Kathi Gariepy of the Massachusetts Master Gardener Association will speak at Elm Bank in Wellesley on Thursday, May 10, beginning at 7 pm, as part of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society’s ongoing Thursday night series. Her topic? The Dirt on Dirt. Enough said. Register for this free event on line at www.masshort.org. Image from River of Love Urban Farmstead.
The Andover Garden Club presents the 2012 House & Garden Tour of the Jeduthan Abbot House on Saturday, May 19 from 10 – 3, and Sunday, May 20, from 11 – 3. The Jeduthan Abbott House is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, with an award winning garden and treasured American antiques. Admission is $20, and tickets may be purchased in advance by calling Dana McKay at 978-475-4451.
The yearly Perennial Plant Symposium is the only annual symposium devoted entirely to perennials. It is also the oldest with the first symposium presented in 1983. The location changes each year. Enjoy learning about and observing perennials, gardens, and production facilities all across the USA and Canada. This summer the annual meeting of the Perennial Plant Association takes place in Boston, Massachusetts. The conference includes optional tours before and after the symposium, trips to public and private gardens, a trade show, and retail, grower, or designer’s talks and tours. Selected highlights include:
July 4th: Optional walking horticultural tour of Boston, historical tour by bus of Boston, Lexington and Concord, and fireworks cruise
July 5th: Public Day Seminar Speakers
Julie Merservy: Home Outside – Creating the Landscape You Love
Debra Knape: Good Enough To Eat – Designing Edible Landscapes
David Culp:Â Best of Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow
Adrian Bloom:  Bloom’s Best Perennials and Grasses
Roger Swain: Ace of Shovels: Finding the Perfect Garden Tool
Laura Deeter: Bringing Your Perennials Up Right
July 6th: Eleven fascinating presentations featuring growers, landscape designers, and retailers, plus Keynote by Julie Merservy: Hearing the Stream With Open Eyes – The Evolution of a Designer
July 7th: Morning Bench to Border Tours of Cavicchio Greenhouses, Stonegate Gardens, Russell’s Garden Center, Garden in the Woods, Weston Nursery, and Tower Hill Botanic Garden.
Afternoon Divine by Design Garden Tours of four private gardens, Elm Bank (Massachusetts Horticultural Society), Weston Nursery, and Tower Hill Botanic Garden.
July 8th – Trade Show and Sixteen Lectures on topics ranging from Biological Controls to New and Upcoming Coreopsis Cultivars to Container Gardening.
July 9 – Optional Tour to garden centers and Newport gardens
July 10 – Option Tour: Journey to the Edge! The Maine Event. Visit five wholesale and retail growers in New Hampshire and Maine, and experience a lobster bake at the Coastal Maine Botanic Garden.
Lectures, reception and the trade show will take place at the Boston Park Plaza Hotel, 50 Park Plaza at Arlington Street. The room rate is: $129 for Single or $129 for Double. Non Perennial Plant Association members are invited to register for the entire conference at non-member rates, or just for the public day on July 5th. Registration information will be available at www.perennialplant.org. This is a fabulous opportunity for our Boston area gardening community to participate in one of the nation’s premier horticultural events.
Visit the Acton Center Common on Saturday, May 19, from 9 – 1, and support the Acton Garden Club’s Annual Plant Sale. Over 2,000 plants will be available – annuals, shrubs, herbs, choice rare plants, ground covers, succulents, vegetables, water-wise plants, and hundreds of locally grown perennials.
Quick: what’s the difference between ‘Sungold’ and ‘Black Cherry’ cherry tomatoes? ‘San Marzano’ and ‘Martino’s Roma’ paste tomatoes? ‘Red Brandywine’ and ‘Mortgage Lifter’ beefsteak varieties? And just exact what kind of tomato is a ‘Missouri Pink Love Apple’, ‘Orange Flesh Purple Smudge’, and ‘Pink Ping Pong’? You’ll have the opportunity to find out the answers to those questions – and to purchase those varieties of tomatoes – on Sunday, May 20 from 9:00 – 3:30 when one of the major horticultural events of the year will be held in MetroWest Boston’s back yard.
The Massachusetts Horticultural Society hosts the Society Row Plant Sale at Elm Bank. Again this year, the Society Row sale is joined by The Great Tomato Celebration , which is hosted jointly by Mass Hort and White Flower Farm of Litchfield, Connecticut. ‘Society Row’ isn’t about high society. Rather, the name refers to the thirteen plant societies that come together for the annual event. These societies, together with a group of specialty nurseries, offer an extraordinary array of high-quality plants for your garden. Among the groups that will be represented are the Hosta Society, Lilac Society, Begonia Society, Rhododendron Society, Miniature Plant Society, Daylily Society, and the Herb Society. Collectively, they’ll offer thousands of plants grown by members; many of them unusual cultivars. The Massachusetts Horticultural Society will also sell perennials and annuals grown in its own greenhouses.
