We love ribbon. Sometimes, when it’s November and we are so eager to start and are at the Flower Market browsing in the ribbon aisles, we pick out patterns and colors that are perhaps a little too challenging when we are on the spot decorating. Santa’s Buckle below was one that seemed like a good idea at the time, but was languishing on the rolls with no decorators willing to experiment with it. In these instances, we try to make up a bow with the ribbon to demonstrate what it will look like when made into a bow and hope someone will choose it. Once a wreath is successfully finished, everyone flocks to the ribbon and we can barely keep up with demand.
In this National Trusts video, you’ll meet Leo Jennings, Area Ranger at Greys Court near Henley in Oxfordshire. You’ll learn more about how and why the Trust fells trees, and how it benefits nature in the surrounding area. You’ll also get an insight into all the different jobs rangers do at the National Trust: from managing habitats to helping out the house team now and again. Join Leo as he explains how the Greys Court rangers have been using wood from the estate to create a boardwalk, which will open up new areas for visitors to explore, and improve accessibility for those who find it tricky to navigate the muddier areas of the woodland. You’ll also hear from volunteers about the work they’re doing to help out on the project. We protect and care for places so people and nature can thrive. Everyone can get involved, everyone can make a difference. Nature, beauty, history. For everyone, for ever. The five minute YouTube video may be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTtGljPbkPY
Today we simply want to point out the difficulty this 2016 wreath presented to the decorator. First, there is the fabric brocade bow, which unlike other materials can be notoriously difficult to staple in place and fluff properly. Then there are the small pomegranates, with no natural handles to attach firmly to the greens. Berries begin to shed upon touch, and the paper lantern flowers (Physalis alkekengi) fall off their fragile stems if you look at them crosswise. It is a magnificent wreath, however, and if memory serves, was one of a pair.
Sarasota Orchid Society’s Orchids in Paradise is being held January 8 – 9, 2022 at the Sarasota Municipal Auditorium, 801 N. Tamiami Trail, Sarasota, FL 34236. Judging is being held on January 7, 2022 at 5:00 PM. The Miami Orchid Society’s Tamiami International Orchid Festival will take place Friday through Sunday, January 14 – 16, at the Dade County Fairgrounds Expo Center, Fuchs Pavilion, 10901 Coral Way (SW 24 St.), Miami. Fort Lauderdale gets into the act on the following weekend with its Orchids Rock event at the The Greater Fort Lauderdale Broward County Convention Center, 1950 Eisenhower Boulevard, Fort Lauderdale. So if you are an orchid enthusiast and plan a Florida trip, check out the details of all three events at www.aos.org
Worcester Art Museum gets merry and bright for the holidays with artfully decorated trees inspired by the Museum’s current special exhibition, Love Stories from the National Portrait Gallery, London and the 1965 classic movie, Doctor Zhivago. Stroll through the galleries and view the decorations created by Sally Jablonski of Herbert E. Berg Florist, Inc. On Saturday, January 8 there will be an Ice Carving demonstration by Chip Koser of South Cape Ice Sculptures, among many other activities. For more information visit www.worcesterart.org
The Winter Solstice is here, the Shortest Day, the Longest Night, a time for Christmas Revels or Wiccan Celebrations or maybe just an evening of chestnuts roasting on an open fire. From 2016, here is an all natural wreath symbolizing all of the above. The word wreath comes from the word “writhen” that was an old English word meaning “to writhe” or “to twist.” Just a little bit of information for your day. Welcome, Yule!
This fall two new properties have come into the care of The Trustees. Armstrong-Kelley Park, in Cape Cod, has become The Trustees’ twelfth public garden, and Becket Quarry and Historic Forest, in the Berkshires, joins their many woodland properties.
A recent merger between The Trustees and the Cape Cod Horticultural Society (CCHS), officially brought Armstrong-Kelley Park in Osterville under The Trustees’ umbrella. The 8.5-acre Osterville Village property is Cape Cod’s oldest and largest privately-owned park, featuring an arboretum, central green, garden rooms, a boardwalk, trails, and beloved features such as Liam’s Train and the John Folk Water Garden.
A recent partnership between The Trustees and the Becket Land Trust has brought the Becket Quarry and Historic Forest property into care, ensuring a place for this unique natural and cultural landscape.
This 300-acre property is the former site of the Chester-Hudson Granite Quarry. It was acquired by the Becket Land Trust more than 20 years ago, when the quarry was proposed to be re-activated to provide crushed stone for use in the Big Dig project. Visited by more than 14,000 people in the last year, Becket Quarry’s popularity and stewardship challenges led the Land Trust to seek a partner entity to take over the management of the property.
