This American Horticultural Society virtual workshop on April 26 at 2 pm Eastern will explore the value of garden spaces as catalysts for community-building and growth, as well as ways to build garden community through programs and events. Kelly Fernandez will offer reflections on her 15-year tenure as the Herb Gardener at The Huntington Library and share models for garden programs, events, and volunteer trainings, emphasizing the significance of cultivating an entry point and a deep connection with the natural world to nurture a strong sense of community. The reflections will be followed by guided workshop time for participants to brainstorm ways to build community in their own gardening efforts. $15 for AHS members, $20 for nonmembers. Register at ahsgardening.org
Kelly Fernandez is the Head Gardener of the Herb and Shakespeare Gardens at The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens. Her journey in gardening began in 2008 and has blossomed into a lifelong dedication to learning about the interconnection between plants and the human experience. With a diverse set of credentials, including a Horticultural Therapy certification (2015) and a Master of Science in Organizational Leadership (2021), Fernandez strives to share her love for gardening and believes in the beneficial aspects of fostering a sense of well-being through connecting to the natural world.
In 2024, Seed Savers Exchange’s annual conference will take place over the course of four days in four different months. Join us virtually for inspiring keynote speakers, informational workshops, and a chance to connect with the larger seed community. By registering you will have access to all four days of programming, and recordings of any sessions you may have missed. There is no need to register for individual days.
On Friday, May 3, 11:00 am Eastern – From Seed to Community. All it takes is one tiny tomato seed to help build community. In this presentation, Chicago-based writer Megy Karydes reflects on an enriching gardening journey that began during the COVID-19 pandemic. During the first month of lockdown, she stumbled upon a Facebook group offering seeds to neighbors. Those tiny tomato seeds grew more than two dozen plants, but even more importantly, introduced her to one of the most generous communities of friends and mentors. This session will help those interested in building a stronger community connection with neighbors by sharing seeds, seedlings, garden supplies, and more.
Then, join Anita Thompson for Growing an Ancestry Garden – Celebrating Your Personal History with Seeds. An ancestry garden can help gardeners celebrate themselves and their history. This presentation will share tips and techniques to source seed and grow your family history.
Following Anita, Kathy Jentz will celebrate the history of National Seed Swap Day. National Seed Swap Day—held the last Saturday of January since 2006—is a fixture on the calendars of many gardeners and seed savers. Learn about the origins of this celebration from its founder, Kathy Jentz, who will also provide examples of successful seed swaps and offer expert guidance on how to host an impactful seed-swapping event in your community.
At 3:30, Denise Cusack will speak on Using Mutual Aid in Community Seed Network Building. Mutual aid systems can work in communities to provide accessible seeds, grow community, and redistribute resources to create gardens in any neighborhood. This session will explore how one seed-grant program created community-based mutual aid models that rely on collaborative networks, not just financial systems, to build local seed systems that help introduce uncommon, culturally relevant seeds important to reclaiming food and medicine.
Meghan Hess Shamdasani follows with From Seeds to STEM: Growing a School Garden Community. The garden program at SouthTech Academy in Florida expanded dramatically from 2020-23—growing from three to more than 50 hydroponic systems and from two to 20 outdoor garden beds that today produce fresh food for more than 600 students. In this session, the teacher and students who developed this interdisciplinary gardening community will explore the key components of its success, including focusing on what students and teachers wanted out of the program and ensuring students were included in the planning process.
At 6 pm, Devon Meyer will conduct a virtual Art Journaling Workshop. Art journaling can help gardeners capture thoughts and observations while looking deeper into the process of growing, harvesting, and preparing food. This session is a hands-on sketching and watercolor-painting class that will help participants learn simple and beautiful techniques to record observations and experiences in the garden, the kitchen, and the community.
