John Meiklejohn will speak on The Returning American Chestnut Trees on Tuesday, January 30 at 7 pm Eastern time, courtesy of the Massachusetts Pollinator Network. This free webinar may be accessed with registration HERE on Zoom.
The Massachusetts Pollinator Network hosts monthly meetings for participants from across the state to learn about topics relevant to our work and to exchange knowledge, ideas, and updates about local actions. Whether you’re a seasoned community organizer or new to pollinator protection concerns, all are welcome! Please note that this meeting will be recorded and available on our YouTube channel.
Come to Lenox Memorial Middle and High School in Lenox, Massachusetts on Saturday, March 2, from 2 to 4 p.m., for Berkshire Botanical Garden’s 27th annual Winter Lecture — Biodiversity at Great Dixter: How a Flower Garden Can Support Some of the UK’s Most Threatened Species. The lecture is in-person only, at Lenox Middle and High School. However, a recording can be sent after the event upon request.
We welcome Fergus Garrett, the CEO and head gardener at Great Dixter House and Gardens. Great Dixter was the family home of gardener and gardening writer Christopher Lloyd. It was the focus of his energy and enthusiasm and fueled over 40 years worth of books and articles. Now under the stewardship of the Great Dixter Charitable Trust and Christopher’s friend and head gardener, Fergus Garrett, Great Dixter is an historic house, a garden, a center of education, and a place of pilgrimage for horticulturists from across the world. The garden at Great Dixter is known for the way in which it merges the natural and the cultivated world. Its long grass, scattered ponds, old walls and changing flower borders provide a rich environment for all manner of fauna and flora.
Fergus Garrett was born in Brighton to an English father and Turkish mother. He spent his formative years in Istanbul, Turkey. Upon returning to the UK, he went to school in Brighton and then studied horticulture at Wye College, University of London. He joined Christopher Lloyd as his Head Gardener in 1993.
The Garden Club of the Back Bay’s February meeting will take place at The Chilton Club, 152 Commonwealth Avenue, at 10 am. The Club welcomes James Brayton Hall, President and Chief Executive Officer of The Garden Conservancy.
Gardening has been an important part of American history since even before the country’s founding. In this illustrated talk, Garden Conservancy President and CEO James Brayton Hall will look at both 18th and 19th century high points in American Garden design and theory, and discuss why he believes that in the post-pandemic age we are entering a third golden age of gardening in the United States.
James joined the Garden Conservancy as president and CEO on June 1, 2017. For the previous four years, he was deputy director of the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach, Florida, where he worked on the planning and design of the Norman Foster-designed museum expansion and sculpture gardens. From 2010 to 2013, he was executive director of the Providence Preservation Society in Rhode Island, overseeing all programming, fundraising, and relations with the board, donors, and community. From 2006 to 2010, James served as assistant director of the Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, after holding various other management and curatorial positions at the school since 1985. James earned a bachelor’s degree in architecture from the University of Virginia and a master’s in landscape architecture from Rhode Island School of Design. In addition, he was awarded a Royal Oak Scholarship to attend the Attingham Trust Summer School in Architectural and Landscape History in London, and, separately, participated in the Victorian Society’s summer program in architectural history, also in London. In 2016, he completed Attingham’s Royal Collections Course. He has spoken widely on architectural and landscape design and has been a member of the graduate program faculty at the Rhode Island School of Design.
Winter Walk is a non-profit organization raising awareness and funds to end homelessness in our communities. It centers on an annual walk, 2 miles around the streets of the city in February, the coldest month of the year. Winter Walk is our chance to link arms with those who experience homelessness and to listen humbly to their stories. It is our chance to show them that we care about their lives and to affirm our commitment to do all it takes to ease their struggles.
The 8th annual Winter Walk in Boston will be held on February 11, 2024. This 2 mile walk through the streets of Boston during the coldest month of the year will begin and end on the Boston Common at the open field at the corner of Beacon and Charles St. Participants, housed and unhoused, will walk shoulder to shoulder and then share a meal together as we hear real stories of Boston’s homeless population.
