversation. Buy tickets through Eventbrite here
