Boston Flora

Month: February 2023

  • Monday, February 20, 1:00 pm – 2:30 pm Eastern – Maria Sibylla Merian: Pioneer of Natural History Illustration, Online

    Maria Sibylla Merian (1614 -1717) stands alone as the only female naturalist-artist and explorer of late seventeenth, early eighteenth-century Europe. Trained as an artist in Germany in the workshop of her stepfather, Jacob Merrell, Merian studied insects and reared silkworms as a child. Fascinated by the exotic insects she saw in the cabinets of collectors in Holland where she later lived, she made a pioneering visit to the Dutch colony of Suriname between 1699 and 1701 together with her daughter, Dorothea. There for two years she studied tropical insect life on its native plants, making sketches and preserving specimens. On her return to Holland, she spent five years working on a magnificent publication on the metamorphosis of insects, her Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium (1705).

    Merian’s pioneering travels and work, and the dramatic illustrations she made of insects on their host plants, provided an example to many contemporary and later naturalists and plant lovers, including the first Duchess of Beaufort, whose florilegium will form the last talk of this online Gardens Trust series. 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 a link to the recorded session (available for 1 week) will be sent shortly afterwards.

    Henrietta McBurney MVO, FLS, FSA, is an art curator and art historian. She worked as curator in the Print Room of the Royal Library, Windsor, for nearly 20 years. Subsequently she was keeper of fine and decorative art at Eton College, and curator of collections at the Garrick Club and Newnham College, Cambridge; she has since worked free-lance as a curator for Cambridge colleges. She has a particular interest in the intersection of art and science and has recently published Illuminating Natural History. The Art and Science of Mark Catesby (Paul Mellon Centre/Yale, June 2021). Other publications include studies on the 17th-century Florilegium of Alexander Marshal and Birds, Other Animals and Natural Curiosities, the natural history drawings for Cassiano dal Pozzo’s Paper Museum.

  • Now Through Sunday, March 19 – Allure, An Orchid Exhibition

    At the New England Botanical Garden at Tower Hill’s annual orchid exhibition, get to know the captivating plants that entice pollinators in surprising ways. Allure displays thousands of orchids and artist Kara Walker’s larger-than-life sculptures—orchids paired with the pollinators they tempt. All is fair in love and orchid pollination. Experience the drama of this breathtaking orchid exhibition during daytime hours or through a line-up of special events.  Kara Walker is a mixed medium artist out of the central coast of California. She discovered oil painting at 16 years old and started her own business at 20. She spent over 20 years doing high end artisan finishes in home interiors. She recently discovered prop building and set design. This new found passion landed her a spot on the NBC show Making It where she was a finalist. This exposure has broadened her reach and has allowed her to switch her career to freelance prop building and works out of her studio at home. Learn more about her work here.

    This exhibit is included with general admission. Tickets can be purchased in advance through our website or in person at the Garden. 

  • Saturday, February 25, 11:00 am – 12:30 pm Eastern – Composting for Beginners, Online

    This Berkshire Botanical Garden introductory course will cover the basics of successful composting and its use in the garden. Styles of composters will be addressed as well as the tools needed to create and use this “black gold” in the garden. Led by Bridgette Stone.  The online class will be held February 25 at 11 am and is $10 for BBG members, $12 for nonmembers. Register at https://www.berkshirebotanical.org/events/composting-beginners

    Bridgette Stone is the director of education at Berkshire Botanical Garden, a graduate of BBG’s Horticulture Certificate Program and a teacher. 

