Frederick Law Olmsted’s Bicentennial inspires this day-long celebration of shared use, shared power and shared health along Olmsted’s Emerald Necklace linear park system. Join neighbors and friends old and new to enjoy what makes you most grateful for YOUR parks! Come together for a special program of picnicking, dancing, creating, learning, relaxing & connecting.
Parkfest features:
FREE performances
Kid’s activities
Pop-up art making
Storytelling
Ribbon-cutting
Learning with local community groups
Explore the parks with DJs on trikes, scavenger hunts, bike decorating and riding, walking tours, doggy meet-cutes, selfie destinations and more. Extra restrooms, signage, food trucks and volunteers will be on site. Look for treats and surprises throughout the parks.
When: 1-7pm, Saturday, September 24. Rain date: Sunday, September 25
Where: All 5.5 miles of the Emerald Necklace, including Charlesgate Park, Back Bay Fens, Riverway, Olmsted Park, Jamaica Pond, Arnold Arboretum and Franklin Park
At the end of the summer, what do you do with all those special patio plants that you have fussed over for the summer months? This September 17 Berkshire Botanical Garden class will give gardeners tricks of the trade to protect their tender perennials, house plants, woody potted specimens, and succulent collections and encourage them to thrive during the winter season. Taught by Jenna O’Brien, the class will include cultivation, fertilizing, watering, and healthcare. Learn by doing, and take home some plant companions.
Jenna O’Brien, lifetime resident of the Berkshires and owner/founder of Viridissima Horticulture & Design and the blog Berkshire Garden Style, has been working in Berkshire gardens for 25 years. Jenna specializes in container gardening, perennial garden design and care and country estate garden management.
Each year, the Greenway Challenge athletes run, paddle and bike on a course designed to bring you through one of the most beautiful and historic regions of New England, the Blackstone River Valley National Heritage Corridor located between Worcester, MA and Pawtucket, RI.
Athletes can compete as solo racers or in teams of 2-4 and 5-8, with each team member competing in at least one segment along the course. This annual race is one of New England’s premier adventure races!
A program of the Whitin Community Center, presented by UniBank and supported by other partner organizations, the Greenway Challenge promotes the recreational quality of life in the Blackstone River Valley.
It also supports the development of new programs, purchase of additional equipment, and facility renovations for the members and guests of the Whitin Community Center. For details of costs, registration, and volunteering, as they become available, be sure to visit the website https://greenwaychallenge.org/details#whenandwheresec Registration now open, closing September 16.
Enjoy the first day exhibition of beautiful floral arrangements inspired by the elegant decor of the 1806 Gore Place mansion, 52 Gore Street in Waltham, and displayed throughout the first-floor entertainment suites, from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. Participants include members of the Waltham Garden Club.
Saturday’s Show hours, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., coincide with the “6th Annual Handmade for the Holidays Crafts Fair,” in a relaxing, outdoor atmosphere, where you’ll be able to get a head start on your holiday shopping!
Join COGdesign as they celebrate 25 years of helping community groups in Greater Boston realize their vision for neighborhood parks, playgrounds, and community gardens.
They will be hosting a free public celebration and community event at the beautiful and historic First Church in Roxbury, 10 Putnam Street, bringing together many who have participated in and benefited from our programs including local residents, community leaders, designers, public officials, and donors.
The special guest speaker, Boston’s Chief of Open Space, Reverend Mariama White-Hammond, will be joined by project representatives showcasing some of the hundred plus projects that have been completed in Boston and surrounding communities. Rev. Mariama White-Hammond has an extensive background in embedding equity and environmental justice into Boston’s communities. She is the founding pastor of New Roots AME Church in Dorchester, a multi-racial, multi-class community.To register and for more information, visit the https://cogdesign.org/25th-anniversary-event/
Hosted by The Preservation Society of Newport County’s Director of Gardens & Landscapes, Jeff Curtis, this guided tree walk on September 17 at 10 am is a unique opportunity to explore the grounds of The Elms – one of Newport’s legendary Gilded Age mansions – examining its historic Classical Revival gardens and exceptional collection of specimen trees. This is an outdoor event, rain or shine. Participants will meet in the front drive of The Elms to begin the tour, which is from 10 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. The price is $25 per member, $50 per non-member (admission to The Elms house is included). Register at https://www.newportmansions.org/events/events-calendar/tree-walk-at-the-elms
Worcester County is home to more than 100 species of edible wild plants, many of which are more nutritious and/or flavorful than their cultivated counterparts. Join wild edibles enthusiast Russ Cohen, author of the book Wild Plants I have Known…and Eaten, on a two-hour ramble around New England Botanic Garden to learn about the comestible qualities of at least eighteen wild plant species. Pending favorable weather conditions, several edible wild mushroom species may be encountered as well. Keys to the identification of each species will be provided, along with info on edible portion(s), season(s) of availability and preparation methods, as well as general guidelines for safe and environmentally-responsible foraging.
