Boston Flora

Month: October 2021

  • Holiday Wreath Project 2021 Suspended

    We are sad to announce that The Garden Club of the Back Bay’s 2021 Holiday Wreath Project must be suspended due to COVID-19 restrictions and concerns.  We are disappointed the neighborhood will be a little less festive in December without our beautiful wreaths. This decision was not made lightly – there were many factors and options considered, but ultimately we chose to take the most prudent approach for everyone’s safety.

    For those who may be holding gift certificates, please email info@bostonflora.com. We will be in touch with you to discuss alternate redemption options.

    Please stay safe and we wish you all the best this season.

  • Saturday, October 30, 10:30 am – 12:00 noon – Growing Cacti and Succulents in New England

    Cacti and Succulents thrive in desert locations all over the world. Growing them in New England can pose quite a few problems for these arid loving plants. In this October 30 Tower Hill Botanic Garden class we will discuss the ways that we can help our cacti and succulents acclimate to living in the northeast. Too much water, not enough sun, too organic soil, these are all big problems for cacti and succulents. But, with the right horticultural knowledge they can all be easily solved. We’ll also go over propagation, containers, where to buy, and local resources for all things cacti and succulent related. Feel free to bring any plants that you have questions about as well.

    Joel Mullen is the President of the Kaikou Bonsai Study Group. He has been growing bonsai trees for over 10 years and has trained with artists all over New England. Joel is the Lead Tropical Grower and the Education Coordinator at New England Bonsai Gardens in Bellingham, MA. Eastern Opuntia image courtesy of GoBotany.

    $30 Member Adult; $40 Adult (Registration includes admission to the Garden) Register HERE

  • Thursday, October 28, 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm – Top 10 Native Plants for Residential Landscapes Webinar

    Native plants are an important part of establishing a sustainable environment. In this October 28 Tower Hill Botanic Garden session from 6:30 – 7:30 pm, we’ll learn about the tried and true natives that can complement your garden, attract pollinators and withstand our New England weather. Successful herbaceous and woody plants will be included.

    Cheryl Salatino is the principal designer and owner of Dancing Shadows Garden Design, a residential landscape design and services firm. She has been designing gardens across Massachusetts since 2002. Cheryl is a Certified Landscape Designer and a Massachusetts Certified Horticulturist (MCH). She received her certificate in landscape design from the Radcliffe Seminars Landscape Design Program of Harvard University. She was awarded the status of Massachusetts Certified Horticulturist by the Massachusetts Nursery & Landscape Association (MNLA) as evidence of achieving the industry’s highest standards in nursery and landscape professionalism. Cheryl has also earned an Advanced Certificate in Horticulture and Design as part of the New England Wildflower Society’s Native Plant Studies Program. This program will be held virtually. Once you register you will receive a zoom link in the confirmation. This webinar will also be RECORDED and available for 2 months to all registrants. $10 for Tower Hill members, $15 for nonmembers. Register at www.towerhillbg.org.


  • Sunday, November 14, 10:00 am – 5:00 pm – 7th Annual Rooted in Place Ecological Gardening Symposium

    The 7th Annual Rooted in Place Ecological Gardening Symposium, Growing Resilience: The Climate Crisis, Our Gardens and Communities will be held at Berkshire Botanical Garden on November 14 from 10 – 5. BBG members $95, Nonmembers $115, and Students $65. Register at https://www.berkshirebotanical.org/events/7th-annual-rooted-place-ecological-gardening-symposium

    Speakers and topics are detailed below:

    How A Place-Based Garden Culture of Care Strengthens Places and Their People: This program will explore the philosophy of the Cultivating Place podcast that gardens/gardeners are powerful spaces and agents for potentially positive change in our world, helping to address challenges as wide ranging as climate change, resource use, habitat and biodiversity loss, cultural polarization/marginalization, and individual and communal health and being, as exemplified by the important guests on  Jennifer Jewell’s podcasts and the innovative place-based gardens that celebrate specifically western landscapes in the book Under Western Skies. Jennifer Jewell is the host of the national, award-winning weekly public radio program and podcast Cultivating Place: Conversations on Natural History and the Human Impulse to Garden. She is the author of award-winning The Earth in Her Hands, 75 Extraordinary Women Working in the World of Plants (Timber Press 2020), and Under Western Skies, Visionary Gardens from the Rockies to the Pacific Coast (Timber Press 2021). Her greatest passion is elevating the way we think and talk about gardening, the empowerment of gardeners, and the possibility inherent in the intersections between our places, our cultures, and our gardens. 

    Lessons in Built Ecology Brooklyn Bridge Park, an 85 acre, organic park in the middle of New York City, was created with ecology in mind. The park’s award-winning piers include top-notch recreation and entertainment — from opera to outdoor films, all of it beautifully designed. But the piers also contain native woodlands, freshwater wetlands, salt marshes, and numerous meadows. These areas echo native ecosystems and are managed with an emphasis on wildlife habitat. This talk will encompass the many ecological strategies employed by the park’s designers, as well as the management techniques park staff have developed to cultivate biodiversity. Topics will include pragmatic strategies for encouraging ecologically beneficial landscapes. 

