Boston Flora

Month: October 2017

  • Through Sunday, December 10 – Nature’s Mirror: Reality and Symbol in Belgian Landscape

    Since the Renaissance, art in the region of Belgium and the nearby Netherlands has been known for innovations in realistic representation of visual appearances and for an extraordinary fluency in symbolism. The development of landscape as an independent genre was fostered by new market forces and artistic concerns in Belgium in the sixteenth century, and landscape emerged as a major focus for nineteenth-century realist and symbolist artists. Nature’s Mirror: Reality and Symbol in Belgian Landscape traces these landmark developments with a rich array of seldom-seen works.

    Illustrating the birth of landscape art, Nature’s Mirror opens with important prints and drawings by artists like Pieter Bruegel, Hieronymus Cock, Paul Brill, and Roelandt Savery (landscape pictured below). The exhibition then explores the evolving dialogue between subjective experience and the external world by featuring major modern works by artists from the School of Tervuren and symbolists including Fernand Khnopff and William Degouve de Nuncques.

    Displaying more than 120 works, many from the leading private collection of Belgian art in America, the Hearn Family Trust, Nature’s Mirror examines the wealth of artistic expression that bloomed in the regions of Belgium in an unprecedented fashion.

    Boston College’s McMullen Museum’s exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue edited by Jeffery Howe, with essays by American and Belgian scholars that examine artists such as Fernand Khnopff and Léon Spilliaert within the regional contexts that strongly influenced them. Other contributions discuss the transition of Belgian realism to symbolism, George Minne’s poetic illustrations, and themes of industrialization and labor.

    Organized by the McMullen Museum, Nature’s Mirror has been curated by Jeffery Howe and underwritten by Boston College with major support from the Patrons of the McMullen Museum and Mary Ann and Vincent Q. Giffuni. The show, in the Daley Family Gallery, will be on view through December 10. For more information visit http://www.bc.edu/sites/artmuseum/exhibitions/natures-mirror/

  • Wednesday, November 1, 8:00 am – 4:30 pm – Season’s End Summit: The Plant Pollinator Partnership

    As native bees as well as European honey bees struggle for survival, their reduced numbers put natural ecosystems and agricultural systems at risk. And bees are not the only pollinators that are suffering. Beetles, butterflies, ants, birds, and bats all help with pollination. In response, landscape professionals and concerned homeowners across the country are learning more about the habitat needs of the creatures that pollinate plants – and using that knowledge to make planting decisions.

    In landscapes across the country, a movement is gaining momentum as landscape professionals and gardening enthusiasts learn more about the plants that support pollinators – and make planting decisions accordingly. Join us on Wednesday, November 1 from 8 – 4 for the ELA Season’s End Summit as four experts (Tod Winston, Annie White, Thomas Berger (his sculpture featured below), and Sam Jaffe) help us to learn what we can do to be part of the solution in support of pollinators. Program schedule can be found at http://www.ecolandscaping.org/event/seasons-end-summit-the-plant-pollinator-partnership/ The summit will take place at the Community Harvest Project Barn, 37 Wheeler Road, North Grafton, and is $85 for ELA members, $110 for nonmembers.

  • Thursday, November 2, 11:00 am – Managing Newport’s Veteran Trees

    Newport’s landscapes comprise one of the largest and most diverse collections of mature and exotic specimen trees in the United States. As with all living organisms, providing optimum conditions to help ensure tree longevity becomes more important and extensive as trees age. This November 2 discussion at Rosecliff, 548 Bellevue Avenue in Newport, will describe key considerations for managing mature tree populations within the arboreta setting. We will also discuss efforts by the Preservation Society to plan and plant the next generation of landscape trees within The Breakers Arboretum. Bruce Fraedrich, Ph.D, and Christopher Fletcher, Bartlett Tree Experts, will lead the discussion.

