Boston Flora

Month: August 2020

  • Wednesday, September 23, 12:00 noon – 1:00 pm – Why Rain Gardens Fail and Tools for Success Webinar

    Rain impacts each of our lives. Past generations developed methods that quickly whisk the rain from roofs, roads, and plazas on its journey to the ocean. The contemporary stormwater model features the design and installation of landscapes that mimic nature, capturing, storing, and infiltrating the water close to its source. Rain gardens and bioretention facilities are two practices in the green infrastructure toolbox, and they are often the first choices for designers, contractors, public agencies, and landowners due to their relatively low cost, large stormwater treatment capacity, and perceived ease of installation. However, complaints ranging from unsightly weedy holes to mosquito breeding water can leave agencies and landowners wishing for another stormwater alternative. With appropriate planning, design, construction, and maintenance, these stormwater treatment workhorses can be an artistic part of our landscapes, gardens, streetscapes, and public spaces.

    Steven Torgerson is a Registered Landscape Architect and the Director of Landscape Architecture at AMT Landscape Architecture + Design Division. He has nationwide experience in planning and design within an ecologically resilient framework and is passionate about creating spaces that are a catalyst for people to interact with their environment and community. Mr. Torgerson’s multidisciplinary design approach encourages alternative solutions to complex rainwater problems. He delights in community engagement and the opportunity to integrate public preferences into the design outcome. Before coming to AMT, Mr. Torgerson served as the Cultural Landscape Architect at Yosemite National Park and was the lead landscape architect for the Forest Service during the 2002 Winter Olympics. He has won numerous awards for his work in landscape architecture including the 2018 ASLA Potomac Chapter Honor Award for Brookside Gardens and the 2017 ASLA, Potomac Chapter Honor Award for Greening DC’s Streetscapes. Mr. Torgerson holds a Master in Landscape Architecture from the Pennsylvania State University with an emphasis in watershed planning and a Bachelor of Landscape Architecture from Utah State University.

    This ELA webinar is free for ELA members, $10 for nonmembers, and you can register at https://www.ecolandscaping.org/event/webinar-why-rain-gardens-fail-and-tools-for-success/

  • Monday, September 14, 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm – Deer-Resistant Native Groundcovers Webinar

    Effortless and Evergreen— Move over pachysandra, myrtle, and mulch. Discover the many native groundcovers that are easy to grow, shunned by deer, and offer year-round interest. Create a living mulch that provides seasonal beauty, is beneficial to wildlife, and moderates soil temperature and moisture.

    Melissa (Missy) Fabel is a native plant designer, consultant and writer. She has a certificate in Field Botany from the New York Botanical Garden and a certificate in Gardening with Native Plants from the Native Plant Center at Westchester Community College, where she also teaches and is a Steering Committee member.

    This Ecological Landscape Alliance Webinar will take place September 14 from noon – 1 and is free for ELA members, $10 for nonmembers. Register at https://www.ecolandscaping.org/event/webinar-deer-resistant-native-groundcovers/#get-ticket

  • Thursday, August 27, 6:30 pm – 8:00 pm – Summer Harvest Dinner at Home

    It’s peak harvest season in Massachusetts and the Boston Community Gardens team wants to bring the taste of summer to you in your homes! We have curated a vegetarian menu featuring some of the best late summer produce. You’ll pick up a bundle of fresh seasonal ingredients from one of three locations (JP, Quincy or Medford) and return home for a Zoom cooking class on August 27 from 6:30 – 8 where we’ll prepare a delicious meal together. You’ll learn recipes you can adapt to whatever produce is in season.

    All proceeds directly support Boston Community Gardens. Tickets sales stop at midnight on Wednesday August 26. Trustees members get a 20% discount. For any questions or to become a member, please reach out to mdelima@thetrustees.org. $28 for members, $35 for nonmembers. For more information visit http://www.thetrustees.org/things-to-do/metro-boston/event-57195.html

  • Wednesday, August 26, 9:00 am – Sunday, August 30, 9:00 pm – Newport Mansions Exclusive Experiences Online Auction

    With the right bid, you can go beyond the ordinary while also supporting The Preservation Society of Newport County! 

