Daily Archives: February 7, 2025

Friday, February 7 – Sunday, February 23 – Dreamscapes: Journeys into Nature

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Berkshire Botanical Garden will kick off its 2025 Art/Garden exhibitions with “Dreamscapes: Journeys into Nature,” opening Friday, February 7, in the Leonhardt Galleries. Gallery hours for the exhibition are Tuesdays through Sundays, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

In this juried show featuring artwork by the Guild of Berkshire Artists, each artist was challenged to interpret their concept of what nature means to them. Is it colors, textures or the amazing beauty of life in nature? Does it reflect a reverence for the power nature can unleash or the fragility of every living thing? Is it the complexity as well as the simple beauty of spring tulips, fall leaves and sunsets? Each artist expresses their intent through drawing, painting, mixed media, photography, sculpture, textiles, glass, or ceramics. The results are as bountiful and often as dreamy as nature herself!

The artists are:

Carolyn M. Abrams, Karen J. Andrews, Donna Bernstein, Chelsea Bradway, Karen Carmean, Julian Craker, Keith Davidson, Mary O. Davidson, Anne Ferril, Kathryn Feuerbach, Gail Gelburd, Marion Grant, Nancy K. Harrod, Pat Hogan, Lynne Horvath, Robert Horvath, Caryn King, Christina Koldys, Pattie Lipman, Janet McKinstry, Sarah Morrison, Jaye Alison Moscariello, Rick Neilsen, Jeff Nestel-Patt, Wendy Holmes, Noyes Marilyn Orner, Alvin Joseph Ouellet, Barbara A. Patton, Ronald Piazza, Ingrid Raab, Paula Shalan, and Bruce J. Shickmanter.

The Guild was formed in 2014 to support and promote its members through education, exhibits and community events while contributing to the cultural life of the Berkshires.

Sundays, February 9, 16, and 23, 4:00 pm – 5:30 pm Eastern – Botanical Gardens: A World Tour, Online

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Indulge in a colorful midwinter escape as naturalist and botanical horticulturist Keith Tomlinson leads a series of virtual visits that highlight the beauty of notable botanical gardens around the world including sites in Germany, the East and West Coasts of the United States, Morocco, and our nation’s capital. Vibrant visuals explore how each garden takes a unique approach to design and interpretation as they all celebrate plant collections, conservation, education, and the distinctive environments and landscapes in which they bloom.

February 9 – Frankfurt’s Palmengarten and Washington, D.C.’s United States Botanical Garden 

Based mainly around historic conservatories, these two classic gardens are steeped in the history of their respective cities. While collections focus on tropical, desert, and Mediterranean regions, each garden is enhanced by beautiful landscaping and outdoor temperate collections. Both have a history of supporting conservation efforts for global plant diversity.

February 16 – South Carolina’s Brookgreen Gardens and Anima Garden in Morocco

Sculptures of all kinds inhabit gardens around the world, but these two pleasure gardens embody monumental art as a principal component of exhibition. From the Atlantic Low Country of South Carolina to the foot of Morocco’s towering Atlas Mountains, the history and setting of these gardens couldn’t be more different. Yet they share a similar engaging aesthetic theme.

February 23 – The Huntington Botanical Gardens in San Marino, California, and the Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanic Gardens

It’s said that more plants of different kinds can grow in the Los Angeles Basin than almost anywhere else in the world. Combine the soothing Mediterranean climate with irrigation and horticultural wonders abound. Only a few miles apart, Huntington Gardens and the Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanic Garden are very different institutions that exhibit a botanical cornucopia from around the world.

Presenter Keith Tomlinson has worked as a naturalist and public garden administrator for 25 years, visiting wilderness areas and botanical gardens around the world. He is the author of numerous articles on plant conservation, botanical garden travel, and environmental education.

The series cost is $60 for Smithsonian members, $75 for nonmembers, or you can sign up for any individual session. To register visit https://smithsonianassociates.org/ticketing/series/botanical-gardens-winter2025

Tuesday, February 11, 5:00 am – 6:30 am Eastern (but recorded) – Plantmania: Tulipmania, Online

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The desire to possess new, rare and thus expensive plants has been a feature of garden-making since it began and continues to be so; as recently as February 2022 bulbs of Galanthus plicatus ‘Golden Tears’ were changing hands for £1,850 each. But at least this obsession didn’t bankrupt a nation! This Gardens Trust mini-series tells the story of the mania that developed around three of the most sought-after plants: tulips, rhododendrons and orchids. Each lecture will delve into how, and when these the plants arrived and what happened when they did, explaining along the way just what it was about them that caused such a furor – and a hole in the pocket.

This ticket (register HERE) is for this February 11 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 3 sessions at a cost of £21 via the link here. (Gardens Trust members £6 or £15.75). Ticket sales close 4 hours before the 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 2 weeks) will be sent shortly afterwards.

It’s the species from the Tien Shan mountains, not the ones native to the Mediterranean region, that caused all the fuss. Perhaps first arriving into Germany the late 1550s, the first illustration (of Tulipa suaveolens) was published there in 1561. But it was the Dutch Republic of the 1620 when things began to go bonkers and bulbs nearly bust the country. And yet tulips remain as Dutch as clogs with the tulip bulb export industry worth €117m in 2022 and Keukenhoff and the bulb fields of the ‘Bollenstreek’ major tourist attractions.

Dr Toby Musgrave FSA FLS is a garden and plants historian, horticulturist and author. His books have covered a wide range of subjects from head gardeners to heritage fruit and vegetables, plant hunters to paradise gardens, and a biography of Sir Joseph Banks. He lives in Denmark where he gardens one of the historic de Runde Haver and when not gardening, teaching or writing he works as a submersible pilot.

Image: Jacob Marrel, Four Tulips, detail, c.1635, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, public domain