Boston Flora

Month: February 2025

  • Wednesday, February 19, 6:00 pm – 7:30 pm Eastern – Mt. Cuba’s Resilient Tree Canopy, Online

    Trees are the backbone of any landscape. With current pest and disease threats and the predicted change in our climate, we must adapt our practices to protect our trees from these stressors. Please join Mt. Cuba staff as we discuss our strategies for preparing our garden’s tree canopy for a changing climate. We will share the thought process and models used to shape our current strategy, our ongoing data collection and tree monitoring tactics, and how we intend to use the information gathered to implement practices that will help nurture a resilient future tree canopy. This program is part of the online Mt. Cuba Lecture Series.

    Nicole DeLizzio is the Arborist Assistant at the Mt. Cuba Center. She holds a BS in Agriculture and Natural Resources with a minor in Wildlife Ecology and Conservation from the University of Delaware. Nicole is an ISA certified arborist. In addition to co-teaching the Ecological Arboriculture course with the rest of the arboriculture team, she can be found sharing her combined passion for trees and art in pyrography, or the art of woodburning. One of Nicole’s favorite ecological gardening concepts is to allow trees to decay in place, when it is safe to do so, to be utilized by wildlife.

    George Coombs, Director of Horticulture at Mt. Cuba Center, leads a team of horticulturists, arborists, and grounds maintenance technicians who cultivate and improve formal and naturalistic gardens and play a pivotal role in the implementation of Mt. Cuba Center’s long-range master plan. George produced award winning reports on native plant research as the former Manager of Horticultural Research at Mt Cuba Center and introduced four new Coreopsis cultivars. He holds a degree of Plant Science from the University of Delaware with a focus in landscape horticulture.

    This program takes place online Wednesday, February 19, 2025. $25. Register at https://mtcubacenter.org/event/mt-cubas-resilient-tree-canopy-online/

  • Saturday, February 22, 10:00 am – Lessons from Large-Scale Restoration: Understanding Our Coastal Ecosystem

    Love the Great Marsh, or live alongside of it? Learn how you can start making plans for your property NOW that will benefit this extraordinary ecosystem. This special workshop will be held at the @ecgreenbelt headquarters at the Cox Reservation. https://grownativemass.org/our-programs/calendar

    Join restoration ecologist Zachary Navarro for unique insights drawn from New England marsh restoration projects. Through professional case studies, discover which native plant species naturally thrive in our coastal environment and why. Learn how our local marshes function as dynamic ecosystems and how residential properties fit into this bigger picture. Understanding these fundamental ecological relationships can inform simpler, more sustainable approaches to coastal property management. The presentation will explore success stories from restoration projects, key native plants, basic marsh ecology, and essential permitting considerations. After a presentation inside Essex County Greenbelt’s headquarters at the Allyn Cox Reservation, we will walk out to the adjacent salt marsh to find examples in the field.

    Zachary Navarro leads Essex Horticulture @essexhorticulture , an ecological restoration firm specializing in coastal wetland rehabilitation throughout southern New England. A certified horticulturist with deep knowledge of native plant communities and invasive species management, he has successfully directed numerous large-scale salt marsh restoration projects across the region. His expertise encompasses ecosystem assessment, sustainable restoration techniques, and long-term habitat management for government and commercial clients.

  • Heirloom Orchard Endowment at New England Botanic Garden at Tower Hill

    New England Botanic Garden at Tower Hill is thrilled to announce a transformative $500,000 gift from George and Diantha Harrington of Kennebunk, Maine, in support of the Garden’s Frank L. Harrington Orchard. This extraordinary contribution will add to the Harrington Orchard endowment to ensure the preservation, care, and educational impact of this heirloom apple orchard for generations to come.

    Located along the botanic garden’s entry drive, the Harrington Orchard is a cherished feature that celebrates the region’s rich agricultural history. It preserves a collection of 119 heirloom apple varieties in an orchard of 268 trees. Also known as heritage apples, heirloom varieties have been passed down over generations and are celebrated for their diversity of taste, color, texture, and size. The Garden’s collection was founded during the Great Depression by Stearns Lothrop Davenport (1885–1973), a trustee of the Worcester County Horticultural Society (WCHS), the organization that operates New England Botanic Garden at Tower Hill. Representing a range of rare and historic apple varieties, the Harrington Orchard is both a living museum and an educational resource, connecting visitors to the art, science, and history of heirloom fruit cultivation.

