Daily Archives: February 5, 2025

Thursday, February 6, 7:00 pm Eastern – Celebrating Black Contributions Through Art and Nature, Online

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The Speaker Series at New England Botanic Garden features a dynamic range of authors, experts, and thought leaders sharing their insights on topics such as horticulture, gardening, conservation, and environmental sustainability. These engaging talks and lectures offer valuable knowledge for both seasoned gardening enthusiasts and those new to the world of plants and ecologically-minded horticulture. Each event provides an opportunity to learn from leading voices in the field and connect with a community of individuals passionate about the natural world. In celebration of Black History Month and Women’s History Month, New England Botanic Garden’s IDEA Committee is hosting a FREE series of online webinars. Between tuning in for this engaging lineup of talks, be sure to visit the Garden during February and March to explore selections from our Horticultural Heroes exhibit, a portrait collection that spotlights diverse leaders, activists, and innovators who have advanced the art and science of horticulture.

On February 6 at 7, Black in the Garden podcast creator Colah B. Tawkin guides attendees through the rich narratives of the Garden’s Horticultural Heroes exhibit, bringing history to life in an innovative and interactive way. Register at https://nebg.org/speakers-series/

Wednesday, February 26, 1:00 pm – 2:30 pm Eastern – Places to Play: Molineux Stadium, From Pleasure Garden to Premier League

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Designed landscapes are typically defined as places laid out for artistic effect or aesthetic purposes, somewhere to contemplate and admire. Yet many people have a much more active relationship with outdoor spaces, engaging with them for jogging, cycling, ball games, playgrounds and carnival rides. They are places to play.

This Gardens Trust series will examine the relationship between historic designed landscapes and organized recreation. We’ll be exploring children’s outdoor play, a world-famous theme park set among a Grade 1 Regency landscape, a Premier League football stadium that was once a Victorian pleasure ground, an early 18th-century estate that is now a golf course, and a Victorian public park which was opposed by local workers despite its claimed recreational and health-giving benefits.

This ticket (register HERE) is for this individual session and costs £8, and you may purchase tickets for other individual sessions, or you may purchase a ticket for the entire course of 5 sessions at a cost of £35 via the link here. (Gardens Trust members £6 or £26.25). 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 2 weeks) will be sent shortly afterwards.

Week Three: While many football clubs up and down the country built their stadiums upon disused waste land, some decided gardens and other green spaces were suitable homes for their pitch. Molineux Stadium, the home of Wolverhampton Wanderers FC, was once the site of a renowned pleasure garden. Hosting fetes, exhibitions and more genteel sports, it claimed to cater to every class of Victorian Wolverhampton. Upon its decline, Northampton Brewery sold it to the football club, and Molineux was born.

Wolves were certainly not the only football club to build upon green spaces like gardens, nurseries and orchards; but there is marked symbolic and socioeconomic change that comes with the new uses of these sites.

This talk uses Molineux Stadium as a case study for these changes. From pleasure garden to Premier League, leisure is now athleisure, visitors are now primarily working class and production is now marked by performance.

Liv Beards is an independent researcher from Wolverhampton. After completing her Masters on Shakespeare, focusing on garden history, she has recently begun researching the sporting history of her hometown. A freelance writer and editor, she has previously been a cultural reviewer for art, music, film and television and has contributed to art shows, and academic conferences.

©Liv Beards

Friday, February 7, 7:00 pm Eastern – Two Tales of Floristic Change in Southern New England: Orchids and Northern Species, Live and Online

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Floras change over time in response to numerous variables, including land use changes, species introductions, climate change, and other factors. This New England Botanical Society talk at 7 pm on February 7 will examine and attempt to explain changes in frequencies of two groups of plants in southern New England: orchids and northern species (i.e., those near the southern end of their range). It will include a discussion of different data sources and their limitations and the challenges of dealing with potentially confounding factors. Speaker Dr. Robert Bertin is Professor Emeritus of Biology at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester. The talk will be live and on Zoom.

Non-members may register for the meeting access link here.