Join the American Horticultural Society and Laura Dowling, former White House Chief Floral Designer, on December 6 at 7 pm Eastern for a virtual talk on Holidays at the White House.
As Chief Floral Designer during the Obama administration, Laura Dowling was responsible for the dazzling floral pieces that made the holiday season so memorable. Join her for a behind-the-scenes glimpse of the innovative plant-centered decorations, including intricate hydrangea-covered archways, gilded maple leaf rosette panels, and sugar paste floral vases. In addition to her White House experiences, Dowling will share tips and techniques for planning holiday displays at home, including suggestions for re-creating some of the most popular and original White House holiday designs.
Laura Dowling served as Chief Floral Design at the White House from 2009 to 2015, where she managed White House floral design for thousands of officials, private events, and large-scale installations including the iconic White House Christmas. She has authored four books and her work is featured across the country, from flower shows to design magazines to HGTV to U.S. postal stamps. Dowling is an AHS board member as well as an AHS Great American Gardener Award recipient and a Royal Horticultural Society Distinguished Flower Ambassador. $10 for AHS members, $15 for nonmembers. Register at https://ahsgardening.org/lifelong-learning/holidays-at-the-white-house/
The Friends is excited to once again steward the annual Holiday Lights on the Mall. For the first time, the Holiday Lights will extend all the way to Kenmore Square! Join us at the Mayors lighting ceremony on the first block of the Mall on November 30, beginning immediately after the Boston Common Tree Lighting.
The iconic holiday light display along the Commonwealth Avenue Mall was the vision of Parks Commissioner Justine Liff and philanthropists Joan and Ted Bernard Cutler, inspired by the illuminated tree-lined boulevards of Paris. Their sense of civic pride inspired others in the neighborhood to support the cause and the all-volunteer Committee to Light the Commonwealth Avenue Mall was born.
In 2022, the Committee joined with the Friends, creating a new committee to work with the Friends staff to raise the funds necessary to make this annual light display possible and to support the ongoing care of the park.
The Friends is proud to be stewards of this special holiday tradition and excited to work with our community to increase support for the Mall year round.
Today, the lights illuminate the park from early December to April each year and, beginning in 2023, stretch from Arlington Street to Kenmore Square. To donate, and for more information on times, visit https://friendsofthepublicgarden.org/holiday-lights/
This past year marked the bicentennial of Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr.’s birth. Although many still do not know that there is no “A” in his name, and that there were actually three Olmsteds (news flash: he didn’t live from 1822-1957), generally speaking, his impact on the profession – and the public – from coast-to-coast – is still only superficially understood. Olmsted-designed landscapes are more than picturesque scenery and public grounds for society’s use and enjoyment.
This November 28 Friends of Fairsted presentation by Charles A. Birnbaum draws on forty years of professional practice – incorporating big ideas and anecdotes, and aims to lift the veil on those in Olmsted’s practice and his successor firms from 1857-1979 (beyond those named Olmsted). Additionally, the presentation will address how the Olmsted practice served as the definer and proselytizer of the professional discipline that Sr. named, how the firm came to define what a corporate practice should look like and how it should function (including support for the “grand tour,” the idea of preparing multiple alternatives to sell your ideas, leveraging one’s position as both a practitioner and an academic to cultivate and import the best and brightest students, the need to nurture and cultivate patrons, the critical nature of well-organized archives and dedicated staff for collections management), and how landscape architects need to seize the opportunity to lead and orchestrate from the planning of cities and campuses to getting involved early and siting the building architecture.
Olmsted introduced new typologies (parkway, park system), he recognized that landscape was infrastructure and that a thorough understanding of soils and water (from watersheds and hydrology to soil remediation) was essential. He understood landscapes and cities to be dynamic, possessing intertwined systems that could be guided and shaped, and the idea of managing change.
