Boston Flora

Month: August 2010

  • Wednesday, September 22, 8:00 am – 5:00 pm – MassHort and the Perennial Plant Association Seminar

    On Wednesday, September 22, MassHort and the Perennial Plant Association are teaming up to offer a day-long seminar titled, Exploring Design, Plant Selection, and Maintenance of the Mixed Border. Some of the best writers and creative plantsmen in the business will be here, and you’re invited to listen, learn and ask questions.

    The speakers include Adrian Bloom (of Blooms of Bressingham); Kirk Brown, national director for the Garden Writers Association; Kerry Mendez, author of The Ultimate Gardener’s Top Ten Lists; Laura Deeter, professor at the Agricultural Technical Institute (ATI), The Ohio State University; Roy Diblik, co-owner of Northwind Perennial Farm located in Burlington, Wisconsin; and Brent Heath, co-owner with his wife, Becky, of Brent and Becky’s Bulbs.

    The Program Schedule:

    8:00 am – 8:45 am – Registration

    9:00 am – 10:00 am – Sustainability and the American Dream, Kirk Brown, Joanne Kostecky Garden Design of Allentown, Pennsylvania

    The United States is currently the single largest user of energy on the planet. Since GIs returned from WWII, we have been a nation of extremely successful consumers. When the oil spigots run dry, the bright lights of retailing dim, and the bank account’s empty, will we be able to adapt our search for the biggest and best? Kirk Brownwill disucss how we can we prepare our children and grandchildren for a world that should leave us naturally richer and ecologically healthier.

    10:00 am – 10:30 am -  Break and Visit to the Elm Bank Gardens

    10:30 am – 11:30 am – Designing for Four Seasons of Color – Hit the Easy Button,  Kerry Mendez, Perennially Yours, Ballston Spa, New York

    Kerry Mendez will show you the tricks of the trade for having the WOW factor in your garden month after month with smart plant selection, design tips, and surefire maintenance shortcuts. And because it will be low maintenance, you will finally be able to ‘ease’ back in the ‘easy’ chair. Kerry is a “passionate perennialist” with more than 20 years of hands-on experience. As a garden consultant, designer, writer, teacher and lecturer, Kerry specializes in low-maintenance garden and landscape design that includes perennials, ornamental grasses, flowering shrubs, bulbs, and no-fuss annuals.

    11:30 am – 12:30 pm – Bulbs as Companion Plants,  Brent Heath, Brent & Becky’s Bulbs, Gloucester, Virginia

    Brent Heath will illustrate the best of the best – the right bulbs for the right spots. He will show how to combine bulbs, perennials, annuals, ground covers and flowering shrubs to create just the feeling you want to generate four seasons of color in your garden.

    12:30 pm – 1:30 pm – Lunch

    1:30 pm – 2:30 pm – Bloom’s Best Perennials and Grasses: Expert Plant Choices and Dramatic Combinations for Year-Round Gardens
    Adrian Bloom, Bloom’s Nurseries Ltd,  Norfolk, England

    From his long experience on both sides of the Atlantic in using hardy perennials and grasses together and with other plants for year round effect, Adrian Bloom will highlight some plants of great value for gardeners. He particularly believes there is much in the phrase less is more which can apply to the early or beginner gardener, and will develop his theme through 12 specially selected perennials and grasses for year-round interest.

    2:30 pm – 3:00 pm – Break and Visit to the Elm Bank Gardens

    3:00 pm – 4:00 pm – Perennial Plant Communities: The Know Maintenance Approach™,  Roy Diblik, Northwind Perennial Farm, Burlington, Wisconsin

    Roy Diblik’s thoughtful way to design perennial plantings welcomes fresh contemporary styles and plant diversity integrated with responsible maintenance concerns. Using a selection of regionally dependable perennials, endless natural plant patterns can be constructed, each relating to time and cost to maintain. Roy has been growing plants for more than 25 years. Recently, Roy was the plant purchasing coordinator for the Lurie Garden in Chicago’s Millenium Park, growing 11,000 of the plants at Northwind. He was also very involved in the installation of the garden. He also installed the Sullivan Arch Garden for the modern wing of the Art Institute in Chicago.

    4:00 pm – 5:00 pm – Bringing Your Perennials Up Right,  Dr. Laura Deeter, ATI Ohio State University, Wooster, Ohio

    The day’s final speaker will be Dr. Laura Deeter,  whose lecture is entitled Bringing Your Perennials Up Right. Are you the parents of unruly toddlers, aggressive or lazy teenagers, or are your babies closer to middle age and just aren’t the same anymore? Perhaps they simply aren’t living up to their full potential. Learn how to make your perennial babies work for you! Laura will provide a fun and lively romp through perennial maintenance!