After more than 100 years of operation, the Chester-Hudson Granite Quarry ceased full operation in the late 1940s, and a variety of vehicles and industrial equipment were abandoned. These artifacts from a bygone age are still there, and slowly being reclaimed by the forest. Planned improvements to Becket Quarry under Trustees stewardship include work on the extensive trail system which laces the interior of the property, signage updates, and upgrades to the main access trail (the former rail bed for the quarry railroad). An unofficial opening will be planned for 2022. For more information on both these properties, visit http://thetrustees.org
Pin frogs—also known as kenzans or floral frogs—are a popular tool among floral designers. Pin frogs allow you to securely style and place a variety of flowers, creating shape and movement within an arrangement. Learn the ins and outs of using this tool through demonstration and hands-on practice. Aluminum wire is a malleable material that is easy to use in floral design. Learn how to properly manipulate aluminum craft wire (16 gauge) to create a supportive metal framework for contemporary arrangements. Branches are a natural support for floral creations. Discover the best types of branches (think pliable, like curly willow) and how to properly use them in and around your container. Supple fresh branches not only give support to the plant material in a container, they are also used as an accent to give height and fullness. You’ll practice this technique using flowers at home.This New York Botanical Society online class on January 11 from 6 – 8 requires the purchase of materials. Please visit www.nybg.org for complete information. The instructor is Rose Edinger.
Rose G. Edinger is founder of RGE Designs, a floral design company which specializes in integrating event and party themes with floral constructions. Her 35 years of experience in the floral industry include ownership of Aalseemer Flower Market, a flower shop located on the upper Westside of Manhattan. She has been an instructor at Parsons School of Art and Design, The Horticultural Society of New York, and the Brooklyn Botanical Garden.
You may register for each webinar separately: NYBG members $55, nonmembers $59. There is a discount for signing up for all three as a series. Register HERE.
The price of flowers is skyrocketing, as anyone who has purchased an arrangement recently can tell you. We encourage our members to disassemble their bouquets from Valentine’s Day, birthdays, Mother’s Day, dinner parties, and especially Thanksgiving, and dry what can be dried for use during Wreath Week. Drying is not rocket science – put a rubber band around stems and hang upside down on a cabinet handle, door, or hook. Not everything dries well, but a surprising number of unlikely blooms do, and often look nothing like their original form. A dried rose is clearly still a rose, but during Wreath Week we spend time every year asking “What is this?” while holding up an interesting stem or pod. Sometimes they are blueberry twigs, or garlic scapes, or calla lilies, transformed. A bit of spray paint gussies up items that are a little too brown. There is brown (rich chestnut brown or deep mahogany,) and then there is brown (who tracked that in brown.) Below is a graceful wreath from 2010 with plenty of dried flowers, appropriate for an indoor setting.
The Arctic has long fascinated people from around the world. Learn how myth compares with reality through the experiences of an Arctic scientist and traveler.
Polar bears (not penguins!). Indigenous Peoples at home in a world of ice and cold. Dreams of wealth from furs and minerals. The Northwest Passage. For these reasons and many more, the Arctic looms large in our imagination. Join an experienced Arctic scientist and traveler to dig beyond our first impressions and discover why the Arctic may be even more interesting and relevant than we know.
For most people, the Arctic is a distant realm, full of unlikely creatures such as the narwhal as well as fur-clad hunters equally at home on ice floes as on open tundra. Nowadays, the Arctic also makes news for the rapid loss of sea ice and for the increasing development of resources and transportation routes. The changing Arctic affects the world’s weather and climate. Mineral development can disrupt traditional ways of life. China, Russia, and the United States vie for influence and opportunity in the far north. How do these stories intersect?
Led by an expert on Arctic science and policy, Henry Huntington, this interactive seminar will explore why the Arctic continues to fascinate us and why the Arctic matters now more than ever. Designed to inform curiosity as well as future travels, participants will come away with an increased appreciation for the peoples, environment, and significance of the Arctic.
This January 5 Context Travel conversation is part of a 3-part series on the arctic with Dr. Henry Huntington. Each session is designed as a stand-alone seminar as well as part of the series. $36.50 per session – register by clicking the links below.
Henry P. Huntington earned his bachelor’s degree in English at Princeton University and his master’s and doctorate in Polar Studies at the University of Cambridge. He lives in Eagle River, Alaska, where he works as an independent researcher and on Arctic Ocean conservation for Ocean Conservancy. Huntington’s research activities include reviewing the regulation of subsistence hunting in northern Alaska, documenting traditional ecological knowledge of marine mammals, examining Iñupiat Eskimo and Inuit knowledge and use of sea ice, and assessing the impacts of climate change on Arctic communities and Arctic marine mammals. Huntington has been involved in a number of international research programs, such as the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program, the Program for the Conservation of Arctic Flora and Fauna, the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, and the Arctic Marine Shipping Assessment. He was co-chair of the National Academy of Sciences committee on emerging research questions in the Arctic and a member of the Council of Canadian Academies panel on the state of knowledge of food security in the North. Huntington has written many academic and popular articles, as well as three books. He has made long trips in the Arctic by dog team, open boat, and snowmobile.