    Admission is free, but advance registration is required. Sign up at http://www.newportmansions.org/events/events-calendar/lecture-managing-newports-veteran-trees

  • Sunday, October 29, 2:00 pm – 4:00 pm – Sunken Gardens

    On Sunday, October 29 from 2 – 4, after learning the basic needs of aquatic plants and how they can be met in a home aquarium, watch a live aquascaping demonstration with plenty of opportunity for Q&A, at Tower Hill Botanic Garden in Boylston, Massachusetts. The program is free with admission to the garden.

    Karen Randall, author of Sunken Gardens, is an international speaker on aquarium subjects, past president of the Boston Aquarium Society, and serves on the board of the Aquatic Gardeners Association. She was editor of the AGA magazine, The Aquatic Gardener, for 5 years and is now technical editor of the magazine. She serves as a judge for both the AGA International Aquascaping Contest and the Aqua Design Amano International Aquatic Plants Layout Contest as well as serving on the jury of a number of live aquascaping contests. She has also served as a consultant on several major projects at public aquaria. For more information visit www.towerhillbg.org.  You will have the opportunity to purchase Ms. Randall’s book and have it signed as well.

  • Through December 2017 – Projects by Experience: Design Undergrads Re-imagine Life In and Around the Necklace

    As part of the Experience Design Studio, led by Northeastern professor Kristian Kloeckl and organized in collaboration with the Emerald Necklace Conservancy, a group of undergraduate students investigated people’s experience of the Emerald Necklace public park network. Based on a series of on-site interviews and observational studies, students developed design interventions with the goal to positively enhance people’s everyday experience in and around the parks.

    The semester-long studio looked at public parks as places of possibility, participation and co-creation; places of destination and of escape; places for encounter; places of proximity and of distance; places for dynamic appropriation where meaning is constantly negotiated. Projects proposed by the students are material as well as digital, orchestrating objects, services, information systems, ambient installations and events.

    “Developing experience design projects for the Emerald Necklace in Boston also means considering the deep design lessons of Frederick Law Olmsted who designed the park system in the late 19th century,” explained Professor Kloeckl. “Olmsted is known as a landscape architect but could by all means be considered an experience designer given his holistic and human centered approach to design. He referred to the ‘genius of place’ as the unique qualities of a site to be explored and to let them condition all design decisions of a project. The approach the students of this studio course followed was guided by an exploration of place and of how people make use of these parks over time.”

    The exhibit of interventions will be at the Shattuck Visitor Center, 125 The Fenway, through December 2017. Exhibit hours are Weekdays 9 – 5, Weekends 11 – 4. For weekday visits, call ahead, as gallery is a multipurpose room and may be closed for meetings. For more information visit www.emeraldnecklace.org. Telephone 617-522-2700.

  • Wednesday, November 8, 9:30 am – 1:30 pm – Victoria’s Secret Revealed

    Wednesday, November 8, 9:30 am – 1:30 pm – Victoria’s Secret Revealed

    The Scholarship Committee of The Garden Club Federation of Massachusetts, Inc. presents Victoria’s Secret Revealed, a Scholarship Fundraiser High Tea, on Wednesday, November 8, to be held at The Doubletree Hilton Hotel in Milford. Candace Morgenstern of Rhode Island will present an innovative program. Registration begins at 9:30 am, the Victorian Hat Contest at 10:00 am, Program at 10:30 – 11:30, Victorian High Tea Luncheon at 12:15, and raffle drawings and announcements will conclude the event. $60. For tickets, send check made payable to The GCFM,Inc to Diane Bullock, 456 Shore Road, Cape Neddick, ME 03902, or to Leslie Frost, 31 Lowell Street, Andover, MA 01810.

