Due to the construction in Copley Square Park, Chabad of Downtown Boston, Back Bay, Beacon Hill & the South End will be lighting the 9′ tall Menorah for Hanukkah in the Seaport for 2023 on Sunday, December 10 from 6 – 7:30. Address is One Seaport, 60 Seaport Blvd, Boston, MA 02210.
Climate Change Theatre Action is a worldwide festival of short plays about the climate crisis, presented biennially to coincide with the United Nations COP meetings. The theme this year, “All Good Things Must Begin,” is inspired by the journal entry of American science fiction writer Octavia Butler. Butler was incredibly prescient, writing about extremism, racial justice, and climate change some 30 years ago. By setting intentions and visualizing a positive outcome, she defied the odds and became the author of many celebrated novels, winning each of science fiction’s highest honors. While the worlds of her novels depict the violent challenges of today’s interlocking crises, her protagonists remain devoted to thriving, to achieving survival beyond the destructive and oppressive societies they come from.
The climate crisis demands the same kind of imaginative leap: we will create a just and regenerative world only if we dare to imagine it first, and use that vision to guide us through the difficulties. We all need to be solarpunks and envision radical pluralistic futures where nature and community thrive, and where we reject the apocalypse and embrace counterculture, post-capitalism, and decolonization.
The LAVA Center, 324 Main Street, Greenfield, Massachusetts will present a program of short plays as staged readings, on Saturday, Dec. 9, 7 p.m. There is a $5–20 suggested donation for the plays — no one will be turned away for lack of funds. The December 9 program will be directed by JuPong Lin and will be followed by a facilitated debrief discussion led by Lin. The programs will also be available online, on demand for a short time following the live performances, details TBA.
Climate Change Theatre Action launched in 2015, and the LAVA team has been presenting these plays, in some form, since 2017, years before The LAVA Center was born! Greening Greenfield (https://greeninggreenfieldma.org/ ) has been a supporter of this programming since the beginning, and this year the program is also funded in part by Mass Humanities (https://masshumanities.org/ ).
The Fifth Annual Young Friends Winter Party will be held this Friday, December 8 at The Union Club, 8 Park Street in Boston. For tickets and more information visit http://bit.ly/yfwinterparty2023. Please note specific dress code requirements for The Union Club.
The Holidays are set for another year of spectacular decorating, seasonal activities, displays and the Snow Queen and Snow Princess are expected to set up residence on specific days. The Gift Gallery will once again be alive with artisan gifts for all ages. Come on in and complete your Holiday shopping!
Lead designers Sandra Cavallo and Sarah Pring will lead our group of talented designers to create a memorable experience for all who attend. This year’s theme will be Holidays Through the Generations, and will focus on designs from vintage 19th century, through the 40’s, 50’s, 60’s, 70’s through modern day as the DIY movement has become more mainstream.
With the help of the Nauset Model Railroad Club, Highfield will bring back a train system for all ages to enjoy! This incredible group of train enthusiasts have designed a train system that will put a sparkle in your eye!
The traditional Craft Room will be located on the 2nd floor and is a drop in experience to create your special keepsake to remember Holidays at Highfield.
Holidays at Highfield is made possible in part by the generous support of Rockland Trust and the Martha’s Vineyard Bank Charitable Foundation. Visitors are encouraged to pre-register but walk-ins are welcome. Visit https://highfieldhallandgardens.org/event-calendar/holidays-at-highfield-2023/
Troy Scott Smith will guide you through the Garden Conservancy online course of a gardening year at Sissinghurst. Troy will share with you how the garden looks, which flowers are blooming at each season, and what the garden looked like when it was first created in the 1930s. He will uncover the secrets of pruning and propagation and the art of the English Garden. Each episode will be packed with information, all simply explained and illustrated, giving you techniques and confidence to put into practice in your own garden. The Winter episode will take place Thursday, December 7 at 2 pm Eastern. The bare blanket of earth that for many is the “winter garden,” need not be. If harnessed, the potency of the season can be as exhilarating as the heady explosion of summer. Pockets of evergreen planting, almost unnoticed in summer, are now an essential ingredient, exuding a presence and injecting solidity into the sparseness of the scene. Coatings of hoarfrost re-order the prominence of their outlines. Spring plants eager to steal a march on their competitor’s race to flower. There is nothing that disappoints about the winter garden, and in this final episode, Troy will share with you some of the possibilities to make winter in the garden a season to look forward to and enjoy.
