Cocktails in Great Gardens have become some of the Berkshire Botanical Garden’s most popular summer events by offering guests the opportunity to tour some of the most amazing private gardens that the Berkshires have to offer and this year is no exception. The home of author Judith Fetterley in Glenmont, NY is a true stand out and a garden you won’t want to miss. BBG member price $35, nonmembers $50. Register online at www.berkshirebotanical.org, or call 413-298-3926.
Visit a number of lovely private home gardens in Sandwich at your leisure anytime between 10am and 4pm. Light refreshments will be served overlooking the Wildflower Garden at the Green Briar Nature Center, 6 Discovery Hill Road off Route 6A in East Sandwich. Tickets contain a map and directions to each garden and may be purchased in advance or on the day of the tour at Green Briar. All proceeds benefit the educational programs of the Burgess Society and its Green Briar Nature Center. Tickets are $15. Rain date is Friday, July 17. For more information you may call 508-888-6870, or visit http://www.thorntonburgess.org.
Join the Massachusetts Horticultural Society at Elm Bank on Thursday, July 23, from 6 – 8:30 pm, for our summer music and arts series, sponsored by Wellesley Bank Charitable Foundation. This evening will feature an Art Walk of artists showcasing their work throughout the gardens. It is a chance for the community to buy original art from the artists who make it. Enjoy live music in the Maple Grove, bring a picnic, and wander the gardens. We will also have family art projects for kids. Free to all!
If you are interested in being one of our showcased artists on our Art Walk, please complete the Artist Application to be found at www.masshort.org and return it as soon as possible to reserve your space. If you have any questions, please email Amy Rodrigues at amyrodrigues2@aol.com.
Tower Hill’s vegetable garden for 2015 highlights hot colors and flavors. Tour the garden on Wednesday, July 15 from 5 – 6. Free with admission. For more information visit www.towerhillbg.org.
Join artist, landscape designer, and ecologist Thomas Berger on Saturday, July 25 from 10 – noon for an Ecological Landscape Alliance private tour of the Green Art Garden, 30 US Route 1 Bypass in Kittery, Maine. Over the span of several years, Thomas renovated the formerly neglected landscape, removing debris and clearing the impenetrable stands of multiflora rose, buckthorn, barberry, autumn olive and poison ivy. In the early years Thomas planted many trees, hedges, and display beds for use as a commercial nursery. Later these landscape elements became the framework for the formal gardens with mixed borders, a reflecting pool, a grapevine-covered greenhouse frame, a miniature garden, and a pollinator-planting. Throughout the garden, Thomas displays his nature-inspired stone sculptures.
Adjacent to the formal gardens are two woodland acres including mature red oak, white pine, and beech, and a wide variety of other species. With a keen interest in providing habitat, Thomas is now enriching this woodland with native plants, and has created a pond and other habitat elements to provide food and shelter for wildlife. Thomas is particularly concerned with insect habitat. There are many species of butterflies, dragonflies, solitary wasps, and bees, and new guests being attracted to the garden every year.
Thomas Berger grew up in a small rural town in Germany. During his childhood he was an avid collector of shells, bones, sea creatures, and fossils. He also gardened with his father and kept bees and sheep which led him to study agriculture. As an adult, Thomas worked on farms in Germany, France and Australia, and joined the German Volunteer Service in 1984, working in an agricultural project in Niger, West Africa. In 1994 he moved to the United States, where he started a landscape design and construction firm, Green Art, and received an award of excellence from the New Hampshire Landscape Association in 1998. Thomas is a regionally known stone sculptor, expressing his love of nature through his art. Thomas has won many awards and commissions and his sculpture is displayed at many public venues throughout the Northeast. – See more at: http://www.ecolandscaping.org/event/the-green-art-garden-a-garden-for-nature-and-a-space-for-art/#sthash.QksKgg99.dpuf Rain or shine event, $20 for ELA members, $30 for nonmembers.
Tower Hill Botanic Garden is offering a summer art series featuring a different nature-themed exhibit each month. Painter Susan Valentine’s show will run now through Aug. 2. Illustrator Natalya Zahn’s works will be on display from August 4 to September 12. Multimedia artist Danielle LaPointe’s exhibit runs September 1 to October 4. All shows are open to the public and included with the cost of admission.
Valentine’s “Close to Home†show will feature oil paintings of the Pioneer Valley landscape. She is originally from the North Shore, and now paints intimate portraits of garden characters in the Western Massachusetts town of Leverett.
Zahn’s “Birds and Bees and Tulip Trees†illustrates the relationships between North American plants and their pollinators. The Tower Hill opening reception and gallery walk for this Boston area artist will be Saturday, August 8, at 1 p.m.
