Daily Archives: February 20, 2022

Wednesday, February 23, 6:00 pm – 7:00 pm – Lessons from Plants, Online

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Plants are essential to humans and the environment: they provide food, absorb carbon dioxide, produce oxygen,serve multiple ecosystem functions, and beautify landscapes. In Lessons from Plants (Harvard University Press, 2021) Beronda Montgomery, MSU Foundation Professor of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology and Microbiology & Molecular Genetics at Michigan State University invites us to appreciate our interdependence with plants and the many lessons that can be gained from a better understanding of the ways in which plants grow, adapt, and thrive. In this February 23rd conversation with Brenda Tindal, Executive Director, Harvard Museum of Science & Culture at 6 pm, she will address what plants can teach us about relating to one another, building diverse communities and being resilient.

Presented by the Harvard Museum of Natural History and the Harvard Museums of Science & Culture. The event is free. Advance registration required.

Wednesday, March 2, 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm – A New Way of Thinking about Gardens, Nature, and Ourselves, Online

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Nearing retirement, James Golden began making a garden on a ridge above the Delaware River in Western New Jersey. He had fallen in love with the house, a simple 1960’s modernist structure with floor-to-ceiling windows all around. It was an unusual site for a garden—little more than a derelict wood on heavy, wet clay—but he was taken with the emotional power and intangible qualities of the landscape.

Like Lester Collins at Innisfree, James thought and felt his way through this process, resulting in new awakenings and a place of rare beauty. After visiting James’ garden, Federal Twist, for the BBC Gardener’s World series, American Gardens, Monty Don, the British TV gardening guru, said “after over 50 years of gardening and visiting gardens, it made me rethink what a garden can be and do.” James will share the story of his garden journey, both practical and abstract, which is the subject of his new book, The View from Federal Twist: A New Way of Thinking about Gardens, Nature and Ourselves (Filbert Press, March 2022).

James Golden, born in Mississippi though resident in New York City for most of his life, was a writer in the corporate world. When he began this garden, he also began a now well-known blog, The View from Federal Twist. Fifteen years on, James is a celebrated garden maker and thinker whose garden has featured in numerous publications including The New York Times, Gardens Illustrated, the Financial Times, Horticulture, and other magazines and books. federaltwistdesign.org

This online event on March 2 is part of Innisfree Garden’s 2022 winter lecture series Romanticism at Innisfree: Nature as Muse. Free for Innisfree members, $15 for nonmembers. Register HERE.