Boston Flora

Month: November 2022

  • Wednesday, November 16, 10:00 pm – 11:00 pm – Finding Your Environmental Ethic, Online

    Now is the time to join the Conservation Circle or be a Sustainer Member of the Native Plant Trust. At those levels, you are invited to an online webinar on November 16 at 10 am.

    Why should we care about the environment? In this online introductory webinar, you will learn four philosophical models of human relationship with nature in order to gain deeper understanding of your own and others’ environmental ethics.

    We will consider our roles and the ways obligation to our surroundings forms the foundation of efforts such as recycling, preservation of endangered species, and habitat restoration.

    Instructor Dr. Kendy Hess is the Brake Smith Associate Professor in Social Philosophy and Ethics at College of the Holy Cross focusing on environmental law and ethics. With a background in philosophy and previous practice in environmental law, Dr. Hess is one of the leading international scholars on corporate moral responsibility, on which she has published widely.

    RSVP by Friday, November 11 to specialevents@NativePlantTrust.org, or call 508-877-7630 x 3104. For membership information visit http://www.nativeplanttrust.org/support/member-benefits/


  • Tuesday, November 15, 5:00 am – 6:30 am – Garden Designs Around the French Riviera: Contemporary Delights, Online

    The last in the four part Gardens Trust online series on Garden Designs around the French Riviera will take place November 15 very early in the morning, although the lecture is recorded. This ticket is for this individual session and costs £5. 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.

    On November 15 the topic will be Contemporary Botanical Delight and Artistic Sensitivity. The roots run deep in the two final gardens, La Mouissone and Fort France, about 20 miles apart in hills above Cannes, but they are resolutely twenty-first century gardens in their exceptional seasonal planting. Both flourish and grow in private hands: La Mouissone (below) thanks to plantsman Maggie Lockett who has worked to expand the plant repertoire whilst absorbing the influences of Villa Noailles, La Serre de la Madone and, just over the Italian border, La Mortola; the second, Fort France originally Fort Escu, is famously associated with the writings of Lady Fortescue’s Provencal and gardening adventures, the current owners are artist Valerie de Courcel and her husband Pierre. Both gardens have experimented in creating year-round interest with a profusion of planting, the glorious Mediterranean light playing through the trees, shrubs, flowers and bulbs.

    Caroline Holmes is an experienced and accomplished lecturer working for a wide range of organisations including leading tour and cruise operators. She is an Accredited Lecturer of The Arts Society and is also a Course Director for the University of Cambridge Institute of Continuing Education. Her own gardens are open to the public and have featured in many magazine articles and on television in both Britain and Japan. Since the 1990s she has been researching, writing about and lecturing on the Riviera. Caroline is author of 12 books, her latest being Where the wildness pleases – the English garden celebrated (2021).

  • Saturday, November 5 – Sunday, November 27 – Fanfare

    Berkshire Botanical Garden presents a new art exhibition, Fanfare, opening on Saturday, November 5, with a reception scheduled for Friday, November 11, from 4 to 6 p.m. Featuring works by John Thompson, Fanfare will exhibit in the Garden’s Center House Leonhardt Galleries. The exhibit will run through Sunday, Nov 27.

    “The basis for my work is landscapes where I choose specific moments and small elements as my focus,” said Thompson, based in Waltham, Massachusetts, and Harpswell, Maine. “These intimate observations are often fleeting glimpses of a pond or a garden. The immense variety of what we may observe in nature I find endlessly fascinating.

    “The simple occurrence — the stray stick fallen across a background of decaying ferns or the pattern of leaves in a stream — can lead to a series of prints or paintings. In making work, I begin with the simple observing, often with a sketch or small painting. In taking those fleeting images back to my studio, as recall fades, imagination takes over and the images begin to change.”

    Thompson said, “Making art has become a source of quiet refuge in these turbulent times. I am comforted by being able to draw on the landscape to replenish a sense of balance and control in life. My observation and invention on the borrowed landscape renews and replenishes.”

    Thompson has taught at Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Framingham State University, The Art and Innovation Center in Weston, Mass., the Washington Art Association in Washington, Conn., and many other workshops around the country. He works with master printers Peter and James Pettengill in Hinsdale, N.H., and Susan Oehme at Oehme Graphics in Steamboat Springs, Colo. He serves on several boards of art and educational institutions.  

    Thompson holds degrees from Syracuse University (BFA), University of Wisconsin-Madison (MA), Babson College (MBA), and Massachusetts College of Art and Design (MFA).   Gallery hours for Fanfare are 10 to 4 p.m. on Tuesdays through Fridays (Mondays, by appointment) and 11 to 3 p.m. on weekends through November 27. Berkshire Botanical Garden is located at 5 West Stockbridge Rd., Stockbridge, Mass. Visit Berkshirebotanical.org.

