The Friends of the Mary Ellen Welch Greenway invite you to learn how East Boston’s abandoned rail corridor became the beautiful Greenway it is today, on Thursday, May 21 from 6:30 – 7:30 pm at the East Boston Branch Library of the Boston Public Library, 365 Bremen Street in East Boston. Special guest speaker Valerie Burns will speak. Valerie served as the president of Boston Natural Areas Network for the last quarter-century.
The fifth in The Gardens Trust’s online course celebrating the bicentenary of The Gardener’s Magazine takes place May 20 at 1 pm Eastern.
It was exactly two hundred years ago that John Claudius Loudon (1782-1843) started publishing The Gardener’s Magazine, the first periodical devoted solely to horticulture. As Loudon described it, the aims of the magazine were ‘to disseminate new and important information on all topics connected with horticulture, and to raise the intellect and the character of those engaged in this art.’
In celebration of this bicentenary, the Gardens Trust is hosting a six-part online series that explores the ideas and inventions of this extraordinary Scottish writer and designer, and his equally industrious and radical wife, Jane (?1807-1858). Jane has her own centenary celebrations this year: her novel The Mummy! is set exactly 100 years in the future, in 2126.
Between them, the Loudons were the driving force behind the rise of the amateur middle class gardener, and also the real professionalism of the 19th century head gardener. Their story is fascinating and will make you realize how much we owe to their non-stop work ethic and enthusiasm.
Series tickets are being offered at the special celebratory sum of £21 for all six sessions, a 50% reduction on our usual ticket price for a six-part series. Tickets to the May 20 session may be purchased through Eventbrite HERE. 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 until 10 June) will be sent shortly afterwards.
This talk reconsiders John Claudius Loudon as not only an eminent landscape gardener and encyclopaedist, but as a visionary urban thinker. Through analysis of his publications and his design for Gravesend Terrace Gardens, it will explore the meanings of the Gardenesque – a style which Loudon evolved and defined over the course of his career. The aesthetic and reformist ideals underpinning this unique approach to landscape design help frame his macro-scale response to the anxieties of the industrial city, which took the form of a radical plan in his 1829 Gardener’s Magazine. Loudon’s prescient proposal, which imagined London growing in alternating, concentric zones of town and country, arguably deserves a place in the lineage of Green Belt thinking. Gardenesque Urbanism, as presented here, perhaps represents an overlooked approach to the reconciliation of urban growth with the innate human affinity for open space.
Patrick Smith is an architectural designer at IID Architects – a Richmond-based practice which specializes in the education sector. He previously studied Sculpture at Central Saint Martins, and then Architecture at the University of Cambridge. Whilst at Cambridge, he became interested in landscape theory and its intersection with urban design. For his research into the work of John Claudius Loudon, he was awarded the 2025 Mavis Batey Essay Prize by the Gardens Trust.
This summer the Urban Farming Institute is inviting a small cohort of youth to join us on the farm in our movement toward building a healthy community. Young Farmers Project is a program that will serve as a site of belonging and transformation for youth where we will combine hands-on land-based skills, art, collective leadership, civic engagement, and political education to develop a loving relationship with the land, ourselves, and each other.
Together we will…
Learn how to grow food through hands-on farming
Explore nature and our local ecosystems
Make art, share food, and move our bodies
Design a community action project based on the needs in our lives and community
Share what we learn with our community
Consider our passions, experiences, and skills in creating positive social changeProgram Dates:
July 6 – August 14 (6 weeks)
This program will run from Monday – Friday (28 hours/week)
9:00 am – 3:00 pm (Wednesdays 9:00 am – 1:00 pm)
Location:
Urban Farming Institute
487 Norfolk Street
Mattapan, MA 02186
Compensation: $16/hour; 28 hours per week
For complete information visit https://www.urbanfarminginstitute.org/young-farmers-project
This Berkshire Botanical Garden exhibition at the Leonhardt Gallery showcases Jenine Shereos’ ongoing dialogue with plants and the natural world. Visitors will encounter her dreamlike photographs of floral installations created in France, alongside textiles woven from yarn she hand-dyed using local plants and lichens. Also featured are her intricately crafted leaves stitched entirely with human hair. Shereos, who lives in the Berkshires, is Assistant Professor of Fibers at Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston. Exhibition hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m, daily. For more information visit https://www.berkshirebotanical.org/leonhardt-galleries-2026
Join The Sterling Garden Club on May 21 at 10:30 am for a free lecture from Elizabeth Barnes, MA Department of Agricultural Resources.
