Boston Flora

Month: March 2020

  • Thursday, April 2, 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm – Mastering the Art of Flower Gardening – Postponed

    A comprehensive and highly practical study of growing flowers, Mastering the Art of Flower Gardening presents expert advice and guidelines on growing many of today’s favorite flowers. Author Matt Mattus has curated a selection that ranges from the most common of flowers, like zinnias and dahlias, to uncommon or challenging flowers like primroses and sweet peas. Learn about old-fashioned biennials and the finest perennials as well as beloved flowers that grow as shrubs, bulbs, or vines. Organized seasonally, there is even a winter chapter featuring flowers for cool, indoor windowsills or a backyard greenhouse. Mattus shares what he’s learned over decades of first-hand experience as a horticulturist, testing techniques in his own garden and greenhouse. Whether you’re interested in raising a small cut-flower garden, enhancing your flower border or containers, or figuring out how to grow the best Bread Seed Poppies next year, Mattus has it covered.

    Active in many horticultural leadership roles, Matt’s day job is quite different. Professionally Matt works as a Principal Designer at toy and entertainment giant Hasbro, Inc. (Pawtucket, RI), but that doesn’t preclude his deep involvement in many plant societies and botanic gardens. Matt has been involved with horticulture throughout his career. By age 10 he was exhibiting as a ‘junior exhibitor’ in the many plant society shows held at Worcester County Horticultural Society’s Horticultural Hall in Worcester, MA throughout the 1970’s. He is the author of the award-winning gardening blog Growing With Plants. His greenhouse and gardens have also been included in many popular magazines, blogs and books including Martha Stewart Living (Nov. 2016 – Chrysanthemums), House & Garden (Nov 2016, South African Bulbs), and Better Homes & Gardens, to name a few.

    This Tower Hill Botanic Garden talk and book signing will take place April 2 from 6:30 – 8:30, and is $15 for Tower Hill members, $20 for nonmembers. Register at www.towerhillbg.org.

  • Cultivated: The Elements of Floral Style

    Garden Club of the Back Bay member Carolyn Vandam alerted us to an upcoming book written by her friend Christin Geall of Vancouver, BC, on sale March 24. Christin will also be on tour in Boston in June – more information to follow. But for now, sign up for her online newsletter, The Cultivated Update, for more information on Christin, a creative nonfiction teacher prior to working with flowers.

  • Tuesday, April 7, 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm – Flower Arranging with Nancy Cyr – Postponed

    Garden Club of the Back Bay member Nancy Cyr cannot hold her next Club pop-up class on April 7 from 6 – 8 at Piattini, 226 Newbury Street, as originally planned. In the future, if rescheduled, you will learn to make small flower arrangements with special flowers. The cost of the class is $50, and you will leave with a lovely flower arrangement to welcome Spring. There will be a cash bar and food will be available for purchase.

  • Tuesday, March 31, 6:30 pm – Dog Park Focus Meeting for Charlesgate – Postponed

    Join The Charlesgate Alliance for a presentation by Landing Studio of design ideas and discussion of the dog park component of the revitalized Charlesgate Park. This meeting will be at 91 Bay State Road, Seminar Room, at 6:30pm. For more information email charlesgatealliance@gmail.com.

  • On Line Vote for Charlesgate Park

    Give Charlesgate Park a Vote With This Boston Survey!
    The City of Boston is conducting a survey to identify parts of the city that could use improved green space. You can vote for Charlesgate Park here. Simply state Charlesgate East or West and your favorite intersection (Commonwealth Avenue, Marlborough Street, or Beacon Street) in the “Find Address Or Place” field. 

    And face it, you have nothing better to do right now.

  • Saturday, April 11, 10:00 am – 12:00 noon – Introduction to Lacto-Fermentation – Postponed

    Bill Goodwin is a chemical engineer who prefers to grow his own food and experiment with anything that might even look like food. He’s found that lacto-fermenting veggies from the garden is fun, simple and nutritious. He’s made delicious batches of krauts, pickles, fermented beets and kimchi, and wants to share what he’s learned with anyone who’s lost interest in coleslaw. In this April 11 Massachusetts Horticultural Society class we’ll wield knives and cut up unsuspecting vegetables, apply some salt and a bit of “scrunch” – and make batches of something delicious for everyone to take home.

    Vegetables & workshop materials will be provided. The class takes place in the Putnam Building, 900 Washington Street in Wellesley, and you may register by visiting www.masshort.org. $55 members/$75 general admission

  • Thursday, April 2, 6:15 pm – 9:00 pm – Say it with Flowers with Thelma Shoneman – Postponed

    The Framingham Garden Club presents Say it with Flowers with Thelma Shoneman on April 2 from 6:15 – 9 at Boston Church of Christ, 214 Concord St, Framingham. Tickets are $20. There will be refreshments and raffle prizes. Contact Pam Keeney (508-405-0331) or Andi Saari (508-877-1091) for tickets.

