Daily Archives: October 12, 2021

Saturday, October 16, 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm – Right Tree, Right Place

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Trees can define a garden, but their siting and placement can confound gardeners, particularly when smaller specimens are being planted. This October 16 Berkshire Botanical Garden class, taught by Lee Buttala in person at the garden in West Stockbridge, examines the root structures, growth habits, and the mature size of a range of species and varieties, large and small, for use in the residential landscape. Attendees will walk away with a new approach to selecting woody plants that will provide their gardens with desired structure and form throughout the years, while taking into consideration underplanting and the tree’s harmonious coexistence with other garden features and elements in the ever-evolving landscape. This class hopes to prevent gardeners from needing to remove maturing trees because they were planted in the wrong place, by demonstrating how better siting or selection (or regular pruning or training) can allow these coveted plants to mature in the garden.

In his life as a gardener, nonprofit leader and writer, Lee Buttala has explored the world of gardening from many angles. He is the former Executive Director of Seed Savers Exchange, a seed bank dedicated to the sharing and saving of seeds that define America’s food and garden heritage, and the only non-governmental organization storing seed at the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. He previously served as Director of Marketing Communications for BBG and Preservation Manager for the Garden Conservancy, and currently serves as chair of the Historic Landscapes Committee of the APGA. Lee won an Emmy award for his role as a garden television producer for Martha Stewart Living and was the creator of PBS’s Cultivating Life. He is the editor of the award-winning book, The Seed Garden: The Art and Practice of Saving Seed, writes a weekly garden column for the Berkshire Edge and serves on the board of Hollister House Garden in Washington, CT. Lee studied garden design at the Chelsea Physic Garden, the New York Botanical Garden and the Kyoto School of Art and Design. He lives in Brooklyn and Ashley Falls, MA.

$20 for BBG members, $25 for nonmembers. Register at https://www.berkshirebotanical.org/events/right-tree-right-place

Monday, October 18, 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm – Enduring Landscapes, Online

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The NYBG’s 23rd Annual Landscape Design Portfolios Lecture Series continues on October 18 at 6:30 with an online talk by Michael Boucher on Enduring Landscapes. From the office he founded in Freeport, Maine in 1994, Michael has led project teams in the planning and design of landscapes at a variety of scales and architectural approaches for public and private universities, schools, parks, museums, and churches. He is also recognized for his outstanding works of residential landscape architecture, and this presentation will focus on several of these projects, including a Hamptons beach house, a hilltop residence on a steep promontory in Massachusetts, two projects in Colorado, a home that required a forest restoration, and a Telluride residence on a 100-acre meadow, and a desert residence in Phoenix. In each of these challenging settings, Boucher created simple and restrained designs that exhibit a timeless quality and unite each building with its site. After receiving an A.S. in Plant & Soil Technology and a B.S. in Environmental Design from UMass, Amherst, Michael Boucher, FASL A, received
his ML A from Harvard. A lecturer, teacher, and studio critic, he is also actively engaged in the community, including the Portland Society for Architecture and Wolfe’s Neck Center for Agriculture and the Environment. Registration fee for each lecture: $15/$18. Register for the series and receive a discount: 222L AN801AO | $39/$49

Register at www.nybg.org.

Wednesday, October 20, 3:00 pm – 4:00 pm – The Other Darwin: Alfred Russel Wallace and the Origin of Species, Online

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Against all odds — lacking wealth, formal education, social standing or connections, Alfred Russel Wallace became the pre-eminent tropical explorer of his day, founding one entirely new discipline — evolutionary biogeography — and, with Darwin, co-founding another: evolutionary biology.

With the 2023 centennial year of his birth approaching, join Harvard Alumni Travels online as we trace the epic trajectory of Wallace’s life and thinking, from his meteoric rise in the 19th century to his virtual eclipse in the 20th. Along the way we’ll explore the ups and downs of Wallace’s relationship with Darwin, and critically evaluate the ‘conspiracy theories’ that Wallace was wronged by Darwin and his circle over credit for the discovery of natural selection.

Jim Costa is a long-time Research Associate in Entomology in the Museum of Comparative Zoology and HAA Travel Program Study Leader. As Executive Director of the Highlands Biological Station in Highlands, NC and Professor of Biology at Western Carolina University, he teaches biogeography and the history of evolutionary thinking. Jim has held fellowships at Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study and the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, and was awarded the Wallace Medal in 2017. His books include The Annotated Origin (Harvard), Darwin’s Backyard: How Small Experiments Led to a Big Theory (W.W. Norton) and, most recently, An Alfred Russel Wallace Companion (Chicago). He is currently working on books elating to Darwin and Wallace for Princeton University Press.

Space is limited and on a first come, first serve basis! Please note, this lecture will be recorded and shared with you. Register (free) HERE.