    Host an elegant dinner for family and friends in the dining room at Rosecliff. Watch the sun set over Newport Harbor from the roof of The Elms while enjoying cocktails and hors d’oeuvres. Explore the third floor of The Breakers – not normally accessible to the general public – with a special private tour capped by a glass of wine on the third floor terrace overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. These are just three of the exclusive experiences in this auction.See the website for the full list.  

    One item of gardening interest is a Landscape Consultation. The Preservation Society’s Director of Garden & Grounds, Jeffrey Curtis, will visit your home or business and provide advice on the care and maintenance of your existing landscape. Jeff’s decades of experience caring for our historic grounds will allow him to pass along the best practices and advice for your current landscape to make it the garden oasis you always dreamed of!  Available on Aquidneck Island or other nearby locations. We hope all members and supporters will consider bidding on one or more of these items.

    Questions Events@newportmansions.org

  • Through February, 2021 – A Mouse with Ears

    Take the time to see artist Furen Dai’s sculpture A Mouse with Ears on the Rose Kennedy Greenway. The piece will be exhibited through February, 2021. To see the location on a map, visit https://www.rosekennedygreenway.org/amousewithearsandtail

    Furen Dai’s practice has focused on the economy of cultural industry and how languages lose function, usage, and history over time. Her years as a professional translator and interest in linguistic studies have guided her artistic practice since 2015. For her artwork based on the Year of the Mouse, Dai researched the evolutionary process of the Chinese character “鼠” (mouse), from the ancient Oracle bone script to the contemporary SimSun font. 

    When foreign language characters are placed in a different cultural context, those without knowledge of the language tend to read the character as a series of abstract lines and shapes. This artwork explores the experience of viewing a Chinese character from both a native and foreign perspective, encouraging both Chinese speakers and non-Chinese speakers to see “mouse” when viewing “鼠”.  In this work, the small mouse of the ancient Oracle bone script races around the contemporary SimSun font, which is in turn transformed into a cartoon mouse figure blinking and beckoning us in with its warm, neon glow.

  • Friday, September 11, 6:00 pm – 7:00 pm – The Earth in Her Hands: 75 Extraordinary Women Working in the World of Plants, Online

    Enjoy a Berkshire Botanical Garden online lecture and Q&A sessionon September 11 at 6 pm with author Jennifer Jewell, about her new book The Earth in Her Hands: 75 Extraordinary Women Working in the World of Plants, available for purchase through BBG’s online shop. Focus in a wholly unique way on how horticulture intersects with our everyday world and on women whose work has enriched and expanded these intersections in the last 25 years. The Earth in Her Hands explores and celebrates how the plant world is improved by greater representation of women and by diversity amongst those women. It chronicles how working in the world of plants is a more viable and creative career path for women than ever before and how the plant-work world is demonstrating greater social and environmental responsibility, in large part due to women’s contributions. These profiles of women from a half a dozen different countries, doing innovative work in all horticultural fields, point to larger issues and shifts in our world. These women’s diverse backgrounds and identities challenge preconceived notions of what horticulturalists and gardeners look like, while their work illustrates how many challenges of our world can be met through cultivating an interdependence with plants.

    Jennifer Jewell is the creator and host of Cultivating Place, an award-winning public radio program and podcast on natural history and the human impulse to garden.

    Advance Registration required ($25 for BBG members, $30 for nonmembers) at https://www.berkshirebotanical.org/events/earth-her-hands-75-extraordinary-women-working-world-plants

  • Wednesdays, September 16 and 23, 12:30 pm – 4:30 pm – Botanical Printmaking Online