Sissinghurst was created nearly a century ago by the writers Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson as a private home and as refuge dedicated to natural beauty. Today it is owned by the National Trust and visited by hundreds of thousands of visitors annually. Troy’s career has been devoted to the beauty and romance of gardening. Since joining the National Trust of England, Wales & Northern Ireland in 1990, Troy has led some of the world’s most beautiful gardens, among them the Courts (Wiltshire), Bodnant (Wales), and two stints at Sissinghurst (Kent), where he has led a remarkable transformation and restoration of the Vita Sackville-West gardens.
$5 for Garden Conservancy members, $15 for nonmembers. Register HERE.
While today we may think of a wilderness as a wild place unspoiled by human intervention, in the 17th and 18th centuries a garden wilderness referred to a highly cultivated part of the formal garden, a place bounded by trees or tall hedges with paths to walk on and with occasional cultural delights within—statues or fountains or a summer house in the classical style. In its mature form, the wilderness constituted most of the garden and the setting in which all other features were placed. The wilderness was shady and private, a place for solitary retreat as well as social activity, an ‘artinatural’ space in which artifice and culture combined with nature. This illustrated online talk with The Gardens Trust on December 13 examines the history and development of the English garden wilderness and takes a new look at this period of garden history through the perspective of the wilderness garden.
James Bartos is the author of The Ornamental Wilderness in the English Garden (Unicorn, 2022) and has published in the journals Garden History and Die Gartenkunst. From 2015 to 2020 he was the first Chairman of the Gardens Trust, having previously served on the Council of the Garden History Society. He was awarded a PhD in Garden History from Bristol University in 2014. Over the past twenty-five years, he has created a new garden in Dorset.
The talk will be introduced by Peter Hughes KC, the chair of the Gardens Trust.
A recording of the talk will be available to ticket holders to enjoy throughout the Christmas period.
Ticket price £5, Gardens Trust members may use their promo code for an additional 10% discount.
Optional Ticket price £10 to include £5 donation to help us fund our work protecting historic green spaces. To register visit https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-ornamental-wilderness-in-the-english-garden-tickets-748729880227
Ticket sales close 4 hours before the event. Attendees will be sent a Zoom link 2 days (and again a few hours) prior to the start of the talk (If you do not receive this link please contact The Gardens Trust), and a link to the recorded session, available until the end of December, will be sent shortly afterwards.
Explore the vibrant community-driven gardening projects at Olbrich Botanical Gardens in this engaging webinar. A free admission 16-acre public garden in Madison, Wisconsin, Olbrich Botanical Gardens seeks to be a community resource where everyone feels a sense of belonging. Join Olbrich’s Herb Garden horticulturist, Erin Presley, as she spins the tale of two community-based gardening projects at Olbrich. The Indigenous Garden, created with local Ho-Chunk tribal members, offers opportunities to connect, converse, and appreciate the history and majesty of food plants significant in Midwestern First Nations cultures. Meanwhile, the Hmong Garden, which debuted in 2023, honors the traditions and resourcefulness of the 60,000 Hmong residents who migrated to Wisconsin after the Vietnam War. Both gardening projects were led by young women from their respective cultural groups and engaged guests with hands-on activities, bilingual signage, and of course – veggie tastings! Please join The Philadelphia Horticultural Society and Erin Presley to learn more about these uplifting, collaborative gardening projects and principles that could be applied in your own community.
