Boston Flora

Month: November 2013

  • Saturday, November 16, 7:00 pm – 11:00 pm – A Park for All Seasons Monte Carlo Evening

    The Friends of Christopher Columbus Park will hold its 10th annual fund raiser A Park for All Seasons Monte Carlo Evening on Saturday, November 16 at the Fairmont Battery Wharf Hotel from 7 – 11.  The entire complex of function rooms will be the setting for a memorable evening of dancing, dining and games of chance.  Patron Spirits, Al Dente Restaurant, Boston Pushcart, Benevento’s. and CL Waterfront Properties LLC headline the sponsor list.  The evening will start with a reception from 7 – 8 featuring passed hors d’oeuvre, live background music, a very special silent auction, and a short speaking program about the Park.  From 8 – 11, the Ballroom doors will open and gaming will begin with Roulette, Blackjack, Craps. and Texas Hold ’em Poker.  Guests will enjoy a series of fine dining Chefs’ offerings as well as dancing under the stars in the Old North Skylight Room with the Luke Marantz quintet.  Complimentary Patron signature drinks will be offered throughout the evening in addition to the full bar.  Tickets are available for purchase at www.foccp.org for $135.

    http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/236x/9c/7f/42/9c7f4299595ae2ef3a20918e60a9f51d.jpg

  • Wednesday, November 13, 6:00 pm – The Castle of Mey

    The British Society invites you to another evening of “Britishness”.  On Wednesday, November 13, hear The Castle of Mey & Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother with Lt. Col. and Mrs. James Murray.  The presentation will take place at The Chilton Club, 152 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, (entrance on Dartmouth Street) by courtesy of Hope Baker.  The Cocktail Reception begins at 6 pm, the presentation at 6:30, and an optional dinner with the speaker begins at 7:30.  Reception and presentation: $50; with optional dinner: $150.  If you choose the reception, presentation and seating at the speaker’s table: $200.  Respond no later than November 8 at www.TheBritishSociety.org/events/.  Valet parking at the door, $20 payable upon arrival.  Please note The Chilton Club does not permit the use of cellular telephones and requires business attire.  Please respect these rules.

    http://www.castleofmey.org.uk/clientimages/meygardens.jpg

  • Holiday Wreaths – A Giving Opportunity

    Holiday Wreaths – A Giving Opportunity

    For years we have emphasized that Garden Club of the Back Bay wreaths make terrific holiday presents.  $30 will buy a fresh balsam standard size wreath with one of our gorgeous bows – wouldn’t your book group friends, your hairdresser and nail technician, the Girl Scout leader, or next door neighbor like one?  A fully decorated standard wreath like the one below is a bargain at $75.  Fulfill some of your holiday obligations right now.  A beautiful gift card is attached saying the wreath was created expressly for the recipient by The Garden Club of the Back Bay at your request.  The order form may be found by clicking here.

    IMG_0285

  • Thursday, November 7, 10:00 am – 2:00 pm – A Rich Spot of Earth: Garden Design Luncheon and Lecture

    Join Blithewold Mansion, Gardens and Arboretum for an illustrated talk by Peter J. Hatch on Thomas Jefferson’s Revolutionary Garden at Monticello, Virginia. The luncheon and presentation will be held at the Rhode Island Country Club, 150 Nayatt Road in Barrington, Rhode Island on Thursday, November 7, from 10 – 2. Members of Blithewold pay $75, non-members $85. Reserve by calling 401-253-2707, or email kwilson@blithewold.org.

    Peter is the former Director of Gardens & Grounds at Monticello, an award-winning author, and advisor to First Lady Michelle Obama on the White House kitchen garden.

    The talk will be followed by a delectable luncheon as well as a book signing.

    http://www.monticello.org/sites/default/files/uploaded-content-images/xRLlewellynPeterHatch-FACTS.jpg

  • Run Boston in 2014 for The Friends of the Public Garden

    Team Friends of the Public Garden has guaranteed entries for the 2014 Boston Marathon scheduled for April 21, 2014.  Athletes are required to raise a minimum of $6,000 to support the mission of the Friends to preserve, protect and enhance the Public Garden, the Boston Common and the Commonwealth Avenue Mall.  Don’t miss out on a chance to be part of this historic race.  Interested athletes should submit an application form as soon as possible.  The Friends of the Public garden will offer the following benefits to their athletes: Guaranteed Entry into the 2014 Boston Marathon, expert marathon training, individual fundraising website for each athlete on Crowdrise.com, ongoing fundraising support from Team Friends program staff, team clinics on fundraising tips, nutrition for marathoners and race day preparation, a Team Friends branded race day singlet and training shirt, and a pre-race pasta dinner.  For an application, or more information, visit www.friendsofthepublicgarden.org, or email TeamFriends@friendsofthepublicgarden.org.

    https://c676132.ssl.cf0.rackcdn.com/BAA10K2012-50a80ef125ce2.jpg?50d7b18813609

  • Tuesday, November 5, 7:00 pm – The Snail Darter and the Dam

    The realities of the darter’s case, author Zygmunt Plater asserts, have been consistently mischaracterized in politics and the media.  His book, The Snail Darter and the Dam,  offers a detailed account of the six-year crusade against a pork-barrel project that made no economic sense and was flawed from the start. In reality TVA’s project was designed for recreation and real estate development. And at the heart of the little group fighting the project in the courts and Congress were family farmers trying to save their homes and farms, most of which were to be resold in a corporate land development scheme. Plater’s gripping tale of citizens navigating the tangled corridors of national power stimulates important questions about our nation’s governance, and at last sets the snail darter’s record straight.

