Fungi come in many weird and wonderful shapes, colors, and sizes that make them both fun and challenging to draw. This Harvard Museum of Natural History class on March 26 at 9:30 am with Rachel Mirus will introduce a few easy-to-see features on different types of mushrooms and lichens and explore strategies for capturing them on the page. We will use brush pens, a versatile medium that works well inside for formal projects or outside for field sketching.
The online group will be limited to 12 participants, allowing ample time for individual feedback. All skill levels are welcome. We are publishing this notice early because the art instruction classes tend to sell out early. $30 for Museum members, $35 for nonmembers. Register at https://hmnh.harvard.edu/event/drawing-fungi-brush-pen
On Friday, March 1, the New England Botanical Society will hold its monthly meeting at 7 pm at Harvard University’s Haller Lecture Hall and also live via Zoom. Dr. John Daigle, Professor of Forest Recreation Management, School of Forest Resources, University of Maine in Orono, will speak on Building a Community of Interest and Response to an Invasive Species Threatening Maine’s Ash Trees and Wabanaki Cultural Lifeways. Free. Non-members may register for the meeting access link here.
For the past 15 years, Dr. John J. Daigle, a citizen member of the Penobscot Nation, has been working on a project mobilizing diverse interests to address potential threats from invasive species in Maine – the case of the Emerald Ash Borer. The research seeks to study and facilitate the ways that Wabanaki, basket-makers, tribes, state and federal foresters, university researchers, landowners and others come together to prevent, detect, and respond to the threat of Emerald Ash Borer. He has published research with co-authors on outreach and education, management, and policy. In 2023, the Ash Protection Collaboration Across Wabanakik or APCAW was created, offering informative webinars and in-person trainings, as well as a dedicated APCAW website for recorded sessions and other program information.
The Royal College of Physicians was founded in 1518 and continues to promote standards in medicine around the world. The current Medicinal Garden at the College originates from around 2004 following a deliberate decision to create something exceptional in terms of a modern medicinal garden. The garden is widely recognized as one of the most unusual and important gardens in the UK and is internationally recognized and hugely valuable as a knowledge resource. It is the focus for the work of eleven Garden Fellows all active in various fields, for a series of medicinal plant lectures from leading experts and for an impressive stream of publications.
The garden has a strong educational focus: it welcomes 1200-1500 people each year on organized garden tours, participates in workshops for school groups and staff members, and invites students to visit accompanied by their own teachers or on their own. It is a haven for bird and insect life so important as we are in the midst of a biodiversity crisis.
The talk will cover the history of the garden, the role of plants in medicine historically and in the present day, and highlight some specific plants of interest as the sources of modern medicines.
Professor John Newton, FRCP FFPH FRSPH, has been a Garden Fellow at the Royal College of Physicians since 2012 and the lead Garden Fellow since 2021. He teaches in the Medicinal Garden with an especial interest in the use of evidence in relation to plants and medicine and how it has been understood and used over the centuries. He has a related interest in designing and cultivating a garden that is resistant to large grazing herbivores, namely fallow deer!
Prof. Newton is a public health physician and epidemiologist currently working as Director of Public Health Analysis at the Department of Health and Social Care and Professor of Public Health and Epidemiology at the University of Exeter, Centre for Environment and Human Health. In 2020, he coordinated the national program to increase coronavirus testing in response to the pandemic and oversaw the Government’s coronavirus dashboard. He is also Professor of Public Health at the University of Manchester, and President of the Scientific Council of Santé publique France and was recently Vice President of the Faculty of Public Health of the Royal College of Physicians. £5.00 Register HERE.
Join The Gardens Trust and Gillian Hovell and discover how the ancient Romans set the seeds of the shape and uses of our modern gardens. Explore the truly ancient, vibrant and fascinating origins of our personal garden spaces and of the grandeur of public gardens. Find out why, if the Romans could have had ‘House and Garden’ magazines, they would have reveled in them! See gardens anew through ancient kitchen gardens, mythological stories, attitudes to wildlife and public parks that all still flourish in our green spaces. Then stroll through the gardens of Roman Pompeii, now blossoming with new insights. This fourth session on March 5 will follow wildlife elements in Roman gardens.
The gardens of ancient Rome were full of life for the Romans often encouraged birds, wildlife & pets into their garden spaces. Their inclusion of wildlife in their gardens was to shape our own modern welcome to birds and animals. But their attitudes to those creatures were definitely a product of their time. How and why have our views altered? And what really hasn’t changed much at all?
We explore which animals were part of garden life, and what the Romans wrote about their roles: enjoyment, produce, status, and even engineering and art too flourished alongside the other side of the coin – the need for pest control. How did they get rid of the ever-ubiquitous and timelessly unwanted vermin and pests? Were their methods merely organic, or something more complex …? See how gardeners, even 2,000 years ago, tried inventive methods to care for their nurtured plants.
After graduating with 2-1 (Hons) in Latin and Ancient History from Exeter University, Gillian Hovell worked in BBC Television and became an award-winning freelance writer, author, public speaker & broadcaster in the media and online. As an independent expert in the ancient world she specializes in archaeology, prehistory and in the Greek and Roman eras. She is a lecturer at York University and can be seen and heard on TV & Radio.
Gillian has excavated at major sites in the UK and Europe (hence ‘The Muddy Archaeologist’) and she shares her expertise and her passion with diverse audiences in the UK and internationally. For history and archaeology are everywhere, and they add colour, depth and meaning to every aspect our lives today.
