Mark your calendars for an unforgettable celebration of art, culture, and community! On Saturday, October 4, 2025, the Arnold Arboretum will host MassQ Ball: Color, a free, day-long festival open to all and created and co-produced by Castle of our Skins and multimedia artist Daniel Callahan. Set against the stunning backdrop of the Arboretum landscape, the Ball will feature live performances, music, dance, storytelling, and interactive art experiences that invite all to reflect on the power of color and connection. The event centers around the ritual of “MassQing”—the creation of intricate, symbolic face paintings that express personal and cultural identity. We are honored to co-sponsor MassQ Ball: Color as a community event that shares our values of education and environmental equity in the landscape. Stay tuned for more details—and prepare to be inspired.
The much-anticipated event will include a curated lineup of musicians, dancers, culture bearers, and visual artists from various ethnic and cultural backgrounds including: Anjali Nath (Classical North Indian Kathak Dance); Danza Orgánica (Social Justice Dance); Floor Lords (HipHop Dance); Hyde Square Task Force Ambassadors (Afro Latin Youth Music, Dance, and Theatre); Jean Appolon Expressions (Haitian Dance Ensemble); Gund Kwok (Chinese Lion Dance); Isaura Oliveira & Power of Skirts (Afro-Brazilian Indigenous Performance Ritual); Cornell Coley (African Drum Circle); Steph Davis (Ghanaian Gyli); Dis N’ Dat Band (Trinidad & Tobago Steel Pan); Christopher Robinson (ASL Spoken Word Artist Griot); Teen Empowerment (Spoken Word Artist Griots); Ifé Franklin (African American Ring Shout); Shaw Pong Liu (Chinese American Installation Artist); Andre StrongBearHeart Gaines, Jr. (Nipmuc Installation Artist); Crystal Bi (Taiwanese-American Installation Artist); Lilly Manycolors (Installation Artist); and Naoe Suzuki (Japanese American Installation Artist). For complete details click HERE.
Join The Polly Hill Arboretum on July 2 at 5:30 pm for a journey into the biology and ecology of the southern pine beetle. Although this tiny beetle is a newcomer on Martha’s Vineyard, where it is causing extensive pitch pine mortality in parts of the island, it is well known in the southeastern United States. Caroline will share what scientists know about the southern pine beetle from research throughout its range, including how to manage for this native (yet sometimes destructive) insect. Dr. Caroline Kanaskie is a forest entomologist and community ecologist. She recently earned her Ph.D. in Earth and Environmental Science at the University of New Hampshire, where she studied the southern pine beetle at its northern range limits. This special lecture is co-sponsored by BiodiversityWorks MV.
Save Saturday, July 19 for The Bar Harbor Garden Club’s 2025 tour, Gardens by the Sea. We invite you to visit five stunning Bar Harbor gardens to relax and enjoy nature’s beauty from 10 am to 4 pm.
Our deepest thanks to Bar Harbor Bank and Trust, our Presenting Sponsor, our dedicated planning committee, and you for making our garden tours a huge success. As we look forward to the 2025 Gardens by the Sea Tour, we are grateful for the continued generosity of all the volunteers, members, sponsors and attendees.
This fall, New England Botanical Society, along with Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens, will be hosting a conference, Plant Migration in a Changing Climate. The conference will be held October 3-4, 2025 at The Gardens in Boothbay, ME. Our featured plenary speakers will be Jesse Bellemare, Associate Professor of Biological Sciences at Smith College; Bethany Bradley, Professor of Environmental Conservation at University of Massachusetts Amherst; and Jay Wason, Associate Professor of Forest Ecosystem Physiology at The University of Maine.
General conference details are below and will be updated as we get closer to the conference. If you are not a NEBS member and are interested in receiving conference updates, including application forms to give an oral presentation or submit a poster, please complete this brief form. Register and Pay here. Standard $100, NEBS member $75, Student $30, NEBS Student Member $15.
On July 11 and 12, the Nantucket Garden Club, in collaboration with the Artist’s Association of Nantucket, the Nantucket Arts Council and selected Nantucket town galleries presents the Art with Blooms Gallery Walk. This event showcases well-known local artists and Nantucket Garden Club flower arrangers who interpret a chosen work of art in each gallery with creative flower arrangements. The Art with Blooms Gallery Walk brings new excitement to our Nantucket art scene and is open to the public free of charge. In alternating years, the Club hosts the Community Green Thumb Flower Show, a GCA Show, which features flower arrangements by members and local residents, horticulture entries as well as photography and education. This show is well-attended by visitors and residents.
Acquire insight into the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society’s mission to advance health and well-being through horticulture, and the various programs that support this mission. Discover the Society’s work supporting community gardens, planting and caring for thousands of street trees, establishing stormwater solutions, cleaning and greening vacant land, maintaining public gardens and landscapes, and producing the iconic Philadelphia Flower Show.
This Chicago Botanic Garden class on July 9 will be taught online via Zoom. All registrations must be submitted online two days before your class starts. Registered students will receive login instructions one day in advance.
The School’s CEUs=2 hours OPC elective. The lecturer is Andrew Bunting, vice president of horticulture, Pennsylvania Horticultural Society. $52 for Chicago Botanic Society members, $65 for nonmembers. Register at www.chicagobotanic.org
Spend the day on Saturday, August 16 with Berkshire Botanical Garden at Rockland Farm in Canaan, N.Y., for an immersive symposium on ornamental garden design. Hosted in a beautifully restored barn surrounded by gardens, this event features presentations from Roy Diblick, Kathryn Herman, Frances Palmer, and Dean Riddle. Morning refreshments and lunch are included. The day will conclude with cocktails and a guided tour by our hosts, Madeline and Ian Hooper.