Many of the local chapters of plant specialist societies will continue to offer their own plant varieties including unusual and popular cultivars that Society Row has provided for more than 75 years.
Vendors from around New England will also be selling anything you can think of to help you plant your garden at home including:
– A variety of pots, containers and raised bedding
– Seeds, seedlings and young plants
– Fruits, vegetables, and flowers for planting
– Garden sculpture
– Garden and patio furniture
– Tools and Clothing
– Horticultural vendors: landscape designers, arborists, landscapers
Mass Hort has planned a full day of lectures, children’s’ activities, food vendors, and fun for the whole family. For more information, visit www.masshort.org.
Special members’ hours: 8:00 -9:00 am
Open to the public: 9:00 am – 3:30pm
The Friends of the Public Garden will celebrate Mother’s Day with Boston-area families during its annual Duckling Day parade on Sunday May 13th. Registration will begin at 10:30am and the parade will begin at noon.
Based on the children’s classic Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey, Duckling Day is an annual event where children and their families retrace the steps of the beloved characters Mr. and Mrs. Mallard and their family of eight ducklings. The parade will begin at the Boston Common on the corner of Beacon and Park Street. Children will parade through Beacon Hill dressed like characters from the story and end in the Public Garden near the famous duckling sculptures.
Prior to the parade there will be plenty of family entertainment including a face painter, balloon artist and a magician. Mayor Menino will greet families at the end of the parade and actors from the Wheelock Family Theater will do a dramatic reading from the book.
The registration fee is $35 per family in advance and $40 per family the day of the event. Each family that registers will receive a special goodie bag filled with Duckling Day toys and treats. For more information visit www.friendsofthepublicgarden.org. Photo courtesy of www.universalhub.com – don’t you just love the feathers?
It’s time to plant! Come get the information and inspiration you need to garden in whatever space you have! Get advice for window boxes, container gardens, street-side tree gardens, small yards, patios and roof decks. Garden Club of the Back Bay member Janine Mudge-Mullen of City Garden Ideas has put together a program on Saturday, May 5, from 10 – 12 at First Church in Boston, 66 Marlborough Street.
Featured presenters are:
Ellen Abdow, Owner of Perennial Gardens. Ellen will create a container garden before our eyes with step-by-step instructions and offer stories about the hottest trends in gardening.
Tom Smarr, The Garden Concierge and former Superintendent of Horticulture at the Rose Kennedy Greenway. Tom will offer an overview of gardening basics including tools and soil plus tips to choosing hardy plants for sun and shade. He’ll also talk about the boom in verticulture, a new trend focused on growing plants on the vertical.
Light refreshments begin at 9:30am. Great handouts, door prizes and more! Questions? Contact Janine at 617-267-6500 or email her at janine@citygardenideas.com.
The Boston Public Works will collect and compost Boston residents’ yard waste during a four week collection period, April 30 – May 25, on your recycling day (Back Bay, that means Mondays!) Place leaves in large paper leaf bags or open barrels marked “yard waste.” For free “yard waste” stickers, call 617-635-4500 – up to two stickers available per household. Cut branches to 3 foot maximum diameter, and tie branches with string. Place leaves and yard waste at the curb by 7:00 am on your recycling day.
Join The Emerald Necklace Conservancy on Sunday, May 6, from 1 – 2:30 pm, for a walk with Mr. Olmsted through the Back Bay Fens. This free guided tour will beginning at the Shattuck Visitor Center. For a map and complete information, visit www.emeraldnecklace.org.
The Beatrix Farrand Garden Association is sponsoring a “Folk to Fork” Garden Party and concert to benefit gardening teens on Sunday, April 29, from 1 – 3, rain or shine, at the Beatrix Farrand Garden at Bellefield, 4097 Albany Post Road in Hyde Park, New York. Enjoy local foods, The Bandana Splits (a retro style female vocal group), singer-songwriter Benji Cossa, and a Garden Boutique by the Roosevelt-Vanderbilt Historical Association. Tickets must be purchased in advance and are available at http://beatrixfarrandgarden.org/events.html. You may also call 845-554-7482 for more information. The mission of the Beatrix Farrand Garden Association is to preserve the Beatrix Farrand Garden at Bellefield and to educate the public about Farrand’s important design legacy. This event supports a series of garden workshops at the Farrand Garden for the Green Teen Community Garden Program of Cornell Cooperative Extension of Dutchess County. It’s a bit of a hike for us Bostonians, but if you’re in the area, try to attend.
