Register for a hybrid event sponsored by the Massachusetts Historical Society on March 14 at 6 pm, reimagining an iconic female Black poet’s book. Join us for a unique evening remembering and celebrating America’s 19th-century, African American poet, Phillis Wheatley. See Phillis’ words in her own hand in items displayed from the MHS collection and hear how these words inspire poets today.
Wheatley at 250: Black Women Poets Re-imagine the Verse of Phillis Wheatley Peterscelebrates the 250th anniversary of Phillis Wheatley’s historic and transformative Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773). The new volume gathers the voices of 20 Black female poets to reimagine the work of this iconic literary ancestor for a new generation. The volume’s editors, Danielle Legros Georges and Artress Bethany White will provide commentary and contributors Florence Ladd and Janice Lowe will read selections from the book.
The in-person reception starts at 5:30 PM and the program will begin at 6:00 PM. The program is free for MHS Members; $10 per person (in person). There is no charge for virtual attendees or Card to Culture participants (EBT, WIC, and ConnectorCare). The online event will be hosted on the video streaming platform YouTube. Registrants will receive a confirmation message with attendance information. Register to attend in personHERE. Register to attend online HERE.
If you have questions about the event, please contact Olivia Sayah at 617-646-0580 or osayah@masshist.org.
Local artist and author Beth Adoette is coming to Blithewold to share her unique practice of partnering with nature in a monthly workshop series. This workshop offers people the opportunity to unplug and be in the moment while exploring beautiful objects of nature. Please note that nature mandalas are ephemeral and will not be taken home. Photographs are encouraged. High-resolution, edited photographs can be ordered separately at the workshop for an additional fee. The March session on March 20 (in the education room in the visitor’s center) is Gratitude and the Sun. In this workshop, participants contemplate what we can be thankful for both collectively and individually. We begin with the sun, the force which unconditionally guides and sustains us all. Then we consider the gifts we have been given individually. Make space for the gentle, yet powerful benefits that come from a grateful heart as we create individual gratitude mandalas which capture the blessings of our lives in this moment. $40 for Blithewold members, $45 for nonmembers. Register at https://www.blithewold.org/event/nature-mandala-series-with-beth-adoette-2/
Join Jazen’s Art Studio for a special Paint Party at Polly Hill Arboretum. Follow along with Jaz and paint an Arboretum landscape scene that you can admire in your home for years to come. All supplies will be included. Space is very limited; advanced registration is required and expected to sell out. Please meet at the Education Center & Botany Lab. $50. Proceeds benefit Polly Hill Arboretum and help make it possible to hold future affordable and free educational programs for our community. Thank you for your support! Sign up HERE
This is the second series in the Gardens Trust’s new partnership with the county gardens trusts, looking at restoration in action. Join Yorkshire Gardens Trust to learn about researching, restoring and reinterpreting a selection of glorious gardens in the county. The chosen projects cover four centuries of garden design and showcase the skills, sensitivities and determination needed to conserve and enhance historic gardens. This ticket is for the course of 3 sessions. or you may purchase a ticket for individual sessions, costing £8. [Gardens Trust and Yorkshire Gardens Trust Members may purchase tickets at £15.75 for the series or £6 each talk]. Register at https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/restoration-in-action-yorkshire-tickets-780066468807Attendees 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.
The first lecture is on March 6. Bramham Park was created by Robert Benson, Lord Bingley at the beginning of the Eighteenth Century, as a residence and landscape to demonstrate the status he had risen to as Chancellor of the Exchequer and a Director of the South Sea Company. In the three following centuries a combination of irresponsible illegitimate children, gambling debts, a disastrous fire, two world wars, inheritance taxes and a hurricane-force gale meant that Benson’s design has never been substantially changed. This makes Bramham a rare survival of the period between baroque formality and the Landscape Movement, showing the development from one to the other.
Since the gale in 1962, Benson’s descendants have sought to restore Bramham to its original condition and the current owner, Nick Lane Fox will recount his efforts, since taking over from his father in 1997.
For ten years after university, Nick Lane Fox was a soldier in the Blues and Royals, in which time he went nowhere even remotely dangerous. He was an investment manager for a further ten years, taking over the running of Bramham when his mother died in 1997. Nick is ashamed to recall telling his mother, when he was 11 years-old, that he was “bored and there was nothing to do at Bramham”.
He is married to Rachel, daughter of Lord Charles Howick VMH, owner of Howick Hall in Northumberland and collector of all the wild-origin trees in its arboretum.
When they first took over Bramham, Nick and Rachel were advised by the garden designer and writer Lady Mary Keen and by John Sales, then senior gardens adviser to the National Trust. These two were instrumental in educating and setting the direction for the restoration of the Bramham Landscape. Now Nick is the chain-saw gardener and Rachel the real gardener.