    Registration Fee: $95/person before September 14. $110/person after September 14.  This price includes lunch.  You may register on line at www.masshort.org, or call 614-771-8431.

    http://images.whiteflowerfarm.com/83596a.jpg

  • Thursday, September 23, 4:00 pm – 6:00 pm – An Evening with Adrian Bloom

    An extraordinary ‘two-fer’ for a great cause. Adrian Bloom is in America with a new book, Bloom’s Best Perennials and Grasses: Expert Plant Choices and Dramatic Combinations for Year Round Gardens. On the evening of September 23, you can meet and talk with Adrian in the extraordinary Cape Cod garden of Paul Miskovsky. Paul’s garden was recently the subject of a cover article in the Boston Globe’s Sunday magazine and is rarely open to the public.

    Tickets are $150 per person for an evening of cocktails, hors d’oeuvre and conversation. To register, contact the Massachusetts Horticultural Society’s  reservation line at 617-933-4995.

    http://img.tesco.com/pi/Books/L/17/9780881929317.jpg

  • Saturday, September 25, 10:00 am – 5:00 pm – Make it and Take it: Hand-tied Wedding Bouquet, Wedding Boutonnieres and Corsages/Wristlets, and Wedding Ceremony Flowers/Centerpieces

    In these 3 workshops at the Boston Center for Adult Education that can be taken individually or as a group on Saturday, September 25, students will learn how to select and design fresh flowers for a wedding. This will help save money, add a personal touch, and provide a creative unique experience on your wedding day.

    Whether a centerpiece or a full wedding: wearable flowers, church or ceremony flowers, table flowers, bridal bouquets, you will cover all basic techniques. Instructor Laurie Marino will also provide complimentary phone support for questions after class.

    Planning for your wedding? Your choice of flowers will enhance the uniqueness of the day. This workshop will cover seasonal considerations, themes, colors, and styles.

    Hand-tied bouquets are one of the most popular and modern styles today. Using fresh flowers, ribbon, and embellishments to construct a unique bridal bouquet. This design is also used for bride’s maids and maid of honor bouquets. Step by step instructions will assist you in taking home a beautiful and fragrant bouquet.

    This workshop will also discuss cascades and traditional bouquets. Pictures, recipes and secrets of a pro’s will be shared. Each workshop is priced at $38 plus $20 materials fee ($33 if a BCAE member). For complete descriptions of each workshop, log on to www.bcae.org.

  • Saturday, September 25 – Sunday, September 26, 10 – 5 – 12th Annual Hancock Shaker Village Country Fair

    The Country Fair at Hancock Shaker Village on Saturday and Sunday, September 25 – 26 from 10 – 5 celebrates the bounty of the harvest with agricultural demonstrations, wagon rides, a fabulous Farmers Market, and huge tents full of the work of the best local and regional crafters and artisans. Come out to the farm and see all the Country Fair has to offer. At the Country Fair, vendors fill the Village with delightful fresh produce, finished farm products, and crafts of all sorts. The Farmers Market tents boast vegetables, flowers, maple sugar treats and hand-made cheeses. Artisans have furniture, Shaker style oval boxes, original paintings, candles and hand-woven textiles available for purchase. Plan plenty of browsing time for this amazing marketplace! Don’t miss the Food Tent with area restaurants and brews! Try your hand as a Shaker Baker in our Country Fair Pie Contest – in 2009, thirteen pies were entered, and this year’s judges include New Yorker writer Susan Orlean, Berkshire Living editor Lesley Ann Beck, Berkshire Eagle executive editor Tim Farkas, and RuralIntelligence.com co-founder Marilyn Bethany.  A display of quilts in the Round Stone Barn ell has become an integral part of the Country Fair each year.  Over 60 antique and newly made quilts are displayed in this juried show, fine examples of craftsmanship and tradition. You can submit a quilt for exhibition.   Adults – $17, Children 13 – 17 – $8, Children under 12 and Hancock Shaker Village Members Free.  For directions and more information, log on to www.hancockshakervillage.org.

    http://mariannehaffey.com/photos/orange_salsa.white.500.jpg


  • Community Servings Herb Garden Call for Volunteers

    With the help of hundreds of volunteers, business and corporate sponsors, and its dedicated staff and board members, Community Servings prepare and deliver 3,340 lunches and dinners each week to the homes of almost 700 individuals and families who are homebound with an acute life-threatening illness.  In June 2009, Community Servings planted seedlings for its first herb garden in 100 feet of planters along the side of its building at 18 Marbury Terrace in Jamaica Plain. Community Servings needs a volunteer to come a couple of times each week to help weed, water and pick the herbs from the garden. Hours are flexible. This is a great opportunity for those in a Master Gardening program or anyone interested in learning more about gardening!

