Pom’s Cabin Farm is a richly-varied, 27-acre piece of land along the Housatonic River that is nurtured and celebrated by its owner, Dale McDonald, and her dedicated team headed by horticulturist Robin Zitter. Robin’s initial priority in 2007 was to get a sense of place and to develop a relationship with it, “working with the forces of nature to enhance and steward the land.” By listening to the land and through observation, she leads her devoted team toward a richly interconnected and regenerative system that values all who live here. Diversity is expressed through differing habitats including meadows, woodlands, wetlands, and a dynamic floodplain along the Housatonic River. Thoughtful ecological practices encourage native plants through a variety of restorative approaches: Paths now wend through woods, whose dominant understory of Japanese barberry is considerately managed. Meadows have been seeded with native flowers and grasses, and an edible human imprint is threaded throughout the landscape with a variety of cultivated vegetables and fruits. A large blueberry field is home to cultivated and native bee housing projects and neighboring shiitake log cultivation. Hedges of raspberries, red, black and white currants, gooseberries and elderberries nestle above the floodplain. Energy conservation is addressed through solar panels, a geothermal system, cisterns, and vegetated swales, even as PCF explores solar thermal and compostable heat sourcing. This landscape is an expression of historical, cultural and ecological life in the northwest corner of Connecticut.
Berkshire Botanical Garden will lead a field study trip to Pom’s Cabin Farm on August 11 from 3 – 5. Transportation from BBG for an additional $10 fee is available for a limited number of participants. Address and directions will be sent upon registration. BBG members $50, nonmembers $55. Sign up at https://www.berkshirebotanical.org/events/field-study-pom%E2%80%99s-cabin-farm
The Northeast Regional Perennial Plant Symposium will take place at The Gardens at Elm Bank, 900 Washington Street in Wellesley, on August 24. The Symposium is co-sponsored by the Massachusetts Horticultural Society and the Perennial Plant Association. An all-star cast of speakers will be featured. Andrew Brand will talk about Spectacular Native Plants: Beauty and Biodiversity of the Northeast. Marie Chieppo’s topic is Let Your Landscape Work for You: Designing for Resilience and Sustainability. Uli Lorimer takes on Spoiled for Choice: Becoming an Informed Consumer of Native Plants. John Magee’s talk is, appropriately, Let’s Talk About This. Complete biographies of all speakers and registration information may be found at www.masshort.org.
The Martha’s Vineyard Garden Club will hold its Annual Meeting at The Old Mill in West Tisbury on Tuesday, August 15 at 1 pm. The speaker will be Liz Durkee of the Martha’s Vineyard Commission. She will present a program on Climate Change and the Natural Environment. Climate change is stressing the natural environment, from coastal erosion to biodiversity loss. The best way to adapt is to work with nature, not against it. We’ll look at the impacts, what’s being done to address climate change, and investigate positive actions you can take to help make the Island as climate change resilient as possible.
Liz hopes attendees will gain an understanding of how climate change is affecting the island’s natural environment and inspiration to take positive action to address the impacts.