  • Tuesday, February 14, 1:25 pm – 2:25 pm Eastern – How Pollinators are Affected by the Plants You Choose – and the Treatments You Choose for Emerald Ash Borer, Online

    The Xerces Society and University of Nevada researchers recently sampled milkweeds from 33 retail nurseries across 15 states, finding an average of 12 pesticides per plant. Milkweed is the primary food for the caterpillars of monarch butterflies, which have dramatically declined and are the focus of intensive restoration efforts. This study was the first to examine pesticide residues in commercially produced nursery plants from the perspective of monarchs. Meanwhile the Pacific Northwest is facing the establishment of the emerald ash borer, an insect that has devastated ash forests across the U.S. Yet the pesticides most often used to ensure the trees’ survival are toxic to Lepidopterans (butterflies and moths). Join Sharon Selvaggio and Aaron Anderson with the Xerces Society to learn why the milkweed study findings raise concerns, what you can do to increase your probability of buying pollinator-safe plants, the risks of the insecticides used to fight EAB, and some solutions that may slow the EAB spread while minimizing harm to butterflies and other insects that use ash trees.

    Click here for more information and to register. The webinar will take place February 14 from 1:25 – 2:25 and is sponsored by the Xerces Society.

    Trap Tree for Emerald Ash Borer

  • Tuesday, February 21, 5:00 am Eastern (but recorded) – Garden Technology: The Tools of the Trade, Online

    This is the first lecture in a six-week series of lectures which will look at the history and development of garden technology from Medieval times right up to the present day. The ‘technology’ of gardening has developed enormously over the past centuries due to mechanization, automation, advances in science – and we can now grow plants without soil, we have automated watering systems for our greenhouses and we can watch while the robot mower, controlled from our smartphones, trims our lawns to perfection. But although we may approach them differently, the tasks and challenges that face gardeners today are much the same as they were back in Tudor times and earlier: preparing the soil, planting, protecting, composting, propagating and so on and so on. The rise in the organic movement over the past few decades has reminded us that the gardeners of old knew at least as much about gardening and working in harmony with nature as we do now, so how have new technologies developed and progressed our gardening knowledge, practice, and techniques?

    The Gardens Trust has engaged a series of expert speakers to examine this question, including the renowned garden writer and designer, Noel Kingsbury, National Trust curator James Rothwell, expert on lawnmowers through the ages Keith Wootton, as well as regular Gardens Trust lecturers Jill Francis and our very own David Marsh; who will take a different technology in turn – tools, fertilizers, pest control, glasshouses, lawnmowers and plant breeding – and explore their history and development in relation to gardening.

    On February 21, Jill Francis begins with The Tools of the Trade. Ever since Adam was a boy, people have been using mechanical aids to help with the hard labour of gardening. Spades, mattocks and hoes have been used all over the world for thousands of years, and we still use versions of these tools today, although perhaps surprisingly, there are no records of the garden fork being used until the seventeenth century. Adapted from farming implements, garden tools were repaired, sharpened and cherished, they were listed in inventories, household accounts and passed on in wills, but this essential aspect of our gardening heritage is rarely discussed in garden histories. This talk will offer an overview of the development of garden tools from ancient times into the modern world.

    Jill Francis is an early modern historian, specialising in gardens and gardening in the late-sixteenth and early-seventeenth centuries. She was awarded her PhD in 2011 by the University of Birmingham and has taught as a visiting lecturer at Birmingham and also the University of Worcester. She also has lectured in a variety of Garden History fora, including the Institute of Historical Research Landscape and Gardens seminar programme and most recently, has become increasing involved in the Gardens Trust extensive online provision. She also works at the Shakespeare Institute Library in Stratford-upon-Avon. Her first book, Gardens and Gardening in Early Modern England and Wales, was published by Yale University Press in June 2018.

    Register HERE. Tickets £24 or £5 each through Eventbrite. Attendees will be sent a Zoom link 2 days prior to the start of the talk, and again a few hours before the talk (If you do not receive this link please contact us). A link to the recorded session will be sent shortly after each session and will be available for 1 week .

  • Sunday, February 18, 1:00 pm Eastern – Revealed: The Amazing Story of Armored Mud Balls, Live & Online

    And who every suggested this website doesn’t give you fabulous learning options?

