The City of Boston will celebrate the restoration of the Brewer Fountain with the Friends of the Public Garden, Save America’s Treasures, and the Lawrence and Lillian Solomon Fund on Wednesday, May 26, beginning at 3 pm, at the Brewer Fountain on the Boston Common, with a reception to follow. This is a free event, part of The Friends of the Public Garden’s 40th Anniversary celebration year. For more information, log on to www.friendsofthepublicgarden.org.
The Harvard Museum of Natural History announces a new multi-media exhibition, Headgear, an in-depth look at the natural history of horns and antlers. The exhibition opens to the public on May 22, 2010, and runs through January 2, 2011. Showcasing an astonishing collection of unique specimens—some on exhibit for the first time, Headgear will intrigue and engage learners of all ages.
Horns and antlers are the often-dramatic head structures that characterize many cloven-hoofed mammals including cattle, antelope, sheep, and deer—collectively known as the artiodactyls. These animals exhibit enormous variation in the structure, size, and shape of their headgear, which are distinctive among species and also vary with sex and age.
Why have artiodactyls evolved these extraordinary structures, many of which are so heavy and unwieldy? Did horns and antlers evolve as a defense against predators, to repel or intimidate rivals, or as an ornament designed to impress females? In this exhibition, visitors will explore these and other fascinating questions about how horns and antlers are formed, how they have evolved, and how they function.
Headgear will feature dramatic arrays of horns, antlers, and head mounts of a wide variety of species drawn from the collections of Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology, as well as 3-D diorama and video presentations illustrating the use of horns and antlers in combat. Visitors will be invited to explore some of the properties of horns and antlers by touching real specimens and comparing their own body height to the world’s largest antlers, those of the extinct Irish Elk, which span as much as 12 feet. In addition, through specimens and text, visitors will learn about the structure and function of horn-like structures in other animals from tiny beetles to massive dinosaurs.
Drawing from the collections of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology and Harvard’s Semitic Museum, the exhibition will display artifacts fashioned from the horn and antler of hoofed animals around the world and introduce visitors to the cultural significance of horns, antlers, and animals that wear them, both real and imagined.
“The number and diversity of specimens in this exhibition are truly breathtaking†said Elisabeth Werby, Executive Director of the Harvard Museum of Natural History. “Headgear is an extraordinary opportunity to contemplate the process of evolution in the context of creatures and images that are at the same time both strange and familiar.â€
Harvard Museum of Natural History
The Harvard Museum of Natural History is located at 26 Oxford Street, Cambridge, a 7 minute walk from the Harvard Square T station. The Museum is handicapped accessible. For general information see www.hmnh.harvard.edu or call 617-495-3045.
With a mission to enhance public understanding and appreciation of the natural world and the human place in it, the Harvard Museum of Natural History draws on the University’s collections and research to present a historic and interdisciplinary exploration of science and nature. More than 180,000 visitors annually make it the University’s most-visited museum.
Elizabeth Farnsworth, Ph.D., will lead a session at the New England Wild Flower Society’s Nasami Farm in Whately, Massachusetts on Sunday, June 6, from 11 – 2, on the Art and Fun of the Nature Journal. One of the best ways to experience and recall the natural world around you is to write it down, make a sketch, and record your immediate impressions in a few sweeps of the pen. Drawing and writing about plants involves muscle-memory that helps us remember them, slow down and see, and make new discoveries. Make your first entries in a new, individualized journal, and hopefully develop a healthy, inspirational, creative habit for a lifetime of keen observation. Join Elizabeth Farnsworth, scientific illustrator and ecologist with New England Wild Flower Society, to learn about and enjoy the art and addictive activity of keeping a nature journal. All materials provided, but bring a lunch and lots of water. Appropriate for adults and older teens. $33 for NEWFS members, $39 for nonmembers. To register, log on to www.newfs.org.
Two fabulous gardens will be open to the public on Sunday, June 6, from 10 – 4, through The Garden Conservancy’s Open Days program.
Black Barn Farm, 937 Summit Road in Richmond:
After being greeted by a pair of fantastical bird topiary, guests pass by the new “back door†terrace and its collection of container plantings. (Don’t miss the alligator on top of the Taxus hatfieldii!) Proceed through doors into the privet-hedged spring bulb garden, with its Fritillaria melagris, muscari, and thalia. Gazing balls are placed at face height, which allows you to see yourself in the garden. A stroll down an allée of Wyman crabapples leads you to the Tsuga chinensis-hedged pool garden and shade pavilion. Proceeding west through a fanciful taxus colonnade, enjoy the seventy odd specimen topiary in various stages of development. A pergola of Robinia pseudoacacia, draped with wisteria and under-planted with bulbs, leads you past the boxwood topiary garden and into the formal potager, with its beech hedge and rustic growing frames. Check out the new kitchen garden on the west side of the house, with its bluestone-and steel-raised beds. The garden encompasses approximately three acres.
