Boston Flora

Month: March 2022

  • Tuesday, March 22, 4:00 pm – 5:30 pm – Simple Tips and Tricks to Improve Your Nature Photography, Online

    Introducing the first celebrity NEGC photo webinar workshop with internationally renowned photographer, Mollie Isaacs. 


    “Jump start your nature photography skills in this educational, entertaining, and inspirational online session. Learn easy yet powerful techniques to improve your photography right away. See a variety of examples showing various simple techniques to use with flowers, birds, macro, and landscapes. Get tips on composition, using natural light to your advantage, benefits of cropping, getting better focus, and much more. This presentation will help you see your world through fresh eyes and create exciting images of all the things you love.“

    • When: March 22, 2022 Time: 4:00 pm-5:30 pm EDT 
    • Who can attend: exclusively for the members of our New England Garden Clubs ( ie the federated clubs of CT MA ME NH RI VT)

    $10. Register HERE. After registering, you’ll receive an e-mail with the link for joining the webinar. You’ll receive a reminder one week, one day and one hour before the webinar starts. You can log on from your computer and view the webinar from the safety and comfort of your home. Note: Register even if you can’t attend the live session. The webinar will be recorded and if you’re registered, you’ll receive a link to the webinar that you can view for at least the next 30 days.

  • Tuesday, March 29, 2:00 pm – Celebrating a Sesquicentennial: The Founding of the Arnold Arboretum, Live and Online

    The Arnold Arboretum was founded on Friday, March 29, 1872. Exactly 150 years later, we invite you to join Lisa Pearson, Head of the Arboretum Library and Archives, for a special sesquicentennial lecture! Pearson will discuss the earliest benefactors of the Arboretum, the events surrounding the founding of the institution, and the busy first two decades during which the infrastructure and living collections were installed on the grounds. This event will also be livestreamed to YouTube. To sign up for the virtual livestream instead, click here. To sign up for the live presentation, click here.

    All attendees age 12 or over must bring proof of vaccination in order to enter the building—please bring either a vaccination card or a digital copy. Visitors age 17 and older must also present a valid driver’s license or government-issued form of ID, such as a passport. Attendees are required to wear masks indoors. 

    Registration is limited to 40 in-person attendees. We ask that you only register if you are sure you will attend, and only register one person per form submission. Parking is available on-site at the Weld Hill Research Building. Find directions here.

  • Saturday, March 19, 10:00 am – 11:30 am – Herbs, Botanicals and Wellness in Colonial New England, Online

    Join the Shirley Eustis House Association online on March 19 at 10 am to explore the herbal pharmacy in early American gardens with Master Gardener Mary Lou O’Connor. Mary Lou will highlight the growing selection of medicinal plants in the historic gardens at Shirley Place and how they were used to promote wellness and treat illnesses and injuries in early New England. She’ll also discuss how Native American knowledge and African traditions combined with European herbal know-how to make for a particularly American herbal medicine cabinet or pharmacopeia. Co-sponsored by the Roxbury Historical Society. Questions: contact Suzy Buchanan at director@shirleyeustishouse.org. Donations encouraged. Register with Eventbrite HERE

  • Monday, March 14, 5:30 pm – Urban Forest Plan Virtual Open House

    The City of Boston, with the Department of Parks and Recreation and the Department of the Environment, will hold a Virtual Meeting on March 14 at 5:30 pm.

    Project page: boston.gov/urban-forest-plan Add to calendar: Event page Join the meeting: bit.ly/Urbanforestplan

  • Tuesday, March 15, 6:00 am Eastern – Gardens of Delight: Aladdin-like Gorgeousness, Online (Recording available for 7 days)

    After the Muslims conquered Persia and established their centre at Damascus, domestic infighting led Abd al Rachmann, the only survivor of the original Umayyad dynasty, to flee to North Africa, raise an army, conquer Southern Spain and establish himself in Cordoba. As the benign Mediterranean climate allowed the cultivation of exotic imports, to enhance the wide variety of indigenous plants, he followed the Persian custom and created magnificent royal gardens bursting with rare flowers and luscious fruit. He also encouraged investment in agriculture, promoted the study of botany and medicine, and created a civilization of unparalleled elegance in the arts, architecture and horticulture. The ensuing tradition of verdant courtyards, fertile orchards and splendid gardens continued down the centuries, culminating in the Alhambra. Ironically, this was the last outpost of the Moors on European soil. An enduring source of intrigue, romance and delight, the Hispano-Moorish gardens have fascinated writers and artists inspiring such twentieth century designers as Thomas Church, Luis Barragan, Russel Page and Fernando Caruncho. This Gardens Trust ticket for the March 15 lecture is available HERE through Eventbrite.

