Daily Archives: November 17, 2011

Holiday Wreaths 2011 – Why You Should Order Early

by

The Garden Club of the Back Bay’s wreaths are becoming legendary.  For sheer beauty, freshness, and innovative decorations, these wreaths are holiday masterpieces.  Our past customers know this, and when the annual order forms are mailed, they are returned within days.  Last season we had so many orders for fully decorated wreaths, we had to cut off accepting new orders before the end of November, and our volunteer decorators still felt a bit overwhelmed during wreath making days.  So we made a few changes this year.  First, we did not advertise in our local newspapers, much as we love them and like to support our local businesses, especially those which give us such great coverage during the year.  Next, we are not planning to send out second notices, which we have always done prior years.  In an additional attempt to better manage our numbers, we instituted a $50 surcharge for matched sets of three or more fully decorated wreaths.  Matched sets are the most difficult to do, and we are happy to coordinate sets with matching ribbons and bow placement, as long as they need not be identical.  Our goal is to create 225 fully decorated wreaths December 5 – 8, along with our lovely plain wreaths and wreaths with bows, and no more.  As of today, we have orders for more than 115 fully decorated wreaths, and the window is closing.  Don’t be left out.  You may click on to http://www.gardenclubbackbay.org/products-page/ for an order form.

Saturday, December 3, 1:30 pm – 3:30 pm – Flora Novae Angliae

by

The New England Wild Flower Society hosts a lecture and book signing with Arthur Haines at Garden in the Woods on Saturday, December 3, from 1:30 – 3:30.  Illustrators Elizabeth Farnsworth and Gordon Morrison will also attend. New England Wild Flower Society is thrilled to announce that after nine years of field, herbarium, and literature study Flora Novae Angliae, a Manual for the Identification of Native and Naturalized Higher Vascular Plants of New England, has been published by Yale University Press.

This 1,008 page book is the definitive publication for the study and identification of the plants of New England. Join the author for a discussion of the underlying philosophies, a look at some of the research and novel finds on which the manual was written, and discussion of the many collaborators (and their exciting finds) who helped make the book possible. The lecture will present fascinating botanical information pertinent to each state in New England.

This partly illustrated work presents the latest in nomenclatural, taxonomic, and distribution information for New England’s tracheophytes (i.e., higher vascular plants). The manual makes a departure from its predecessors in several respects. First, well-supported information was incorporated into the text, regardless of how unpopular it may have been viewed. Second, many thousands of herbarium specimens were reviewed to verify not only recent collections but the early ones as well. Third, identification keys were written, where possible, with focus on characteristics that do not display substantial phenotypic (i.e., environmental) variation. And fourth, all hybrid plants that could be verified as part of the New England flora were included (rather than just the well-known or named ones). These underlying philosophies have contributed to building a floristic manual with many substantial changes from earlier works covering the region.

Arthur Haines stated, “The initial view of this manual may be one of greater complexity, but the goal was simply to write a manual that reflected, as accurately as plant taxonomists understood, our best understanding of the species growing on the New England landscape.”  After the lecture, the author will be joined by the two illustrators, Elizabeth Farnsworth and Gordon Morrison, for a book signing in the Garden Shop at Garden in the Woods.  Please RSVP if you plan to attend the December 3 lecture by calling the registrar at 508-877-7630, ext 3303.