Barb Rietscha, owner of Stow Greenhouse, will lead you step-by-step in assembling a terrarium and then provide handy tips for maintaining it, in this Sunday, March 13 class at The KITCHEN at the Boston Public Market, beginning at 3 pm. Sponsored by The Trustees of Reservations, the class will cost $36 for TTOR members, $45 for nonmembers. For more information visit http://www.thetrustees.org/KITCHEN. Image from www.blog.freepeople.com.
Today’s horticultural climate offers a vast selection of native and exotic plants, soil amendments, watering systems, fertilizers, and methods of pest management. And today’s changing gardening climate offers a vast array of shifting seasons, unexpected storms, early-season heat spikes, late frosts, floods, and droughts, as well as a host of new diseases and insects. What’s a New England gardener to do in the face of all these challenges and choices? On Saturday, March 12 from 10 – noon at the Berkshire Botanical Garden, Dr. Kim Tripp, former Director of the Botanic Garden of Smith College and of the New York Botanical Garden, will identify immediate and pressing climate-change problems while sharing specific solutions for planning, planting, and keeping gardens and gardeners vital. Drawing on her extensive experience with growing thousands of different plants from around the world in stressful native and non-native environments, she will discuss how to design, plan, plant, and maintain diverse garden styles and plants in the northeastern U.S. in the face of increasing environmental change and unpredictability.
Kim Tripp, D.O., Ph.D. After an extensive career dedicated to plants and botanical gardens, Dr. Tripp is now also a fully licensed osteopathic physician in practice at Goldman/Tripp Osteopathic Healthcare in Sharon, CT. She completed her post-doctoral work in plant science at the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University and has taught and lectured on a broad range of horticultural and botanical subjects. $35. Register online at www.berkshirebotanical.org.
On Saturday, March 5, from 1 – 3 at Berkshire Botanical Garden in Stockbridge, join extraordinary plantsmen Ed Bowen of Opus Nursery and John Gwynne and Mikel Folcarelli of Sakonnet Garden for a lively discussion of the plants and design concepts employed in creating the well-known Sakonnet Garden in Little Compton, RI. Learn about choice plants and consider the unusual design elements employed in this garden that surprise and delight. It is a great opportunity to hear about the inner thoughts of three great gardeners and plantsmen who share a few ideas to bring home to your own garden.
Ed Bowen is owner of Opus Nursery, a nano-nursery in Little Compton, RI, with an increasingly anachronistic horticultural approach: actively collecting, propagating, and growing plants. His focus is the under-cultivated and garden-worthy, with a specialization in unusual perennials. Sakonnet Gardens, pictured below, the long-term project of John Gwynne and Mikel Folcarelli, is a secret garden embedded within a native coastal fields landscape. At the diminutive scale of a cottage garden, it is conceived as an intimate place to explore, with multiple paths leading one onward to unexpected experiences.
BBG and BNARGS members $22, nonmembers $27. Register online at www.berkshirebotanical.org.
The 2016 Ayer Mansion Lecture Series resumes Tuesday, March 8 at 6:30 pm with Valerie Gurdal, Co-Owner of Formaggio Kitchen in Cambridge, the South End, and New York City. Learn about all things cheese while supporting the Ayer Mansion. Wine and cheese will be served at 6:30 followed by the lecture at 7. The Ayer Mansion is located at 395 Commonwealth Avenue, and tickets may be purchased online at www.AyerMansion.org. $35 per person.
In October, 1973, then Mayor Kevin White was in the process of selecting a new Commissioner of Parks and Recreation. The Garden Club of the Back Bay took the stand that the best way to go forward was to appoint a different person for each category. Members were asked to write the Mayor and state their opinion that the maintenance of the park areas had been sadly neglected, and that the hiring of a qualified landscape architect would be the most satisfactory solution. We wish we could report the campaign was successful, but we cannot. Below is the hardly inspiring view of City Hall Plaza, c. 1973.
