Co-President and this year, Captain of Deliveries Maureen O’Hara, shared a hilarious analysis of our Wreath Week activities. “We are a little like Downton Abbey at Wreath Week. We have standards and traditions, Upstairs and Downstairs. Past President and Wreath Co-Chair Catherine Bordon was a combination of Mr. Carson and Mary Crawley with her forward thinking (she threw out the printed delivery maps now that GPS is ubiquitous), reflecting changing times. She combines institutional knowledge with her computer skills and steel trap mind. There were a few Mrs. Hughes downstairs, putting out fires and guiding the “estate” in the right direction.” Maureen herself was amazing, acting as Tom Branson, the Downton chauffeur, driving a wreath to Brookline (out of our delivery radius) when the recipient was hesitant to drive into the City.
A few members, when asked about this year’s Wreath Week, commented that the event is really a big reunion. Many participants are long-term GCBB members and friends. We get together to work on a very big project that lasts for days, and have time to reminisce, share news, laugh, and meet new members. In the words of Past President Jolinda Taylor “It is a fund raiser to be sure, but it is also a rare opportunity to mix with such smart, hard-working, fun, and capable women. A wonderful GCBB tradition.” Decorators came from Wellesley, Cape Cod, Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Florida. Next year we hope to add California to that out of state list.
Inspired by famous plant hunters of the past, GardenTours.com is organizing a botanical expedition to Greece in Spring 2023 to discover orchids and flowers growing in the wild. Places on this all-inclusive tour are limited to 12. If a botanical adventure is something you’ve always dreamed of doing, then this is the tour for you !
We travel from Athens to two completely different Greek Islands: Crete and Chios. Both are charming and full of botanical interest. The temperature during our tour will be pleasant and the sun will be shining over the shores and rocky outcrops that are our hunting grounds for spring orchids and wild flowers.
Your tour guide is a leading expert in his field and can recognize and name all different types of Orchid. He also knows exactly where they grow. The genera of wild orchids that we might find is impressive: Serapias, Orchis, Ophrys, Dactylrhiza, Barlia, Cephelanthera, Anacamptis and many others. All should be in flower during our visit. There is also an excellent chance you will see several species of each. Other spring flowers you will see during our expeditions are Ranunculus, Cyclamen, Cistus, Fritillaria, Iris, Allium, Ferula and many more. All will be growing in their natural habitat and flowering before the intensity of the sun increases and the land become arid.
Complete itinerary and pricing information may be found at www.gardentours.com
Some of you may notice that while the Garden Club of the Back Bay website looks substantially the same as always, the web address is now bostonflora.com. That is step one of an exciting new venture for The Garden Club of the Back Bay and for me, Francine Crawford. For almost fifteen years (come April) I have curated events of interest to members and friends covering horticulture, the environment, flower arranging, garden tours, meetings, fund raisers, food, natural history, birding, and random previews of books and movies. At first, these posts were centered on Greater Boston. Soon I realized our members spent time on the Cape and Islands, the Berkshires, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island and Connecticut. Listings were expanded. After COVID became part of our lives, many offerings went online, and suddenly we were able to sign up for educational opportunities anywhere in the country, and indeed the world. Coverage was once again widened to reflect these new options.
We viewed this service as part of The Garden Club of the Back Bay’s educational mission statement. There was just so much content we could produce covering our eight to ten meetings a year. This summer, however, the Board of Directors chose to pursue creating a more member-centered website addressing Club events as the focus, which will soon be published. The site should be very exciting and interactive, and will be available at www.gardenclubbackbay.org, as always. Until the publication date, if you type that address into your browser you will arrive right here. Once the new site is active, you will land there instead of here. Our name will officially change to BostonFlora.com in 2023. Garden Club information such as by-laws, password-protected member lists, event histories, membership sign ups, donations, and so forth will no longer be available on BostonFlora.com, but the archive of past posts will continue, and new content will go forward much as always.
