Boston Flora

Month: December 2020

  • Saturday, May 15 – Saturday, May 29, 2021 – The Sikkim & Darjeeling Himalayas

    Explore the spectacular landscapes and flora of Sikkim and the Darjeeling Himalayas with Pacific Horticulture on May 15 – 29, 2021. See tea plantations around Darjeeling – of British Hill station fame – and the foothills of the Himalayas. Visit botanic gardens and orchid gardens, then head to Sikkim which is filled with Old World charm. Learn about the art and heritage of the Tibetan culture of Sikkim. Then drive toward the higher Himalayas through narrow valleys and winding mountain roads, where waterfalls leap into deep gorges, en route to Lachung. This will be our base to explore two spectacular natural areas, the Yumthang “Valley of the Flowers” and the Shingba Rhododendron Sanctuary which blooms during April and May. Our route is within sight of Kanchenjunga, at 28, 169 feet, the 3rd highest peak in the world. We’ll also explore the Thangu Valley which is carpeted with alpine flowers in May, and Tsomgo Lake, a glacial lake in eastern Sikkim.

    Discover the foothills and mountains of Himalayan India with tour escort, Greg Graves, and Alister Adhikari.

    View Himalaya tour brochure

    For complete itinerary details and information about booking this trip, click https://www.pacifichorticulture.org/tours/the-sikkim-darjeeling-himalayas-2/

  • Wreath of the Day, From the Archives – Flocked Wire

    We will continue with our wreath decorating tips with a plug for green flocked wire. You may find paper covered wire in various gauges at Walmart or Amazon, but this wire is sprayed or coated with soft green velvety fuzz, making it far easier to work with – no more cut or calloused fingers. It’s available from Oasis Floral Products in 20 gauge, but check at your local supply companies for more sizes. The higher the number the smaller the wire. We take long pieces and cut them into the sizes we may need for a particular task, whether it is securing pine cones or adding more greens to the balsam bases. The color blends into the foliage and by twisting the ends, you get a secure decoration.

    Tracey Cannistraro, our current co-President, is today’s Wreath of the Day Sponsor. Thank you, Tracey! Tracey also decorates, but the wreath below was made in 2013, before she joined the Club.

  • Tuesday, January 12, 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm – University of Connecticut George Safford Torrey Herbarium Virtual Tour

    Native Plant Trust has partnered with staff at university herbaria throughout New England to offer a special inside look at the region’s most impressive plant specimen collections. All programs will be conducted virtually. On Tuesday, January 12, from 1 – 2 pm, Sarah Taylor will lead you, on line, through the University of Connecticut’s George Safford Torrey Herbarium. $12 for NPT members, $15 for nonmembers. Register at http://www.nativeplanttrust.org/events/university-connecticut-george-safford-torrey-herbarium/

  • Wreath of the Day, From the Archives – The Power of Needle Nose Pliers

    We feel that, in a year we are unable to provide our beautiful wreaths to the public, we should give a hint or two to help people decorate their own. Not that we want to give away ALL our secrets, but fair is fair. So here is a tool to acquire – a small pair of needle nose pliers. They range in price from a few dollars to up to $100, but there is no need to go crazy for this purpose. We even see that you can order them from Instacart, and they’re available at all hardware stores. After you tie on a few pieces of greenery, perhaps a dried flower, and a pine cone to a wired pick, you are faced with the task of getting it to attach firmly to the wreath. Yes, you can just shove it in, but if you can pluck it right out again after doing that, it’s ultimately going to fall out. Wreaths shrink as they dry out and unless you place that pick deep into the core of the wreath, the results won’t last. The needle nose pliers amplifies your hand strength so by delicately gripping the top of the pick with the tool and pushing, the items, either a single item or a “bouquet”, goes in deeply and stays put. So now you know.

    Thank you Diane Schmalensee, member and generous customer, for sponsorship of today’s Wreath of the Day.