    Fernando Caruncho’s house, Madrid, Spain
  • Wednesday, March 23, 2:00 pm – Garden Club of the Back Bay Glass Flowers Tour

    Wednesday, March 23, 2:00 pm – Garden Club of the Back Bay Glass Flowers Tour

    A docent will lead Garden Club members on a custom tour of the recently restored “Glass Flowers”. The internationally acclaimed Ware Collection of Blaschka Glass Models of Plants is one of Harvard’s most famous treasures and is the only collection of its kind in the world. This unique collection of over 4,300 models, representing more than 780 plant species, was created from 1887 through 1936 by glass artisans Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka, a father and son team of Czech glass artists.  The Glass Flowers gallery was renovated in Spring 2016, introducing rebuilt, original historic wood and glass display cases, new state-of-the-art lighting, humidity, and vibration control systems.  The new space design and interpretation showcases the ongoing scientific relevance of the gallery and enhances the visitors’ experience of the models. In this exhibit one can see examples of the flora of the world in bloom all at once.

    This long awaited tour, twice postponed due to Covid, will take place March 23 at 2 pm at the Harvard Museum of Natural History.

    This program is for Garden Club of the Back Bay members only. The Club is charged by the person and we are required to give the Museum an accurate number of attendees.  If you rsvp and can not attend, please let us know! If you’d like to add your name, rsvp by March 14 to Christine Hirshland :
    chirshland@aol.com 

    • Enter The Harvard Museum of Natural History through the 26 Oxford Street entrance.
    • We will meet at 2:00 on the third floor, just outside the gift shop, near the glass flowers exhibit area. You will be asked for proof of full vaccination plus a government issued id to enter the museum.
  • Tuesday, April 5, 2:30 pm – 4:30 pm – Garden Club of the Back Bay Annual Tea

    Tuesday, April 5, 2:30 pm – 4:30 pm – Garden Club of the Back Bay Annual Tea

    The Garden Club of the Back Bay’s Annual Winter Tea at the Courtyard Restaurant at the Boston Public Library was rescheduled – to a beautiful April date! Enjoy delicious scones, sandwiches, petit fours and a variety of teas along with warm and friendly conversations. Ticket sales are now closed. Some Covid precautions are in place: We cannot welcome walk-ins. Everyone who attends must be fully vaccinated – bring your card. If you have signed up but are unable to attend please contact Mary Ryan by clicking HERE. Mary is keeping a waiting list. Tickets are non-refundable.

  • Saturday, March 12, 2:30 pm – 4:00 pm – Olmsted and Yosemite: Civil War, Abolition, and the National Park Idea, Online

    Out of the 1860s, as the United States engaged in a civil war, abolished slavery, and remade the government, the public park emerged as a product of these dramatic changes. New York’s Central Park and Yosemite in California both embodied the “new birth of freedom” that emphasized the duty of republican government to enhance the lives and well-being of all its new citizens. A central figure directly connected with abolition, the Civil War, and the dawn of urban and national parks is Frederick Law Olmsted, whose pre-war journalism about the South, design work on Central Park, and ground-breaking Yosemite Report created an intellectual framework for the “park idea.” Marking the bicentennial of Olmsted’s birth, a new book by Rolf Diamant, former superintendent of Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site and Ethan Carr, Professor of Landscape Architecture at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, offers a new interpretation of how the American park—urban and national—came to figure so prominently in our cultural identity, and why this more complex and inclusive story deserves to be told.

    The Arnold Arboretum will present Rolf Diamant and Ethan Carr on March 12 from 2:30 – 4, and will also be presented in-person at the Arboretum’s Weld Hill Research Building at 1300 Centre Street, Boston, MA 02131. To sign up for the in-person event, click here. Presented in collaboration with Friends of Fairsted, the Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site, and the Library of American Landscape History. Register HERE.

  • Monday, March 14, 1:00 pm Eastern – The Life and Work of John Bradby Blake – Panel Discussion, Online

    In the final program on March 14 of The Garden Trusts series on The Life and Work of John Bradby Blake, Jordan Goodman, Yu-chih Lai, Winnie Wong, Josepha Richard and Peter Crane in a general discussion which will engage with those questions raised during the talks that cut across a number of the topics explored and draw out future research into the remarkable collaborative East-West activities and networks that the Bradby Blake drawings and manuscripts have revealed. £5 through Eventbrite by clicking HERE. Attendees will be sent a Zoom link 2 days prior to the start of the talk, and again a few hours before the talk. A link to the recorded session (available for 1 week) will be sent shortly afterwards.

  • Saturday, March 12, 12:00 noon – 1:00 pm – Spring Planting for Fall Color, Online

    As the spring equinox approaches, winter turns to spring and our thoughts turn towards planting and visits to the local garden center. The Berkshire Botanical Garden invites you to shift your focus and consider what plants will enrich your garden during the next yearly equinox, from Summer to Fall. Planning now for Fall color and Winter interest will pay off in droves come Autumn. This online lecture will help you plan ahead, making the most of your garden year-round. Both woody plants and perennials will be addressed. Bring paper and a pencil, we’re sure you’ll want to take notes!

    Allyson Levy & Scott Serrano are two obsessed gardeners who garden all year long. Their goal has been to create a botanical garden that can serve as an educational resource for the public, as well as a “living textbook” of the diversity of plant life that can be grown in the Hudson Valley. Both are botanical artists who began buying plants for their artwork. When they realized they were buying and planting the same plants, they began to design a garden that is now the Hortus Arboretum & Botanical Garden.

    BBG members $20; nonmembers $30. Register at www.berkshirebotanical.org

    Courtesy www.melindamyers.com