  • Tuesday, April 28, 6:00 pm – A Celebration of English Gardens: From the Archives of Country Life Magazine – Postponed

    The Royal Oak Foundation returns to Boston on Tuesday, April 28 at 6:00 pm for a program entitled A Celebration of English Gardens: From the Archives of Country Life Magazine, with Kathryn Bradley-Hole, Gardens Editor at Country Life. The talk, followed by a reception and book signing, will be held at The College Club of Boston, 44 Commonwealth Avenue, and Royal Oak Foundation members may purchase tickets online for $35, $45 for nonmembers. Tickets for the last Royal Oak event sold out quickly, so act now. Visit https://www.royal-oak.org/events/2020-spring-boston-kathryn-bradley-hole/

    “That the English are a nation of gardeners as well as weather-watchers is well known; the two national obsessions are as intertwined as the honey-suckle and the hedgerow,” writes Country Life Garden Editor Kathryn Bradley-Hole. Her Royal Oak lecture, drawn from her new book, celebrates English gardens featured in Country Life, a pictorial weekly journal that launched in 1897, the year of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee.

    From picturesque cottage gardens to grand formal gardens; from kitchen gardens to water gardens; and from medieval monastery gardens to cutting-edge 21st century gardens, Kathryn will take a fresh look at horticultural treasures from across England. She will discuss those created by designers such as Capability Brown, Gertrude Jekyll, Rosemary Verey, Piet Oudolf and Arne Maynard among others.

    She will illustrate world famous gardens—Waddesdon Manor (NT), Hidcote (NT), and Great Dixter—alongside new and lesser-known places such as Woolbeding (NT), Warnell Hall, Cumbria, and Hauser & Wirth in Bruton. Using stunning photography from the archives of Country Life, Kathryn will distill the essence of what makes the British garden style so popular and celebrate English garden-making in all its astonishing variety, wit and inspiration.

    Thank you to co-sponsors: Oxford and Cambridge Society of New England, Inc.; Rizzoli

    The Mosaic Parterre at Biddulph Grange Garden, Staffordshire. The garden was designed in the mid-nineteenth century by James Bateman to display his extensive plant collection.

  • Help Protect Patten Hill in Shelburne Falls

    Mass Audubon has an opportunity to protect 67 stunning, hilltop acres adjacent to High Ledges Wildlife Sanctuary in Shelburne Falls. But to make it happen, they need your help to raise $430,000 by June 2020.

    The generous support of many individuals helped protect 167 acres of the Patten Hill property in 2016. Today, help is needed to permanently conserve the rest of the farm and preserve the legacy of open space for future generations.  

    This spectacular property boasts views of the mountains in all directions—Mount Greylock to the west, Mount Monadnock to the east, Mount Tom to the south, and the Green Mountains of Vermont to the north.

    Protecting this property will result in more than 1,000 connected, protected acres. In addition to the long-distance views, it contains important grassland bird habitat, forest and a stream corridor that includes a series of beaver ponds. The parcel will connect the 792-acre High Ledges with the undeveloped 574-acre Shelburne Falls Fire District land (a public water supply property) and the 221-acre Davenport Farm, creating the type of wildlife corridor that is essential to accommodating wildlife movement in the age of climate change.

    In addition, purchasing Patten Hill will safeguard the drinking water supply by protecting the streams and ponds that drain into the North River and the Shelburne Falls public water supply lands, maintain increasingly rare grassland habitat, enhance the popular public trail system, and preserve the outstanding views to and from the property. Give online at www.massaudubon.org or call Liz Albert at 781-259-2104 or email lalbert@massaudubon.org.

  • Wednesday, April 1, 11:00 am – 1:00 pm – Early Spring Container Garden – Postponed

    Plant a spring garden that can be grown indoors or enjoyed outside your door on nice days. Fill an attractive container with colorful spring-flowering plants: cyclamen, tulips, primroses, daffodils, violas or pansies accented with lacy ferns, trailing ivies and green moss. Your portable spring garden will look equally charming on a table, windowsill or doorstep. When summer arrives, plant the bulbs in your garden and move the violas, ferns and ivies to a dampish, shady spot to enjoy all summer. This Tower Hill Botanic Garden workshop will take place April 1 from 11 – 1, and is $80 for Tower Hill members, $85 for nonmembers. Fee includes materials. Register at www.towerhillbg.org.

    Betsy Williams teaches, lectures and writes about living with herbs and flowers. A gardener and herb grower since 1972, Betsy trained as a florist in Boston and England. She combines her floral and gardening skills with an extensive knowledge of history, plant lore and seasonal celebrations. Betsy is the author of several books on the uses and stories of herbs and flowers. She has appeared on the Discovery Channel and greater Boston cable stations as well as local and national radio talk shows. Betsy lectures and teaches locally and nationally.