    The herb garden is a project developed in partnership with The Growing Connection, a grassroots project developed by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. The herbs and arugula grown are added to free home-delivered meals for critically-ill neighbors and their families.  If you are interested please contact the Ashley Boyd, Volunteer Recruitment Coordinator at 617-522-7777 Ext. 228 or at aboyd@servings.org.

  • Wednesday, September 22, 10:00 am – 1:00 pm – Autumn Splendor in Two Gardens

    Find inspiration with the New England Wild Flower Society on Wednesday, September 22, from 10 – 1, at Ellen McFarland’s four-season garden in Westwood, Massachusetts, beautifully designed by Gary L. Koller with a series of garden rooms surrounding the converted carriage house/ barn. Mature plantings of trees and shrubs provide a backdrop for the interplay of color and texture from masses of perennials. A landscaped swimming pool with cascading waterfall adds a soothing note midway through the garden. This garden combines the best in design, plantings, and hardscape, seasoned with works of art. Then travel to Dover where you are invited to “enter and forget from where you’ve come.” This is the intention of designer Kevin Doyle for his garden visitors. Set on a rocky rise in Dover, “Cairn Croft,” unfurls down a slope, infused with beauty, plant texture, and moments of surprise and fun. Explore a woodland path, pond, wetland, formal parterre and driveway courtyard enhanced by elements of sculpture and garden art. The fee is $32 if you are a member of NEWFS, and $38 if you are not a member. To register, and for more information, log on to www.newfs.org.  Painting below by Leif Nilsson.

  • Saturday, September 25, 9:30 am – 12:00 noon – Renovate and Replant: Native Substitutes for Common Landscape Invasives

    The New England Wild Flower Society and the Trustees of Reservations team up on Saturday, September 25, from 9:30 – noon, for an instructive class and walk at Long Hill in Beverly, Massachusetts. Our plant choices now extend beyond color and form. We seek plants that won’t escape into the natural community and, at the same time, provide valuable nourishment and habitat for birds, mammals, and insects. Learn about ecologically sound substitutes for invasives such as burning bush, Norway maple (below), and yellow flag iris. Following the lecture, Andrew Keys and the Trustees Horticultural Staff will lead a walk through the 6-acre Sedgwick Gardens, identifying native trees and shrubs thriving within the ornamental gardens and along the woodland edge.$22 for members of NEWFS or the Trustees, and $26 for non-members.  To register, log on to www.newfs.org.

  • Sunday, September 19, 9:30 am – 2:00 pm – Plum Island Flora

    Explore the different habitats of Plum Island with the New England Wild Flower Society and Instructor Frances Marsh on Sunday, September 19, from 9:30 am – 2:00 pm, and learn what grows where and why. We will investigate the salt marsh, dune, and beach communities, concentrating on forty to fifty distinctive (to the botanist’s eye) plant species. And if we see a bird or two, we will look at them as well. Bring a 10x hand lens, Newcomb’s Wildflower Guide, lunch, water, and if you have them, binoculars.  $36 for NEWFS members, $41 for non members.  Register at www.newfs.org – class limited to 15.

    http://bestboatbuzz.com//srv/htdocs/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/300px-sand_dunes_plum_island_ma1.jpg

  • Tuesday, September 21, 10:00 am – 1:00 pm – Wild Flowers in Fall

    As a follow up to The New England Wild Flower Society’s spring course, “Wildflowers of New England,” this class highlights flora in the last stages of the growing season.

    What fruits have been produced by spring wildflowers and how are they dispersed? What flowers are blooming in the fall and why? Which pollinators are active? The program includes a walk in the Garden, a power-point presentation to further illustrate the key points, and samples for dissection and close observation. References for fruits and winter ID provided. Bring Newcomb’s Wild Flower Guide and a 10x hand lens. $36 NEWFS member/$42 nonmember.  For more information, log on to www.newfs.org.

  • Saturday, September 18, 10:00 am – 12:00 noon – Sustainable Landscapes: Planning for Large-Scale Construction

    The Ecological Landscaping Association will present a program on Saturday, September 18, from 10 – noon, at the Perkins School, 175 North Beacon Street in Watertown. Join Eco-Tour guide, Sonia Baerhuk, for a tour and presentation of large-scale construction projects at the Perkins School. Sonia will discuss proven techniques for successfully navigating the challenges of large-scale construction while creating and preserving ecological landscapes. This tour will include procedures for protecting trees and shrubs during construction and will discuss transplanting using the air-spading method.  $20 for ELA members, $25 for non-members. Walk-ins also welcome. For more information: ela.info@comcast.net or (617) 436-5838.