  • Saturday, October 28, 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm – Growing Plants for Pollinators from Seed

    The fates of native plants and pollinators are intricately interwoven; both are essential to our environment. In this New England Wild Flower Society class on October 28 from 6 – 8 at Nasami Farm, Kate Stafford will teach you how to grow the best native plants for pollinators from seed—an affordable solution for creating pollinator habitat in your yard.  Image below by Maryanne Duca. $30 for NEWFS members, $36 for nonmembers. Register online at http://www.newfs.org/learn/our-programs/growing-plants-for-pollinators-from-seed

  • Saturday, October 28, 2:00 pm – 3:30 pm – The Art of Hostas

    On Saturday, October 28 at 2 pm at Tower Hill Botanic Garden, The Art of Hostas takes a vibrant, colorful and exciting look at these amazing plants in a whole new light. Rob Zimmer will showcase the qualities and characteristics of hostas that make them outstanding garden plants, both as specimens, as well as in breathtaking combinations with other plants. You’ll also see hostas used in ways you may have never seen before. Co-sponsored with New England Hosta Society.

    Rob Zimmer is an award-winning nature and garden author, columnist and radio host who has written for many daily newspapers throughout Wisconsin such as the Appleton Post-Crescent, Green Bay Press-Gazette, Oshkosh Northwestern and others. His columns also appear weekly in the Wisconsin State Farmer. He is the author of the books Voices of the Wind: Four Seasons in Wild Wisconsin, Wild Seasons: The Beauty of Native Wildflowers, Shadows and Light: Showcasing a Hosta Love Affair and  Reflecting: Nature in Black and White. His features and photographs have also appeared in a number of magazines, including Wisconsin Gardening, Wisconsin Sportsman, Michigan Out-of-Doors, Wisconsin Natural Resources, Bird Watcher’s Digest, Birders World, Wildlife Conservation, Country Journal, Silent Sports and Camping Today. Rob also hosts the radio program Outdoors with Rob Zimmer, every Saturday on WHBY radio. Find him online at http://www.robzimmeroutdoors.com.  Free with admission to the garden.

  • Sunday, October 29, 12:30 pm – 1:30 pm – The World of Laura Ingalls Wilder: The Frontier Landscapes that Inspired the Little House Books

    This year is the 150th anniversary of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s birthday. Her classic coming-of-age story, told through the beloved Little House books, still resonates today as an iconic story of American identity. The inspiration for Laura Ingalls Wilder’s books was born from a life lived in partnership with the land, on homesteads she and her family settled across the Midwest. Marta McDowell’s new book, The World of Laura Ingalls Wilder, is a revealing exploration of the pioneer writer’s deep connection with the natural world. Following the trail of the Little House series (from Wisconsin to the Dakotas to Missouri) the best-selling author shares intimate details about Wilder and the plants, creatures, and landscapes that are so integral to her stories, they are practically their own characters.

    Featuring the beloved illustrations from the original books and hundreds of historical and contemporary photographs, The World of Ingalls Wilder is a must-have treasure for anyone enchanted by Laura’s wild and beautiful life.

    Marta McDowell lives, gardens, and writes in Chatham, New Jersey. She teaches landscape history and horticulture at the New York Botanical Garden, where she studied landscape design. Her particular interest is in authors and their gardens, the connection between the pen and the trowel. Her previous books include Beatrix Potter’s Gardening Life, Emily Dickinson’s Gardens, and All the Presidents’ Gardens. This event will take place at Tower Hill Botanic Garden, 11 French Drive in Boylston, on Sunday, October 29 at 12:30, and is free with admission to the garden. For more information visit www.towerhillbg.org.

  • Saturday, October 28, 9:00 am – 12:30 pm – Nature Photography Workshop

    Improve your photographs of nature in this half-day workshop – a talk followed by hands-on experience. The class takes place on Saturday, October 28 beginning at 9:00 am at the Arnold Arboretum at one of the most beautiful times of year. The instructor is Erik Gehring, a freelance photographer and multi-media producer.

    Learn about composition, color, light, depth of field and focus. Bring your camera and manual and familiarize yourself with the operation of your camera prior to the workshop. $70 fee. Register at www.my.arboretum.harvard.edu. Image copyright Erik Gehring.