Finally, the presentation concludes with reflections of how we can steward Olmsted’s ideas and built works today – from a deeper and broader cultural context (e.g. race, gender) to supporting and collaborating with individuals and organizations who are working in their communities to engage with Olmsted and his legacy. The talk will take place at Hawes Hall, 43 Hawes Street in Brookline. Register at https://www.tclf.org/olmsted-all-us-friends-fairsted
Charles A. Birnbaum, FASLA, FAAR, is President & CEO of The Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF). Prior to creating TCLF, he spent fifteen years as Coordinator, National Park Service Historic Landscape Initiative and a decade in private practice in NYC with a focus on cultural landscapes and urban design. In 2023, TCLF was awared The Olmsted Medal from the American Society of Landscape Architects.
Birnbaum has authored/co-edited numerous publications including Modern Landscapes: Transition and Transformation (Princeton Press), Shaping the American Landscape (UVA Press), Design with Culture (UVA Press), Preserving Modern Landscape Architecture(Spacemaker Press), and Experiencing Olmsted (Timber Press). Birnbaum was a Loeb Fellow at Harvard’s GSD, and a Rome Prize recipient. He was awarded ASLA’s LaGasse Medal in 2008, President’s Medal in 2009, and the ASLA Medal (The Society’s highest honor in 2018). He serves as a Lecturer in Landscape Architecture at Harvard’s GSD (2020-); served as a Visiting Professor, Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture (2011-16); and Glimcher Distinguished Professor, Ohio State University (2007). From 2010-18 he was a frequent contributor to The Huffington Post. In 2021, TCLF unveiled the Cornelia Hahn Oberlander International Landscape Architecture Prize, a permanently endowed prize that includes a $100,000 (USD) award.
On Friday, December 1, support local nonprofits at a lively dance party is being hosted by Covering New England at Wright-Locke Farm’s All Seasons Barn in Winchester. The event will raise money for local nonprofits. Of course, the farm would love it if you picked Wright-Locke Farm from the list at checkout.
Your ticket will cover food and two free drinks. There will be cash prizes for Best Disco/Funk Outfit, Best Dance Couple, and Best Individual Dancer. PLUS… 20% of the event ticket is donated to the nonprofit 501(c)(3) of your choice. For tickets visit https://covering-new-england.ticketleap.com/booty-vortex/
You may wonder what this event has to do with horticulture, but in the winter, we gardeners need to get a little exercise, and this dance competition is inspirational. Teams from all over North America & Canada have deemed Boston Bhangra Competition “one of the best bhangra competitions” in the country, and the organization looks forward to living up to that title again this year. This year’s competition will be taking place on Saturday, December 2nd, 2023 @ the historic Strand Theatre in Boston. This theater is bigger and better than ever before. If you have any questions, please contact info@bostonbhangra.com. Miss Pooja as the featured artist this year. She is an artist of legendary status with over 4,000 songs to her name. In 2008, Miss Pooja was awarded the Best Female Vocalist award at the PTC Punjabi Music Awards for her song “”Akh Da Nishana””. In the same year, she was also awarded the Best Duet Vocalist along with Gurdas Maan for their song “”Tappe””. She has also won several other awards for her contribution to the Punjabi music industry. Buy tickets at https://bostonbhangra.com/bbc2023/?BostonTravel
The study of landscape design is essentially a study of human culture; the way people shape their environment reflects a sense of their place in the world. Traditionally western landscape design has veered between the Classic and Romantic traditions, pitting European formality against English naturalism. During the twentieth century however, these stylistic polarities gave way to new concerns as designers looked increasingly to the historical, political and cultural context of their sites. As the New World was often in the forefront of this movement, this Gardens Trust four-lecture series on American Moderns will examine key landscapes from the two continents, exploring the designs which pushed the boundaries of the profession by pioneering new approaches, reflecting new philosophies and challenging assumptions about the form, use and meaning of landscape. You may purchase tickets for the entire series through Eventbrite for £16, or individual sessions costing £5, at https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/american-moderns-tickets-670807291667Attendees 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.