  • Daylight the Muddy River

    On October 15th, 2019,  at a public meeting at the Harvard Club, the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT) shared work that needed to be done to the eastbound Storrow Drive bridge in the area of Charlesgate that we call The Bowl and Bridge. Their preferred option 3A at that time  enabled “possible daylighting of Muddy River under Storrow EB bridge.”

    In response to these plans by MassDOT, the Charlesgate Alliance commissioned new drawings by Landing Studio to show people what a “daylit” or exposed Muddy River to Charles River connection could look like. These were unveiled on November 19th at a public meeting.

    Read the letters of support from Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh and Boston City Councilor Kenzie Bok to Governor Baker.

    Karen Mauney-Brodek, Pam Beale, and Parker James then wrote a letter to Governor Baker, which garnered the support of 33 area organizations.

  • Wreath of the Day, From the Archives – The Bold and the Beautiful

    Mary Ellen Udelson has been a Garden Club of the Back Bay member since 1982, and represented the Club at the Museum of Fine Art’s Art in Bloom. She did floral arranging for St. Cecilia’s Church as well. She moved out of the Back Bay a couple of years ago, but is known at wreath making for her bold, eye-popping designs. She uses large scale elements, and often they are gold or silver. Her wreaths can be seen for miles. One customer bought a wreath each season for a country house door which sat on a hill far from the road below, and wanted her wreath to be visible to cars driving by – Mary Ellen’s work was just perfect for that. In recent years, the crown of bold design guru has descended to Carlos Soto-Chaves, whose wreath is pictured below, but in her heyday, Mary Ellen could give him a run for his money.

    Thank you to our Wreath of the Day Sponsor Linda Zukowski, a Garden Club member who often delivered Mary Ellen’s wreaths around the neighborhood.

  • Athol Bird & Nature Club 2021 Calendar

    The Athol Bird and Nature Club (ABNC) calendar, chock full of nature notes, trivia questions and of course, some amazing photos of local birds, animals and plants is now available. While many people may enjoy a calendar with pictures of exotic nature and scenery, the “Birds and Nature of the North Quabbin” 2021 calendar focuses on the local beauty of this region making this calendar a local treasure.  

    The calendar, originally created by Cindy Hartwell, and now coordinated by Ernie LeBlanc, showcases photos taken in the North Quabbin region mostly by Athol Bird and Nature Club members. In addition, each month features extensive nature notes that provide very specific information such as when certain birds are migrating into or out of the area, when native wildflowers are blooming, when the peak of several meteor showers occur, and even when to listen for coyotes howling. Club members have an extremely broad range of interests, so a very diverse set of nature notes was compiled merely by picking their brains. 

    Fine-tuned for the climate in this area, the nature notes are what set this calendar apart from other pretty nature calendars. Many people frequently use the calendar as a learning tool with their children by going outside and trying to find what the calendar says to look for. 

    To further enhance the learning value of the calendar, each month features a nature trivia question. Do you know what a Red Oak Clearwing moth caterpillar eats?  Or, how does a beaver communicate danger to other beavers? Get the calendar to find out; the answers are on the inside back cover. Interesting facts about each month’s photo are also provided along with the photo credit to the member who took the photo.

    In keeping with the local theme, the calendar was printed by Highland Press of Athol, and as in previous years, area businesses have continued their enthusiastic support and paid for advertising in the calendar to help cover the printing costs. Being a high-quality product, people love to give them as gifts; they are great for grandparents and children, and are a wonderful reminder of home to family and friends that no longer live in the area.

    Order your Calendar Online today, or pick up your calendars in person at one of our local vendors (save on shipping fees) 

    The calendars are now available for purchase through the following local merchants: Trail Head, Quabbin Harvest, and Mount Tully Kennels in Orange; Flowerland @ Tintagels Gate, Else Where, Cornerstone Insurance,  MacMannis Florist, the North Quabbin Chamber of Commerce, and the North Quabbin Community Coalition in Athol; the Royalston Country Store in South Royalston,  the New Salem General Store in New Salem; the Red Apple Farm in Phillipston; the Petersham Craft Center in Petersham; the Hardwick Farmers Co-op in Gilbertville; the Kitchen Garden in Templeton; the Wendell Country Store in Wendell; Connecticut River Liquors in Turners Falls; and the Wine Rack and Ruggeri’s Beverage & Redemption Center in Greenfield. Still Just $10.00

