Boston Flora

Month: April 2024

  • Thursday, May 16, 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Eastern – Moon Garden: A Guide to Creating an Evening Oasis, Online

    Moon Garden is a guide to creating a garden that comes alive at night, with night-blooming plants and night-fragrant flowers. The book is full of design and horticultural wisdom, planting tips for outdoor, indoor, and container gardens, and soothing rituals such as journaling and meditations. With beautiful botanical illustrations, Moon Garden encourages readers to approach gardening as a grounding, spiritual practice.

    Presenter Jarema Osofsky is a Brooklyn-based landscape designer with roots in Hong Kong. Jarema’s design studio, Dirt Queen NYC, works closely with clients to create verdant gardens that offer meaningful and ecologically sustainable connections to the natural world. Her debut book, Moon Garden: A Guide to Creating an Evening Oasis invites readers to dive into the enchanting world of night gardens. Jarema’s work has been featured in Architectural Digest, T Magazine, Elle Decor, Apartment Therapy, and others.

    This May 16 Garden Conservancy webinar is $5 for Garden Conservancy members, $15 for nonmembers. Register at https://www.gardenconservancy.org/education/education-events/virtual-talk-moon-garden

  • Tuesday, May 14, 12:00 noon – 1:15 pm Eastern – Silk: A World History, Online

    Silk—prized for its lightness, luminosity, and beauty—is also one of the strongest biological materials ever known. More than a century ago, it was used to make the first bulletproof vest, and yet science has barely begun to tap its potential. The technologies it has inspired—including sutures, pharmaceuticals, and replacement body parts—continue to be developed in laboratories around the world and are now beginning to offer a sustainable alternative to the plastics choking our planet.

    Aarathi Prasad, author of Silk: A World History, outlines the cultural and biological history of the fabric, including its origins, the ancient silk routes, and the biologists who learned the secrets of silk-producing animals. From the moths of China, Indonesia, and India to the spiders of South America and Madagascar and the mollusks of the Mediterranean, Prasad offers a mix of biography and science that brings to life the vast, winding history of silk and looks to its future as a powerful resource.

    This Zoom Smithsonian Associates illustrated lecture will take place Tuesday, May 14 at noon, $25 for Smithsonian Associates members, $30 for nonmembers. Register at https://smithsonianassociates.org/ticketing/tickets/silk-world-history

  • Saturday, May 18, 8:00 am – 11:00 am – BIPOC-Led Bird Watching Walk at Parker River National Wildlife Refuge

    Join a guided walk/tour exploring Plum Island and all the spring birds there to see on Saturday, May 18 from 8 am – 11 am. This event is created to serve the BIPOC community.

    Free event and guided birding tour by black birders, Michealle and Kat for the BIPOC community. Transport/carpooling option is available, snacks and water will be available but you can also bring your own. This is a great opportunity to meet and be in community with like minded people from diverse backgrounds. Please bring your own binoculars, we will also have a few pairs to loan. The Parker River National Wildlife Refuge is located on Refuge Road in Newbury, Massachusetts.

    Contact the organizer Jireh at jireh@outsidemind.org with any inquiries. You may register in advance on Eventbrite HERE.

  • Friday, May 3, 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Eastern – Clever Design Tips for Everblooming, Low-Maintenance Gardens, Online

    This dynamic one-hour online lecture on May 3 at 2 pm with noted speaker Kerry Ann Mendez, owner of Perennially Yours, will surprise you with creative, easy-to-implement strategies for extending the blooms of popular plants for weeks. Also showcased are time-saving design tips including distinctive plant combinations that provide unstoppable color spring through fall, as well as groundcover tapestries that smother weeds and delight pollinators. You will also learn valuable lessons from before and after design projects to avoid costly landscape mistakes. $10 for AHS members, $15 for nonmembers. Register at ahsgardening.org

  • Friday & Saturday, May 10 & 11 – Berkshire Botanical Garden 47th Annual Plants and Answers Sale

    Friday & Saturday, May 10 & 11 – Berkshire Botanical Garden 47th Annual Plants and Answers Sale

    Curated by BBG’s horticulture staff, this year’s Plant Sale features hundreds of perennials, annuals and vegetables with a focus on diversity and nature-based landscaping, a trend toward gardens that are exuberant and alive, out of the uniform and into something comfortable, and welcoming to birds, bees and butterflies.

    As always, the popular “Ask Me” staff and volunteers will be on hand to provide expert advice. All proceeds from the Plant Sale support the Garden’s horticulture and education programs. Garden members receive early buying privileges and a discount on BBG plant purchases. Free admission and free parking.

