Boston Flora

Month: March 2023

  • Tuesday, March 14, 5:00 am – 6:30 am Eastern (but recorded) – Garden Technology: A Glittering Tale – A History of the Glasshouse in Britain, Online

    This is the fourth 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. Tickets £24 or £5 each. Register through 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 (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.

    Since Roman times, people have longed to grow fruits and flowering plants from climates warmer than their own. It is from their resulting endeavors that the humble greenhouse of today emerged, bringing with it the ability to experience horticultural and culinary delights from across the globe. This talk on March 14 with James Rothwell will look at the history of the glasshouse in Britain, from the 17th-century orangery at Ham House to the 1920s greenhouse at Mr Straw’s House in Nottinghamshire. It will also look at the supporting acts that are garden sheds and at how innovations in glasshouse technology have informed building design today beyond the garden, including central heating systems, railway stations and even skyscrapers.

    James Rothwell studied architectural and landscape history at the Courtauld Institute of Art, specializing in the Red Books of Humphry Repton. He has been a curator with the National Trust for nearly thirty years. During that time, he has been responsible for a number of estates with important glasshouses, notably Quarry Bank in Cheshire where he oversaw the acquisition and restoration of the kitchen garden, including a range of glass with an early curvilinear iron showhouse.

  • Friday, March 10, 6:30 pm – 8:00 pm – Plants and Placemaking with Matthew Cunningham, Live and Online

    Blending traditional Yankee building techniques with high design, Maine native Matthew Cunningham is well-known for his plantcentric residential landscapes throughout the Northeast. His gardens feature ecologically minded planting schemes and regionally sourced reclaimed materials that evoke an authentic sense of place, while showcasing his unique ability to grasp the dynamic rhythms of everyday life. With offices in Massachusetts and Maine, Matthew Cunningham’s firm, MCLD, has garnered awards from ASL A, the Boston Society of Landscape Architects, and APLD to name a few. His gardens have been published in magazines such as Architectural Digest, Garden Design, and New England Home. Cunningham is currently a lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Prior to founding MCLD, he worked for Reed Hilderbrand.

    This talk on March 10 is sponsored by the Native Plant Trust and pricing is, for in person attendance at Garden in the Woods, $30 for NPT members, $36 for nonmembers, and for Live Virtual, $15 for NPT members and $18 for nonmembers. Click here to register to attend this event in person. and Click here to register to attend this event virtually

  • Wednesday, March 15, 6:30 pm Eastern – Trailblazers and Trendsetters: Bartram’s Garden, Live and Online

    Morven Museum & Garden is pleased to present the 2023 Grand Homes & Gardens Speaker Series: Trailblazers and Trendsetters. Join us as we explore the people and spaces, past and present, who cultivated new opportunities and inspired breakthrough trends for future generations of landscape architects, designers, entrepreneurs, and horticulturalists. Today, these places continue the work of preserving historic and natural landscapes for public benefit and community engagement. The 2023 series will feature Manitoga, Villa Lewaro, Beauport – The Sleeper McCann House, and Bartram’s Garden. On March 15, the final installment of the series will be presented.

    Learn about America’s oldest surviving botanic garden that today serves its community as an educational and sustainable landscape in Philadelphia. As America’s oldest surviving botanic garden, established by John Bartram – the father of American botany, Bartram’s Garden has blazed many trails. Not only is the 14-acre garden in Philadelphia, PA home to a collection of plant species collected, grown, and studied by the Bartram family from 1728 to 1850, today the site provides communal space and sustainable farming opportunities for its surrounding neighborhoods. Speaker Aseel Rasheed, Public Programs Director at Batram’s Garden, will explore the history of the Bartram family, the home, and the gardens while also taking the story up to the present day and the site’s groundbreaking role as a space serving the community.

    This program is sponsored by Keller Williams Princeton Realty. $10 – $30. Register through Eventbrite HERE.

  • Wednesday, April 26, 6:00 pm – 8:30 pm – Muddy River Restoration Project Annual Meeting

    Join the MMOC and the Muddy River Cabinet for Public Oversight Reimagined on Wednesday evening, April 26th. This Annual Meeting will coincide with the near completion of the historic Restoration Project—and the birthday of visionary landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted. Venue: The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. For details email info@muddyrivermmoc.org or click HERE.