  • Friday, November 18, 10:30 am – 1:00 pm – Botanical Clay Ornaments Workshop

    Students enrolled in New England Botanic Garden at Tower Hill’s November 18 workshop will use air dry clay to create mushroom, succulent, and floral ornaments. They will learn to use watercolor paint to custom color their creations. All materials will be provided.

    Instructor Suzanne Hauerstein is a professional teaching artist and the Coordinator of Volunteer & Intern Services at New England Botanic Garden at Tower Hill. She has over 25 years of experience designing and facilitating art-based programs for informal learning environments. Suzanne is committed to creating programs that are accessible, positive, and enjoyable learning experiences for students of all ages and abilities. The address is 11 French Drive in Boylston.

    $40 Member Adult; $55 Adult (Registration includes admission to the Garden). To register, visit www.nebg,org

  • Tuesday, November 8, 7:30 pm – Plasticity in Honey Bee Comb Arrangement in Response to Thermal Stress

    Welcome back to the first Cambridge Entomological Club meeting of the 2022-2023 academic year. We will be holding hybrid meetings to accommodate COVID-19 precautions and audience members from around the world. 

    Honey bees are a charismatic social insect species defined in part by their large familial colonies, production of honey, and intricate hives. Within their hives, honey bees use cells to store both developing brood and food. These stores are generally arranged with a dense central cluster of brood below large reserves of honey with a thin strip of pollen separating the two. It is believed that this characteristic pattern is maintained by self-organizing behavior – individuals following simple, localized rules to create large scale, emergent patterns. My PhD research has focused mainly on testing the limits of this emergent pattern. In this talk, Isaac Weinberg, Fifth Year PhD candidate, Tufts University Biology Department, will present data from three field experiments which observe the effect that chronic thermal stress has on the organization of honey bee colonies, and the implications these results have for honey bee health in a changing world.

    For those able to attend, we will have an informal dinner at 6:00 pm at Cambridge Common Restaurant with the speaker, followed by our formal meeting (7:30 – 9:00 pm) in the Gilbert Room of the Museum of Comparative Zoology (there will be signs to help direct). The meeting will begin with club announcements, followed by a 60-minute presentation by the invited speaker and Q&A. Membership is open to amateur and professional entomologists. 


  • Saturday, November 12, 10:00 am – 1:00 pm – Weaving Ornaments Workshop

    Participants in this Hancock Shaker Village workshop on November 12 from 10 – 1 will make three holiday-inspired ornaments: An eight pointed snowflake and a puffy heart, woven in thin maple strips, and a reindeer woven in dyed reed. Suitable for ages 14 and up. No prior weaving experience need. Note: some finger strength and dexterity is necessary.

    Instructor: Sandy Salada. A basket maker since 1995, Sandy weaves a variety of baskets, including patterns of her own design, patterns by other teachers, and reproductions of cultural and historical baskets. Sandy teaches in her home studio as well as at Shaker Heritage Society in Watervliet, New York, and at Hancock Shaker Village.

    Register here. $27 for HSV members, $30 for non members, plus a $20 materials fee (cash only) payable directly to the instructor. Hancock Shaker Village is located at 1843 West Housatonic Stret in Pittsfield.

  • Saturday, November 12, 10:00 am – 1:00 pm – Introduction to Home Curing

    This Berkshire Botanical Garden demonstration on November 12 from 10 – 1, led by Jake Levin, will take you through the process of curing at home. It begins with a brief history of curing/salting meat,  including an explanation of the three products and basic techniques we will be making that day. We discuss what cuts and types of meat are best suited for different kinds of curing techniques, and why. You will get a basic overview of what curing does and why. We will discuss the three basic curing techniques and why, when, and how to use them: brining, applying a rub (generally used for smoking meats) and dry-curing. We will then go through each technique doing a hands-on demonstration for each technique with a different product (brined chicken, rubbed pork tenderloin and dry-cured salmon). We will talk about how to think about what ingredients to include when curing and how that changes for each of the three techniques. Jake will explain the ratios for salt and other ingredients. He will explain frameworks to come up with one’s own recipe by thinking about other classic spice combinations or by using recipes from other meat dishes. At the end, we will sample some of the products we made. 