For those of you who subscribe to our email service, receiving our daily posts in your inbox through follow.it, nothing should change. I ask you to bookmark https://bostonflora.com/ on your computers. I so enjoy reaching out to everyone with featured content. This site will always be ad-free, maintained as a public service. There will be links to The Garden Club of the Back Bay site and that new site, in turn, will have a link here.
Updates will follow – official publication date of the Garden Club’s site will be announced. Any questions? Feel free to email info@bostonflora.com.
Over the years we have intermittently scheduled training mornings, or conducted bow making workshops before Wreath Week, or assigned new decorators to work with experienced decorators, but there was no real program to rely on. This year two of our best decorators, Past President Jackie Blombach and https://backbaytrees.org/ designer and webmaster Laurie Thomas did two workshops, training eight recruits in the fine art of decorating in our particular style. The topics included preparing the base wreath by fluffing, trimming, and attaching hangers, deciphering the order properly so the finished wreath reflects the client’s preference, choosing the bow, gathering the extra greens and materials, how to attach everything so nothing falls off in transit, what items to use only on indoor wreaths or only on outdoor wreaths, and so much more. One new member called the event a “fellowship of friends”, which is a good description. Below is a wreath created created by Laurie which shows great attention to detail, symmetry, and beauty.
The unyielding forces of nature are on full display throughout Alaska’s Inside Passage. Mountains erode by the crushing force of massive glaciers, icebergs drift across aquamarine waters, and the life cycles of flora and fauna are compressed into the scant weeks of an arctic summer. During this expedition cruise, navigate narrow channels and waterways with skilled naturalists at your side—ready to encounter Alaska’s abundant wildlife, breathtaking peaks and fjords, and ice-blue glaciers of unfathomable proportions.
See the spray of whales only yards away and venture into secluded inlets as you get up close to nature, whether from the decks of the Chichagof Dream or aboard its skiffs and kayaks. Accompanied by expert naturalists, including an Orbridge Expedition Leader, learn surprising details about animal behavior, glacier activity, and the wealth of natural spectacles along these protected waters. Discover Alaska’s culture and living history during a visit to the Alaska State Museum. Cruise around Glacier Bay National Park alongside a Native Huna Tlingit Cultural Heritage Guide. Visit Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center and a salmon hatchery. Take a guided tour of the Norwegian fishing community of Petersburg. Joined by a Park Ranger, cruise the pristine waters of Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve to see the sanctuary’s deep fjords, tidewater glaciers, and snow-capped mountain ranges. Included are 7 nights aboard the Chichagof Dream; all onboard hand-crafted meals: 7 breakfasts, 6 lunches, and 7 dinners—including a special Captain’s Farewell Dinner, and complimentary wine and beer at dinner; an onboard lecture program and educational guidance of two expert naturalists, including an Orbridge Expedition Leader, and a Park Ranger and Native Huna Tlingit Cultural Heritage Guide during a visit to Glacier Bay National Park; guided kayaking, hiking, walking, skiff excursions, and wildlife viewing; all port fees and entry fees to parks, preserves, museums, attractions, and special excursions as described in the itinerary; gratuities for Orbridge Expedition Leader, airport transfer drivers, and drivers/guides on included land excursions; airport transfers for guests arriving and departing during the suggested times.
Our supplier, Pat Riccardi, has been a stalwart supporter of our annual Holiday Wreath Project, and this year was no exception. At the planning stage, we were not sure how many wreaths we should order. We were limiting sales of fully decorated wreaths, but we didn’t know if our customer base from 2019 would return, whether people had found alternatives and moved on to new suppliers (one actually did email to say he had ordered from LL Bean thinking we weren’t back in business but promised to return next year), or if inflation might create a general cutting back of non essential purchases. As it turned out, we did have quite a few leftover wreaths, and on Thursday were able to return those bundles we hadn’t untied. Pat reported he had sold all the wreaths we returned by Thursday afternoon! There were such supply and quality issues this year that there hadn’t been a 12″ base wreath in the flower market for three weeks. He had hidden ours in a truck at the Flower Market protecting them from marauders until our delivery date.