    Rebecca McMackin is an ecologically obsessed horticulturist. She is Director of Horticulture at Brooklyn Bridge Park where she oversees 85 acres of diverse parkland. These meadows, forests, salt marshes and freshwater wetlands are managed with the dual purposes of cultivating, beautifying and encouraging biodiversity, all within the largest city in the country. In her imaginary free time, Rebecca lectures, writes, and designs the occasional garden. Her writing has been published in The New York Times, the Landscape Institute, and the Ecological Landscape Alliance. 

    Sam Hoadley is the Horticultural Research Manager at Mt. Cuba Center. His work includes evaluating native plant species, old and new cultivars, as well as hybrids in Mt. Cuba’s Trial Garden. Using data collected and analyzed over a three-year period, a research report is published outlining top-performing plants for the Mid-Atlantic region. This information is designed to inform consumers and home gardeners as well as professionals in the horticultural and nursery industries about the ecological benefits and attributes of the native plants in our trials. His presentation will focus on knockout native species and cultivars researched at the Mt Cuba Center. Sam received a degree in Sustainable Landscape Horticulture from the University of Vermont.

    Pete Grima is a Service Forester with the Massachusetts Department of Conservation & Recreation covering northern Berkshire County, where he helps landowners make informed decisions about their forests.  He is also an avid botanist responsible for many new and novel botanical discoveries in the Berkshires, and he is a co-author of the recently published Vascular Flora of Franklin County, Massachusetts. Using a recent landowner interaction from his Service Forestry work as a case study, Pete’s presentation will describe the process of envisioning a future forest to be planted in an old field, with a mind towards carbon storage and climate resilience.

  • Saturday and Sunday, October 23 & 24, 10:00 am – 4:00 pm – American Craft Fair at Tower Hill Botanic Garden

    The Worcester Center for Crafts and Tower Hill Botanic Garden have partnered to present the fifth annual juried fair of American craftwork. Hosted at Tower Hill, the show features over 30 fine artisans representing ceramics, jewelry, wood, metalworking, glass, mixed metals, painting, fiber artists and more. The show, free with admission to the garden, will be held October 23 and 24 from 10 – 4. For a complete list of participating artists, visit https://www.towerhillbg.org/american-craft-fair/

     

     

  • Saturday, October 30, 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm – Victorian Flowers We Still Love

    On October 20, from 2 – 3, at Berkshire Botanical Garden, Thomas Mickey discusses the new book All about Flowers: James Vick’s Nineteenth-Century Seed Company . He illustrates how this nineteenth-century seed company influenced both gardeners and the kind of garden that became essential, the Victorian flower garden. James Vick’s story has not been told yet. He is known in his hometown Rochester, NY, but he played a key role in gardens everywhere in nineteenth century America, whether of the wealthy, the middle class, the working class, or the city dweller.  Vick inspired gardeners everywhere with his own passion for gardening with flowers and his desire to spread the love of floriculture. Vick published yearly seed catalogs and a popular monthly garden magazine. He systematized the seed business: growing seeds, drying them, packaging them, and shipping them around the country, well before Sears or Montgomery Ward sent out their first catalogs. 

    Thomas Mickey, from Quincy, MA, is Professor Emeritus of Communication Studies at Bridgewater State University, where he taught public relations writing and directed student interns. He is also a graduate of the Landscape Institute at the Boston Architectural College. He is a Master Gardener and has been gardening for over 30 years. Professor Mickey posts weekly on his blog americangardening.net. He is the former garden writer for the Seacoast Media company that publishes newspapers on New Hampshire’s seacoast and southern Maine. He is the author of three books, including Best Garden Plants for New England. The Council on Botanical and Horticultural Libraries nominated his book America’s Romance with the English Garden for its annual Literature Award. The UK magazine Spectator named the book ‘best garden book of the year’. He is a past speaker with The Garden Club of the Back Bay.

    BBG members $15, nonmembers $20. Register at https://www.berkshirebotanical.org/events/victorian-flowers-we-still-love

  • Wednesday, November 10, 6:00 pm – 7:00 pm – Mutiny on the Rising Sun: A Tragic Tale of Slavery, Smuggling, and Chocolate, Online

    Recently uncovered information about a relatively unknown story of mutiny and murder illustrating the centrality of smuggling and slavery in early American society with ties to the respected Old North Church of Paul Revere fame in Boston, will be discussed in an online talk sponsored by the Boston Public Library on November 10 at 6 pm, online . This presentation will be held on Zoom, and the link to attend will be sent to registrants the afternoon of the event. Register HERE.

    Mutiny on the Rising Sun recounts the origins, events, and eventual fate of the Rising Sun’s final smuggling voyage in vivid detail. Starting from June 1743, it narrates a deeply human history of smuggling, providing an incredible story of those caught in the webs spun by illicit commerce. On the night of June 1, 1743, terror struck the schooner Rising Sun. After completing a routine smuggling voyage where the crew sold enslaved Africans in exchange for chocolate, sugar, and coffee in the Dutch colony of Suriname, the ship traveled eastward along the South American coast. Believing there was an opportunity to steal the lucrative cargo and make a new life for themselves, three sailors snuck below deck, murdered four people, and seized control of the vessel.

