Boston Flora

Month: November 2020

  • Friday, November 20, 10:00 am – 12:30 pm – Thanksgiving Tabletop, Online

    Create a glorious autumnal centerpiece for your Thanksgiving table, crafted from store-bought seasonal flowers and herbs-including roses, Chinese lanterns, celosia, chrysanthemums, mini pumpkins and lady apples. Set your plant materials in a cluster of repurposed containers and vases for a personalized holiday presentation. Learn tips to showcase an eclectic tabletop of flowers, textures, tableware, props and linens that complete the harvest ambience. This online New York Botanical Garden class will take place November 20 from 10 – 12:30, and is led by Trish Sullivan.

    Flowers should be purchased in advance from your local grocery store. Please refer to the materials list for all supplies needed for this class. $75 for NYBG members, $85 for nonmembers. Register HERE.

  • Wednesday, November 18, 7:00 pm – 8:15 pm – About Art, Nature, and Spiritual Life: Polly Thayer Starr and the Religious Society of Friends, Online

    Polly Thayer Starr was an artist who lived beyond tidy definitions. Classically trained and well-spoken, she bounded onto the 1930s art scene, gaining fame for her formal portraits of Boston’s elite. With eyes and hands in constant motion, she recorded what she saw in sketches, collected and annotated poems torn from magazines, and wrote prolific letters and lectures. “I want to see with my whole being,” she declared, and “I seek what the form will reveal of essence, what the visible will tell me of the invisible.”

    The act of meditative discovery was at the heart of Starr’s approach to life and art. Over time, she came to see deep observation of nature and people around her as an act of prayer, and her art as a spiritual discipline. Not particularly religious in her early years, Starr became a Quaker in her 30s,as her artistic career was taking shape. For more than 60 years, this relationship unified her aesthetic and spiritual experience and shaped the pictures she shared with the public while in turn she contributed to a new wave of interest in art among Friends.

    Join Annie Storr for a virtual talk exploring these connections of Art, Nature, and Spiritual Life of Polly Thayer Starr.

    Please pre-register online for virtual access to this Zoom program. This program is presented in conjunction with the exhibition “Polly Thayer Starr: Nearer the Essence” which will open at Fruitlands Museum in September 2020 with generous support of the Polly Thayer Starr Charitable Trust. Program is free to Trustees members, $5 for nonmembers. Register at https://thetrustees.org/event/58421/

  • Thursday, November 19, 11:00 am – 12:00 noon – Thanksgiving Centerpiece Flower Arranging, Online

    Thursday, November 19, 11:00 am – 12:00 noon – Thanksgiving Centerpiece Flower Arranging, Online

    The Garden Club of the Back Bay is pleased to announce the next pop-up flower arranging class online with Nancy Cyr on November 19 from 11 – noon. Due to the recent surge in COVID, participants will provide their own flowers, containers, and other supplies. The class itself is free.

    We will be making a long and low floral centerpiece for a dining room table.  You should purchase or forage greens and buy a variety of flowers. Nancy suggests roses, alstroemerias and chrysanthemums. We will learn two methods to secure greens and flowers: one using chicken wire (available on Amazon or at Michaels) the other using bendable twigs or vines. You will need a container and waterproof floral tape. Nancy will send a list of suggested materials and links to where you can buy them once you RSVP.


    RSVP NO LATER than November 16 by clicking here: SIGN UP

  • Tuesday, November 17, 6:00 pm – 7:15 pm – Gibson House Virtual Architecture Tour

    Experience the Gibson House’s unique architecture from the comfort of your own home on November 17 at 6 pm. Join The Gibson House’s Building Committee members Jackie Blombach and Lorie Komlyn for an in-depth exploration of the museum’s structural features and innovative mechanical systems, reflecting nineteenth-century tastes and technology. If you want to admire the ventilation shaft, or think more about how the two separate staircases were designed and used, this is the tour for you. Jackie is Past President of The Garden Club of the Back Bay, and a knowledgeable restoration carpenter. Time will be allowed for audience questions following the presentation. This event will take place on Zoom. Pre-registration is required HERE. $10 fee.

