Boston Flora

Month: March 2015

  • Wednesday, March 18, 5:30 pm – 7:00 pm – Arthur Shurcliff

    The next lecture sponsored by the Massachusetts Historical Society will take place Wednesday, March 18, from 5:30 – 7, on Arthur Shurcliff. In 1928 Boston landscape architect Arthur A. Shurcliff began what became one of the most important examples of the American Colonial Revival landscape—Colonial Williamsburg, a project that stretched into the 1940s and included town and highway planning as well as residential and institutional gardens. A graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1894, Shurcliff immediately went back to school at Harvard University where his mentor, Charles Eliot, helped him piece together a program in the Art History Department, the Lawrence Scientific School and the Bussey Institute. Upon graduation with a second Bachelor of Science, he worked in Frederick Law Olmsted’s office for eight years, acquiring a broad and sophisticated knowledge of the profession. When he opened his practice in 1904, Shurcliff emphasized his expertise in town planning. Two decades later, when he was tapped to be Chief Landscape Architect at Colonial Williamsburg, he was a seasoned professional whose commissions included his Boston work, campus design, town planning, and a robust practice in private domestic design. How he utilized the skills he acquired over the years, and how his professional expertise intermingled with his avocational interests in history, craftsmanship, and design is the subject of Cushing’s biography—a story that inexorably sweeps him to his work in the restoration and recreation at Colonial Williamsburg.

    Elizabeth Hope Cushing, Ph.D., is the author of a newly published book about Boston landscape architect Arthur A. Shurcliff (1870–1957), based on her doctoral dissertation for the American and New England Studies program at Boston University. She is also a coauthor, with Keith N. Morgan and Roger Reed, of Community by Design, released in 2013. Cushing is a practicing landscape historian who consults, writes, and lectures on landscape matters. She has written cultural landscape history reports for the Taft Art Museum in Cincinnati, The National Park Service, the Department of Conservation and Recreation of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and other institutions and agencies. Her contributor credits include Pioneers of American Landscape Design (McGraw Hill Companies, 2000), Design with Culture: Claiming America’s Landscape Heritage (University of Virginia Press, 2005), Shaping the American Landscape (University of Virginia Press, 2009), and Drawing Toward Home (Historic New England, 2010). She has received a grant from the Gill Family Foundation to write a biography of Frederick Law Olmsted Jr., which she is currently researching.

    This series has been made possible by the generous underwriting of Stephen Stimson Associates Landscape Architects and is cosponsored by the Mount Auburn Cemetery and the Nichols House Museum.  $10 fee, (no charge for Fellows and Members of the MHS, Mount Auburn Cemetery and the Nichols House Museum) and pre-registration required at https://dnbweb1.blackbaud.com/OPXREPHIL/EventDetail.asp?cguid=76FBBAD5-59FC-442D-8347-A5AE40DBF561&eid=50860&sid=A801527F-4B9A-49B4-9B54-FCBE293D2EFE

  • Saturday, March 14, 8:30 am – 3:00 pm – 20th Annual Cape Cod Natural History Conference

    For 20 years, Wellfleet Bay has organized this full day conference featuring presenters from environmental organizations across Cape Cod, speaking on a diversity of natural history topics. This Saturday, March 14 conference, from 8:30 – 3, continues to be an engaging, exciting, and fun way to learn about local research projects, conservation efforts, and local environmental organizations. Please join us for our 20th annual event. This event is held at Cape Cod Community College’s Tilden Art Center. Detailed schedule of presentations may be found at http://www.massaudubon.org/get-outdoors/wildlife-sanctuaries/wellfleet-bay/news-events/20th-annual-cape-cod-natural-history-conference.  Bring a brown bag lunch, and to help cut down on waste bring a mug for coffee. Coffee and refreshments are provided. Walk-in registration is $25. Image from Cape Cod Museum of Natural History.

  • Monday, March 23, 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm – China, Biodiversity, and the Global Environment

    China boasts not only the largest percentage of the world’s population (19%) but also one of the Earth’s richest, most diverse floras. Yet its economic rise as an industrial nation and its population density, with the associated environmental degradation, put this biodiversity at risk. Add in climate change and it is a recipe for disaster. Professor Peter Raven, a leading botanist, advocate for the conservation of biodiversity, and one of the co-editors of The Flora of China, a joint Chinese-American census of all the plants of China, is uniquely qualified to assess the consequences of over-population, industrial pollution, economic inequalities, and natural resource exploitation in China—consequences not limited to that country but affecting the entire global environment. In this Director’s Lecture Series talk on Monday, March 23, from 7 – 8:30 at the Arnold Arboretum, he will consider what it means for humanity to lose thousands of species to extinction, many before they are known or described by scientists. He’ll present his thoughts on reversing environmental degradation in China and around the globe and what is required to move all people toward an ethic of conservation and securing sustainability. Free, but registration required at http://my.arboretum.harvard.edu/Info.aspx?EventID=1.

