Boston Flora

Month: September 2014

  • Sunday, September 28, 11:00 am – 3:00 pm – Newton Community Farm Fall Festival

    Join The Newton Community Farm on Sunday, September 28 for this popular annual event! Enjoy live music, farm tours, children’s activities, farm produce, baked goods, delicious food, and more.

    Time: 11 am to 3 pm
    Cost: free admission, purchase tickets at entrance for food and some activities

    NEW THIS YEAR:
    Pie Judging Contest:
    Bake your best apple pie and enter it in our first pie judging contest. Pies must be delivered to the farm between 9am-10am on the day of the event. Judging will take place at 1:30pm by a small group of local “celebrity” judges. After pies are judged they will placed on sale at the bake sale.
    Prized Vegetable Contest:

    Enter a tomato, an eggplant, and/or a squash grown in your home garden. Vegetables will be judged by Farmer Greg and a few other farm “experts”. Vegetables must be brought to the farm between 9am-10am on the day of the event. Vegetables and ribbons can be picked up at the end of the event.
    Please direct any questions to Mara at admin@newtoncommunityfarm.org.

  • Thursday, October 9, 11:30 am – 1:00 pm – Fresh From the Pumpkin Patch

    Stonewall Kitchen in York, Maine has a varied schedule of cooking classes, but this one caught our eye.  Patty Roche, Chef Instructor, will conduct Fresh From the Pumpkin Patch on Thursday, October 9 from 11:30 – 1.  Her great ideas for those beautiful pumpkins we see this time of year include

    Spiced Pumpkin, Goat Cheese and Arugula Salad in a Red Wine Vinaigrette
    Chicken Pot Pie Served in a Sugar Pumpkin with a Flakey Puff Pastry Crust
    Butternut Squash Mac & Cheese with Crispy Sage Leaves
    Candied Ginger Pumpkin Crème Brûlée

    Class cost is $50, and you may register in advance by calling 1-877-899-8363 from 8 – 5, Monday through Friday.

  • Tuesday, October 7, 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm – Ecologies in Flux: The Role of Exotic Plants in Urban and Suburban Landscapes

    Most people live in environments that have been drastically altered by humans. While we are well aware of the built structures (houses, roads, stores) in our communities, we are less aware of the organisms that co-inhabit the surrounding landscapes.

    In this dialogue, three prominent botanists will discuss the ecological impacts of exotic plants in both urban and suburban communities. The panelists will present different viewpoints on the various roles that plants play in these altered ecosystems and how human values and aesthetics influence biodiversity.

    Panelists: Peter Del Tredici, PhD, Senior Research Scientist, Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University; John Silander, Director, Invasive Plant Atlas of New England; Bryan Connolly, PhD, Former State Botanist, Massachusetts Natural Heritage Endangered Species Program and now Assistant Professor, Biology Department, Framingham State University.

    Moderator: William (Ned) Friedman, Director, Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University. $10 (free for Arboretum members). The talk will take place Tuesday, October 7 beginning at 7 pm at the Arnold Arboretum, 125 Arborway in Jamaica Plain. Call 617-384-5277, or email adulted@arnarb.harvard.edu.

  • Saturday, October 4, 3:00 pm – 6:00 pm- Places, Landscapes, and Travel Photography Workshop

    This October 4 workshop is for the person who wants to take exceptional photographs of their holidays and capture those amazing landscapes you only see in magazines or on postcards. Learning the difference between a happy-snap and a photograph, you will learn to use the manual settings on your camera to ensure that you never miss capturing one of those special holiday moments or captivating sunsets, and we will make sure you have a photograph you will treasure forever.

    This three-hour specialized class, starting at 3 pm, includes correct use of light and color, composition and framing of your image, identifying the key focus in your landscape, balancing your image, finding the right angle and perspective and ensuring that the photograph you take tells the story of your travels to everyone who looks at it.

    A tripod is highly recommended for this workshop. Remember Forever is one of the leading companies in the world for landscape and travel photography.

    Location: corner of Joy and Beacon Street on the Boston Commons. Fee is normally $95, maximum 15 in group, but subject to availability, use discount code camera50 on www.rememberforever.co under book now- usa workshops.

  • Thursday, October 2, 6:00 pm – Saving Lemurs from Extinction

    Primatologist and MacArthur Fellow Patricia Chapple Wright, Professor of Anthropology at Stony Brook University, and recipient of the 2014 Indianapolis Prize for her extraordinary contributions to conservation efforts, will discuss her work protecting the lemurs and ecosystems of Madagascar. Wright will share her experiences engaging the Malagasy government, community stakeholders, and scientists in a team effort to integrate conservation with development projects, including one collaboration that led to the establishment of Ranomafana National Park, a World Heritage Site in southern Madagascar. This Harvard Museum of Natural History event is free and open to the public.  The Thursday, October 2 lecture will begin at 6 pm in the Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford St.  Presented in collaboration with the Indianapolis Prize. Free event parking available in the 52 Oxford Street Garage.