  • Common Loon Hatch

    MassWildlife reports the first common loon hatched in southeastern Massachusetts in over a century.

    In early July, the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife (MassWildlife) and the Biodiversity Research Institute (BRI) confirmed that a common loon chick hatched in Fall River this spring. Until this year, loons had not hatched in southeastern Massachusetts in over a century! BRI, a non-profit ecological research group based in Maine, has been partnering with MassWildlife to restore common loons to Massachusetts. This historic hatchling is an exciting result of a multi-year loon restoration initiative.  

    In 2015, in partnership with MassWildlife, the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife, Maine Audubon, the New York Department of Environmental Conservation, and the Ricketts Foundation, BRI relocated loon chicks from Maine and New York (where loons have a robust population) to the Assawompset Pond Complex in Lakeville, Massachusetts. Historically, loons nested in this area before the species was extirpated as a breeding bird in Massachusetts in the late 1800s. The hope was that translocated loon chicks successfully fledging in southeastern Massachusetts would return to that region to breed as adults in 4–6 years, thereby establishing a new breeding population in the state. The male in the Fall River nesting pair, one of the chicks originally translocated from NY, did just that.  

    Common loons (Gavia immer) are currently listed as a species of special concern under the Massachusetts Endangered Species Act. Once loons fledge from freshwater lakes, they migrate to wintering grounds on the ocean. As young adults, they return to the area where they hatched to join the breeding population. The loons that were translocated from Maine and New York as chicks are now beginning to return to their release sites in Massachusetts as breeding adults. For more on endangered species conservation in Massachusetts, click here to learn about MassWildlife’s Natural Heritage & Endangered Species Program.

  • First Wednesday of Each Month, 12:00 noon – 12:30 pm Eastern Time – Live Monthly Garden Lunch & Learn Webinars

    Debby Ward is a professional organic gardening speaker, instructor, coach and writer with over 40 years of gardening experience. She is the Founder of Prior Unity Garden, Making Organic Garden Dreams a Reality. Debby has been gardening since she could crawl around the family garden.

    Debby loves to help grow gardeners and has trained Master Gardeners in Fairfax County VA for the County Extension Office, taught for The Mason Sustainability Institute, Washington Gardener Magazine, the Take Back Your Health Conference and for many other events, organizations and groups.

    She has written articles for Green America and Natural Awakenings Magazines as well as many articles on herbal healing when she was the past President of Joe Pye and Friends, the former National Capital Area Herbal Network. She has written a booklet on Seed Starting and Safe Seed Buying as well as all the course materials for Prior Unity Garden classes. Debby created The Organic Garden Guide & Veggie Layout Handbook and the Prior Unity Garden product line.

    Known as Garden Coach Deb, she provides organic garden coaching and consultations by phone, Zoom and in person for folks local to the Washington DC Metro area.

    Debby loves to ‘paint with plants’ as she now calls it, combining her love of plants with her fine arts degree and sense of style, color and space. Debby has built Prior Unity Garden to assist others in achieving their organic garden goals and dreams and values biodiversity, community, healthy living soil, fresh organic food, music and the prior unity inherent in all beings.

    Each live 30 minute session includes:

    • A short talk or video by your speaker on a gardening topic
    • Live Q&A about the topic
    • if time permits, time to ask questions on other garden topics
    • Once you enroll and have attended three paid sessions, you can suggest topics you would like to see covered. This way you get to help drive the session subjects, so the sessions are tailored to those who attend.

    A subscription costs $18/momth. First webinar free when you enroll – coupon code FREELUNCH. Register at https://organicgardeningclasses.com/p/live-monthly-garden-lunch-webinars

  • Thursday, November 19, 6:30 pm – Charlesgate Alliance Public Meeting

    Thursday, November 19, 6:30 pm – Charlesgate Alliance Public Meeting

    The Charlesgate Alliance, connecting Kenmore, Back Bay, and Fenway neighbors, looks forward to getting together virtually on November 19th at 6:30. Karen Mauney-Brodek of the Emerald Necklace Conservancy, Parker James of the Charlesgate Alliance, and Dan and Marie Law Adams of Landing Studio will be there. We will be reviewing our project to date as well as advocacy for two Massachusetts Department of Transportation projects in the Charlesgate area.