    The Fuller Craft Museum will hold its adult classes online through the fall, due to COVID-19, and a Botanical printmaking class on September 16 and 23 from 12:30 – 4:30 will be no exception, Explore a mixture of non-press printmaking strategies with botanical textures. Combine leaves, sea foam, dried fruits, pressed flowers, pine cones, fern fronds…and even some fabulous fakes, fabrics, and carved versions of botanicals. We’ll be printing into papers, card stocks, vellums, and some textiles for use in art projects like collage, assemblage, and the book arts. Printmaking techniques will include plexi-plate, collagraph, styrofoam block, gelatin plate and paste papers. Bring your own botanical items to add to Cristina’s vast collection, or just bring yourself for some creative exploration. All skill levels and media are welcome. A materials list will be provided. Instructor: Cristina Hajosy $135 for Museum members, $150 for nonmembers . To register, visit https://fullercraft.org/product/botanical-printmaking-september-16/

  • Wednesdays, September 9 & 16, 10:30 am – 2:30 pm – Introduction to Go Botany

    Native Plant Trust’s Go Botany online platform is a critical tool for New England native plant identification. This two session Native Plant Trust program serves as a review on field guide identification and forms a bridge between identification by book and identification by online resource. We will use common wildflower identification guidebooks to review how to use a key to identify plants, including terminology and plant characteristics. From there, we learn how to apply similar skills to use Go Botany to identify plants. Class is scheduled to meet at Garden in the Woods on two Wednesdays, September 9 and 16, from 10:30 – 2:30, and is $120 for NPT members, $144 for nonmembers. Register at http://www.nativeplanttrust.org/events/introduction-go-botany/

  • Wednesday, August 26, 5:30 pm – 6:30 pm – The Mount Desert Land & Garden Preserve, Online

    Rodney Eason is CEO of the Mount Desert Land & Garden Preserve, a collection of three gardens (Asticou, Thuya, and Abby Aldrich Rockefeller) and over 1,200 acres of natural lands adjacent to Acadia National Park. In his August 26 Polly Hill Arboretum presentation, Rodney will review the history of these gardens, the majestic natural landscapes, and how the staff and volunteers are working together to preserve these areas for current and future generations. Enjoy a virtual tour of the gardens in full flower!

    After nearly a decade in Pennsylvania working at famed Longwood Gardens, Rodney and his family headed ever further north to Maine, where they have called home since 2012. He holds a bachelor of landscape architecture from NC State (with a minor in horticulture) and a master of science in public horticulture from the University of Delaware and Longwood Gardens. Along with being passionate about the Preserve and Maine, Rodney enjoys going to their kids’ sporting events, starting home improvement projects, and riding his bike to avoid finishing these projects.

    This webinar is the Annual Lisina & Frank W. Hoch Lecture, and is free for PHA members, $10 for nonmembers. Proceeds benefit Polly Hill Arboretum and help make it possible for us to hold future affordable and free educational programs for our community. Thank you for support! Register here: bit.ly/Mount-Desert-Webinar-2020

  • Monday, August 24, 6:00 pm – 7:30 pm – A Virtual Community Conversation: The Power of Public Monuments in a Time of Racial Reckoning

    Black Lives Matter has ignited public conversation about racial equity and justice. Public monuments have become lightning rods as people take issue with the messages some convey about who we are as a nation and a people.

    As calls for the removal of public monuments intensify, what questions should we be asking of ourselves? What impact will today’s decisions have on our national memory, identity, and drive to shape a more just and equitable way forward?

    Join The Friends of the Public Garden on August 24 at 6 pm online for this timely, virtual conversation featuring:

    Renée Ater
    Associate Professor Emerita of American Art at the University of Maryland and Visiting Professor, Brown University.

    David W. Blight
    Sterling Professor of History and Director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition at Yale University.

    Moderator
    Karen Holmes Ward
    WCVB Director of Public Affairs and Host of “CityLine.”

    Introduction
    Michael Creasey
    Superintendent to General Superintendent
    National Parks of Boston

    Maximum capacity in the Shaw 54th Zoom Room is 500 attendees. Additional guests will be welcome to join us on Facebook Live or via livestream on WCVB/Channel 5’s social media channels.

    Everyone in the Shaw 54th Zoom Room will be entered in a drawing to win a Swag gift from the Partners to Renew the Shaw 54th.

    For more information, and to register, visit www.shaw54thmemorialrestoration.org.

    Sponsored by the Partnership to Renew the Shaw 54th Memorial.