    Traditionally held on Mother’s Day weekend, the Plants-and-Answers Plant Sale began in 1977 as BBG’s harbinger of spring for gardeners in the Berkshires and beyond. This year’s sale carries on the tradition of supplying the very best robust plants for landscape and container gardens, along with a wide selection of organic vegetable and herb plants. Featured are a selection of plants which attract bees, hummingbirds, butterflies, moths and other pollinators. The Garden’s signature cone-shaped hanging container arrangements will also be available. 

    Thank you to the following businesses who have donated to the Plant Sale:

    Andrews Greenhouse
    Broken Arrow
    Callanders Nursery & Landscape
    Campo de Fiori
    Garden Magic d/b/a Country Caretaker
    Glendale
    Monrovia
    The Plant Group
    Randall’s Farm
    Sixteen Acres Garden Center
    Ward’s
    Whalen Nursery
    Zema’s Nursery

    Early buying for BBG members – Friday, May 10, 9 – 11 am. General Public, Friday, May 10, 11 – 5, Saturday, May 11, 9 – 4 Admission and parking are free.

  • Tuesday, May 14, 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm Eastern – Herb Liberation, Online

    Herbs are such beautiful plants, useful in the garden as well as the kitchen, so why sequester them in the herb garden? Use herbs throughout the landscape, in flower gardens, in vegetable gardens (to attract pollinators and other beneficial insects), as ground covers, specimens, and in containers. Liberate them from their traditional roles, use your imagination – and bring them into your daily life. Learn about plants we already grow that we don’t know are edible and easy ways to use herbs in food and drink. This online Massachusetts Horticultural Society class with Karen Bussolini will be held on May 14 at 6:30 Eastern, and is $23 for Mass Hort members, $32 for nonmembers. Register at www.masshort.org

    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.

  • Sunday, May 12, 10:00 am – Duckling Day

    Join The Friends of the Public Garden in Boston’s most beautiful parks on May 12 for Duckling Day! We are so excited to gather once again at Parkman Bandstand for the most adorable event in Boston. 

    • Playtime on the Common: 10:00 a.m
    • Duckling Day Parade: 12:00 p.m.

    Before the Parade, join us for Playtime on the Common, a vibrant array of family entertainment from 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. All activities are included with event admission.

    Registration: $35 per family. Register https://friendsofthepublicgarden.org/events/ducklingregistration/

  • Friday, May 17, 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm – Twilight Trilliums

    Stroll the Garden in the Woods in Framingham after hours during Trillium Week and enjoy the sight of gorgeous ephemerals like great wakerobin (Trillium grandiflorum) and sweet wakerobin (Trillium vaseyi) on a beautiful spring evening. Garden admission and light refreshments included with registration. $34 for Native Plant Trust members, $40 for nonmembers. Register at http://www.nativeplanttrust.org/events/twilight-trilliums/

  • Thursday, June 13, 9:15 am – 2:30 pm – 97th Annual GCFM Meeting – A Learning Experience

    The Garden Club Federation of Massachusetts invites you to its 97th Annual Meeting at the Andover Doubletree Hotel, 123 Old River Road in Andover, on June 13. Keynote speaker is author Patterson Webster, whose topic is Learning to Look: The Art of Garden Observation. For registration details and complete information visit www.gcfm.org/

  • Wednesday, May 8, 1:00 pm – 2:30 pm Eastern – People’s Parks: Parkitecture, The Essence of What Makes a Great Park

    The People’s Parks are one of the finest legacies of the Victorian age. Designed and bequeathed to the masses as part of a movement encouraging green spaces and recreation, the public park came to symbolize one of the greatest contributions of the era.

    Opened in increasing numbers in the industrious nineteenth century, by the end of the twentieth century many of our parks had become sadly neglected. But today they remain outdoor places for everyone to enjoy, acting as children’s play areas, sports grounds and even concert venues and have grown in popularity since the global pandemic. But what do we really know about them? The Gardens Trust is sponsoring a series of six weekly online lectures with Paul Rabbitts on Wednesdays from April 17 – May 22.

    Buy a ticket is for the entire course of 6 sessions. or you may purchase a ticket for individual sessions, costing £8. [Gardens Trust members may purchase tickets at £31.50 for the series or £6 each talk]. https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/peoples-parks-tickets-852833737667

    So what makes a great park? what are the ingredients of these great institutions? what is it that we enjoy so much when we visit them? The legacy of our great Victorian parks includes the fantastic features within them – drinking fountains, bandstands, park lodges, palm houses, boating lakes, cafes, bridges, mansions, museums, glorious gates, statues, monuments and sculpture. Paul Rabbitts calls this ‘Parkitecture’. The architecture of the park. And what of the challenges facing those who have to manage these historic spaces and features when they no longer become relevant. Join me on a journey through some of Great Britain’s finest public parks and enjoy the feast of features within them – parkitecture!