    Jake Levin lives in the southern Berkshires with his wife and daughter on the land where he grew up. He is a whole-animal-butcher, writer and artist. When Jake is not working in his outdoor kitchen, he is on the road teaching people how to slaughter, butcher and cure meats as the “Roving Butcher.” BBG members $55, nonmembers $65. Register at https://www.berkshirebotanical.org/events/intro-home-curing

  • Monday, November 7, 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm – Supergreen: Gardens, Placemaking, and Infrastructure, Online

    Roderick Wyllie and James A. Lord, founding partners of Surfacedesign, a San Francisco-based landscape architecture studio, challenge conventional approaches to design by asking novel questions and listening to a site and its users. By doing so, Wyllie and Lord focus on cultivating a sense of connection between the built and the natural world, inviting people to engage with the landscape in new ways. Together, the two landscape architects will present work that ranges in location and scale, from civic projects to intimate residential gardens, including Auckland International Airport in New Zealand; the 40-acre Expedia headquarters site on Seattle’s waterfront; Uber’s headquarters in San Francisco that includes a public park; and Uliveto, a private residence in Northern California.

    Roderick Wyllie, FASLA, and James A. Lord, FASLA, along with partner Geoff di Girolamo, have established Surfacedesign as an international leader in landscape architecture, urban design, andsustainability. Alumni of Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, both are ASLA Fellows. For the consistent excellence of their built designs, they were honored with the 2017 Cooper Hewitt Design Award.

    This online New York Botanical Garden talk will take place November 7 from 6:30 – 7:30 Eastern time, and is $35. Register HERE.

  • Thursday, November 10 – The 19th Century Garden Part 2 – Exploring the Arts and Crafts Garden at Standen, Online

    The Arts and Crafts was an ethos rather than a style, and it is therefore difficult to define in simple terms. Taking the example of Standen in West Sussex, a garden created in harmony with Philip Webb’s designs for the house, this lecture will examine how the Arts and Crafts was manifest in gardens, both in planting and in design, and will look at the work of amateur gardeners as well as professionals. The relationship between gardens, architecture and interior design will be explored through the lens of the remarkably complete example at Standen. The influence of key figures such as William Morris, John Sedding and Thomas Mawson will be assessed, as well as their legacy in the twentieth century in the work of designers such as Gertrude Jekyll and Nora Lindsay.

    Dr Caroline Ikin is a Curator at the National Trust, with a portfolio including the gardens at Standen and Nymans. She has previously worked for the Gardens Trust and is a writer specialising in C19 art, architecture and gardens. Caroline is author of The Victorian Garden (Bloomsbury, 2012), The Victorian Gardener (Bloomsbury, 2014), The Kitchen Garden (Amberley, 2017), and is currently working on a new survey of Victorian gardens to be published by Bloomsbury and the National Trust. She regularly contributes book and exhibition reviews to various publications, while her PhD thesis examined the designed landscape created by John Ruskin at Brantwood. This ticket is for this individual session and costs £5. Register on Eventbrite 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.

  • Thursday, November 3, 6:30 pm – 8:00 pm – Wet + Dry: Landscapes of Resilience and Material Exploration

    The Harvard Graduate School of Design will host a free lecture on November 3 at 6:30 pm in the Piper Auditorium of Gund Hall in Cambridge with James A. Lord and Roderick Wyllie of Surfacedesign.

    Surfacedesign is a landscape architecture and urban design firm based in San Francisco, California. This internationally award-winning practice focuses on creating dynamic parks, campuses, plazas, waterfronts, civic landscapes and private gardens. The firm’s approach emphasizes and celebrates the unique context and imaginative potential of each project. The studio’s design process is rooted in asking novel questions and listening to a site and its users – a process that has led to engaging and inspiring landscapes that are rugged, contemporary, and crafted.

    Increasingly, water has become a central focus of all landscape interventions. Holistic, systems-based design thinking that actively engages water extremes—from drought to flooding/sea level rise— is at the core of Surfacedesign’s practice. Challenging the formal manifestations of municipal guidelines and standards for water management, each project engages water as an integral design element. James and Roderick will share a range of work from the residential to the infrastructural. These works celebrate water systems and explore how planting, topography and cultural narratives can reinforce water resiliency.

    James A. Lord is a founding partner of Surfacedesign, Inc. James’ innovative design approach and stewardship of the firm’s design practice has established Surfacedesign as an international leader in urban design and sustainability. He leads projects in New Zealand, Hawaii, Mexico, Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area. James received his MLA from the Harvard Graduate School of Design and his BARCH from the University of Southern California.  

    Roderick Wyllie is an award-winning landscape architect and a founding partner of Surfacedesign, Inc. Roderick has led a variety of complex projects within the office, including the Uber Campus in Mission Bay, San Francisco’s Bayfront Park, The Land’s End Visitor Center, The Barnacles at Pier 9 and Expedia Global Headquarters in Seattle. His horticultural knowledge and passion for material authenticity reinforce craftsmanship and attention to detail into each project at Surfacedesign. 

    Anyone requiring accessibility accommodations should contact the events office at (617) 496-2414 or events@gsd.harvard.edu.