Join us on the Boston Common on Sunday, February 11, 2024. Registration opens at 8:30 am, the walk sets off at 9 am and we complete our event by 11am. For those who cannot join us in person, we will offer a remote option to walk anywhere and everywhere, and then to celebrate with us on February 11th.Register at https://secure.qgiv.com/event/winterwalk2024-boston/
Join UMass Extension for this January 30 virtual winter workshop about pollinators. Get the latest buzz on the status of pollinators in Massachusetts from state apiary inspectors as well as researchers at the University of Massachusetts. Aspects of the health of honeybees and bumblebees will be discussed, along with “lesser-known heroes” of the pollinator world: ants, beetles, flies, butterflies, sawflies, and wasps! $35. Registration and a complete itinerary are at https://ag.umass.edu/landscape/events/winter-workshop-pollinator-topics
Join the Massachusetts Pollinator Network for a free online Brown Bag Lunch meeting on the first Wednesday of the month, from February 7 through May 1. Speak with the experts and learn what’s happening on the conservation front. Register at masspollinatornetwork.org
While the temperatures drop outside, the Courtyard remains temperate with the green of ferns, and the sounds of water in the fountains. Tall, majestic calla lilies surround the Courtyard’s mosaic set off by unusual orchids, including exotic Paphiopedilum or slipper orchids with maroon and green flowers; Ansellia or leopard orchids sporting many clusters of yellow flowers with brown spots; and large, showy Phaius tankervilleae or nun’s cap orchids that have been grown in the Museum’s greenhouses since Isabella’s time. The orchids on display are native to Southeast Asia and Africa. Throughout the year, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum’s always-blooming Courtyard is transformed through a series of nine dramatic seasonal displays that reflect Isabella’s passion for gardens as well as the skill and dedication of the Museum’s horticulture staff. From bellflowers to nasturtiums to Japanese-style chrysanthemums, there’s always something new to discover thanks to the changing seasons and the rotation of plants. Most of the plants for the Courtyard are grown in the Museum’s temperature-controlled Hingham greenhouses and trucked to the Palace location, where they are rotated in to keep the displays in peak condition. For hours and complete information visit http://gardnermuseum.org
Russell Page (1906-1985) was one of the most talented and celebrated landscape architects of the twentieth century, and his memoir, The Education of a Gardener, has become a classic. While Page is remembered for old-fashioned, formal designs, a closer look at his career reveals a more complicated, forward-looking artist who explored preservation, native plant groupings, and the beauty of wildness. With Page as a guide, Professor Caleb Smith asks: What is the role of the designer in shaping a living, natural landscapes? How can gardens become both wild spaces and works of art? The Garden Conservancy will sponsor this online talk on February 8 from 2 pm – 3 pm, live on Zoom. $5 for Garden Conservancy members, $15 general admission. A recording of this webinar will be sent to all registrants a few days after the event. We encourage you to register, even if you cannot attend the live webinar. Register at https://www.gardenconservancy.org/education/education-events/virtual-talk-art-and-nature-new-lessons-from-russell-page
Caleb Smith is a professor of English and American Studies at Yale University. A scholar of cultural history, focusing on literature, religion, and the built environment, Smith’s books include The Prison and the American Imagination (2009) and Thoreau’s Axe: Distraction and Discipline in American Culture(2023). He has written about culture and the arts for Harper’s, n+1, and Los Angeles Review of Books, and his feature essay on the landscape designer Russell Page appeared in Aeon Magazine in fall 2023.
For those wishing to learn more about Russell Page, we encourage you to explore his online archive hosted by the Garden Museum in London.
As the days begin to lengthen and thoughts turn toward spring, beloved and sometimes bedraggled houseplants also yearn for more light and warmth. The pressures of being inside can take a toll on even the most robust plants. On February 3, from 10 a.m. to noon, Plant Connector will guide participants in the basics of good house plant health care, from identifying pests and problems to the preventive steps that will ensure that prized plants make it through the winter. Students are invited to bring along a house plant they have questions about or one to which they’d like to give some extra TLC. Consider this a spa day for your houseplants. The venue is Berkshire Botanical Garden in West Stockbridge, and the cost is $25 for BBG members, $40 for nonmembers. Register at www.berkshirebotanical.org
The Plant Connector, co-founded in 2020 by Emilee Yawn and Bonnie Marks, is driven by a shared passion for fostering a sense of community and a mission to spread the joy of plants. Emilee brings her expertise in landscape urbanism to the venture, having relocated to the Berkshires in 2017. Her creative energy is a driving force behind the organization. On the other hand, Bonnie, a longtime resident of the Berkshires with 30 years of experience in owning small businesses, manages the financial and numerical aspects of the business, making them a well-balanced team.
In the second of The Gibson House Museum’s winter virtual lecture series, mark your calendar for February 6 at 6 pm for The Development of Anatomy & Pathology Collections in 19th Century Boston. Dr. John Collins Warren (1778-1856), grandfather of Rosamond Warren Gibson, pioneered the use of anesthesia in surgery and cofounded Massachusetts General Hospital in 1811. He also donated the collection that became the basis for Harvard Medical School’s Warren Anatomical Museum. Boston Brahmins like Dr. Warren played a major role both in the development of anatomical collections and the ways these collections influenced medical knowledge and practice. Join Warren Anatomical Museum Curator Dominic Hall as he discusses these collections, their development, and their continued relevance. $10. Register HERE.
