Boston Flora

Month: May 2021

  • Friday, June 11 & Saturday, June 12, 10:00 am – 4:00 pm – Carlisle Country Gardens Tour 2021

    The 2021 Carlisle Country Gardens Tour is Friday and Saturday June 11 and 12. Advance ticket prices through Monday, June 7: Adult $30; Senior $20; Club members $20. Children under 18 are free.

    After you purchase advance tickets online, bring your PayPal receipt to the Will Call table on the Town Common — across from the First Religious Society at 27 School Street, 01741 — in Carlisle’s town center. There you will receive your ticket, which is a program booklet that shows garden locations and descriptions. 

    You’re also invited to visit our exciting Plant Sale and sponsor booths on the Common during Tour hours. To register, visit https://www.carlislegardenclub.org/tickets-2021.html

  • Monday, June 7, 1:00 pm – 2:30 pm – Other Voices in Garden History: Contested Landscapes, Online

    This ninth in a series of illustrated lectures sponsored by The Gardens Trust will explore the impact and legacy of empire, colonialism and enslavement on western garden and landscape history. Our aim is to bring back some of the voices usually absent from this history, to identify and fill gaps in our collective knowledge, and to explore new ways of engaging with the whole history of gardens, landscapes and horticulture.

    Using his ethnographic work as co-founder of the Black Men Walking Group, and founder of the charity Sheffield Environmental Movement, Maxwell Ayamba, will shed light on how the notion of race affects use of countryside spaces. He will explore how the racialization of spaces has, as argued by Carolyn Finney, ‘the power to determine who actually participates in environmental related activities, whose voices are heard in environmental debates’. The lecture will consider how narratives of the English countryside rural space are so linked with the concept of Englishness that the presence of minorities can be seen as a dissolution of the English national identity and will examine arguments that membership of racial groups is ingrained in the structures of colonialism and imperialism.

    This ticket costs £5, and you may purchase tickets via the link here. Attendees will be sent a Zoom link 2 days prior to the start of the talk, and a link to the recorded session (available for 1 week) will be sent shortly afterwards.

    Maxwell A. Ayamba is a PhD research student in Black Studies, School of Languages & Cultural Studies, Department of American & Canadian Studies, University of Nottingham/M4C–AHRC. He is an Environmental Journalist by profession, formerly an Associate Lecturer/Research Associate, Sheffield Hallam University. Founder of the charity Sheffield Environmental Movement (SEM) and Co-Founder of the 100 Black Men Walk for Health Group, which inspired production of the national play ‘Black Men Walking’.

  • Tuesday, June 8, 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm – Rhododendrons Walk & Talk

    Join PHA Grounds Manager/Arborist Ian Jochems on June 8 at 2 pm for a Looking Together tour with a focus on beautiful Rhododendron blooms! On this tour, Ian will highlight colorful Rhododendron blooms around the Arboretum. He’ll share tips on growing Rhododendron and stories of some of Polly Hill’s favorites.  Looking Together tours run the 2nd and 4th Tuesday of the month, May through September, 2-3pm. Tour sizes are limited to help prevent the spread of COVID-19, and allow for social distancing. Registration is required. Tours are free with $5 admission/free for members.

    Learn more about the Arboretum and its plant collections on guided walks led by knowledgeable staff and docents. These specialized tours are designed to offer an in-depth experience, each focusing on a different aspect of the Arboretum. Meet at the Visitor Center.

    Sign up: http://bit.ly/PHA-Special-Tours

  • Friday, June 18, 9:30 am – 12:00 noon – Summer Solstice Celebration

    Summer arrives with the summer solstice, which marks the longest day of the year and the day when the midday sun reaches its highest point in the sky. The summer solstice occurs this year on Sunday, June 20, but Wright-Locke Farm in Winchester will celebrate on the 18th with a nature walk through the farm and forest to enjoy the beauty of the natural world.  The walk will focus on plant identification, plus fun and interesting natural history about past and present human uses as well as tales and legends about the plants we see. We’ll also celebrate the season with a little poetry and solstice lore. 
    Cost: $30 per person. Register HERE.

  • Wednesday, June 2, 5:00 pm – 6:30 pm – Trellising 101 Workshop, Online

    During this free online Boston Community Gardens workshop on June 2 from 5 – 6:30, we will review a variety of trellising techniques for tomatoes, peas, beans, cucumbers, and squash. We will discuss recommended materials and have a live demonstration how to construct them yourself! There will be time for questions at the end. Sponsored by the Trustees of Reservations, please sign up at https://thetrustees.org/event/61950/ If you’re able, consider supporting our gardens through the optional program fee.

  • Wednesday, June 16, 11:00 am – Create Foundation Gardens That Say “Welcome Home” to Native Plants, Online

    The foundation garden need not be a bastion of imports such as pachysandra and boxwood. On June 16 at 11:00 am on Zoom, learn about design problems posed by the foundation area of buildings. Discover how native plants can enhance those highly visible settings. Understand that by using regional native plants you can create a habitat for birds and pollinators while creating an aesthetically pleasing design. Kathy Connolly will present the illustrated lecture. Register at www.gcfm.org. Free for members of the Garden Club Federation of Massachusetts.