    Plater is professor of law and director of the Land & Environmental Law Program at Boston College Law School. He chaired the State of Alaska Oil Spill Commission’s Legal Research Task Force, is lead author of an environmental law casebook, and has participated in numerous citizen environmental initiatives.  He will appear at Porter Square Books, 25 White Street, Cambridge, on Tuesday, November 5, beginning at 7 pm. Telephone 617-491-2220 for more information.

    http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jXrzslNHrPQ/UcIIk9Qzb1I/AAAAAAAA_hE/w3sKxBgdBTk/s1600/plater.JPG

  • Tuesday, November 12, 7:30 pm – Engineering and Reverse-Engineering Insect Flight

    The next meeting of the Cambridge Entomological Club will be held on Tuesday, November 12 at 07:30 PM in in room 101 of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, 24 Oxford Street in Cambridge. Andrew Mountcastle and Sawyer Fuller will present a talk entitled Engineering and Reverse-Engineering Insect Flight.

    Flapping flight is one of the key innovations which make insects the most successful group of animals on the planet, and it has captivated engineers who wish to build micro air vehicles capable of similar performance. In this broad-ranging presentation, Drs. Mountcastle and Fuller will talk about their research on insect flight. Dr. Mountcastle will talk about insect wing form and function. Insect wings are flexible structures that bend and twist in ways that are actually adaptive for a variety of functional demands. He will show how wing flexibility enhances load-lifting and aerodynamic force production in bumblebees, and also helps mitigate collision damage in the wings of wasps and bumblebees.

    Dr. Fuller will talk about how these animals use their tiny, low resolution eyes to sense their motion and control flight, and how to build robots inspired by their control strategies. He will show how he and his colleagues control a Robobee (picture below,) an insect-sized flapping-wing flying vehicle the sized of a bumblebee, using a small number of visual sensors. He will also talk about how flies control their forward velocity using both vision and wind sensing because vision alone is too slow. This research approach is what Sawyer calls “cyclic biological robotics” – studying biology for robotic inspiration, using this robotics to bring up refined questions for biology, and repeating.

    The meeting is free and open to the public. Snacks will be provided and you are also welcome to join us at 6:00 PM for an informal pre-meeting dinner at Cambridge Common.

    http://www.secretsofthefed.com//srv/htdocs/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Robobee-Micro-Air-Vehicle-2-537x356.jpg

  • Thursday, November 7, 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm – The Hidden Forest

    We all know what the forest looks like. What very few of know are the hidden organisms that nourish, protect, infect and destroy the visible portions of our ecosystems. More than 90% of the world’s plants have fungal partners, without which the world would be a vastly different place. Fungi form an entire kingdom, more closely related to animals than to plants. Like us, they depend on plants for oxygen and carbohydrates. And, like us, they have a complicated relationship with the plant kingdom, acting sometimes as good gardeners and sometimes as destroyers. One lecture is not enough to tell you everything about this relationship but we promise that you’ll never see the forest in quite the same way again.  Come to Elm Bank, 900 Washington Street in Wellesley, on Thursday, November 7, from 7 – 8:30, and hear Susan Goldhor’s lecture for the Massachusetts Horticultural Society entitled The Hidden Forest.

    Susan Goldhor is a biologist who is the President of the Boston Mycological Club, the oldest such club in the nation. Her essays about fungi, which have focused on their roles in ecoystems, have been widely praised for their clarity and style, as well as for popularizing aspects of fungi that have generally been the province of specialists.  Register at http://events.r20.constantcontact.com/register/event?oeidk=a07e8clee75612ddf48&llr=kzaorjcab.

    http://hiddenforest.co.nz/fungi/class/images/image01.jpg

  • Saturday, November 9 and Sunday, November 10, 11:00 am – 4:00 pm – Seeds and Gourds: Botanical Art in Colored Pencil

    In this two-day Tower Hill Botanic Garden weekend workshop, late-fall seedpods and colorful gourds will be your inspiration as botanical artist / illustrator Helen Byers demonstrates how to draw and paint them using colored pencils. The class will take place Saturday and Sunday, November 9 and 10, from 11 – 4, and costs $90 for THBG members, $100 for nonmembers.

    Instruction will cover detailed drawing in layers, using regular and water-based colored pencils. You’ll be surprised by the luminous results! All levels welcome.  To register, call 508-869-6111, or visit www.towerhillbg.org.

    https://dnbweb1.blackbaud.com/OPXREPHIL/EventImage.asp?eid=46942

  • Wednesday, November 6, 6:00 pm – 7:00 pm – Hors D’Oeuvre Party at Whole Foods

    Small plates, tapas, piattini – whatever your pleasure, let’s take a new look at the old scene with the Massachusetts Horticultural Society on Wednesday, November 6, from 6 – 7 at the Whole Foods Market on River Street in Cambridge (340 River Street.) Small plates restaurants are all the rave, but they are also the beginning of many events, maybe your upcoming holiday party? Why can’t yours be the talk of the town? $15 for Mass Hort members, $20 for non-members. Sign up by contacting Lisa Kamer at 617-933-4943 or email her at lkamer@masshort.org.

    http://www.mybestaddressbook.com//srv/htdocs/wp-content/uploads/address/original/Address_9734_1.jpg