The wreaths are made in small shops around Canada, and he purchases them from an aggregator for different suppliers, which accounts for the differences in sizes of some, and how tight, full, or loose some are as compared to others. Up until this year we assumed the wreaths all came from one source. Pat’s attention to detail and protectiveness underlines the advantage of dealing with one person for over twenty years. We thank you, Pat.
Join the American Horticultural Society March 8 – March 17, 2023 with AHS host Keith Tomlinson and Tour Leader Antonia Lloyd Owen for a journey through Morocco’s finest gardens. Highlights include visits to wonderful private gardens with refreshments hosted by the gardens’ owners. Visit The Tangier American Legation Institute for Moroccan Studies, the only National Historic Landmark on foreign soil. The Exotic Gardens of Bouknadel are the dream and passion of French horticulturist Marcel Francois, classified as a national cultural heritage site. Old Fez, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is a memory for the ages, as we make our way through the labyrinthine medina featuring the spice market, bazaars, and more. The Roman Volubilis ruins include a magnificent colonnaded shopping street, the Capitol, the Forum, and an impressive Triumphal Arch built in 217. Yves Saint Laurent’s Majorelle Garden, and Le Jardin Secret, an extraordinary garden dating back 400 years to the Saadian dynasty and loving restored by English landscape designer and author Tom Stuart-Smith, are also on the itinerary. For complete details visit www.ahsgardening.org, or call 703-768-5700, ext. 127. The updated brochure is now available.
A member shared the following story with us after she asked us to incorporate a family decoration into her wreath:
“My college roommate, a talented and devoted gardener with a flair for design, gave me the metal angel [seen below] in 2001, suggesting I incorporate it into future wreaths. Sadly, the following May she suffered a stroke at the age of 42, and we ultimately lost her. I miss her daily. It was such a gift to find the angel in my Christmas decorations in December, 2002. That year and each year since I have put the angel on my wreath. When I joined the Garden Club of the Back Bay [in 2018] I bought a beautifully decorated wreath to support wreath week, but really missed the angel. This year I requested that the angel be used in the design of my wreath. The angel was welcomed by Gudi and Stephanie [our dynamite mother/daughter decorating team] who thoughtfully and lovingly included her in their design. The result is spectacular and heartwarming to all who knew my friend, and is a reminder of her at our front door.”
The client chose the ribbon color because the wallpaper in her hallway is busy and she didn’t want a pattern to compete. To “backlight” the angel, glittery branches were moved around the angel to draw the eye to the centerpiece. Below is a picture of the finished wreath hung on the client’s door.
On his estate of Hafod Uchtryd in Cardiganshire, Thomas Johnes (1748-1816) created not only the most elaborate house ever built in the county, but also developed around it one of the most ambitious and influential picturesque landscapes ever created. At Hafod, Johnes developed an important art collection and library, pioneered agricultural improvements and planted millions of trees. Here, according to Sir Samuel Rush Meyrick in 1808, ‘art and nature have combined to produce the most astonishing place in the principality.’ This Gardens Trust online talk on December 19 at 2 pm gives an overview of the Hafod estate, its history and its place in the picturesque movement, with a focus on the lavish Derby porcelain dessert service commissioned by Johnes in 1787 as a record and celebration of his achievements there. Using the surviving elements of the Derby service as a tour guide, the talk also illustrates the pleasurable and often dramatic experience of exploring the walking routes that Johnes created through the wild landscape of the upper reaches of the river Ystwyth.
Andrew Renton has worked in the Art department at Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales since July 1999, first as Head of Applied Art, then as Keeper of Art 2015-2021, before recently taking on the new role of Head of Design Collections. Prior to that, he was a curator of applied art at National Museums Liverpool. His curatorial interests are wide-ranging, but at Cardiff he has focused in particular on modern and contemporary applied art, and on historic silver and Welsh ceramics. He was lead curator of the Museum’s exhibition of Japanese art and design in 2018, Kizuna: Japan | Wales | Design.
This ticket is for this individual session and costs £5 – register through Eventbrite HERE.