Until his retirement in June of 2015, Russ Cohen’s “day job” was serving as the Rivers Advocate for the Massachusetts Department of Fish and Game’s Division of Ecological Restoration, where one of his areas of expertise was in riparian vegetation. Now Russ has more time to pursue his passionate avocation, which is connecting to nature via his taste buds, and teaching others how to do the same. Russ is now playing the role of “Johnny Appleseed” for edible native species. He has set up a small nursery (in Weston, MA) where he grows/keeps over 1,000 plants that he propagates from seed (some of which he collected himself), as well as obtained from other sources, such as the Native Plant Trust. He is then partnering with land trusts, cities and towns, schools and colleges, state and federal agencies, organic farms, tribal groups and others to plant plants from his nursery in appropriate places on their properties. Russ has initiated over two dozen such projects in the past five years.
$35 Member Adult; $50 Adult (Registration includes admission to the Garden) Register HERE.
One of the most popular and beloved garden plants is the Hydrangea. The great shape, large and abundant flowers, attractive foliage and options for many growing situations make it a great landscaping plant. Yet, as changing climate conditions persist, this plant can puzzle even the most experienced gardener. Landscape designers are often asked many questions about this curious plant. Why has my Hydrangea stopped blooming? What made the blossom color change? Should the plant be pruned? My plant is drooping badly, did I kill it? This New England Botanic Garden webinar on September 28 at 6:30 pm will tackle those questions and many more as we get to know the different types of Hydrangeas and explore tips and care to help your plants become outstanding performers.
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. $10 Member Adult; $15 Adult Register at www.nebg.org
An insight into the history, landscape and iconic events within the ceremonial setting of St James’s Park. The online lecture takes place on Zoom and a recording link will be sent to registrants to watch for one week following the talk. £5.00 This London Parks & Gardens event may be paid for HERE.
St James’s Park is one of Europe’s busiest parks attracting some 17 million visitors per year. The Park is bordered by the Mall and Horse Guards Parade, both scenes of annual ceremonial events such as State Visits, State Opening of Parliament, and the Queen’s Birthday Parade. It regularly hosts a wide range of participation events such as the finish of the London Marathon and became the venue for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games for several sporting events including hosting Beach Volleyball on Horse Guards Parade. Half a million people are estimated to have visited St James’s Park on the day of the wedding of Prince William to Kate Middleton in 2011, that number surpassed for The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Celebrations in 2012 and the Platinum Jubilee weekend in 2022. The Park is known for its displays of spring bulbs, the floriferous borders and landscape styled by John Nash, and intricate summer bedding schemes. The lake is home to many species of waterfowl and has been a home to pelicans since 1664.
Mark Wasilewski is Manager of St James’s Park and The Green Park. He is a Trustee of London in Bloom and judges for several organisations including the London Gardens Society and Guild of Horticultural Judges and is also an RHS Accredited Floral Judge. He served on the RHS Britain in Bloom national judging panel between 2004 and 2016 and on the RHS Herbaceous Plant Committee 2015-20.
Mark was made a Member of The Royal Victorian Order in 2013 for his services to The Royal Parks.
The Gardens Trust’s third set of lectures on the C19th garden takes us towards its heyday. As Britain’s empire expanded plant hunters scoured the world to bring home plants to fill the gardens and greenhouses not just of the rich but an ever-growing middle class. Gardening became a hobby, and indeed a passion for many in the working class too. As a result, gardening books and magazines flourished, and horticulture became big business. Garden design, like architecture became more and more eclectic. Labor was cheap so extravagance and display became commonplace in the private realm while public parks, often on a grand scale, were created all over the country, but especially in urban areas. Inevitably however there was a reaction against such artifice and excess, with a call for the return to more natural styles, and by the end of the century the cottage garden was vying with the lush herbaceous border to be the defining feature of the late Victorian garden. On Thursday, September 15 at 5 am Eastern time (a recording link will be sent, good for seven days, to watch at your leisure), Margaret Willes will start things off with The Challenges of the Victorian Working-class Garden.
Margaret Willes spent her career in book publishing, latterly as the Publisher at the National Trust. On retirement, she took up writing on various aspects of cultural history. Her gardening books include The Making of the English Gardener: Plants, Books and Inspiration, 1560-1660 (Yale University Press, 2011), A Shakespearean Botanical(Bodleian Publishing, 2015), and The Gardens of the British Working Class (Yale University Press, 2014). She cultivates her own garden in Hackney.
Her title is deliberately double edged. Gardening was indeed often a challenge to working-class men and women, who lacked spare time, money and access to sources of information, often denied them through lack of literacy. When asked to write a history of British working-class gardens, Ms. Willes also faced a challenge, though finding out about the 19th century was easier than for earlier times. She shall consider the sources that she found both useful and illuminating, from recreations of historic gardens to literature, photographs and oral history. She shall look at a wide range of what might be considered gardens, across Britain and Ireland, town and country, including shared spaces such as allotments. £5 each or all 6 for £30. To see the full schedule, and to register through Eventbrite, visit HERE
