Daily Archives: March 15, 2015

Tuesday, March 24, 6:00 pm – Written in Stone: Reading Earth’s Library of Planetary History

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Andrew H. Knoll, Fisher Professor of Natural History, Departments of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, and Earth and Planetary Sciences, Harvard University, will speak on Tuesday, March 24 beginning at 6 pm at the Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford Street in Cambridge, on Written in Stone: Reading Earth’s Library of Planetary History.

We live on a mature planet shaped by four billion years of evolution and environmental change. But what was Earth like in its youth and adolescence? To find out, Andrew Knoll travels to remote locations in search of rocks that reveal the deep history of Earth and the life it supports. Focusing on 600–800 million-year-old rocks exposed on the Arctic island of Spitsbergen, Knoll will discuss the importance of documenting and analyzing ancient sedimentary rocks, highlighting what they can tell us about the evolution of the earliest living organisms and the planet’s early environmental transitions.

The free Evolution Matters Lecture Series is supported by a generous gift from Drs. Herman and Joan Suit.  For more information visit http://hmnh.harvard.edu/event/evolution-matters-lecture-series-written-stone-%E2%80%93-reading-earths-library-planetary-history.

Wednesday, April 1, 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm – Native Meadows: Let’s Get Real

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Native meadows are increasingly popular, particularly as alternatives to lawn, yet few types of landscapes are more misunderstood. Inadequate planning and use of poorly adapted plants commonly lead to failure. Better results can be achieved when the patterns and processes of naturally occurring meadows are incorporated into all aspects of design, installation, and management. More than one-year wonders, meadow plantings modeled on actual meadow communities provide long-term, easily managed landscapes that harbor a myriad of birds and butterflies, and provide color and texture throughout the year.

Join native meadow expert Larry Weaner on Wednesday, April 1 at 7 pm at the Cambridge Public Library, 449 Broadway in Cambridge, to learn concrete, practical ways of creating dynamic and stunning long-lived meadows. Case studies of both multi-acre projects and small-scale residential meadows will be shown.

Larry Weaner has been creating native landscapes since 1977. His firm has a national reputation for combining ecological restoration with garden design traditions. His projects have received numerous awards and been included on tours given by the American Horticultural Society, The Cultural Landscape Foundation, and many other organizations. He is the founder of New Directions in the American Landscape, a conference series with a national following that has run for more than two decades. This free program is sponsored by Grow Native Massachusetts.