  • Saturday, March 11, 11:00 am – 12:30 pm Eastern – Birth of a New Perennial Garden, Online

    The Berkshire Botanical Garden presents a personal introduction to the design principles of Piet Oudolf — one of the world’s leading naturalistic landscape designers. His work includes New York’s High Line, Chicago’s Lurie Garden, the Oudolf Meadow at Delaware Botanic Gardens, and Oudolf Garden Detroit. Deborah Chud’s five years of research on Oudolf’s gardens led to her own Oudolfian garden and the only known database of his plant combinations. Part 1 of this class traces her discovery of Oudolf’s work, her research on his plant combinations and her use of that research to create a garden in his style. Part 2 explores the historical context in which he emerged as a landscape designer. Part 3 provides an introduction to his design principles, particularly his concept of structure and the special balance he creates between coherence and contrast. At the end of the talk, participants will enjoy some practical Oudolfian “do’s and don’ts” for solving the problem of excessive contrast. Co-hosted with New England Botanic Garden. $12 for BBG and NEBG members, $15 for nonmembers. Register at https://www.berkshirebotanical.org/events/birth-new-perennial-garden

    Deborah Chud is a retired Massachusetts physician turned garden maker, consultant and educator. Her five years of research on Piet Oudolf have generated the most comprehensive database of his plant combinations. In the fall of 2020, she presented her work at an international event organized by Oudolf’s co-author, Noel Kingsbury, under the aegis of gardenmasterclass.org. Deborah has also presented to members of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, Harvard’s Arnold Arboretum, the United States Botanical Garden in Washington, D.C., the Ecological Landscape Alliance, the Northwest Perennial Alliance, Toronto Botanical Garden, and Delaware Botanic Gardens. The latter two public gardens contain Oudolf-designed sections.

  • Saturday, March 25, 12:30 pm – 2:00 pm – Spring Indoor Garden Workshop with Anna Holmes

    Join Anna Holmes at Highfield Hall in Falmouth on March 25 at 12:30 for this fun, relaxing hands-on workshop about putting together a beautiful miniature indoor garden.  During the workshop Anna will discuss professional design tips, how to source materials, the care of flowers & design, how to calculate product needs and the storage & packaging of containers. The materials will include a combination of flowering plants, upright tropical, trailing tropical, container, moss, curly willow and raffia bow. The actual plant selection is determined based on plant availability.

    Space is limited! Pre-registration deadline by March 17th

    Register now as this workshop will sell out! $55 for Highfield Hall members, $65 for general public,

  • Thursday, March 9, 10:00 am GMT (but recorded) – C20 Garden, Part 2: Beverley Nichols, Leading Us Down the Garden Path, Online

    Created and re-created against the backdrop of cycle of war and peace with its accompanying social and economic impacts, the twentieth century garden pivots between tradition and modernism, informality and structure. The century sees a shift in both style and materials as concrete takes its place at the heart of new towns and spaces, whilst the country house garden struggles to survive and flourish again in a new order. Garden design increasingly reflects the needs of a wider range of society, whilst literary and artistic movements locate gardens at the very heart of the struggle for meaning in a world of change and aspiration. The Gardens Trust series reflects the continuity and change in garden design and understanding through the twentieth century highlighting specific gardens and designers and setting them within more contextual discussions. Attendees will be sent a Zoom link 2 days (and again a few hours) prior to the start of the first talk (If you do not receive this link please contact us), and a link to the recorded session will be sent shortly after each session and will be available for 1 week. Tickets £30 or £5 each. To purchase a ticket for the complete series through Eventbrite, visit HERE. The Gardens Trust has complete details on its website.

    The March 9 talk with Twigs Way highlights one of my personal favorite garden authors, Beverley Nichols (1898-1983): Leading us Down the Garden Path. Beverley Nichols was an author, socialite, and garden creator, now perhaps best remembered for his books which were not quite about gardening and yet not-quite not about gardening. Inspired by his various houses and gardens, the events he shared and the people he portrayed (sometimes quite mercilessly) were also not quite true and yet not-quite not true. Although somewhat misogynistic in style, and resolutely off-hand on the subject of gardening instruction, his 1932 best-selling work Down the Garden Path, illustrated by Rex Whistler, has been in print almost continuously since it first appeared. It was followed by two other works about his time at ‘Allways’ (his pseudonym for Glatton, Cambridgeshire), before a move to Hampstead Heath and then on to a Georgian manor in Ashtead, Surrey resulted in more not-quite gardening books. Nichols gave rise to a particular genre of gardening memoir in the mid-twentieth century, not to mention several satires on the style including Garden Rubbish (1936). This talk will explore the life, loves and garden landscapes of Beverley Nichols, drawing on published and unpublished material. The speaker lives in the village adjacent to Nichols’ beloved ‘Allways’.

