The art of pressing flowers may date back to earlier times, but it is still popular today! Placing flowers in books and flower presses provides the best way to preserve the natural beauty of every plant. Learn about this ancient art and participate in a “hands-on” flower-pressing session at Tower Hill Botanic Garden, 11 French Drive, Boylston, Massachusetts, on Saturday, March 19 from 10 – 12 noon. Prepare for the upcoming garden season! Create a garden journal to record and preserve your garden favorites to enjoy all year long. Journal pages will be provided and a pressed floral journal cover will be created in class. All materials are included. Pauline Bergassi of Petal ‘n Fern Impressions will lead the class, and the fee is $30 for THBG members, $35 for non-members. Register at www.towerhillbg.org.
Month: March 2011
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March 2011 – Winston Flowers Charity in Bloom
Winston Flowers is delighted to announce that the March 2011 non-profit Charity In Bloom partner is Boston Partners In Education. Boston Partners In Education is committed to helping students in the Boston Public Schools who are falling behind achieve their academic goals. Boston Partners believes that all children can excel and is rallying support from everyone. It has a vision that with the commitment and involvement of the entire community, all students in Boston will develop the skills, self-confidence and motivation to recognize and achieve their full potential.
March is National Reading Month. Help make a difference in the life of a struggling student by purchasing a special Charity in Bloom arrangement from Winston Flowers and supporting the work of Boston Partners. Winston Flowers is proud to contribute 20% of the retail price from each Charity In Bloom design to Boston Partners in Education.To see all the Charity in Bloom arrangements, and to order, log on to www.winstonflowers.com.
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Monday, March 21, 10:30 am – 12:00 noon – Water: When is Enough Not Enough?
Massachusetts is blessed with relatively abundant precipitation (an average of 45 inches each year) leading many residents to the erroneous belief that there’s plenty of “surplus” water available for human consumption at any time and for any purpose. Russ Cohen of the Mass. Department of Ecological Restoration clues us in to why our water resources can at times be insufficient to support our aquatic ecosystem, how human activities – both historically and today – adversely affected our river and stream systems, and what potential solutions are available to mitigate these impacts. This event on Monday, March 21, the March meeting of The Garden Club of the Back Bay, is co-sponsored by the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University, the Boston Junior League Garden Club, the New England Wild Flower Society, and the Wellesley College Friends of Horticulture. Garden Club members will receive a written notice of this meeting, along with car pool information to the Wellesley College Botanic Garden, where the event will take place. The meeting, however, is also open to the public for a small fee ($10 if a member of the Arnold Arboretum, NEWFS or WCFH, $15 if a non-member). Registration may be accomplished at http://www.wellesley.edu/WCFH.
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Tuesday, March 8, 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm – Taste of the South End
The AIDS Action Committee of Massachusetts will hold the Taste of the South End on Tuesday, March 8, at the Boston Center for the Arts Cyclorama Building, 539 Tremont Street in Boston, featuring unlimited sampling of the South End’s finest fare, wine, beer and cocktails, raffle prizes and silent auction, plus live cooking demonstrations with renowned chefs. A VIP room sponsored by Boston Magazine will feature gift bags and special cocktails, plus early entry to the Grand Tasting. Buy tickets at www.aac.org/taste. $95 per ticket, $150 per VIP ticket.
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Saturday, April 2, 9:30 am – 4:00 pm – Creative Flower Photography
Unfulfilled by your flower photographs? Discover your artistic side in this Saturday, April 2 one-day, hands-on workshop at Tower Hill Botanic Garden, 11 French Drive, Boylston, Massachusetts with fine-art photographer Joel Shore of MetWest Gallery. Learn how lighting and composition improves your photos, experiment with iridescent glass and reflections, explore how to get closer to your subject, and discover why seeing less lets you see so much more. Do you have flower photos you love, or ones that disappointed? Bring them in!
A digital single lens reflex (DSLR) camera and tripod are required. A macro lens is strongly recommended. A cable or wireless shutter release is preferred, but your camera’s self-timer will suffice. Point-and-shoot cameras are not recommended unless they allow you to set both the shutter speed and aperture manually. We plan to have a variety of Lensbaby lenses in Canon and Nikon mounts available.
This is an all-day ( 9:30 – 4:30) workshop. For lunch, we recommend Tower Hill Botanic Garden’s own Twigs Café. Alternatively, you can bring your own lunch. The closest fast-food establishment is in Clinton, a 14-mile round-trip drive. Workshop price is $80 for THBG members, $90 for non-members. To register (and this class fills quickly – a February session was sold out before The Garden Club of the Back Bay web site even had a chance to publicize it!) log on to www.towerhillbg.org.
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Monday, March 21, 6:00 pm – 7:30 pm – Growing a Garden City
So perhaps you’ve never heard of Jeremy Smith or his lovely book Growing a Garden City. You have, however, probably heard of Jane Goodall–she of the chimps and her eponymous Institute that focuses on sustainability education around the world. It turns out that Jane Goodall has heard of Jeremy Smith and, in fact, liked his book so much that she had the following to say about it: “I love this book. It proves that every one of us, and every patch of soil, can make a difference. The way we connect with nature, with our food, and with each other can change the world.â€
Not too shabby, huh? Growing a Garden City describes the efforts of regular folks in Missoula, Montana to use local agriculture to not only make their town more sustainable but also more of a true community.
Given that many people in and around Boston are undertaking similar efforts, Slow Food Boston is delighted to have the opportunity to host Jeremy on Monday March 21st at Voltage Coffee & Art in Kendall Square. The program will be more lecture than reading as Jeremy provides practical advice from the book and his experiences about how all of us can follow in Missoula’s footsteps. Several folks from The Food Project will also be joining us to discuss their efforts here in Boston. The event will begin at 6PM and run for approximately 90 minutes. The cost will be $5, paid in advance please, by logging on to www.slowfoodboston.com/events, where you will also find directions to Voltage.
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Saturday, March 5, 2:00 pm – Vanishing of the Bees
We’ve already mentioned the Insect Planet: Family Festival at Harvard Museum of Natural History, taking place this Saturday, March 5, from 9 – 5 at Harvard’s Museum of Natural History (see www.hmnh.harvard.edu for a complete run down of events), but we’ve just learned that a screening of the documentary Vanishing of the Bees, a documentary examining the mysterious disappearance of honeybees across the planet, has been added to the day’s activities. Filmed spanning the US, in Europe, Australia and Asia, it examines the alarming phenomena known as Colony Collapse Disorder, and the greater meaning it holds about the relationship between mankind and mother earth. The film is narrated by Ellen Page and is for adults and children ages 12 and older. See more information about the film at www.vanishingbees.com. The screening is free with museum admission, and since admission to the museum is free all this coming weekend for Bank of America’s Museums on Us program – that means free to any Bank of America credit or debit card holder, about half of everyone in Massachusetts, this is a very sweet deal. See more about the Bank of America program at http://museums.bankofamerica.com.