Her series of The Muddy Archaeologist Online Courses enables you to explore ancient history, archaeology and Latin with her at any time. An ever-growing collection is available, and they can also be found on Gillian’s website here.
This ticket (REGISTER HERE) is for this individual session and costs £8, and you may purchase tickets for o the entire course of 6 sessions at a cost of £42 via the link here. [Gardens Trust members may purchase tickets at £31.50 for the series or £6 each talk]. Attendees will be sent a Zoom link 2 days prior to the start of the talk, and again a few hours before the talk. A link to the recorded session (available for 1 week) will be sent shortly afterwards.
Stephen F. Byrns, President of the Untermyer Gardens Conservancy, will present the Untermyer Gardens Winter Lecture 2024 on Monday, March 11 at 6:00 pm at the Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church, 921 Madison Avenue, New York, with a reception following the lecture. Tickets are $35, but a recorded lecture will be available March 12 online for $25. William Welles Bosworth (1869-1966) was a significant American architect who enjoyed a close relationship to the Rockefeller family for over half a century. He was the architect of such major projects as the AT&T building at 195 Broadway (for which Paul Manship, the sculptor of our own sphinxes, created bronze reliefs of the Four Elements) and the campus of MIT in Cambridge, Mass., as well as designs for gardens such as the Rockefellers’ Kykuit. A confirmed classicist, he was noted for his restrained design, informed by a sophisticated grasp of architectural history, while introducing new ideas that were quite original. Reserve on Eventbrite HERE.
Discover the wild side of Puerto Rico, a Caribbean destination that you don’t need a passport to visit. In a lively online Smithsonian Associates program on March 6, naturalist Matt Felperin shares his experience birding on the island—which despite being about the size of Connecticut, boasts a surprising diversity of habitats, climate, and culture. It’s also home to El Yunque, the United States’ only tropical rainforest in the national forest system. $25 for Smithsonian Associates members, $30 for nonmembers. Register at www.smithsonianassociates.org
Felperin surveys the variety of endemic bird species that you can’t see anywhere else, as well as other fascinating flora and fauna such as the iconic coqui frog. Along the way, he also touches on the culture and the architecture of Old San Juan. After Felperin’s tempting travelogue, you’ll be ready to pack your bags and begin your own Puerto Rican adventure. ¡Vámonos!
This eye-opening March 9 virtual lecture focuses on remarkable shrubs for front to mid-border gardens, as well as their pruning requirements. These stunning beauties also are ideal for over-wintering in containers. With an outlook on flower gardening that has evolved over the decades. In addition to practicing the latest earth-friendly practices and incorporating more natives, let’s shift our focus from perennials to shrubs that provide months of radiant color but are far less maintenance.
Lecture will be recorded & CEU’s available. $13.95. Registration information is available at www.masshort.org
Kerry Ann Mendez is an award-winning garden educator, author, and design consultant based in southern Maine. In recent years she has presented over 500 lectures to more than 40,000 gardeners in 23 states and Canada. As a popular educator and communicator, she has received over 450 five-star reviews from her lecture audiences, which are available for review on the independent national website GreatGardenSpeakers.com. In 2014 she received the Gold Medal award from Massachusetts Horticultural Society for “Exceptional teaching and writing that increases public enjoyment and appreciation of horticulture.” Her gardens have been featured in numerous magazines including Better Homes and Gardens, Fine Gardening, Country Gardens, Garden Gate, and Horticulture.
On Monday, March 11, the Shrewsbury Garden Club hosts its annual Frederick Law Olmsted public lecture at the Shrewsbury Public Library, 609 Main Street in Shrewsbury. Free. Gather at 6:30, speaker begins at 7. For information on the speaker and topic, visit www.shrewsburygardenclub.org
The Boston Tree Alliance Program is a grant program for tree planting, care, and education. The program focuses on expanding access to trees and their benefits in under-canopied, Environmental Justice communities in Boston. This program is funded by the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) through the City of Boston. Mass Audubon is contracted with the City to facilitate the distribution of grant funds and administer the program. This grant program provides funding support for nonprofit and community based organizations to pursue tree planting, care, and educational activities in partnership with land owners on non-publicly owned lands.
Through the program – the “Alliance” – a coalition of nonprofit organizations, community-based organizations, and urban forestry professionals – works collectively to equitably grow and care for the urban forest. As the program’s fiscal agent, Mass Audubon oversees Alliance convenings that inform the program’s development. The Alliance works alongside the City of Boston to support and advance the goals of the Urban Forest Plan and the Heat Plan. For questions regarding the B.T.A. Tree Planting Grant, please email BostonTreeAlliance@massaudubon.org. Someone from the program team will be in touch with you.
Come to a free talk at Wright-Locke Farm on February 27 at 7 pm organized by Winchester’s Fast Forest on The Importance of Critical Habitats. One baby chickadee “costs” 1000 caterpillars! Come hear the WIN Fast Forest Founder and Director tell us about the cost of chickadees (and other birds); why caterpillars rock; and why mature forests are crucial to the earth’s well being. Prassede Calabi (PhD) will discuss what forests have to do with food pyramids, why we all need to eat our ‘brights’, and how to keep those chickadees going. The Fast Forest project being planted at Wright-Locke Farm is part of a global movement to restore forests as quickly as possible. By supercharging the soil and planting native mature-forest species, Grow Local for The Planet aims to grow New England forests in 20 years instead of 150! Come learn about the mission and how you can get involved.