Erin Presley left her heart at Olbrich Botanical Gardens while interning there in 2005. After earning a bachelor’s degree in Horticulture from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, she gardened for nearly a decade in the private sector before returning to Olbrich in 2014, where she manages the Herb, Woodland, and Pond Gardens. Her interests include native woodland plantings, sedges, low-maintenance and drought-tolerant gardening styles, recycling woody debris, and all things related to herbs, vegetables, and cooking. In addition to teaching at OBG, Erin loves talking plants and collaborating with herb societies, master gardeners, and local community organizations. Never shy when it comes to sharing the joy of gardening, she has appeared on the nationally syndicated podcast Cultivating Place and Wisconsin Public Radio’s Garden Talk and is a contributor to the print and online content of Fine Gardening magazine. PHS members free, $20 for nonmembers. Register at https://phsonline.org/events/milkweed-soup
The Associates of the Boston Public Library warmly invite you to our fifth annual Pierce Performance, Faces of Phillis, a staged reading and panel discussion that will celebrate Phillis Wheatley Peters, the first African American and the second American woman in the United States to publish a book of poetry. The event commemorates the 250th anniversary of the publication of Phillis Wheatley Peters’s groundbreaking book, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral. Look for the statue of Phillis Wheatley on the Commonwealth Avenue Mall.
This three-part event includes:
1. a staged reading written by British-Nigerian playwright Ade Solanke and directed by Regge Life. Faces of Phillis includes two dramatized moments from Phillis Wheatley Peters’ life. Adeola Solanke, also known as Ade, is an award-winning playwright, screenwriter, and founder of Spora Stories. Her acclaimed debut play, “Pandora’s Box,” received a Best New Play nomination in London’s Off-West End Theatre Awards. Ade has been recognized as the Best Playwright in the Nigerian Entertainment and Lifestyle Awards and received Best Play honors in the African Film Awards. Her work has graced renowned stages across the UK, including Arcola, Young Vic, and Sheffield Crucible Theatres. Ade recently completed two Fulbright Distinguished International Fellowships at Emerson College and the University of Southern California.
2. a panel discussion featuring Ade Solanke, our playwright, Meredith Bergmann, the sculptor for the 2003 Boston Women’s Memorial, and Kyera Singleton, the Executive Director of the Royall House Museum.
3. a dramatic poetry reading by Boston’s Poet Laureate and BPL Trustee, Porsha Olayiwola.
The event will take place in the Boston Public Library’s Rabb Lecture Hall on Boylston Street on December 4 from 6 – 7:30. For those who can’t make it in person, sign up here to access the event virtually on Vimeo for one week following the production.
Experience one of New England’s oldest holiday traditions: steam trains, 250,000+ Christmas lights, food, local businesses and crafters, Santa, vintage amusement rides, and more.
Thursdays – Sundays now through December 31*
Thursdays 4:00-8:00 pm
Fridays 4:00-9:00 pm
Saturdays 2:00-9:00 pm
Sundays 2:00-8:00 pm
*Closed Thanksgiving & Christmas Day.
Limited timed admissions – book now at https://edaville.com/
Alexander McKenzie’s first knowledge of horticulture, nature and forestry came from his love of the woods and vales in Nairn, Scotland where he was born. His love of nature never left him, and at the time of his death, he was still working closely with nature as the Superintendent of Epping Forest. McKenzie’s early career started at Learney Estate in Scotland, before commencing his more formal studies under his fellow Scot, Robert Marnock, at the Royal Botanical Gardens in Regents Park, London. As he established himself in a rich and varied career, McKenzie was both the owner of a garden nursery in Brighton and an entrant in the competition to design a new landscaped park for the site of the Alexandra Palace.
Lisa White has worked as an Accountant for most of her life. After studying horticulture on a part-time basis (RHS Level 2 and 3 Diplomas), she then embarked on a change of career. Following her completion of a full-time BA (Hons) degree in Garden Design, she now holds a Master’s Degree in Garden and Landscape History and is currently continuing her research of Alexander McKenzie for her PhD with the University of Sheffield.
This is an online lecture which will take place on Zoom. The Zoom link for the lecture can be found in your confirmation email, and will be sent out again on the day of the lecture. Register with London Parks & Gardens HERE.
