Boston Flora

Month: June 2020

  • Wednesday, June 10, 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm – Foundation Gardens That Say “Welcome Home” to Native Plants Webinar

    The area around a building is the very place that says “Welcome” to the visitor or “Relax, you’re home” to the occupant. The foundation of a building also contributes to the elusive quality called curb appeal. Yet how often do we see stressed-out shrubs and struggling perennials in this most visible area?

    In this one-hour Tower Hill Botanic Garden online presentation on June 10 at 6:30 pm, we first consider the design problems posed by the foundation area around homes and other buildings. Then we look at native plants that fit into that highly visible setting. The foundation garden need not be a bastion of pachysandra and boxwood!

    Kathy Connolly is a landscape designer who specializes in naturalized designs, low-impact techniques, and native plants for homeowners, municipalities, and other organizations. Kathy has a master’s degree in landscape planning and design from the Conway School in Easthampton, MA. She completed the advanced master gardener program and is an Accredited Organic Land Care Professional through NOFA. She is an active member of the Connecticut Invasive Plant Working Group (CIPWG). She is a regular columnist for The Day community papers which circulate throughout southeastern Connecticut and has written about lawn alternatives for The Spruce/About.com. She gives about 25 talks and workshops each year for conservation organizations, master gardeners, museums, libraries, land trusts, and garden clubs. Her website is http://www.SpeakingofLandscapes.com.

    A Zoom link will be sent to participants in the confirmation e-mail that will be sent after registration. $7 for Tower Hill members, $10 for nonmembers. Register at www.towerhillbg.org

  • Fridays, June 5, 12, and 19, 10:00 am – Cooking With Oldways & Chefs Online

    Join the Armenian Heritage Park on the Greenway, Boston, for three special virtual programs on Fridays at 10 am: Celebrating What Unites Us!, a collaboration of OLDWAYS, Age-Friendly Boston & Friends of Armenian Heritage Park on The Greenway to keep us connected, coming together.


    Each session begins with a Welcome: Andrea Burns, Director, Age-Friendly Boston

    FRIDAY, JUNE 5 AT 10 AM – VEGETARIAN Instructor: Caroline Sluyter

    FRIDAY, JUNE 12 – ARMENIAN WITH CHEF DAVID ALEKSANYAN, Chef/Owner, Arsenal Catering Group   REGISTER


    FRIDAY, JUNE 19 – MOROCCAN WITH CHEF SAID EL MENNAOUY, Chef/Owner, Tamaris Cuisine Catering  REGISTER

    For your leadership, commitment and generosity, thank you OLDWAYS! OLDWAYS is a “food and nutrition nonprofit helping people live healthier, happier lives”.

  • Northern Forest Atlas Now Available – Free Downloads

    Northern Forest Digital Atlases are unique products developed to showcase high-resolution photography. Each contains 1,400 or more pictures, with notes on identification and ecology. The majority of the pictures can be zoomed to full screen or beyond; on a full-size monitor this gives magnifications from 3x to over 50x, and allows the atlases to function as digital microscopes, preloaded with 200 to 300 species each.
    The Digital Atlases are both useful and beautiful. Students and naturalists can use them for identification, review, and to meet plants they haven’t seen. Anyone who loves plants will enjoy the imagery, and to see thousands of details that have never been photographed clearly before.
    The Digital Atlases are supplied as pdfs for free download. They may be used for any personal, educational, or nonprofit purpose. Sedges (357 pages, 223 species) is currently available. Mosses (1,156 pages, about 330 species) and Woody Plants (724 pages, about 270 species) are now available for download. A digital atlas of grasses is currently under preparation and will be available in spring 2022. Visit www.northernforestatlas.org.

    Woody Plants of Northern Forest: A Digital Atlas

  • Saturday, June 6, 9:00 am – 12:00 noon – New England Plant Swap Cancelled

    There is no way this event could be run safely this year, and regretfully the Plant Swap has been cancelled.

    Bring a Plant, Take a Plant – Bring Many, Take Many!  Sharing is one of the best parts of gardening, and if you haven’t beeen to a good, old-fashioned plant swap you’re in for a treat.  The New England Plant Swap will take place Saturday, June 6, from 9 – noon at Adams Farm, 999 North Street in Walpole.  Pot up your excess prized plants to share, split your bulbs, thin your annuals.  Load up your bounty and plan to arrive before 9 am.  There, you will meet other local gardeners with their booty to share.  One on one trading starts at 9, and at around 9:30, we go in rounds. At the end, because the farm must be left clean, everybody gets plants! Gently used tools, books, art, containers, and supplies are very popular, too. Please label! For more information visit https://newenglandplantswap.wordpress.com/

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  • Wednesday, June 10, 12:00 noon – 1:00 pm – Landscaping With a Purpose: What’s Diversity Got To Do With It? Webinar

    In the fragmented ecosystems where we live and work, the importance of diversity in our landscapes cannot be over emphasized. Diversity of native plants, insects, mammals, birds, amphibians… they all play a crucial role in sustaining a healthy environment.

    When we encourage a diversity of native plants in the landscape, we provide just one component of a successful habitat. We all learned the components of sustainable habitats when we were in elementary school – all creatures need food, shelter, and water.

    But what does this mean in a landscape? We need diversity of food: native plants that supply food for insects that in turn become food for other insects, birds, and animals large and small. We must have plant diversity to feed a diversity of creatures, but we also need structural diversity. Places for butterflies to hide at night and moths to hide during the day. Places for all sorts of creatures to shelter from weather, both summer and winter. Places for cover and nesting sites. We need diversity of form: trees, shrubs, evergreens, and groundcovers; leaf litter, brush piles, rock piles and fallen logs. We also need water – streams, ponds, bird baths, and mud puddles. Incorporating all these elements into the landscape does not require a large space, but it does require creative vision.

    Dr. Randi Eckel has been studying native plants for over 30 years, and founded the mail-order native plant nursery Toadshade Wildflower Farm in 1996 to further public awareness and availability of native plants. A life-long naturalist, lover of nature, and confirmed plant and ecology nerd, Randi specializes in the interactions between plants and other living things. She is known for her lively and engaging lectures and workshops on growing and propagating native plants, and offers interesting, nuanced information on the complex issues facing native plants and native plant communities. This Ecological Landscape Alliance webinar will be held June 10 at noon, and is free, but registration is required at https://www.ecolandscaping.org/event/webinar-landscaping-with-purpose/

  • Thursday, June 4, 2:00 pm – 2:30 pm – Painting Edo

    “Painting Edo” at the Arnold Arboretum is a collaboration between the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University and the Harvard Art Museums, inspired by the exhibition Painting Edo: Japanese Art from the Feinberg Collection.Observing artworks from the exhibition alongside the living collections of the Arnold Arboretum, we invite you to marvel at the remarkable accuracy with which artists of the Edo period (1615–1868) in Japan rendered their botanical subjects.  In this online talk, Rachel Saunders, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Curator of Asian Art, and William (Ned) Friedman, Director of the Arnold Arboretum, will discuss the striking Magnolia sieboldii, also known as Siebold’s magnolia or the Oyama magnolia. After a close look at a very rare painted specimen in the Feinberg Collection with Rachel, Ned will bring us into the Arboretum’s landscape to learn about the live specimen’s unique biology and gorgeous bloom.  
    This virtual program will take place live in Zoom. Free admission, but registration is required. Rain date Friday, June 5. Register here: https://harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Frp8sRcWTqG1S_aZKI7gZg