Boston Flora

Month: March 2017

  • Monday, March 27, 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm – Woodwork and the Arts of Japan

    Material culture in Japan is distinguished by its heavy reliance on wood in art-making. For over a millennium, the rich biomass heritage of the country has provided a foundation for the work of master carpenters and the emergence of a wide array of remarkable techniques for the wood-related arts. Yukio Lippit, PhD, History of Art and Architecture, Harvard University and Johnson-Kulukundis Family Director of the Arts, Radcliffe Institute will examine how wood selection and the materiality of wood conditioned the development of these arts in a Japanese context. His Monday, March 27 lecture, beginning at 7 pm in the Hunnewell Building of the Arnold Arboretum, focuses on timber-frame architecture and how Japan’s culture of building provides a lens into the man-nature relationship; Japanese sculpture and the meanings inherent in the different types of woods employed for the creation of religious statues; and Japanese woodblock printing and the relationship of wood carving to the artistry of Japanese prints. Fee Free for Arboretum members and students, $5 nonmember. Register at my.arboretum.harvard.edu or call 617-384-5277.

  • Saturday, March 25, 11:00 am – 12:00 noon – Rock Gardening: Reimagining a Classic Style

    Joseph Tychonievich spent a year traveling all over the US and UK visiting gardens for his new book  Rock Gardening: Reimagining a Classic Style. In this Tower Hill Botanic Garden talk on Saturday, March 25 at 11 am, he shares images and ideas from some of his favorite, most unusual, and most exciting gardens to inspire the audience to take their gardens in new directions. A book signing will follow. THBG members $15, nonmembers $25. Register online at www.towerhillbg.org.

  • Tuesdays, March 28 – May 30, 6:30 pm – 8:00 pm – Master Gardener Home Horticulture Series

    Announcing the Spring 2017 session of the Massachusetts Master Gardener Association Home Horticulture Series hosted by Massachusetts Master Gardeners.

    This program is a ten week evening class taught by Master Gardeners that will provide a high-level overview to all the topics covered by the MG training class in a more compact format. The goal is to give the home gardener a comprehensive introduction to horticulture that will allow them to garden more effectively and give them a foundation for enhancing their knowledge and skills.

    Topics to be covered include: Nomenclature, Soil, Botany, Vegetable Culture, Perennial Culture, Intro to Landscape Design, Turf Culture, Weed Ecology, Diseases & Pests, and Woody Plants & Pruning.

    The class will be held at The Trustees of Reservations’ Bradley Estate, 2468 Washington Street, Canton, MA 02021. The course will run on Tuesdays from 3/28/17 – 05/30/17. Classes begin at 6:30 PM and end at 8:00 PM. Cost for the 10 week course will be $250 with payment due upon registration.

    Sign up by emailing: MMGAHomeHort@yahoo.com

    The MMGA cannot give refunds for withdrawals within a week of the program start date, for programs already in progress, or for class sessions you have not attended.

  • Thursday, March 30, 7:00 pm – Sheds

    Porter Square Books, 25 White Street in Cambridge, will host author Howard Mansfield on Thursday, March 30 at 7 pm, who will speak on his book Sheds and sign copies as well. A shed is the shortest line between need and shelter. Drawing on material from his recent book Dwelling in Possibility, Mansfield explores the different types of sheds found around New England and beyond: covered bridges, barns, work sheds, worship sheds (meeting houses), extended farmhouses, bob houses for ice fishing. In lyrical style and supported by photographs by Joanna Eldredge Morrissey, Mansfield shows the connection between the design of these structures and their roles in our lives. Sheds are like our lives not the grandest building or the most graceful. Sheds are ordinary and in that they are exalted.

    Anyone who has ever traveled the back roads of America will enjoy this beautifully photographed exploration of simple, useful structures.

    Howard Mansfield writes about history, architecture, and preservation. Author of The Same Ax, Twice, The Bones of the Earth, In the Memory House, Turn and Jump, and Dwelling in Possibility, he lives in New Hampshire with his wife, the writer Sy Montgomery.

  • Saturday, March 25, 10:00 am – 12:00 noon – Foundation Gardens That Say “Welcome Home”

    Foundation gardens and entryways can make or break the “welcome” factor and visual appeal of a home or community building. Unfortunately, foundations are often plagued by poor soil, building shadows, foot traffic, de-icers, storm runoff, and more. This March 25 New England Wild Flower Society seminar  at Garden in the Woods offers surprising new ways of seeing the complicated but valuable foundation area through design concepts. Plan before you plant! Time is 10:00 am – noon, and the course, taught by Kathy Connolly, is $53 for NEWFS members, $64 for nonmembers. Register online at www.newfs.org.  Image from www.gardeninacity.com.

  • 2017 Master Gardener Training Course

    The Massachusetts Master Gardener Association is comprised of amateur and professional horticulturists with a mission to promote horticultural knowledge to the public through volunteerism. MMGA Master Gardeners become trained and certified through an intensive training program. The Master Gardener Training course (MGT) consists of fourteen classroom and lab modules, including soil science, botany, entomology, plant pathology, pruning and propagation. Courses are conducted by both academic and industry professionals. Starting in 2017 the MGT course will be offered at the Massachusetts Horticultural Society’s Education Building, at Elm Bank, in Wellesley, MA and at the Worcester Horticultural Society‘s Tower Hill Botanic Garden in Boylston, MA. Students can choose the location that better suits their needs when registering.