    Franklin County has Jurassic armored mud balls, one of the rarest sedimentary rock structures on the planet.  In fact, this is the only place in the world where you can easily see, touch, and study these interesting, photogenic, and fun geological oddities.  Greenfield Community College Professor Emeritus Richard D. Little, the discoverer of these intriguing features, will explain how they form and why they are so rare plus how he was lucky enough to find them.  The armored mud ball saga is a story of plate tectonics, floods, climate change, and other geologic events.  It a human story of the birth of a suspension bridge (yes, it had to be a suspension bridge), the death of a bowling alley and a fortuitous field trip picnic.  What a story!  Are the Jurassic armored mud balls important enough to become officially celebrated as a Massachusetts State “Sedimentary Structure?”  To receive the Zoom link, email Dave@Atholbirdclub.org The program will also be available to attend in person at the Millers River Educational Center.

  • Thursday, February 16, 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm – Roots of Black Botany: The Contributions and Struggles of Washington Carver, Marie Clark Taylor, and O’Neil Ray Collins, Online

    While many conservationists are familiar with white botanists such as Carl Linnaeus and Gregor Mendel, fewer know of the many ways Black botanists have revolutionized the field, contributing to our understanding of everything from crop rotation techniques to slime mold behavior. In this Garden Club of the Back Bay free webinar with Micah Jasny on February 16 from 2 – 3, we will explore the accomplishments of three notable Black botanists: George Washington Carver, Marie Clark Taylor, and O’Neil Ray Collins. A Zoom link will be sent to all registered participants by February 14.

    Micah Jasny is originally from Northern Virginia where he spent his childhood hiking and camping around the Shenandoah Mountains and where he discovered his love for nature and native species. Micah pursued this passion receiving his Bachelors of Science in Biology and Environmental Science from the College of William & Mary and then his masters in Ecosystem Science and Conservation from the Duke Nicholas School for the Environment. In his current role as the Botanical Coordinator with Native Plant Trust, Micah oversees the Plant Conservation Volunteer (PCV) program. Started in 1993, the PCV program engages professional and amateur botanists to assist State Natural Heritage programs track and monitor roughly 25,000 rare plant populations throughout New England. This program engages hundreds of community science volunteers who undergo training to monitor rare plant species, sign up for surveys, and then search the New England landscape for these important plants. In addition to his work with Native Plant Trust, Micah is one of the founding members of the Rare Plant Community Science Network which is working to share tools and knowledge to better protect rare plant species across the Nation. 

    There is no fee for this program. Please rsvp by February 13  on Eventbrite by clicking HERE.

    courtesy LA Times

  • Wednesday, February 15, 1:30 pm Eastern – Unforgettable Gardens – Ireland: Phoenix Park, Online

    The Gardens Trust presents a series of 4 online talks on some of the well- and lesser known historic gardens of Ireland Wednesdays from 1 Feb £5 each or £16 for all. Register through Eventbrite HERE., or visit https://thegardenstrust.org for more details. Attendees will be sent a Zoom link 2 days prior to the start of the talk, and again a few hours before the talk (If you do not receive this link please contact us). A link to the recorded session (available for 1 week) will be sent shortly afterwards. This third of the series is on Phoenix Park, on February 15.

    Phoenix Park is one of the world’s great urban parks and has been managed by the Office of Public Works almost continuously from 1860 to the present day and for periods of its history before that. Its significance lies in its antiquity, from human habitation to 5,500 years ago, through the reign of Charles II in the 1660s, when it was Ireland’s only royal deer park at the time, until the present day, where it makes a major contribution to the recreational, cultural, social and economic needs of the City of Dublin.

    The lecture will endeavor to cover the main landscape and historical developments during its 360 year existence as a recreational facility as well as focusing on some of the major landscape professionals such as Decimus Burton who made a major contribution to its landscape layout. Some aspects of the Park’s management as the herd of fallow deer and grassland management will also be discussed and the contributions made by a number of Park bailiffs in the late 19th and early decades of the 20th centuries.

    Dr John A. McCullen graduated from University College Dublin with a first class hons. degree in horticulture in 1970 followed by an MSc. in Landscape Ecology, Design and Maintenance from Wye College, London University. In 2007 he was awarded a PhD by the University of Dublin for his thesis on the Landscape History and Management of the Phoenix Park from 1800-1880. He is retired chief park superintendent with the Office of Public Works and has been responsible for the management and conservation of Phoenix Park for almost 25 years. John has also been involved in the conservation and restoration of numerous other OPW historic properties during this period. He is the author of An illustrated history of the Phoenix Park: landscape and management to 1880 (OPW, 2009). He is currently working on vol. 2 of the Park’s history from 1880 to 1980 which is due to be published in 2023.