  • Friday, October 3, 6:45 pm – A Biogeographic Perspective on the Fern Genus Polystichum

    The New England Botanical Club (NEBC), founded in 1895, is a non-profit organization that promotes the study of plants of North America, especially the flora of New England and adjacent areas. The Club publishes the journal Rhodora, holds monthly meetings during the academic year (usually at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts), maintains an herbarium of more than 253,000 sheets, has a small library, and annually grants a graduate student research award and Fernald publication award.

    The New England Botanical Club will hold its October meeting beginning at 6:45 on Friday, October 3 in the Haller Lecture Hall, Room 102, found inside the door to the Harvard Museum of Natural History entrance at 24 Oxford Street, Cambridge.  The speaker will be Dr. David S. Barrington, Professor of Plant Biology, Director of the Pringle Herbarium at University of Vermont, speaking on A Biogreographic Perspective on the Fern Genus Polystichum.  The meeting is open to the public.  For more information you may email neystersmith@bentley.edu.

     

  • Friday, October 10 – Sunday, October 12, 9:00 am – 3:30 pm – Garden Sculpture Workshop with DJ Garrity

    Create a unique marble sculpture for the garden, home, or gallery, in this three day Tower Hill Botanic Garden workshop, to be held Friday – Sunday, October 10 – 12, from 9 am – 3:30 pm at Tower Hill Botanic Garden, 11 French Drive, Boylston, Massachusetts.  Award winning sculptor and author DJ Garrity has designed this class for both the novice and experienced student.  The fee includes marble, and a suggested tool list will be provided.  $475 for Tower Hill Members, $525 for nonmembers.  Register on line by clicking HERE.

  • Saturday, September 27, 10:00 am – 4:00 pm, and Sunday, September 28, 11:00 am – 4:00 pm – 2014 Craft Festival

    Fruitlands Museum, 102 Prospect Hill Road in Harvard, is teaming up with the Worcester Center for Crafts for the fourth year to bring you a juried craft festival, Saturday and Sunday, September 26 and 27. Forty of the most talented artists in New England will be selling their work under the tent at Fruitlands. Mark your calendar now and get ready to do some Christmas shopping in September!

     

  • Saturday, September 27, 4:30 pm – 7:00 pm – Garden Dialogues: The Clark, New Landscape

    On September 27th, get exclusive access to a celebrated landscape in Massachusetts and hear directly from the designers and the clients about their collaborative process.

    How do clients and designers work together? What makes for a great, enduring collaboration? Garden Dialogues provides unique opportunities for small groups to visit some of today’s most beautiful gardens created by some of the most accomplished designers currently in practice.

    The Clark, New Landscape, will be presented by the Cultural Landscape Foundation on Saturday, September 27, from 4:30 – 7 in Williamstown, and a limited number of tickets are still available. Speakers will be Gary Hilderbrand, Reed Hilderbrand LLC, with Richard Rand, Senior Curator at The Clark and Matt Noyes, Grounds Manager at The Clark.

    The new landscape and building complex at Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, part of a 140-acre campus in the Berkshire Mountains, is one of 2014s most anticipated and highly praised projects. Fourteen years in the making, the ambitious expansion campaign led by architect Tadao Ando and landscape architects Reed Hilderbrand matches the museum’s mission to facilitate the interrelationship of art and nature. The institute, a respected art museum and center for research and higher education originally chartered in 1950 and built around the Clark family’s private collection, has grown to national stature and features European and American paintings, sculpture, prints, drawings, photographs, and decorative arts from the Renaissance to the early twentieth century.

    The new Clark Art Institute landscape, which opened to the public on July 4, 2014, includes four miles of new walking trails, five new pedestrian bridges, and more than a thousand new trees. The focal point of the landscape is a set of tiered reflecting pools. Conceived by Ando and designed Reed Hilderbrand, the reflecting pools orchestrate a unified composition among the diverse architectural characters of the Institute’s family of buildings and the sweeping pastoral landscape beyond.  $125.  Register at http://tclf.org/event/2014-garden-dialogues-massachusetts.

  • Sunday, October 5, 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm – Handmade for the Garden

    Author Susan Guagliumi will highlight ways to enhance your outdoor space with DIY tools, pots, embellishments and more, using easy-to-find, inexpensive and repurposed materials. Gardeners of all skill levels will discover artful ways to beautify and personalize their gardens with handmade objects. Guagliumi’s book, Handmade for the Garden, will be available for purchase at this Tower Hill Botanic Garden event, to be held Sunday, October 5 from 1 – 2. Cost: Included with Admission. Free for members. For information call 508-869-6111. (Note: this program was postponed from August due to weather.)