    “The Harrington Orchard has been a long-term family interest for our family,” said George Harrington. Frank L. Harrington, for whom the orchard is named, was George Harrington’s father and a long-time WCHS supporter. The Harrington family has a connection to Worcester County that dates back generations, with members serving in leadership roles within local government and cultural institutions. George Harrington’s uncle, H. Waite Hurlburt, served as WCHS president from 1979 to 1984. “With this gift, we hope to ensure the Orchard’s vitality and to inspire others to appreciate the deep history and scientific importance of heirloom fruit trees,” Harrington says.

    The endowment supports long-term orchard care, including pruning, pest management, tree replacement, and interpretive programming. As apples cannot be preserved in a seedbank, maintaining living collections like the Harrington Orchard protects uncommon varieties from being lost. Thanks to recent collaborations with academic partners and other experts, the Harrington Orchard is emerging as a resource for advancing scientific knowledge of rare heirloom apple varieties and expanding public awareness about the importance of agricultural biodiversity.

    “George and DD Harrington’s generosity is a testament to their dedication to the preservation of the living collection of this heirloom orchard,” said Grace Elton, CEO of New England Botanic Garden at Tower Hill. “Their gift ensures that the Harrington Orchard will continue to flourish, delight, and educate our community for decades to come.”

    The Frank L. Harrington Orchard is a vital part of the Garden’s commitment to environmental stewardship and the protection of natural resources. To learn more, visit https://nebg.org/orchard/.

    Photo Caption/Credit: Apple blossom blooms in the Frank L. Harrington Orchard at New England Botanic Garden / New England Botanic Garden, Megan Stouffer

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

    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

    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

    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

  • Thursday, February 20, 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm Eastern – Radio-Tracking Monarchs: Harnessing Technology to Unravel Western Migration and Habitat Insights, Online

    Join Xerces Society Endangered Species Conservation Biologist and Monarch Overwintering Specialist, Ashley Fisher, to learn about radio-tracking monarchs. Radio-tracking is a new technology that answers long-held questions about the western monarch movement and habitat use. See this technology in action and how it will help conserve our precious western monarchs. The webinar takes place February 20 at 1 pm Eastern.

    This webinar will be recorded and available on our YouTube channel. Closed Captioning will be available during this webinar.

    Learn more and register here.

  • Tuesday, February 18, 6:00 pm – 7:30 pm – Pépin Lecture Series: A Talk with Sara B. Franklin

    Join Sara B. Franklin at Boston University, 928 Commonwealth Avenue Room 110, on February 18 at 6 pm for a conversation about her latest book, The Editor, to kickoff the Boston University Food & Wine Program’s spring 2025 lecture series. The event is free but registration is requested at www.eventbrite.com. Copies of the book will be available for purchase.

    Legendary editor Judith Jones, the woman behind some of the most important authors of the 20th century—including Julia Child, Anne Frank, Edna Lewis, John Updike, and Sylvia Plath—finally gets her due in this “surprising, granular, luminous, and path-breaking biography” (Edward Hirsch, author of How to Read a Poem).

    At Doubleday’s Paris office in 1949, twenty-five-year-old Judith Jones spent most of her time wading through manuscripts in the slush pile and passing on projects—until one day, a book caught her eye. She read it in one sitting, then begged her boss to consider publishing it. A year later, Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl became a bestseller. It was the start of a culture-defining career in publishing.

    During her more than fifty years as an editor at Alfred A. Knopf, Jones nurtured the careers of literary icons such as Sylvia Plath, Anne Tyler, and John Updike, and helped launched new genres and trends in literature. At the forefront of the cookbook revolution, she published the who’s who of food writing: Edna Lewis, M.F.K. Fisher, Claudia Roden, Madhur Jaffrey, James Beard, and, most famously, Julia Child. Through her tenacious work behind the scenes, Jones helped turn these authors into household names, changing cultural mores and expectations along the way.

    Judith’s work spanned decades of America’s most dramatic cultural change—from the end of World War II through the civil rights movement and the fight for women’s equality—and the books she published acted as tools of quiet resistance. Now, based on exclusive interviews, never-before-seen personal papers, and years of research, her astonishing career is explored for the first time in this “thorough and humanizing portrait” (Kirkus Reviews).

    About the Speaker

    Sara B. Franklin is a writer, teacher, and oral historian. She received a 2020–2021 National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Public Scholars grant for her research on Judith Jones, and teaches courses on food, writing, embodied culture, and oral history at NYU’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study. She is the author of The Editor, the editor of Edna Lewis, and coauthor of The Phoenicia Diner Cookbook. She holds a PhD in food studies from NYU and studied documentary storytelling at both the Duke Center for Documentary Studies and the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies. She lives with her children in Kingston, New York. Find out more at SaraBFranklin.com.

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

    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

    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