Liz is the climate change planner at the Martha’s Vineyard Commission. She spent summer vacations on the Island growing up and moved here full-time in 1983. She was the conservation agent for the Town of Oak Bluffs for twenty-two years before being hired as the Commission’s first climate change planner in 2021. As the conservation agent she became concerned about sea level rise and that led her to months of off-duty research to understand how climate change would specifically affect the Vineyard. The result was 9 fifteen-part series in the Vineyard Gazette way back in 2011, called Climate Change on Martha’s Vineyard. Last year the Commission released the Island’s first Climate Action Plan, The Vineyard Way: Connected to Our Past, Committed to Our Future. https://thevineyardway.org/plan-development
FREE to MVGC Members / Open to non-members @ $10.00 pp
The Cape Cod Museum of Natural History is excited to announce the Don Schall Memorial Cape Cod BioBlitz. This event has been created in honor of Don Schall; an educator, botanist, naturalist, wetland scientist, mentor, and long-time resident of Brewster. Don’s first job on the Cape was at the Cape Cod Museum of Natural History and it is fitting that this Cape Cod BioBlitz will be held here at 869 Main Street, Brewster, Massachusetts. Don’s expertise and personality were inspirational to so many scientists and educators in the region and our goal is to continue his infectious enthusiasm for learning and appreciating biodiversity of the Cape Cod Region. The BioBlitz will require volunteers to be successful. The Museum will offer an Orientation Session at the Cape Cod Museum of Natural History in the coming weeks. Pre-registration is required. Visit https://ccmnh.org/events/don-shall-memorial-cape-cod-bioblitz-21226/2023-09-09
The 34th Annual Pocket Gardens of Portsmouth (NH) will take place Friday, September 8 from 4:30 – 7:30, and Saturday, September 9, 10 – 4, in the Lafayette Park neighborhood (Middle, Aldrich, Spinney), which includes an urban nature preserve. Garden scouting is underway. Visit https://www.southchurch-uu.org/what-we-offer/pocket-garden-tour/ or email jocfoster@outlook.com The event is a benefit for South Church, A Unitarian Universalist Congregation.
The Garden Futures Summitis a two-day, in-person event that looks to sustain the remarkable passion and interest in gardening today by presenting a selection of the most exciting ideas shaping the future of gardens and society at large. The Summit, on September 29th and 30th, will focus on three essential topics within contemporary gardening: environment, community, and culture.
On the first day of the Summit, to be held at The New York Botanical Garden, more than a dozen influential speakers from across the gardening world will participate in sessions organized around the Summit topics. They will discuss the extraordinary potential of gardens and gardening to improve our physical, cultural, and emotional health and well-being.
On the second day of the Summit, attendees will be treated to exclusive experiences at both private and public gardens throughout New York City and the greater metropolitan area that embody the forward-thinking and transformative potential in gardens today. Tours will be announced later this summer.
The breadth of speakers at the Summit and the combination of talks and tours will be of interest to all gardeners, designers, architects, and students who are passionate about gardens and their enormous potential in society. The Keynote Address will be given by Lady Isabella Tree (pictured below) on The Book of Wilding – A Practical Guide to Rewilding Big and Small. Isabella Tree is an award-winning journalist and author of five books. Her first best-selling book, Wilding, tells the story of the daring wildlife experiment she began in 2000: rewilding her and her husband Charlie Burrell’s 3,500 acres of unprofitable farmland at Knepp Estate in West Sussex, UK. In less than twenty years their degraded land has become a functioning ecosystem again, wildlife has rocketed, and numerous endangered species have made Knepp their home. What has happened at Knepp challenges conventional ideas about nature, wildlife, and how we manage and envisage our land. It reveals the potential for the landscapes of the future. Isabella also writes for The Guardian, National GeographicMagazine, and Granta.
Other speakers include Edwina von Gal, founder of The Perfect Earth Project. Edwina von Galis a leading voice in sustainable gardening and landscape design. She founded the Perfect Earth Project in 2013 to promote nature-based, toxic-free land care for the health of people, their pets, and the planet. As principal of her eponymous landscape design firm since 1984, Edwina creates landscapes with a focus on simplicity and sustainability for private and public clients around the world. Joining her as session speakers will be Horatio Joyce of The Garden Conservancy, Vanessa Keith of StudioTEKA Design, Jeff Lorenz of Refugia Design, and Rebecca McMackin, horticulturist and garden designer.
You will also have the opportunity to hear Jennifer Jewell, Radio Host and Author of Cultivating Place. This year, Jewell was awarded the American Horticultural Society’s Great Gardener Morrison Award for outstanding horticultural communication. Her third book, What We Sow, On the Personal, Ecological, and Cultural Significance of Seedswill be published in September. On the topic of Community, session speakers will include Ivi Diamantopoulou, Jaffer Kolb, and Sam Stewart-Halevy of New Affiliates, Adam Greenspan of PWP Landscape Architects, Peter Lefkovits of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, and Nicole Thomas of Urban Health Lab.