  • Friday, June 4, 9:00 am – 12:30 pm – Introduction to Grasses Identification, Online, and Friday, June 25, 6:00 pm – 7:00 pm – Author Book Talk, Online

    Many people are apprehensive about identifying grasses. With a little practice, however, you can learn to recognize common native and non-native species using an everyday vocabulary and easy-to-see characteristics. Lauren Brown, co-author with Ted Elliman of Grasses, Sedges, Rushes: An Identification Guide, will provide an online Native Plants Trust introduction to these beautiful and abundant plants. You will require this book for the class. $53 for NPT members, $63 for nonmembers. Register at http://www.nativeplanttrust.org/events/introduction-grasses-identification/ Please note that on Friday, June 25, the authors will give a live talk from 6 pm – 7:00 pm, also sponsored by Native Plant Trust, and the cost for that session is $12 for NPT members, $15 for nonmembers. Sign up for the author talk at http://www.nativeplanttrust.org/events/grasses-sedges-and-rushes/

  • Wednesday, June 9, 12:00 noon – 1:00 pm – Native Plants for Bird Friendly Communities, Online

    As we think ahead to spring and summer gardens, we anticipate the sights, scents, and sounds. One way to enhance the garden experience is to invite fascinating wildlife to live in and around the yard.

    This virtual Ecological Landscape Alliance presentation on June 9 at noon features the beautiful songbirds that flit through gardens including wrens, cardinals, finches, nuthatches, and more. Add beauty to your outdoor spaces, while helping birds and wildlife too. Bird-friendly gardens are a treat to anyone who appreciates gardening, wildlife, and the motion and song of birds.

    Join Audubon CT-NY’s Jillian Bell for a presentation focused on bird-friendly plants for your home landscape. With the right plants, any space—from a small container on your patio to an acre of your backyard—can become more bird-friendly.

    Whether you have years of experience with bird-friendly gardens or want to start your first one, you will find information and inspiration in this presentation. All successful bird gardens are comprised of three very important elements: cover, nesting, and nourishment (food and water). In this presentation, Jillian will provide an in-depth look at the things you can do to make your outdoor spaces more bird-friendly for our year-round avian residents as well as feathered friends who stopover during their migration journeys.

    Jillian Bell is Audubon Connecticut & New York’s Bird Friendly Communities (BFC) Program Coordinator.  She works with community groups and a suite of program partners to restore native habitat, connect people with nature, and inspire stewardship as well as the next generation of environmental leaders.  Jillian has supported over 30 schools in Connecticut in their efforts to green their schoolyards by creating native plant habitats on school grounds. Jillian also delivers professional development workshops to teaching staff to support them in taking their students outside and integrating their curriculum with the natural world right outside their doors. She is currently leading a virtual workshop series for people interested in adding native plants to their home spaces, be it in a planter or a whole yard.

    The program is free, but registration is required at www.ecolandscaping.org.

  • Wednesday, June 2, 7:00 pm – Coloring the Conservation Conversation, Online

    The Massachusetts Audubon Society will feature Dr. J. Drew Lanham online on Wednesday, June 2 at 7 pm on Coloring the Conservation Conversation. Dr. Lanham is Alumni Distinguished Professor of Wildlife Ecology and Master Teacher at Clemson University. In the last installment of this free virtual speaker series On Belonging in Outdoor Spaces, Dr. Lanham will discuss what it means to embrace the full breadth of his African-American heritage and his deep kinship to nature and adoration of birds. Register at https://www.onbelongingoutdoors.org/

  • Tuesday, June 8, 11:00 am – 12:00 noon – Finding the Mother Tree: A Conversation with Suzanne Simard, Online

    As a pioneer in the field of plant communication, ecologist Suzanne Simard has spent a lifetime rigorously documenting the forests of North America and the Arctic. Rather than simple collections of individual plants, these forests are complex communities of interdependent species that share resources and rely on one another for survival. Through this thought-provoking lens, Simard shares fascinating insights into how trees have evolved to perceive one another,recognize their neighbors, and remember the past; how they elicit warnings and mount defenses; and how they compete and cooperate with one another. She shows how these arboreal systems mimic both our neural networks and the structure of our civil societies, and how the ancient hubs of these communities—what she calls Mother Trees—play a crucial role in a given forest’s vitality.

    A professor of forest ecology at the University of British Columbia and author of a new memoir, Finding the Mother Tree, Suzanne Simard, Ph.D., has been shaped by her personal journey, including a childhood spent in the logging world of British Columbia’s rain forests that taught her to love and respect trees.

    This New York Botanical Garden Lecture on June 8 at 11 am is followed by a conversation with Todd Forrest, Arthur Ross Vice President for Horticulture and Living Collections. Registered participants will receive login instructions. Register HERE – $18.