  • Wednesday, March 1, 1:00 pm – From Naumachia to Naval Warfare: Nautical Frolics in British Parks, Online

    “Look Out Behind You!!” The audience shouts out warnings to the ‘actors’ in the aquatic and pyrotechnic panto that is performed three afternoons a week each summer in Peasholm Park, Scarborough. The excitements of ‘Naval Warfare’ are unique. It is the last of the Naumachia, or mock naval battles, that have been ‘fought’ on the lakes of European gardens and parks since the Renaissance. Naumachia is the Romanised Greek word that described gladiatorial sea fights in the flooded Colosseum. When revived in the Renaissance, they became frolicsome pageants. For Georgian Britons, they combined ‘messing about in boats’ with re-enactment of the latest naval victory. Manned miniature warships, fortlets and docks adorned parkland lakes. Victorians paid to attend these spectacles. The March 1 Yorkshire Gardens Trust lecture will romp its way through these frolics to highlight the cultural significance of Scarborough’s ‘Naval Warfare’, which was launched in 1927 in Britain’s only public park designed exclusively in the Japanese style.

    Dr Patrick Eyres has, since 1981, created 54 editions of the unique, artist-illustrated New Arcadian Journal, which engages with the cultural politics of designed landscapes. Naumachia (1995) is a history of Peasholm Park, Naval Warfare and the Naumachia tradition. He has published extensively, most recently on the poetic gardening of Ian Hamilton Finlay in Penny Florence (ed.), Thinking The Sculpture Garden: Art, Plant, Landscape (2020), and in the 40th anniversary edition of the New Arcadian Journal, Atlantic Flowers: The Naval Memorials of Little Sparta (2022), as well as in the 50th anniversary issue of Garden History (2022). For many years he served on the boards of the Little Sparta Trust, Garden History Society, Leeds Art Fund, and Wentworth Castle Heritage Trust. On behalf of The Gardens Trust, he set up and chaired for ten years the annual New Research Symposium in Garden History.

    In this first of a series of talks the speakers will introduce a variety of landscapes, gardens and themes enjoyed by Yorkshire Gardens Trust members which portray the wide diversity of designed landscapes in the 3 Yorkshire counties and the interests of the membership. £5 each or all 5 for £20. Register HERE.

  • Tuesday, February 22, 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm – Paratha Workshop

    Indian bread is an important accompaniment to an Indian meal. ‘Parathas’ are homemade Indian flatbreads- unleavened, vegetarian, vegan- typically paired with curries or can be made stuffed and enjoyed as a meal on its own. It is prepared by rolling, layering, and then cooked on a hot griddle.

    In this hands-on Paratha Workshop on February 22 at Wright-Locke Farm in Winchester, learn to prepare a good dough and make a range of delicious bread- plain and stuffed, savory and sweet. Served with a dollop of butter and a refreshing Raita.

    • Garlic Paratha (seasoned with garlic and herbs)
    • Aloo Paratha (stuffed with spiced mashed potatoes)
    • Sweet Paratha (stuffed with sugar & nuts)
    • Cucumber Raita (yogurt dipping sauce with Cucumber)
    • Boondi Raita (yogurt sauce with chickpea fritters)

    Shilpi Ranjan, the owner and instructor of EZ Compliments, Indian cooking classes, is a passionate cook, educator, wife and a mother. She has been teaching Indian cooking in the Greater Boston area since 2009 and has received many compliments from her patrons, friends, and family. With her warm, hospitable personality and sense of humor, Shilpi brings lots of excitement and energy to the cooking experience. She adapts her cooking and teaching to the spice tolerance, and abilities of each participant. For more information and to register, click here. Tiered Pricing $55 – $85.