  • Wreath of the Day, From the Archives – Queens of the Multiples

    Each year, in our Wreath of the Day posts, we comment on the difficulties we experience finding decorators willing to take on orders for multiple matched wreaths. They are hard for many reasons. First, you have to find underlying base wreaths of the same size and shape, since there are many variations of color, thickness, and shape even among batches of the same sized wreaths. Then you have to gather enough material to make sure you can complete the order without running out of, say, milk weed pods. You have to put them up on easels or a wall to make sure they actually match as to placement of bows and decorations, and there is the sheer boredom of completing the task. A matched pair is one thing, a matched trio or quadruple is something else entirely. From early on, we learned we could rely on Marion Brunck, now relocated on Cape Cod, and Alice Goyert, currently on Martha’s Vineyard, to accept the orders with cheerfulness and skill. We did try to make things easier by adding a very prohibitive surcharge for matched sets of three or more. We would match the bows and bow placements and provide “coordinated” but not exact matched looks at no additional charge, and luckily most of our customers were fine with that. Alice is still able to travel up for wreath week most years, and runs a very successful wreath project for her church on the Vineyard as well.

    Thank you Deborah Plunkett for your sponsorship today of our Wreath post. We encourage anyone who still wishes to do so to go to https://bostonflora.com/donate/ and make a gift in any amount.

  • “Buy a Tree, Give a Tree” Heirloom Apple Orchard Fundraiser

    “Buy a Tree, Give a Tree” Heirloom Apple Orchard Fundraiser

    Would you like to own a piece of Tower Hill Botanic Garden’s history while contributing to its future? The “Buy A Tree, Give a Tree” fundraising campaign is underway. For $200 you can select an apple tree sapling grown from trees in our historic heirloom apple orchard. For this price, you’ll receive a tree of your own to be picked up in the spring and you’ll make a tax deductible contribution to the garden’s horticulture operations as we complete the renovation of our historic heirloom apple orchard.

    You’ll be able to choose your tree from one of 119 heirloom varieties that are part of the Davenport Collection at Tower Hill Botanic Garden. Your tree was propagated by grafting scionwood collected from a tree in the Davenport Collection by Fedco Trees in Maine. Tower Hill began restoring this historic and important collection in 2019, when the existing trees in the collection were nearly thirty years old and showing varying signs of disease and stress that come with age. Your tree will be a two-year-old bare root branched sapling, 5 to 7 feet tall. Planting instructions will be provided at time of pick up in late winter/early spring 2021 and notification of pickup date will be emailed several weeks in advance. Bare root trees must be planted immediately following pickup.

    The apple varieties you know and love don’t “come true” when grown from seed, so they are asexually or clonally propagated through the process of grafting. Grafting allows apple growers to grow desirable named varieties that have specific properties like taste, color, disease resistance, or hardiness. For example, every Macoun apple eaten today is genetically identical to the first Macoun tree named by the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station in 1923. Scionwood collected from that first tree where carefully spliced onto other apple trees and apple rootstocks to create more Macoun trees. If you planted a seed from your Macoun apple, the fruit from that tree might taste similar to a Macoun, but thanks to bees transporting pollen from one variety to another, the fruit you grew from seed to tree would include notes of other apple varieties.

    To purchase, or to make a donation, visit https://www.towerhillbg.org/orchard/

  • Wreath of the Day, From the Archives – Offbeat Colors

    One of our most active members, Bev Christians, has run or contributed to a number of Garden Club of the Back Bay events, such as the Winter Tea and the Twilight Garden Party, but is not particularly fond of traditional Christmas colors of red and green. She has, for a number of years, requested a more offbeat look, sometimes chartreuse, sometimes pink, to hang in her South End home. Designer Rita Christensen has obliged with some truly spectacular wreaths, a few of which are pictured below.

    Thank you to Margo Newman for sponsoring today’s Wreath of the Day posting.