    The case generated a rich documentary record that illuminates an international chocolate smuggling ring, the lives of the crew and mutineers, and the harrowing experience of the enslaved people trafficked by the Rising Sun. Smuggling stood at the center of the lives of everyone involved with the business of the schooner. Larger forces, such as imperial trade restrictions, created the conditions for smuggling, but individual actors, often driven by raw ambition and with little regard for the consequences of their actions, designed, refined, and perpetuated this illicit commerce.

    Author Jared Ross Hardesty puts Old North Church under the spotlight as parishioners of the church who were formerly well-regarded and even helped pay for the famous steeple turn out to be involved in the slave trade. Captain Newark Jackson is the central figure, who was formerly honored with a chocolate shop in the North End named after him (2013–2019), but his name has now been removed from the store due to these revelations.

    At once startling and captivating, Mutiny on the Rising Sun shows how illegal trade created demand for exotic products like chocolate, and how slavery and smuggling were integral to the development of American capitalism.

    Jared Ross Hardesty is Associate Professor in the Department of History at Western Washington University and author of Unfreedom: Slavery and Dependence in Eighteenth-Century Boston and Black Lives, Native Lands, White Worlds: A History of Slavery in New England.  For this program,Jared will be interviewed by Tessa Murphy, Assistant Professor of History at Syracuse University an expert on the history of the Caribbean and its connections to the greater Atlantic world.

    For additional reading, we recommend the following articles:

  • Friday, October 22, 2:00 pm – 3:30 pm Eastern – Where the Wildness Pleases: Woodlands and Parks – Green is Not the Only Color, Online

    Curiously the High Weald is one region in Great Britain where those celebrated English earth movers, Lancelot Brown and Humphry Repton, are notably absent. Fear not, the undulating and craggy ancient Wealden landscapes create a range of microclimates, and from the nineteenth century this canvas became host to an array of trees and shrubs rich in colour and texture from the four corners of the earth. This Gardens Trust October 22 online lecture explores and analyses eight sites which illustrate both plantsman’s paradise and artist’s palette on a landscape scale. Explore the notable collectors as patrons, hunters and gardeners, their history and current status. The area is also home to global seed collections, ecological and botanical research notably within the Millennium Seed Bank.

    Featured landscapes and gardens: Ashdown Park, Bedgebury Pinetum, Borde Hill, High Beeches, Scotney Castle, Sheffield Park, Stonewall Park, and Wakehurst Place. £5 through Eventbrite. https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/where-the-wildness-pleases-woodlands-and-parks-tickets-169774789967

  • Thursday, November 4, 10:00 am – Flower Shows 101

    Thursday, November 4, 10:00 am – Flower Shows 101

    The Garden Club of the Back Bay will host its November meeting at The College Club of the Back Bay, 44 Commonwealth Avenue, at 10 am on November 4. Masks and proof of vaccination will be required. Kaye Vosburgh, longtime Garden Club of the Back Bay member and award-winning floral designer and teacher, will present an overview of flower shows – how to enter, skill levels, flower show schools, and where to learn more. Kaye is an Accredited Master Judge in the National Garden Clubs, Inc,, and the former District Director of Flower Show Schools. Kaye was named Designer of the Month for October 2021 by National Garden Clubs and you can see her designs on their Facebook page. Garden Club members will receive email notice of the program with instructions for advance registration, which is required due to capacity limitations for social distancing at the Club. Please rsvp by October 25 to Jackie Blombach by clicking here.  Please indicate whether you plan to stay for coffee after Kaye’s lecture. If you are not a member of The Garden Club of the Back Bay, and are interested in this program, please email info@bostonflora.com Coffee and tea will be served after the program to allow members who don’t feel comfortable socializing indoors to leave.

  • Friday, October 29 – Sunday, October 31 – Garden Club Federation of Massachusetts Show: Spirits of the Season

    The Central North and Central South Districts of the Garden Club Federation of Massachusetts, Inc. will be hosting “Spirits of the Season”—a National Garden Club Standard Flower show—at Tower Hill this fall. The show offers members of Garden Clubs in the New England Region and beyond an opportunity to exhibit floral designs, horticultural specimens, and educational exhibits with the intent to educate club members and the viewing public and stimulate interest in horticulture and floral design. In this year’s schedule, class titles such as “Bewitched,” “Mask-er-ade,” and “Haunting Delights” provide inspiration for creative expression following a whimsical seasonal theme. The show exhibits are judged and awards are placed. Free with admission to the Garden.

    Friday, October 29, 2021, 10AM-5PM
    Saturday, October 30, 2021, 10AM-5PM
    Sunday, October 31, 2021, 10AM-4PM

    The Garden Club Federation of Mass offers many opportunities for education in the gardening world, and “Spirits of the Season” will provide a fun, festive insight into just some of the interests and talents nurtured by the state and individual clubs.