In another thread, horticulture and culture are on a collision course—and that’s a good thing. Forgotten garden histories, the challenges of preserving mid-century landscapes, and the growing engagement of the visual arts with the natural environment are the animating topics in a session to be led by Melissa Chiu. She is director of the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the national museum of modern and contemporary art. Dr. Chiu’s current organizational focus is transforming the Hirshhorn into a 21st-century institution through the revitalization of the museum’s campus, including a new design for the Hirshhorn’s Sculpture Garden by artist and architect Hiroshi Sugimoto. Joining Melissa will be Cindy Brockway of The Trustees of Reservations, David Godshall of Terremoto of LA, Abra Lee, horticulturist and historian, and Brent Leggs of the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund.
Heritage Museums & Gardens in Sandwich invites car enthusiasts to a fundraising event on Thursday, August 17 from 5 – 6:30 pm, to help fund its mission to inspire people of all ages to explore, discover, and learn together. Curious to get a look under the hoods at the engines in its auto collection? Interested in horsepower, bore and stroke, or other technical details? This unique event invites you to get up close and personal with the Museum’s one-of-a-kind antique and classic car collection. Go behind-the-scenes into Heritage’s auto storage area and maintenance garage and get face-to-fender with these fascinating machines. Enjoy private access to the automobile exhibit From Carriage to Classic: How Automobiles Transformed America, and watch and listen as select cars from Heritage’s collection are started up for your enjoyment. Meet expert members of our Auto Committee and learn what it takes to maintain this world-class collection. Don’t miss this opportunity to meet like-minded aficionados and to get all your in-depth classic car questions answered. This month’s program will feature an in-depth look at the 1946 Mercury Woodie Station Wagon and the 1965 Ford Country Squire Station Wagon. $15 Heritage members, $25 nonmembers. Register at www.heritagemuseumandgardens.org
Join the Royal Oak Society for a special evening on Thursday, November 16 at a private club in New York City. The featured speaker is Robert Sackville-West, 7th Baron Sackville, in celebrating the Society’s 50th Anniversary. Information and sponsorship opportunities and other questions may be found by contacting Alison Dichter at ADichter@royal-oak.org or calling 212-480-2889.
Rotch-Jones-Duff House & Garden Museum’s Lead Gardener Rick Finneran invites you to mingle with fellow Museum members and enjoy refreshments under the tent. Rick will be there to answer your questions about rose-care. At 6pm, you’re welcome to join Rick on his AHA Night walking tour. The 1-hour walking tour of the gardens at historic sites in downtown New Bedford, including the Friends Meeting House and Unitarian Church. The tour part of the event is free as part of AHA Night. Membership ($50) is available at http://rjdmuseum.org/membership/
Native Plant Trust will sponsor a virtual class on August 7 from 6 – 7 pm.
Climate change is a multifaceted challenge with numerous—and sometimes unexpected—contributing factors. To create solutions on a personal and manageable scale, we need to turn to the science.
This class will cover a brief history of climate change and address carbon and hydrological cycles, the earth’s heating and cooling systems, and the importance of wise landscape design, construction, and agriculture to mitigate climate change. We will also discuss the role of native plants in the climate change conversation.
Instructor: Trevor Smith is a landscape designer in the Boston area. Trevor specializes in green stormwater infrastructure, such as permeable pavers and rain gardens, as well as in landscapes designed to maximize Earth’s systems while balancing them with the needs and desires of her human inhabitants. He is passionate about the natural world which inspires his commitment to ecological principles and practices and devoted to creating beautiful landscapes that provide clients with an oasis to reconnect with the natural world. Mr. Smith holds several landscape certifications, including MCH, NOFA AOLCP, LEEDGA, and IPCI, and he is also a past President of the Ecological Landscape Alliance and a current Trustee.
Tickets: $15 Members – $18 Non-Members Click Hereto register.