Transform your yard into a lush paradise. Whether you live in a rural or urban area, learn the secrets of how to cultivate a vibrant oasis right outside your door. Join GBH and public gardening expert Karen Daubmann from Massachusetts Horticultural Society and immerse in the lavish wonders of your own backyard haven. The free virtual event takes place March 15 at noon Eastern. Register at https://www.wgbh.org/events/ask-the-expert-planting-pampering-and-petal-perfection
Karen Daubmann is committed to creating effective and longstanding change to public gardens throughout her 25-year career. She joined Massachusetts Horticultural Society (MHS) in March 2022, where she brings her experience in advancing the operational and planning scale of public gardens. In the development and execution of exhibitions that have welcomed hundreds of thousands of visitors, Daubmann focuses her work on encouraging guests to connect and interact with gardens through art, nature and culture. Prior to joining MHS, she worked for 14 years at the New York Botanical Garden, culminating in her position as vice president for exhibitions and audience engagement. She has been featured in Jennifer Jewell’s The Earth in Her Hands: 75 Extraordinary Women Working in the World of Plantsand has contributed essays for Kusama: Cosmic Nature, 2021 and Frida Kahlo’s Garden, 2015.
Daubmann lives and gardens with her husband Matt and dog Klaus in coastal Rhode Island.
This event is presented is in partnership with Massachusetts Horticultural Society.
Since Chef Keith Sarasin first came to Wright-Locke Farm and filled our kitchen with the aromas of India and his passion for cooking, people have been talking about the experience. We are happy to say he is returning for a third Holi Celebration!
Enjoy a vibrant evening on March 25 starting at 5:30 with cocktails, unique passed appetizers, henna art, and entertainment. Savor the flavors of India with a delightful 3-course meal that will take your taste buds on an unforgettable culinary journey. Mark your calendars, you won’t want to miss this culturally rich full-moon feast! $100. Click HERE for tickets.
In this Mt. Cuba Center online lecture, timed to coincide with Women’s History Month, author Jenny Rose Carey gives a historic overview of American women in horticulture and landscape design. Using archival images and the words of the female horticulturists of the time, Jenny paints a picture of a movement that brought women to the forefront of the burgeoning gardening movement in the early part of the twentieth century. Jenny will discuss authors, educators, garden designers, the garden club movement, and conservationists. You might be surprised to learn that the early roots of our passion for native plants and protecting birds was alive and well 110 years ago right here in the Philadelphia region. Learn the names of some of the most incredible horticulturally minded women and their influence on the ways that we garden today. Jenny Rose Carey is a lifelong educator, garden author, and former public garden director. She is a practical, hands-on gardener who gardens on over four acres in Ambler, PA. She is also a garden historian with a specialty in women in gardens, and English and American gardens.
This program takes place online Wednesday, March 13th, 2024. $19. Register HERE.
There is a growing awareness that pollinators are important, and that they’re in trouble. We know that pollinators need flowers and that they are responsible for much of the food we eat, but we’re maybe a little vague on the details. Pollinators, particularly insect pollinators, do need flowers – lots of flowers, and the right kinds of flowers – so diversity and quantity are big factors. But let’s back up a bit. Why are there flowers in the first place? And for that matter, why are there fruits and berries? Surely they didn’t evolve just for human pleasure and sustenance. There’s more to it, and it’s a fascinating story of interrelationships.
This March 12 online presentation by the Massachusetts Horticultural Society is not an i.d. presentation, it’s about best plants and practices. Gardeners are uniquely able to support the entire life cycle of beneficial insects and other pollinators. Good plant choices and land care, coupled with simple awareness of the living world buzzing all around us make all the difference. After all, we’re not just cultivating flowers, we’re cultivating habitat.
Instrucctor Karen Bussolini is a nationally known garden photographer with 6 books to her credit, a writer and speaker, and an eco-friendly garden coach. Her art background and focus on environmental topics – ecological landscaping, native plants, biodiversity, xeriscaping, organic gardening, planting for wildlife, pollinators, and other beneficial insects – inform every aspect of her work. Her slide talks combine beautiful original images, recent scientific findings, personal observations, hands-on experience, and a touch of humor. She is a NOFA-Accredited Organic Land Care Professional and an active member of GardenComm (formerly GWA), The Association of Garden Communicators. Karen is currently the Senior Horticultural Advisor at White Flower Farm in Connecticut.
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 fifth session on March 12 will discuss the origins of public parks.
Just as our towns are adorned with green open spaces and public gardens open to all, so were the urban spaces of the Greeks and, later, to a greater degree, the Romans. Discover how the Romans invented the actual idea of public parks as we know them today. We follow the intriguing tale of how and why public spaces were first created. It’s not as altruistic or philanthropic as you might hope, but the results changed our town lives for ever.
So what were the motives and the uses of this new concept? We explore the many and varied reasons that public gardens came into being and their diverse uses. Sacred, commercial, political, social, artistic, well-being, romantic and ritual moments, as well as a celebrity factor, are all here. Join Gillian for this special session that really does change the way you imagine Roman town life; it will also help you to see afresh how we use our own modern public garden spaces.
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.
Sorry for the late notice. The Worcester Art Museum’s Flora in Winter is now on. You still have time to visit (WAM members free, adults and seniors $30), talk a drop in tour, enjoy after hours on Saturday at 5 pm, attend Ask a Gardener on Sunday at 10 am, and hear a talk on Seascapes at Flora in Winter 2024 with James Welu, Director Emeritus of the Worcester Art Museum, on Sunday at 2 pm. Complete information at https://www.worcesterart.org/flora-in-winter/