Finally, at 7 pm, Stephen Stresow will speak on Horticultural Diplomacy: A Community Science and Justice, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Demonstration Garden Project. Beyond growing food, gardens can be used to build community and address social issues. This session highlights a statewide vegetable trial garden program that used a “horticultural diplomacy” framework to introduce Master Gardener volunteers to diverse crops and cultures relevant to Latin America and East Asia. Including relevant recipes and bed groupings helped participants build garden skills, contribute to an online database of well-performing varieties across climates, and gain a greater appreciation for other cultures. We outline steps that made this new iteration successful and note areas for improvement.
Registration is now open. In future posts we will cover the speakers and topics for the following sessions, but to learn more visit www.seedsavers.org
Berkshire Botanical Garden’s 2024 Art/Garden series continues with “Re-Rooted,” an exhibition featuring the drawings of Brooklyn-based artist Ellen Driscoll, who takes her inspiration from the resilience and regenerative power of plants.
The exhibition runs from April 20 through May 27, in the Leonhardt Galleries. The public is invited to the opening reception on Saturday, April 20, from 5 to 7 p.m.
“Plants have been on the Earth much longer than human beings — adapting through eons of environmental change,” said Driscoll. “As our environmental crisis becomes ever more urgent, my art takes its inspiration from the quiet work plants do to survive, adapt and heal our planet.” These drawings reflect on the process by which plants use their root system to clean up toxic contaminants in soil, air and water.
Driscoll’s work is in major collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum of Art. Her awards include fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Bunting Institute, the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Massachusetts Council on the Arts, the LEF Foundation, the Rhode Island Foundation, Anonymous Was a Woman, and a Fine Arts Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Berkshire Botanical Garden’s Leonhardt Galleries are open seven days a week, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The address: 5 West Stockbridge Road, Stockbridge, Mass.
Join Feminist Bird Club Boston for an early spring outing at Mount Auburn Cemetery. Open to all birding levels and experience- beginners especially welcome! We’ll meet up at 8:15 a.m. by the front gates of Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge.
Route and Accessibility
The cemetery has relatively even dirt, grass, and mulch paths, with a few gradual ups and downs. There are also flat paved roads throughout the cemetery, and we can certainly keep to those if that’s better for anyone. There are places to stop and sit and the total distance travelled will be 1.5-2 miles.
Considerations and Travel
We’ll have some extra binoculars to share. There are public restrooms and a water fountain near the entrance. Parking is available throughout the cemetery; you can park on any road without a green line, but please be sure to park on the pavement, not the grass. The cemetery is also accessible by public transit with nearby stops for the 71, 73, and 75 buses.
Don’t miss “Bulbs & Spring Ephemerals” — the MHS Botanical Art Program spring exhibit. Works by 14 artists detail the beauty of early spring blooms. A splendid variety of works will be on display in the Education Building from April 1 through May 15 at the Garden at Elm Bank. Included with Garden Admission. Below: Poet’s Narcissus (Narcissus poeticus) by Pam Harrington
The Cotswold hills with their mellow stone cottages, elegant manor houses and imposing castles contain some of the most important historic gardens in England. A virtual history of English gardens can be found in Gloucestershire, parts of Oxfordshire, and Warwickshire. Although little survives of the Roman and medieval periods, some very early gardens remain: Thornbury Castle and Horton Court are two remarkable early 16th century gardens. From the 17th century, the restored gardens at Westbury Court are well known, while ghosts of the late 17th-century gardens at Dyrham Park are more challenging to discover.
The 18th century is represented in the poetic garden at Rousham, William Kent’s best surviving landscape, as well as in Capability Brown’s most famous garden at Blenheim Palace. Quirkier examples of the English landscape are found at Painswick and Sezincote.
Modern gardens, too, are impressive: the Arts and Crafts garden at Snowshill and especially Major Lawrence Johnston’s Hidcote Manor, which became a model for so many later garden designs. This lecture covers the history of the English garden, using both famous and little-known gardens, all set in the most unspoiled part of England.