    The 2017 MGT course will be begin in April 2017 and run through October 2017. Classroom training will be held in the Spring and Fall, while hands-on training will be required throughout the growing season (with the bulk of hands-on work to be completed during the summer). In Wellesley, Spring class sessions will be held over seven Thursdays, beginning April 6th thru May 18th, from 9am-3pm. The second session will be held over seven Thursdays, from 9-3pm, beginning on September 14th thru October 26th. In Boylston the sessions will be held on Tuesdays from 9-3 starting April 11 thru May 23rd and in the Fall September 12th thru October 24th. Both Spring and Fall sessions are required for all students.

    In addition to attending classes, completing reading and homework assignments, and successfully completing take home exams, students are expected to complete a 60-hour volunteer apprenticeship (which serves as the hands-on learning segment of the course). Apprenticeship work may begin as of the start of class, and must be completed by one week prior to graduation (See Guidelines for Master Gardener Student Volunteering). Homework and handouts will be distributed electronically. Students are expected to have access to and be familiar with email, Internet, Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Adobe Acrobat (.pdf files), and to receive and send pictures in jpeg format.

    To apply for the 2017 MGT course, please submit your application and a $50 non-refundable application fee to the MMGA Class Registrar (address included on application if you are mailing a check instead of paying online).

    Full tuition and materials fee ($525; $150) are due upon acceptance. For questions or further information, please email one of the Training Course Coordinators, Steve Shaw, at sgshaw@aol.com or Cheryl Monroe at cmmyemail@gmail.com. To download forms for mailing, visit http://massmastergardeners.org/2017-master-gardener-training-course-2/

  • Monday, April 10, 9:00 am – 11:00 am – Boston Committee of the GCA Windermere Garden and Indigo Line Redevelopment Corridor Tour

    Monday, April 10, 9:00 am – 11:00 am – Boston Committee of the GCA Windermere Garden and Indigo Line Redevelopment Corridor Tour

    Member and affiliate clubs of the Boston Committee of the GCA will be hosted by The Trustees of Reservations to a tour of the Windermere Garden and the Fairmont Indigo Line on Monday, April 10 in the morning (group will meet at 9 am – Garden Club of the Back Bay members will receive written notification.) Club members will be able to sign up individually to join a group tour or you can organize a group of up to 10 members of your own club to have your own van and private tour. Come see the newest area in Boston to undergo redevelopment and the community garden initiative being spearheaded by the Trustees of Reservations. Learn how green space and green values are being preserved and cultivated as Boston continues to thrive. For more information contact leslie.will@comcast.net.

  • Thursday, March 23, 1:00 pm – 4:00 pm – Vernal Mustards

    Members of the mustard family (Brassicaceae), both native and introduced, are among the earliest flowers to bloom in the spring. Using images and herbarium specimens, this New England Wild Flower presentation with instructor Ted Elliman will cover the identification features and habitats of a number of the species in this confusing and often overlooked group of wildflowers, including species of Arabidopsis, Boechera, Brassica, Cardamine, Draba, Lepidium, and several other mustard genera. The class will take place at Garden in the Woods in Framingham on Thursday, March 23 from 1 – 4, and is $46 for NEWFS members, $54 for nonmembers. Register online at www.newfs.org.  Image from http://paisajismodigital.com.

  • Friday, March 31, 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm – Mexico City at a Crossroads: Designing an Urban Future in the Era of Climate Change

    Join the Harvard Graduate School of Design on Friday, March 31 from 6:30 – 8:30 in Gund Hall’s Piper Auditorium, Quincy Street in Cambridge, for the Keynote Lecture for Mexico City at a Crossroads: Designing an Urban Future in the Era of Climate Change.

    Mexico City’s Mayor Miguel Mancera will discuss current challenges for the nation’s capital city, which was recently named the World Design Capital for 2018 by ICSID. The mayor will share lessons learned so far and engage in a dialogue about the built environmental future of CDMX (Ciudad de México) going forward. Mexico City has emerged out of a complex history to take a role as a leading global metropolis but is now in flux. Renowned for its architecture and design aesthetics, the city also faces major infrastructural scarcities in transportation, water supply, and affordable housing. Its enormous scale poses environmental, energy, and public health problems associated with pollution, carbon emissions, and urban sprawl. Recent efforts to write a new city constitution have amplified conflicts over how to build, govern, and finance its future. This keynote lecture—which launches a day-long conference on Harvard’s campus sponsored by the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies that will include participation by governing officials and activists as well as leading researchers on CDMX—will highlight Mexico City’s tripartite identity as global leader, national powerhouse, and sovereign urban authority confronting the multi-scalar territorial and environmental challenges of the twenty-first century.

    Co-sponsored by the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies and the Interdisciplinary Urbanism Initiative, Department of Urban Planning and Design.

    Anyone requiring accessibility accommodations should contact the events office at (617) 496-2414 or events@gsd.harvard.edu.  Free and open to the public.  Image from www.planetsave.com.

  • Tuesday, March 21, 6:30 pm – The Artistic Lighting of Louis C. Tiffany

    Lindsy R. Parrott, Director/Curator of the Neustadt Collection of Tiffany Glass in New York will speak on Tuesday, March 21 at The Ayer Mansion, 395 Commonwealth Avenue, as part of the Ayer Mansion 2017 Lecture Series.  Wine and cheese will be served at 6:30 followed by the lecture at 7 pm.  $35.  You may register online at www.ayermansion.org, or call 617-536-2586.