If we are to make our residential landscapes truly living ecosystems once again, we need to understand the specialized relationships that make plants and animals interdependent. Who better to take us on an in-depth journey into this fascinating and complex world than Doug Tallamy? On Wednesday, March 2 at 7 pm at the Cambridge Public Library, 449 Broadway, he will give us detailed examples of these co-evolutionary relationships, showing us how they determine the stability and complexity of local food webs providing birds with insects and berries, dispersing bloodroot seeds, pollinating goldenrod, and much more. This knowledge equips us to knowingly select plants and to construct landscapes that restore nature’s relationships at home.
Doug Tallamy is a Professor of Entomology and Wildlife Biology at the University of Delaware. His groundbreaking book, Bringing Nature Home, was published in 2007 and continues to have national impact; it was awarded the 2008 Silver Medal by the Garden Writers Association. In 2014, he co-authored The Living Landscape with Rick Darke. Doug’s conservation work and science-based advocacy for native plants has earned him numerous awards. Sponsored by Grow Native Massachusetts – admission free.
The 2016 Boston Flower & Garden Show will take place Wednesday, March 16 through Sunday, March 20 at the Seaport World Trade Center in Boston, and this year’s theme is Nurtured by Nature. The care we put into our gardens comes back to us a thousand-fold. Well-designed landscapes rejuvenate by offering places to connect with nature and each other. Floral arrangements, houseplants and container gardens enliven and refresh our living spaces. Homegrown food and the products of popular urban agriculture activities like beekeeping fill our tables with nutritious delights. Celebrate the bountiful benefits of the garden and learn how to keep yourself, and your garden, growing strong! To purchase tickets, and for complete information, visit www.bostonflowershow.com.
This February 27 workshop will demonstrate the beloved New England tradition of making maple syrup at home, using the sugar bush on the grounds of the Berkshire Botanical Garden. Chris Wellens, Youth Education Coordinator at BBG, will cover all aspects of maple sugaring: identifying suitable trees, the when and how of collecting sap, the boiling down process for the home setting, and preserving the syrup for year-round use. Participants will walk thorough the BBG sugar bush, install spiles, develop collection schedules, and boil down the maple sap into syrup. Followed by a syrup tasting. Dress for the outdoors. BBG members $25, nonmembers $30. Register online at www.berkshirebotanical.org.
Chris Wellens, Youth Education Coordinator at BBG, is an old hand at making maple syrup at home, educates the community about the environment, gardening, and agriculture.
Artists display their floral arrangements based on one of their pieces of artwork, which will also be displayed, at Tower Hill Botanic Garden on Saturday and Sunday, February 20 and 21, as part of Winter in Bloom. Free with admission. For more information visit www.towerhillbg.org. Image from www.fineartamerica.com of work by Shiva Shala.
There is growing expectation and demand that designed landscapes from public parks to backyards should not only be beautiful and functional, but also sustainable. For constructed landscapes to perform as we need them to, we must get their underlying ecology right. Based upon his recently released Principles of Ecological Landscape Design, Travis Beck helps translate the science of ecology into design practice.
In this February 23rd Ecological Landscape Alliance webinar from 12 – 1 EST, Mr. Beck explains key ecological concepts and their application to the design and management of sustainable landscapes. Through photos and descriptions, Travis Beck takes us on a tour of Mt. Cuba Center, discussing the real world implementation of ecological concepts from his book.
Located in the Piedmont region of Delaware, Mt. Cuba Center is a botanical garden that spans nearly 600 acres of natural lands, grounds, naturalistic and formal gardens. Moving along a continuum from the wildest to the most intensively managed areas, Beck will shed light on the opportunities and challenges of applying ecological understanding to landscape design and management.
Travis Beck is the Director of Horticulture at Mt. Cuba Center in Delaware, where he oversees the care and evolution of 582 acres of native plant gardens and natural areas. Prior to Mt. Cuba, Travis worked at the New York Botanical Garden, where he managed large landscape design and construction projects. He is a registered landscape architect and holds a master’s degree in Horticulture from The Ohio State University. His book, Principles of Ecological Landscape Design, published in 2013 by Island Press, applies current scientific thinking to the design and management of successful, sustainable landscapes. – See more at: http://www.ecolandscaping.org/event/principles-of-ecological-landscape-design-getting-it-right/#sthash.56bDSztJ.dpuf. Free for ELA members, $10 for nonmembers.