“The Rebuild,†presented by LaPointe, a Dedham resident, explores the development of internal and physical structures and will have an opening reception and gallery walk on Wednesday, September 2, at 6 p.m.
The nonprofit Tower Hill Botanic Garden is located at 11 French Drive in Boylston, Mass. For more information, visit towerhillbg.org or call 508-869-6111. Natalya Zahn’s work is shown below.
The Garden Club of the Back Bay wishes you all a happy Fourth of July! Photo from www.planetware.com.
Join the Friends of the Public Garden for walking tours of Boston’s iconic Public Garden. Learn about the history, sculpture, and horticulture of America’s first public botanical garden by taking a guided tour through this treasured oasis. FOPG Members $5,
Non-Members $15 (Friends memberships are available for as low as $25.)
If you are unsure of your membership status, please email info@friendsofthepublicgarden.org for assistance. Reserve your tickets online at www.friendsofthepublicgarden.org.
On Saturday and Sunday, July 11 and 12, meet an amazing array of native New England caterpillars in various stages of development, and learn more about caterpillars and butterflies through live presentations and interpretations throughout the Museum of Science.
On Saturday and Sunday from 10 – 3 there will be a Caterpillar Lab. This one-of-a-kind experience is a celebration of the impressive diversity of New England caterpillars. Each individual display includes a variety of caterpillars, in various stages of development and on their local host plants. With no glass between you and the displays, you can experience caterpillars up close — eating, pooping, camouflaging, or defending themselves with clever adaptations such as warning coloration, inflatable horns, strange smells, and squeaking mandibles.
From 1 – 3 on both days you may Create Your Own Butterfly Habitat. With your paid admission to the Butterfly Garden, learn how to create and plant your own butterfly habitat. We’ll discuss the importance of using native plantings and how to get your garden started. Get your hands dirty planting native seeds and take them home to help start attracting butterflies!
On Saturday at 11:30 hear Dr. Gerard Talavera from Harvard University describe the amazing migration of the Painted Lady butterflies, Vanessa cardui. Learn more about the challenging task of studying this beautiful insect, which is found on five continents. Also on Saturday, at 12:30, Dr. Naomi Pierce, curator of Lepidoptera at Harvard University, will introduce you to the insect-eating predators and their nourishing ant prey. Dave Champlin from the University of Maine unravels the amazing transformation of how the butterfly gets its wings on Sunday at 11:30, and finally, on Sunday at 12:30, Norah Warchola from Tufts University discusses the fascinating relationship between an endangered species of caterpillar and the ants that protect it from predators in exchange for a sugary bribe.
Also on Saturday and Sunday there will be presentations on Gardening for Butterflies at 1:30 in the Shapiro Family Science Live! Stage, Green Wing, Lower Level. As a bonus, The Secret Lives of Fireflies will be featured both days at 3:30 pm. Watching fireflies is a special part of warm summer nights in New England. We watch and we enjoy, but do we really know what they are saying? This program sheds a little light on the secret lives of fireflies. You’ll also learn how you can participate in a scientific research effort to find out if these magical insects are disappearing from our landscape, and if so, why and what can be done about it. Solitary Bees: The Other Bees will be discussed at 5:30 pm on Saturday and Sunday. Honey bees are in decline. Since they are responsible for pollinating one third of our food crops, their disappearance threatens our food supply. While scientists try to find out why and how to reverse this trend, our crops still need to be pollinated. Find out how you can help by becoming a “solitary beekeeper.”
While you are at the Museum, don’t miss Flight of the Butterflies at the Mugar Omni Theater each day at 1 pm. Weighing less than a penny, the monarch butterfly makes one of the longest migrations on Earth. Follow this perilous journey and join hundreds of millions of real butterflies in the remote mountain peaks of Mexico, with breathtaking cinematography from an award-winning team. Be captivated by the true, compelling story of an intrepid scientist’s 40-year search to find the monarchs’ secret hideaway. Purchase of separate timed ticket required for Omni film. You may buy these tickets on line at www.mos.org.
Insects play an integral part in the life cycle of plants and can enhance a botanical painting with a dynamic element of scientific accuracy and pure whimsy. Through sketches and more complete full-color works, join Kelly Radding at Wellesley College Botanic Garden on three Wednesdays, July 22, 29 and August 5, from 9:30 – 3:30, to study the form and details that will make the insect come alive in your artwork. Learn techniques to capture the myriad textures and colors and how to integrate an insect into a botanical composition. Advanced skill level. Friends of Wellesley Botanic Gardens $275, non-members $325. Call 781-283-3094 to register. Image copyright Kelly Leahy Radding.