Week Four on December 5 is Land Art and Landscape. In the 1960s the boundary between landscape design and contemporary art was breached in a movement known as Land Art. While reacting against the commercialization of the art market, Land Artists tended to be politically active, reflecting the ideology of the budding ecology movement and railing against the increasing disengagement of the arts from social issues. Often choosing inaccessible locations and using the site itself as their canvas, Land Artists used the fabric of the earth – water, soil, rock and vegetation – as their primary materials, while paying homage to the historical uses of the site. As Land Artists depended largely on wealthy patrons or private foundations to create their monumental – and often monumentally expensive – projects, the movement faltered during the economic downturn of the 1970s and was further undermined by the co-opting of the works by commercial galleries. Nonetheless Land Artists such as Maya Lin, Robert Smithson, Nancy Holt and Michael Heizer continue to create extraordinary landscapes – wave fields, spiral jetties, lightning fields, and whole concrete mega-cities – which challenge our idea of landscape design.
Speaker Katie Campbell is a writer and garden historian. She lectures widely, has taught at Birkbeck, Bristol and Buckingham universities; she writes for various publications, and leads art and garden tours. Her most recent book, Cultivating the Renaissance(Routledge, 2021) , explores the evolution of Renaissance ideas and aesthetics through the Medici Tuscan villas. Her previous book,British Gardens in Time(Quarto, 2014), accompanied the BBC television series. Earlier works include Paradise of Exiles (Francis Lincoln, 2009), looking at the late nineteenth century Anglo-American garden-makers in Florence,Icons of Twentieth Century Landscape Design (Frances Lincoln, 2006) and Policies and Pleasaunces (Barn Elms, 2007), a Guide to Scotland’s Gardens.
William (Ned) Friedman is pleased to share that Rodney Eason has been hired as The Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University’s Director of Horticulture and Landscape and will assume his responsibilities on December 4. A recognized leader and consummate professional in stewarding historical landscapes, Rodney brings more than a quarter century of experience growing plants and managing gardens to this pivotal role at the Arnold Arboretum.
Rodney comes from Land & Garden Preserve in Mount Desert Island, Maine, where he served as Chief Executive Officer and led efforts to transition 1,400 acres of land near Acadia National Park from private ownership to public garden. Rodney also guided the incorporation of the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Garden into the Preserve, a historic undertaking he detailed eloquently in a feature in Arnoldia last summer. Rodney’s extensive background in botanical garden management also includes serving as Director of Horticulture and Plants Curator at Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens and as Display Division Leader at Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania.
You are invited to read more about Rodney’s accomplishments and his enthusiasm for joining the community in the announcement of his impending arrival on the Arboretum website.
In 1903, Madeline Yale Wynne (1847-1918), a leader in the American Arts and Crafts movement, constructed an oak bride’s chest ornamented with hammered copper panels, wrought iron hinges, and semi-precious stones. Known as the Garden of Hearts for its carved and painted scene of three inverted heart-shaped trees standing alongside a winding river, the chest is a tour-de-force of Arts and Crafts design—which favored handcraftsmanship over mechanized production—and showcases Wynne’s many talents as a painter, metalsmith, and woodworker. Historic Deerfield will highlight her work in an exhibition at the Flynt Center of Early New England Life now through March 3, 2024. For more information visit https://www.historic-deerfield.org/events/
The Sterling Garden Club’s Holiday Greens Sale will be held Saturday, December 2 from 9 – noon at the 1835 Town Hall on 31 Main Street in Sterling. The creative talents of Club members will be on full display with locally produced holiday/seasonal greens to decorate your home, office, or business. Items include wreaths, kissing balls, and table arrangements. Using fresh materials from members’ gardens, each piece is carefully crafted by SGC members. The locally produced creations are long-lasting, high quality, and good value. Want to give someone a special gift, or perhaps you would like some color-coordinated holiday greens for a special event? Good news! You can pre-order by contacting Angela at 508-843-1511 by November 24 with your ideas.
