Boston Flora

  • Tuesday, October 27 – Thursday, October 29, 12:00 noon – 3:00 pm Eastern – Virtual Firefly Symposium 2026: Science, Conservation, & Education, Online

    Join The Xerces Society October 27 – 29 for a free, three-day virtual symposium on firefly research and conservation in the United States and Canada! Each day of the symposium will consist of five to six presentations, and opportunities for networking and discussion.

    Presentation topics include firefly biology, community science, conservation and management, firefly tourism, and educational programming.

    This event is intended for everyone interested in fireflies and their conservation in the US and Canada, including conservation practitioners, agency biologists, environmental educators, community scientists, academic researchers, and firefly enthusiasts.

    OCT 27 to OCT 29
    9:00 AM – 12:00 PM PT
    10:00 AM – 1:00 PM MT
    11:00 AM – 2:00 PM CT
    12:00 PM – 3:00 PM ET

    The event is free! You can register and view the schedule at https://xerces.org/events/

    Closed Captioning will be available during this webinar. The webinar will be recorded and available on our YouTube channel https://xerces.org/youtube

    This symposium and the Firefly Atlas are supported by the BAND Foundation.

  • Wednesday, November 4, 4:00 pm – 5:30 pm – No-Till Growing for Community Gardeners

    In this free November 4 workshop open to the public, farmer Rachael Walton will give an overview of Gaining Ground’s no-till growing practices and will address how no-till principles and methods can be utilized by community gardeners. The program takes place from 4 – 5:30 at Gaining Ground, 341 Virginia Road in Concord.

    Rachael Walton is the Farm Co-Assistant Manager at Gaining Ground in Concord, Massachusetts. She has been farming professionally for more than six years. Rachael grew up in Arizona but has lived in Concord since middle school, and feels very lucky to have moved to a place with such a vibrant farming community — which helped her discover her love for farming early on. While gaining her degree in Agroecology at the University of Vermont, she spent her summers working on farms in Concord and learning about local food systems. An avid community gardener herself, Rachael is inspired and driven by the belief that our food systems can and must be both environmentally sustainable and also equitable and just for every person involved. When she isn’t farming, Rachael loves to hike, read, crochet, and bake lots and lots of sourdough bread.

    Register at www.middlesexconservationdistrict.org

  • Friday, October 23, 3:00 pm – 7:00 pm – Living Connections: The Arnold Arboretum and Korea

    On Friday, October 23, members of the Arnold Arboretum get a special sneak preview of the new exhibit in the Hunnewell Building, titled Living Connections: The Arnold Arboretum and Korea. For more than a century, the Arnold Arboretum has been connected to Korea through plants, exploration, and scientific exchange. The exhibit brings together rare archival images, living collections, plant records, and contemporary partnerships to explore Korea’s botanical heritage and the evolving relationship between the Arboretum and Korean institutions.

    Join us for this special member preview event to view the exhibit, enjoy refreshments, and mingle with staff experts. No need to register, just stop by! Not sure of your member status? Visit https://arboretum.harvard.edu/support/

    Accessibility: The Hunnewell Building is wheelchair accessible.

    This members-only program is geared towards adults. Inclement weather policy: This is a rain or shine event. This exhibition is sponsored in part by Leslie and Peter Ciampi.

  • Tuesday, November 3, 1:30 pm – 2:30 pm Eastern – Plant, Places, Growth, Decay, Online

    This November 3 Garden Museum session, available online and recorded, brings together artists and collectives who each have a profound relationship with place and environment. Alex Hartley makes ambitious land art that destabilizes our ideas of wilderness and utopia; Tania Kovats works across sculpture and installation to explore geological time and bodies of water; Troika examine how technology reshapes our understanding of the natural world; and Kultivator — an art practice and experimental farm on the Swedish island of Öland — investigate our relationship with the landscapes that feed us. Critic and curator Ben Tufnell joins as respondent. £10 Livestream. Register HERE.

  • Saturday, November 7, 10:00 am – 12:00 noon – Fairies in the Foliage

    Children and their families are invited to search for fairy houses, make fairy-themed crafts, help create a fairy village, and sip sparkly fairy lemonade on the beautiful Eustis Estate grounds. All activities will take place outdoors so please dress for the weather. The event takes place Saturday, November 7 from 10 – noon,

    Member Adult Free; Member Child $5; Nonmember Adult $15; Nonmember Child $10. Log in or Join now to have your discount applied at checkout. Visit Historic New England HERE.

    Please call (617) 994-6600 for more information.

    Tickets include admission to the house museum. All children must be accompanied by an adult.