    Twigs Way is a garden historian, writer and researcher. Twigs is fascinated by the past and intrigued by the role of flowers, gardens and landscape in art and culture of all kinds. Her talks and books reflect that endless curiosity with themes of symbolism and meaning, class and gender, art and literature . . and her desire to follow unknown paths towards the unexpected. From gnomes in Neasden to hollyhocks from the Holy Land every plant has a tale to tell, every garden a past. Twigs is an accredited Arts Society lecturer and her history of the Chrysanthemum in art and culture was published by Reaktion in 2020. She is currently not-quite working on the equally golden daffodil.

  • Monday, March 6, 1:00 pm- 2:30 pm Eastern – Plant Hunting and Plant Transfers: The Early Passion for Plants, Online

    The stories of the individual plant hunters who operated between the mid-eighteenth and mid-twentieth century have often been told and told well. The aim of this online Gardens Trust series of lectures with Dr. Toby Musgrave, therefore, is to broaden the subject and to explore four complementary yet contrasting topics. It will also serve as an introduction to the whole topic of plant hunting, collecting and transfer round the world, which we are planning to cover in more depth in the autumn. The first lecture on March 6 is The Early Passion for Plants. The series ticket costs £16 for the course of 4 sessions or you may purchase a ticket for individual sessions, costing £5. To register through Eventbrite, and for more information, visit HERE, or visit The Gardens Trust events page, https://thegardenstrust.org/events-archive/?events=gardenstrust. 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.

    With a time frame from Ancient Egypt to the seventeenth century the objective is to explore the passion for plants in the time before the great age of plant hunting. This fascination with flora will include the introduction of new garden plants but will also venture beyond the garden walls and examine associated subjects such as botany, medicine and nomenclature. Dr Toby Musgrave FSA FLS is a garden and plants historian, horticulturist and author. His books have covered a wide range of subjects from head gardeners to heritage fruit and vegetables, plant hunters to paradise gardens, and a biography of Sir Joseph Banks. He was a major contributor to Radio 4’s series “The British Garden” and he has been a consultant for many gardening and garden history related programmes on both the BBC and commercial television. He lives in Denmark and when not gardening, teaching or writing he works as a submersible pilot. Photo courtesy https://nilescribes.org/2021/05/01/ancient-egyptian-gardens/

  • Wednesday, March 8, 5:30 pm – 7:00 pm, Eastern – Native Vines, Online

    In this first class in Berkshire Botanical Garden’s online series Native Plants for Every Corner of the Garden, learn how to add height, structure and visual interest to your garden, balcony or containers with a diversity of native vines. An assortment of woody and herbaceous species with colorful flowers and interesting textures will be presented by horticulturist Duncan Himmelman.  The class will take place March 8 from 5:30 – 7, Eastern time. $12 for BBG members, $15 for the general public. Register at https://www.berkshirebotanical.org/events/native-vines

    Duncan Himmelman earned his doctorate at Cornell University and taught horticultural science at the college level for 24 years. He recently retired as the education manager at Mt. Cuba Center, a public garden in Delaware devoted to native plant advocacy. He continues to enjoy teaching, designing landscapes and promoting ecologically focused gardening practices.

    native wild cucumber
  • Friday, March 3, 6:00 pm – 7:00 pm – Sue Stuart Smith: The Well-Gardened Mind

    Friday, March 3, 6:00 pm – 7:00 pm – Sue Stuart Smith: The Well-Gardened Mind

    Distinguished psychiatrist and avid gardener Sue Stuart-Smith believes our minds and our gardens interact in ways that can sustain our innermost selves. Her beautifully written UK bestseller, The Well-Gardened Mind, offers inspiring perspectives on the power of gardening to change people’s lives. For Stuart-Smith, a garden is much more than a beloved physical space. It is a mental space where you can hear your thoughts immersed in the primal awareness not only of nature’s beauty, but the eternal cycle of the seasons. Informed by literature, neuroscience and her experiences as therapist and gardener, she celebrates the joys of gardening, but also the life-affirming benefits of tending plants-physical, psychological and metaphorical.

    Before practicing as a psychiatrist and psychotherapist, Sue Stuart-Smith received her degree in English literature at Cambridge. Over the past 30 years, she has worked with her husband, leading UK garden designer Tom Stuart-Smith, on their wonderful Barn Garden in Hertfordshire.

    This Garden Conservancy lecture will take place on March 3 from 6 – 7 at the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum in Lincoln, Massachusetts. To register, visit https://www.gardenconservancy.org/education/2023-speaker-series. The Spring 2023 National Speaking Tour is in partnership with Perfect Earth Project