Presenter Paula Henderson has degrees in art history (University of Chicago, M.A.) and Ph.D. in architectural history from the Courtauld Institute of Art (University of London). She lectures widely in Britain (where she lived for 43 years) and the United States and has published over seventy articles on English Houses and their settings. Her first book, The Tudor House and Garden: Architecture and Landscape in the 16th and 17th Centuries (published by Yale University Press), won the Berger Prize for the outstanding contribution to the history of British art 2005. Treehouses (co-authored with Adam Mornement) was published by Francis Lincoln, also in 2005. She is currently completing books on London gardens in the age of Shakespeare and on the Landscape as Art.
She taught courses for the Courtauld Institute of Art Institute for many years and, most recently for the V&A museum. She has lectures for the Paul Mellon Center for British Art, the Architectural Association, both Oxford and Cambridge Universities, Birkbeck college, Christie’s Education, The Inchbald School of Design, the V&A museum, the Tate Gallery, The Garden History Society, Sir John Soane’s Museum, Sotheby’s Educational Studies and many others. She led tours for the Courtauld Institute to Florence (‘Gardens of the Medici’) Debyshire (‘Elizabethan architecture’) and the Cotswolds (‘Gardens of the Cotswolds’). While living in England, she also traveled to the United States to lecture for the Society of Architectural Historians, The Garden Club of America, The Royal Oak Foundation, and the Williamsburg Institute. She is a Fellow of Society of Antiquaries of London and now splits her time between Nantucket, MA and Williamsburg, VA.
This Royal Oak Foundation presentation is $40 for the live event at the General Society Library, 20 W. 44th Street in NYC, with reception following, $30 for the rental, and you may register for the Virtual option HERE or the live option, including reception, HERE
Save the date, Monday April 29 from 6 – 7, for an online presentation by the Neighborhood Association of the Back Bay Green Committee, followed by a Q & A with Emily Norton, Executive Director of the Charles River Watershed Association, who will discuss the threat of flooding in the Back Bay and what steps can be taken to mitigate our increasingly extreme weather. Email info@nabbonline.org for the Zoom link.
There will be a Daffodil Flower Show, a Car Parade and Tailgate, and all manner of daffodil related activities in Nantucket again this month, April 25 – 28. Plan your trip to the Island now. https://daffodilfestival.com/
The Nantucket Garden Club, in conjunction with the American Daffodil Society, also holds its annual Daffodil Flower Show at Bartlett’s Ocean View Farm the Saturday and Sunday of Daffodil weekend.
Come join the fun with Berkshire International Film Festival (BIFF) and Berkshire Botanical Garden for a film screening, Q&A, wine tasting, and nibbles on Friday, April 12, at 5 p.m., at BBG in West Stockbridge. This film is “Le Poète Lucide,” directed by Keith Aumont. This screening is part of the Environmental Film Focus with BIFF.
Nicolas Joly is one of the founding fathers of the natural wine movement known as biodynamics. Set upon the stage of his Loire Valley vineyard, “The Lucid Poet” illuminates the wisdom, warmth and passion of this winemaking legend.
There’s no going wrong with native plants — from increasing biodiversity to requiring less maintenance, these plants benefit the health of the environment as well as the wildlife that depends on them. Native plants are also a particularly valuable source of food for pollinators, and pollinator gardens can have a positive impact on the local community as well as local wildlife.
With Native Plant Month and Earth Day approaching, it’s the perfect time to start adding native, pollinator-friendly plants to your corporate gardens. However, it can be challenging to know which plants are native for your specific location. Since 1973, the National Wildlife Federation’s Garden for Wildlife program has worked to simplify the plant selection process by connecting people to their local native plants. In this free webinar on April 16 at 1 pm Eastern, Garden for Wildlife CEO Shubber Ali will share how corporate native plantings have a positive impact not only on the ecosystem, but also on the community, employees and the company’s bottom line.
What you’ll learn:
Why it’s important to garden for wildlife, specifically pollinators
How to determine the right native plants for your area and where to source them
Tips for incorporating native plants into a corporate setting
Who should take this webinar:
Corporate conservation programs interested in using native plants
Companies that want to use native landscaping to support the biodiversity of their community
Anyone interested in supporting pollinators in their area
