Daily Archives: February 6, 2012

Thursday, September 27 – Sunday, September 30 – The Garden Conservancy Preservation Weekend 2012

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SAVE THE DATE for the next Garden Conservancy Preservation Weekend conference for September 27 – 30, 2012, at the Chicago Botanic Garden in Glencoe, Illinois.

Preservation Weekend 2012 is devoted to professional development. It will consist of workshops and presentations by public garden professionals, Garden Conservancy staff, and volunteers and staff from gardens with which the Garden Conservancy is working. There will also be tours of some local gardens, including the Chicago Botanic Garden and Millennium Park. Pearl Fryar will give the keynote address. Since the early 1980s, Pearl Fryar has been creating fantastic topiary at his garden in Bishopville, South Carolina. Living sculptures, Pearl’s topiary are astounding feats of artistry and horticulture. Many of the plants in Pearl’s garden were rescued from the compost pile at local nurseries. With Pearl’s patience and skilled hands, these “throw aways” have thrived and have been transformed into wonderful abstract shapes. Pearl Fryar and his garden are now internationally recognized and have been the subject of numerous newspaper and magazine articles, television shows, and even a documentary, A Man Named Pearl. Today, the Pearl Fryar Topiary Garden draws visitors from around the globe.

As in the previous Garden Conservancy Preservation Weekends, the Conservancy hopes to have representatives from each of its project gardens as well as other gardens and organizations dedicated to garden preservation across the country.  For more information, visit www.gardenconservancy.org, or email info@gardenconservancy.org and ask to be put on the mailing list when registration material is prepared.

Thursday, February 9, 6:00 pm – Esplanade 2020 Unveiled

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The Esplanade Association (TEA) will hold a public meeting—“Esplanade 2020 Unveiled”—on Thursday, February 9, at 6:00 p.m. in the Rabb Auditorium of the Boston Public Library Central Branch to present a community vision for the Charles River Esplanade. An initiative of The Esplanade Association, Esplanade 2020 has brought together community members, public officials, and design professionals to craft a shared vision for the future of the Esplanade. The meeting will provide the public with an opportunity to hear and comment on the recommendations set forth in Esplanade 2020.

As part of the park’s centennial in 2010, TEA assembled a team of leading Boston design and planning specialists, the Esplanade 2020 Committee, to take a fresh look at every element of the park. Working closely with the Department of Conservation and Recreation, park users, and major stakeholders, this group of volunteers spent more than a year crafting a vision for the Esplanade. The committee held more than a dozen meetings with the general public and a variety of stakeholders to gather input, which helped the committee establish guiding principles, create a vision statement, and define objectives.

Esplanade 2020 illustrates ways in which these core principles, consistently applied, can transform Boston’s waterside park into one of the world’s great urban outdoor spaces.

The objectives of Esplanade 2020 are to present recommendations for the continued restoration and enhancement of the Esplanade for the next 100 years. Some ideas are big and ambitious, others more readily implemented. These ideas can provide context for very specific restoration projects and can serve as an inspiration and as a road map for future improvements on the Esplanade.

For more information on the project, please visit www.esplanadeassociation.org. To offer your thoughts, please send an e-mail to info@esplanadeassociation.org (please put “Esplanade 2020 Unveiled” in the subject line) or write to The Esplanade Association, Attn: Esplanade 2020, 376 Boylston Street, Boston, MA 02116.