  • Friday, March 13, 12:20 pm – 1:10 pm – Conservation Hydropower

    The University of Massachusetts Amherst College of Natural Sciences announces the Department of Environmental Conservation Spring 2015 Seminar Series, to be held Fridays from 12:20 – 1:10 in Holdsworth Hall Room 105. On Friday, March 13, Joerg Hartmann will discuss Conservation Hydropower. For more information contact Brett Butler at bbutler@eco.umass.edu.

  • Saturdays, April 4, 11, 18, & 25, 9:30 am – 11:30 am – The Art of Botanical Drawing

    Explore the beauty and variety of plant forms using pencil, watercolor, and colored pencil with instructor Erica Beade. This four-week course, to be held on Saturdays from April 4 – 25, 9:30 – 11:30 at the Harvard Museum of Natural History in Cambridge, will introduce botanical drawing techniques through close observation and practice with contour, gesture, foreshortening, shading, and color. All skill levels are welcome. Fee is $95 for HMNH members, $110 for nonmembers. Advance registration required at http://reservations.hmsc.harvard.edu/Info.aspx?EventID=11.

  • Thursday, March 12, 5:30 pm – 8:00 pm – A Spin in the Park

    The Friends of the Public Garden is delighted to be partnering with the Boston Landmarks Commission (BLC) on an event that will kick-off their 40th anniversary year. Mayor Martin J. Walsh recently announced a series of free events scheduled throughout 2015 to celebrate the 40th anniversary of BLC. Titled BLC XL, this anniversary series will feature four seasonal programs celebrating Boston’s historic places and the progress made during the past four decades to protect and enhance the city’s unique identity.

    On March 12, 2015, please join us at the winter BLC XL program, “A Spin in the Park,” a free guided tour of the Boston Common. On this early-evening ramble, the Friends will present the colorful history of the Common, a designated Boston Landmark since 1977, and their ongoing efforts to restore and maintain it. BLC staff will reveal how the Common’s significant fences, statuary and fountains help define one of the city’s foundational places. This spin through the park will then take to the ice with skating at the Frog Pond, where rental skates will be made available to registered attendees at no cost along with a complimentary hot chocolate. Image from bostonfrogpond.com. Online registration is available here: blcxlwinter.eventbrite.com.

  • Wednesday, March 18, 12:30 pm – 3:30 pm – The Orchard Ecosystem

    Farmer and writer Michael Phillips (www.groworganicapples.com,) author of The Holistic Orchard, discusses his holistic approach: health-guilding orchard practices that bring about wholesome fruit.  A healthy orchard ecosystem includes unerstanding soil biology, boosting tree immunity with deep nutrition, timing maintenance tasks relative to tree growth cycles, approaching insect pest situations from a life cycle standpoint, and abetting biodiversity.  Growing tree fruits and berries is something that anyone with a passionate desire can do, given wise guidance and a personal commitment to observe the teachings of the trees.  This Wellesley College Botanic Garden lunch and lecture will be held Wednesday, March 18, from 12:30 – 3:30, and the fee is $45 from Friends of WCBG, $60 for nonmembers (includes lunch.) Register by calling 781-283-3094, or email wcbgfriends@wellesley.edu.

  • Tuesday, March 10, 6:00 pm – North America’s Shale Gas Resources: Energy and Environmental Perspectives

    John H. Shaw, Chair of the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Harry C. Dudley Professor of Structural and Economic Geology, and Professor of Environmental Science and Engineering, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, will speak on North America’s Shale Gas Resources on Tuesday, March 10 beginning at 6 pm, in a program sponsored by the Harvard Museum of Natural History.

    Over the last decade, natural gas extracted from shale rock formations (shale gas) has become an important source of energy in North America. These abundant natural gas resources offer tremendous economic potential and are reshaping the landscape of energy production, including fossil, nuclear, and renewable energy options. Natural gas is also the lowest-emission fossil energy option available today. However, like other energy options, shale gas development has potential adverse impacts on our environment. John Shaw will discuss where and how shale gas resources are found, the geologic processes responsible for their formation, and the economic and environmental impacts associated with their extraction and use. This free public program will be held at the Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford Street.  Free parking is available at the 52 Oxford Street Garage.  For more information visit http://hmnh.harvard.edu/event/north-americas-shale-gas-resources-energy-and-environmental-perspectives.