  • Tuesday, October 27, 6:00 am – 7:00 am Eastern (but recorded) – Worshipful Company of Gardeners, Online

    This Gardens Trust talk on October 27 will explain the foundation, early history and collapse of this City Livery Company.

    Gardening is big business today with billions spent on garden makeovers, at garden centers, in municipal parks and on ornamental plants, with vegetable and fruit growing taking second place. Yet until quite recently the reverse was true, Feeding London was the task that occupied most gardeners, with ornamental and leisure gardening comparatively unimportant. The late 16th century saw a series of bad harvests which led to famine conditions in much of England and one of the responses was the foundation of the Gardeners Company, in 1606 by James I. Like other City Livery Companies It was given a monopoly over the whole of its trade so at first it flourished but by the end of the seventeenth century it had virtually no members and collapsed in oblivion. This talk will explain why.…..

    This ticket is for this individual session and costs £8 (Gardens Trust members £6 )

    Ticket holders can join the session live and/or view the recording until 10 November .

    Attendees will be sent a Zoom link 2 days prior to the start of the talk, and again a few hours before the talk. A link to the recorded session (available until 10 November) will be sent shortly afterwards.

    …..

    Dr David Marsh was awarded his PhD in 2005 for a study of the ‘Gardens and Gardeners of Later-Stuart London’ and has been lecturing and supervising research in Garden History ever since. He is a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Buckingham and was co-course director for their MA in Garden History. A trustee of the Gardens Trust from 2016-2023, he helped set up and run the Trust’s online lecture program and is the author of a weekly blog about garden history.

    Image: Cheapside market from Hugh Alley’s Caveat 1598

  • Thursday, November 12, 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm – Nashua River Watershed 2026 Annual Meeting: Paddle Forward

    SAVE THE DATE: Thursday, November 12, at the Devens Common Center in Devens, Massachusetts, for the 2026 Annual Meeting of the Nashua River Watershed Association, Paddle Forward. The Nashua River Watershed Association protects the rivers and streams that are the lifeline of our communities, connecting rural and urban, aquatic and terrestrial, wildlife and human. For registration, visit https://www.nashuariverwatershed.org/

  • Saturday, October 31, 10:00 am – 12:00 noon – Fungi Field Walk

    Whether edible or not, flashy or tiny, on trees or in the soil, mushrooms come in so many fascinating varieties—more than you might realize. Take a walk through the Drumlin Farm Wildlife Sanctuary on October 31 from ten to noon with an experienced mycologist in search of local fungi, from polypores and gilled mushrooms to species that defy easy categorization.

    Learn about where different fungi grow, what ecological roles they play, and how to begin identifying them in the field using key distinguishing features. You’ll leave the walk with a permanent shift in how you view the forest floor. Mass Audubon members $25, nonmembers $30. Registration is required at https://www.massaudubon.org/programs/drumlin-farm/103392-fungi-field-walk

  • Tuesday, October 20, 5:00 am – 6:00 am Eastern (but recorded) – Let the Sky Rain Potatoes

    Dr. David Marsh and The Gardens Trust present some thoughts on the origins of the English obsession with gardening, online, on October 20.

    It is a truth universally acknowledged that the English are obsessed with gardening. Much less clear is when this obsession started. Was it with Gertrude Jekyll, Capability Brown, or William Kent? This talk argues that it much earlier than you probably think and for reasons that you probably haven’t considered. And what’s it all got to do with Katherine of Aragon, Dr Faustus and mass immigration? There’s only one way of finding out!

    This ticket is for this individual session and costs £8 (Gardens Trust members £6 ) Register through Eventbrite UK HERE.

    Ticket holders can join the session live and/or view the recording until 3 November .

    Attendees will be sent a Zoom link 2 days prior to the start of the talk, and again a few hours before the talk. A link to the recorded session (available until 3 November) will be sent shortly afterwards.

    Dr David Marsh was awarded his PhD in 2005 for a study of the ‘Gardens and Gardeners of Later-Stuart London’ and has been lecturing and supervising research in Garden History ever since. He is a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Buckingham and was co-course director for their MA in Garden History. A trustee of the Gardens Trust from 2016-2023, he helped set up and run the Trust’s online lecture programme and is the author of a weekly blog about garden history. Illustration courtesy of The Nature of Shakespeare.

  • Thursday, October 22 – Night of Illumination

    The Native Plant Trust’s annual fall event, exclusively for members, is right around the corner. On Thursday, October 22, Garden in the Woods will be lit by more than 1,000 luminaria and delightful displays. Tickets are on sale at https://nativeplanttrust.org/event/night-of-illumination/ Remember, this special evening is just for members, so join or renew now to enjoy intriguing sights on this “one night only” nocturnal stroll. See you on October 22!