Roy Diblick is co-owner of Northwind Perennial Farm in Burlington, Wis. He has been growing traditional and native perennials since 1978. His garden designs emphasize plant relationships to maintenance strategies and costs. Diblick’s design and planting projects include the Louis Sullivan Arch for the Modern Wing of the Art Institute of Chicago and the lakeside plantings at the Shedd Aquarium. He recently designed the perennial plantings for Scott Byron’s new garden design for the Chicago History Museum and a 12,000-square-foot gravel garden for the Argonne National Laboratory, which houses the world’s biggest computer. His book The Know Maintenance Perennial Garden (Timber Press) highlights his perennial gardening practice.
Kathryn Herman is the principal at Kathryn Herman Design, based in New Canaan, Conn. With 28 years of experience, she brings a rich horticultural background, a deep appreciation for architecture and insights gained from extensive global travel to her residential and commercial projects across the United States and internationally. Her thoughtful and sophisticated designs have earned widespread recognition, including multiple Palladio and Stanford White Awards, as well as honors from the Connecticut and New York Chapters of the American Society of Landscape Architects. Her work has been featured in leading publications both in the U.S. and abroad, including Veranda, House & Garden UK and Architectural Digest. In 2012, Kathryn was inducted into the New England Design Hall of Fame for her contributions to landscape architecture in the region. She was named a “Star of Design” by the Pacific Design Center in 2017, and in 2018 she received the prestigious Arthur Ross Award.
Frances Palmer has been working in ceramics since 1987. Though trained as an art historian, she has always been drawn to creating with her hands. She began as a printmaker, but over time her creative practice evolved to include pottery and gardening — two disciplines that, like printmaking, transform ideas into tangible form. Palmer doesn’t create or cultivate to keep things for herself; instead, she finds joy in sending her work out into the world for others to use and appreciate. Her ceramics—whether everyday dishware or distinctive vases — are functional pieces of art, thoughtfully handmade and intended for daily life. Each one, regardless of size or shape, is treated as a unique expression. She feels honored to know that her work is part of people’s lives across the country, especially when it’s present during shared meals, celebrations, and the simple joys of gathering with others.
Dean Riddle first fell in love with the native plants of the southern Appalachians. That passion led him to spend a year interning at Hillier Nurseries in Hampshire, England, where he cared for a renowned collection of shrubs and trees. Still, tucked in the back of his mind were memories of his grandmother’s garden, bursting with ripe tomatoes and colorful zinnias. Later, when he found himself in the Catskills, he planted a kitchen garden for his friend Kate Pierson, singer of the B-52s. “I had gone from being a snooty horticulture student, obsessed with orchards and rare woody plants, to growing a kitchen and flower garden where I could simply go out and pick fresh lettuce,” he told The New York Times. Since 1990, he has run a small garden design/build company in the Catskills and Hudson Valley. Riddle is the author of the book Out in the Garden: Growing a Beautiful Life (HarperCollins). He lives in Livingston Manor, N.Y.
Join Urban Grower Lacey for a taste of native flora with The Trustees on Saturday, July 12 from 11 – 12:30. Learn about sustainable food systems and the local edible plants that used to– and could again– feed the northeast. The program will be held at City Natives, 30 Edgewater Drive in Mattapan. It’s free. Street parking is available and the nursery is a short walk from the Mattapan Center Red Line Trolley station. Directions and more information at https://thetrustees.org/event/440973/
Join creator, writer, and host of Cultivating Place: Conversations on Natural History and the Human Impulse to Garden, Jennifer Jewell, and Native Plant Trust CEO Tim Johnson as they explore an expansive model for engaging with native plants, one that includes numerous access points for people of all interests and needs to see native plants as assets and allies in their lives. Jennifer will also discuss What We Sow and the process of developing a cohosting model for Cultivating Place. The event takes place July 11 from 7 – 8 at The Foundry, 101 Rogers Street in Cambridge. Free, but donations in any amount encouraged. For more information and to register, visit https://www.nativeplanttrust.org/events/jennifer-jewell-and-tim-johnson-a-fireside-chat-class/
Larry Lederman and Todd Forest will present a webinar on June 26 at 2 pm Eastern with The Garden Conservancy, In Larry’s words: “When I walk into a garden, I am looking for a sense of place. My photography has to capture this sense and reveal the intentionality of the maker of that garden. Setting the composition through framing the view, sometimes as the designer intended, and sometimes as I see it in a particular light and time of day. All gardens present differently through their seasonal life cycles. A portrait may need many visits to discover the inherent beauty of a living landscape.
In Gardening with Nature at the New York Botanical Garden I had a partner in Todd Forrest, Arthur Ross Vice President for Horticulture and Living Collections at the Garden. This book, my third at the NYBG, was to display the multigenerational achievement that is the NYBG. These photographs celebrate the horticultural gift that Todd Forrest, the team of gardeners, and the original founders intended. The gardens are my portal to the natural world. The lyricism of my photographs is in the capture of the vitality of the native plants bathed in the light of the magnificent trees. I will discuss all of this and my approach, the equipment I choose, and the editing software which helps me keep track of the thousands of images that result in a book like Gardening with Nature.”
The event is live on Zoom, $5 members, $15 nonmembers, and there is a special offer for purchasing the book through the registration page here.To register for the webinar only click here.