    Please register in advance for this meeting:
    https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIqdeyqpzojHtw8aObLsYmGUJR_dDtlnq9X

    After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

  • Wednesday, December 2, 2:00 pm – Kiftsgate Court Gardens: Three Generations of Women Gardeners Webinar

    In this December 2 illustrated webinar, current owners Anne and Johnny Chambers will tell their personal tale of Kiftsgate Court’s history and share their plans for the garden’s future. The program is presented by the Royal Oak Foundation, co-sponsored by The Colonial Dames of America, Washington Decorative Arts Forum, and the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art, Southern California Chapter, and begins at 2 pm. $15 for sponsor members. $20 non-members.

    Kiftsgate Court is a family home and garden that has been loved and cultivated by the same family for over 100 years. Three generations of women gardeners have left their mark, each building on the family legacy.

    When Jack and Heather Muir bought Kiftsgate in 1919, Heather laid out the garden without any horticultural training. Instead of a lawn, she planted semi-formal beds of roses and other flowers, a tapestry hedge with a mix of beech, yew, and plain and variegated holly, and a rose border full of unusual varieties. Heather’s aesthetic favored the Arts & Crafts Movement, emphasizing perennials and Mediterranean plants chosen for their adaptability, including drought tolerant cistus, spiky agaves, and other Mediterranean style plantings. She was encouraged by her friend and next-door neighbor at Hidcote, Lawrence Johnston, as well as Vita Sackville-West, who planted the famous Kiftsgate Rose at Sissinghurst.

    Heather’s daughter, Diany Binny, continued the family gardening tradition during the 1950s. She designed paths, replanted borders with herbaceous plants, and re-fashioned the White Sunk Garden with a pool. Since the late 1980s, her daughter, Anne Chambers, and Anne’s husband, Johnny, have cultivated Kiftsgate. They introduced plants that flower year-round and added a water garden, a woodland, a tulip tree avenue, and an orchard. 

    Register at www.royal-oak.org. Use Discount Code BACKBAY20 to enjoy the Royal Oak member price ($15) when checking out.

  • Sunday, November 15, 3:00 pm – Monday, November 23, 11:45 am – Center for Coastal Studies Sea Change Film Shorts

    Center for Coastal Studies, Provincetown presents Sea Change Film Shorts 2020 moderated by WBUR senior environmental editor Barbara Moran. The one-hour virtual special spotlights three films: “Spinnaker,” a festival award-winning short by Nadine Licostie about a New England juvenile humpback whale, and two shorts on microplastics’ destructive effect on all marine life.

    Moran will lead scientists in lively Q&A sessions throughout. The production includes additional film clips and surprise friends. Registered ticket holders are also granted on demand access to Sea Chest 2020, a collection of topical environmental film shorts curated by CCS staff.

    This one-hour production is free and available on demand from November 15 at 3:00 p.m. through November 23 at 11:45 p.m. Register at www.wbur.org

  • Monday, November 16, 10:30 am – 1:00 pm – Woven Wall Hangings

    This Tower Hill Botanic Garden program with Suzanne Hauerstein will be held indoors in one of our well-ventilated classrooms on Monday, November 16 from 10:30 – 1. Group size will not exceed current state restrictions. Max Participants: 10

    Using natural wool and neutral colored yarns learn to weave this warm wall hanging. Different weaving techniques and natural materials will be used. All materials will be included.

    Suzanne Hauerstein is a professional teaching artist and the Coordinator of Volunteer & Intern Services at Tower Hill. She has over 25 years of experience designing and facilitating art-based programs for informal learning environments. Suzanne is committed to creating programs that are accessible, positive, and enjoyable learning experiences for students of all ages and abilities. $46 for Tower Hill members, $60 for nonmembers. Register at www.towerhillbg.org.