Daily Archives: January 3, 2025

Fridays and Saturdays, January 10 – 25, 7:00 pm – 10:00 pm – Killer in the Conservatory

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Join the New England Botanical Garden at Tower Hill for an immersive and interactive murder mystery experience in collaboration with Escapism Productions. Each ticket includes one free beverage, an open popcorn bar, and a killer evening of murder mystery fun. Guests are welcome to come dressed for the occasion. Must be 21+ to attend. The event takes place Fridays and Saturdays, January 10 – 25, from 7 – 10 at NEBG in Boylston, Massachusetts. NEBG adult members $60, nonmember adults $75. Visit www.nebg.org to purchase tickets – link will take you to January 10 performance but navigate through the calendar for the date of your choice.

Back by popular demand, our Killer in the Conservatory series continues with an all-new murder mystery. We invite you to enter into the realm of mystery and intrigue in a second chronicle featuring the tireless Inspector Leopold Lapis. Get transported to the Victorian era as you find yourself invited to the somber yet peculiar will reading of Dr. Vivian Verdant, a renowned herbologist with a passion for the alchemical arts. But as the evening unfolds, it becomes clear that this gathering is no ordinary affair. Lapis soon discovers that Dr. Verdant’s death may not be as straightforward as it seems, and the real mystery lies in uncovering the secrets she left behind. Who among the gathered suspects holds the key to the truth?

Use your detective skills to assist Lapis with unraveling the tangled web of motives and deception. Solve puzzles, interrogate suspects, and gather clues to crack the case and bring the elusive culprit to justice–if you can.

Ticket Refund and Exchange Policy: Tickets are non-refundable and are only valid for the date selected. Tickets can be rescheduled to a different evening of Killer in the Conservatory for a $10 fee but may only be rescheduled if tickets are still available for a different evening. Ticketholders must call 508-869-6111 x174 to reschedule by 5pm the day before the date on their original ticket.

Please note: Tickets will not be available to purchase onsite during the event. Pre-registration is required. General Admission discounts and passes do not apply to this special event. Pets should remain at home. Service animals are welcome throughout the property at all times.

Wednesday, January 22, 1:00 pm – 2:30 pm Eastern – Brenda Colvin, Online

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In January, join Friends of the Landscape Archive at Reading for the beginning of an online series of talks in partnership with the Gardens Trust, on six women – Susan Jellicoe, Sheila Haywood, Brenda Colvin, Mary Mitchell, Marjory Allen and Marian Thompson – who all contributed to the expertise, development and awareness of the landscape profession and in so many different ways. A ticket is for the series of 6 talks at £42 or you may purchase a ticket for individual talks, costing £8. (Gardens Trust and FOLAR members £6 each or all 6 for £31.50). There will be an opportunity for Q & A after each session. Please note that the 6th and final talk in this series is on 30th April. Ticket holders can join each session live and/or view a recording for up to 2 weeks afterwards. For tickets visit www.eventbriteco.uk

Join us in this online series to hear from these special speakers – Sally Ingram, Paula Laycock, Hal Moggridge, Joy Burgess, Wendy Titman and Bruce Thompson – who have each known, worked with, or researched one of these six remarkable women.

The third talk in the series will touch on Brenda’s childhood in India and her early practice (1922-39) designing gardens, which she continued throughout her career. Because she was a thinker about landscape, the talk will be interspersed with brief quotations from her writings. She was elected president of the Institute of Landscape Architects in 1951, the first woman to lead a British design or environmental profession. From the late 1940s Brenda shared her office with Sylvia Crowe but practising separately. The talk will illustrate how they, like other colleagues, broadened the scope of the landscape profession in the latter part of the 20th century. Brenda, independent in thought and practice, worked on government sponsored activities, for instance as consultant for large projects for the Central Electricity Generating Board, a Water Authority, a military town and a new university. Committed to continuity, she set up the basis for perpetuation of her practice and its ideas.

Hal Moggridge was introduced to Brenda Colvin by Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe, in whose office he had worked after qualifying as an architect. He then became a landscape architect, and in 1969 entered into partnership with Brenda who had retired her practice to the Cotswolds. They worked together harmoniously, and their landscape architectural practice, Colvin & Moggridge, continued after Brenda’s death in 1981 with Chris Carter joining as partner; and still thrives, now under new directors.

Between 1969 and 2005 Colvin & Moggridge handled 1,430 commissions, varying between large long-term rural industrial landscapes, reservoirs, cement works, quarries, a waste ash hill, and new parks and gardens including consultancy to the Inner London Royal Parks and creation of the new National Botanic Garden of Wales.

Hal was elected president of the Landscape Institute in 1979. He has represented the Institute on the International Federation of Landscape Architects, was a commissioner of the Royal Fine Art Commission, served on the National Trust’s Architectural Panel, and on ICOMOS Cultural Landscapes Committees. He has explained the practice’s approach in an illustrated book: Slow Growth – on the Art of Landscape Architecture (Unicorn, 2017). He has been awarded the OBE in 1986, the RHS Victoria Medal of Honour in 1999 and the Landscape Institute Medal.