Apple Hill, 12 Red Rock Road in West Stockbridge:
This magical writer’s retreat was once an apple farm, and many old apple trees still grow here. It is a place of quiet trees; a forest of silver birches flows into drifts of orchards, amid the tranquil green of white pines. There is a harmonious unity between the house and its setting. A cobblestone terrace at the back is set with drifts of ferns and blurs the division between indoors and outdoors, as does the wisteria-draped pergola. A harp-shaped grass garden along the driveway leads to the lovely curving rhododendron plantings, and these in turn connect to the long garden, which runs the length of the houses and beyond, set with golden locust trees and mixed plantings — evergreen and deciduous shrubs, roses, irises, peonies, delphiniums, and other perennials. The long garden culminates in a rock garden and a meditation bed that the children call “The Secret Garden”. A series of smaller ponds flows down the hillside to the main pond, which is set about with willows, planted with water lilies, and flanked by a borrowed landscape of blue hills. An arbor walk featuring a fish pool links the house with the writing studios. Woodland beds among the birches are planted with hosta, maidenhair and ostrich fern. Come discover the gardens that Tina Packer has described as “among the most beautiful and inviting I’ve ever seen.”
For ticketing information, log on to www.gardenconservancy.org and click on to “Open Days.”
COG-Design (Community Outreach Group for Landscape Design) will hold a sale of perennials, annuals, trees and shrubs on Saturday, May 22, from 9:30 – 2:30 at the Espousal Center, 554 Lexington Street in Waltham. In addition to the plants, reduced priced gardening gloves and other gardening items, you will have the opportunity to purchase a $25 fifteen minute on the spot Garden Design Consultation with professional designers. Bring your photos, sketches, and questions, and get answers and suggestions for your problem areas. Planter ideas will also be showcased. For more information, call 781-642-6662, email info@cogdesign.org, or log on to www.cogdesign.org.
On Saturday, May 29, beginning at 11 am at Verrill Farm, 11 Wheeler Road in Concord, Massachusetts, Steve Verrill will lead a trip into the asparagus field, followed by a buffet lunch under the tent featuring dishes made with asparagus. Chef Kevin Carey gives tips on preparing and cooking asparagus, and everyone leaves with, you guessed it, a bunch of Verrill Farm asparagus. $25 per person, and reservations and prepayment are required by May 28. Call 978-369-4494 to sign up and get directions.
Enjoy an evening with Cheryl Wheeler in a benefit concert for The Nature Connection. The performance will take place at the Emerson Umbrella Center for the Arts, 40 Stow Street in Concord, Massachusetts, on Saturday, May 22 beginning at 8 pm. The Nature Connection, Inc. (formerly known as Animals As Intermediaries) brings animal and nature programs to people with limited access to the natural world. Founded over 25 years ago, it connects individuals with nature’s capacity to heal and to teach. The mission of The Nature Connection is to support the human spirit by offering and building connections between people and the natural world.
Surely one of the most popular performers on the folk music circuit, Cheryl Wheeler is an exceptionally entertaining singer/songwriter, with a repertoire that includes beautiful ballads, upbeat tunes that reflect the quirkier things in life (such as “Handy Houseâ€), and an ability to tell a story with such a delightful comedic delivery that the audience will be rolling on the floor with laughter. For more information, or to purchase tickets, log on to http://www.nature-connection.org, or call 978-369-2585. You may also email scampbell@nature-connection.org.
Help celebrate the opening of The Polly Hill Arboretum Visitor Center with the annual Memorial Day Plant Sale. Whether you’re a budding gardener or a seasoned veteran, this plant sale will have something for you. Arboretum staff have chosen and grown plants that are noted not only for their superior ornamental qualities but also for their adaptability to Martha’s Vineyard. They plan to offer a selection of trees, shrubs, and perennials including many Island natives. Check out www.pollyhillarboretum.org for a plant sale preview. Plants will be for sale all season long. You may also call them at 508-693-9426.
And while you’re there, stop by the Far Barn between 11 am and noon for Great Plants For Vineyard Gardens. Join executive director Tim Boland for this plant sale preview as he gives an illustrated presentation featuring some of the distinctive plants featured in the plant sale. Tim will highlight the ornamental attributes of many of the plants and provide tips on successful culture and garden use. He will begin with a talk in the Far Barn, followed by a walking tour of the grounds to view plants growing in the Arboretum’s collections. Free.
With over 425 species of primula growing under every possible condition over the globe, selecting a primrose that will not only survive but will also compliment your garden setting is a challenging task. This illustrated lecture at The Berkshire Botanical Garden, 5 West Stockbridge Road in West Stockbridge, will introduce you to many of the species, from the tiniest rock garden plants to three foot tall bog dwellers, with emphasis on how to grow some of the best in a New England garden. A walk through the Berkshire Botanical Gardens’ newly developed primrose pathway will provide an example of siting and cultivation in our climate.
Judith Sellers is a Master Gardener and active member of American Primrose Society and its New England Chapter. Her first primroses, grown from seed in 1974, initiated an addiction which now includes exhibiting at shows and growing and sharing seeds and plants of many Primula species. Her articles have appeared in Horticulture and in the APS Quarterly, Primroses. $18 Berkshire Botanical Garden member price, $24 non-members. Register on line at www.berkshirebotanical.org, or call 413-298-3926. You may also email info@berkshirebotanical.org.
The Hamilton-Wenham Garden Club presents “The Love of Gardening”, a tour of seven gardens to excite the senses and imagination, in Hamilton and Wenham on Saturday, June 12, from 10 – 4, rain or shine. Advance reservation price is $20 per ticket by June 1. Day of tour price is $25. Tickets are available at the Council on Aging Building (next to the Police/Fire Station), Route 1A, South Hamilton, Massachusetts, or you may send a check made payable to The Hamilton-Wenham Garden Club to Pauline Moroney, 21 Greenbrook Road, South Hamilton, MA 01982. Refreshments will be served.