The signs and symptoms of invasive pests are often in plain sight but go unrecognized too late. These non- native organisms from insects to blights, impact a wide range of New England gardens, forests, meadows and roadsides. Elizabeth will explain how to find these pests and what to do if you discover them. Learn how to recognize and identify signs of several area pests and how you can help to reduce the pests’ impact and spread. The program will be held at American Legion Hall, 32 School Street in Sterling. Please pre-register by May 19 by emailing SterlingGardenClub1934@gmail.com
The Cape Cod Hydrangea Festival is an annual summer garden celebration, showcasing gardens and plants of all kinds across Cape Cod. This ten-day festival’s main attractions are the daily tours of private gardens, each designed and maintained by the individual homeowners and carrying a unique charm. You are sure to enjoy such eclectic spaces, not to mention the good feeling of supporting a variety of local nonprofits which will benefit from the proceeds of each tour.
Gardens are only one part of the festival. Enjoy workshops and lectures presented by leading international horticulturalists, discover promotions at participating nurseries and home centers, take a class to learn proper hydrangea pruning techniques, or even watch a painting demonstration by renowned local artists.
Private garden tours are self-guided, and the admission is $5 per person per garden. You can pay cash at each garden on the day of the garden tour. Each garden is open from 10 am to 4 pm unless otherwise specified and only on the days specified. All garden tours are rain or shine and nonrefundable. Different prices apply.
If you’re interested in participating during the 2026 Cape Cod Hydrangea Festival by hosting a garden tour, offering a promotion at your business, becoming a sponsor, please visit this page. Nonprofits and gardeners who want to participate in 2026 Cape Cod Hydrangea Festival, contact greta@capecodchamber.org.
Throughout history, gardeners have been compelled to put pen to paper to capture the beauty, seasonal changes and quiet philosophy of their plots. Claire Masset’s new book, Garden Voices: A Year of Gardeners’ Writing, brings together some of the best of these musings—through letters, diary entries, and articles—in a unique anthology organized around the calendar year. Readers are transported across time and place to enjoy rare horticultural glimpses from both world-famous gardeners and lesser-known—though no less inspiring—garden writers.
On May 19 at 2 pm Eastern, Claire Masset will explore a selection of these voices, from artists Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro and Van Gogh to writer-gardeners Celia Thaxter, Derek Jarman and Vita Sackville-West. Accompanied by carefully selected paintings and photographs, the talk will offer insights into their lives, thoughts, and achievements, revealing gardens not only as places of beauty, but as powerful sources of artistic and personal expression. $5 for Garden Conservancy members, $15 for nonmembers. Register at https://www.gardenconservancy.org/events/web26-writing-the-garden
Join the Northern Ireland Heritage Gardens Trust for a weekend in October at its Annual Conference, to be held at the Brandon House Hotel in New Ross, County Wexford. Commemorating the 250th anniversary of American independence, this conference aims to highlight how North American plants have profoundly shaped Ireland’s gardens, evolving from the exotic, treasured specimens brought back from the early colonies to the staples of modern prairie-style popularized by Piet Oudolf.
Pioneering expeditions in the 17th century, such as thos of Tradescant to Virginia, brought back the tulip tree, swamp cypress, plhlox, asters, and Virginia creeper, while collectors in the following century such as John Bartram and Peter Collinson introduced maples, magnolias, and rhododendrons amoung many others, fostering a trend for “American gardens”.
The 19th century exploration of the Pacific Northwest by collectors such as David Douglas, Thomas Coulter, and Theodor Hartweg, introduced many more new tres and shrubs, their transport helped by the invention of the Wardian case, all of which have made an enduring impact on Ireland’s parks and gardens. The conference will visit the JF Kennedy Arboretum, established in 1968, which has one fo the most comprehensive and significant collections of woody plants in the world,
For complete information on cost and registration visit https://www.nihgt.org/events/27/thurs%2D1%2Doct%2D2026%5F2026+annual+conference/
Step into a world where clay becomes living form in Grand Gesture: Monumental Vessels in the Garden, an exhibition at Berkshire Botanical Garden in Stockbridge, Mass., featuring the striking sculptures of Vermont-based ceramicist Stephen Procter. Placed throughout the Garden, Procter’s works turn simple materials into forms that feel both grounded and expressive.
The exhibition runs May 16 through October. A public reception will be held on Friday, May 15, from 5 to 7 p.m. Garden hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., daily.
Procter’s large vessels — some weighing up to 250 pounds and standing as tall as five feet — are both monumental and approachable, inviting reflection and a personal response. As physical objects, they draw the eye and shape the spaces around them; as sculptures, they carry a calm, steady presence.
Reflecting on the meaning behind the exhibition’s title, Procter explains that a “grand gesture” goes beyond scale. “More important is the inspiration that motivates and justifies the scale. The animating impulse often includes some mixture of generosity, expansiveness, gratitude, compassion, awe, and love,” he says.
Set within the changing environment of the Garden, the works shift over time. “In the Garden, the vessels are constantly changing,” Procter notes. “The surfaces, even unglazed, subtly reflect light. Shadows of leaves play on them, they shine in rain … and take on moss patina over time.”
Procter describes his practice as “a long-term investigation into the mystery of form,” exploring how gesture and volume can evoke emotional responses.
Visitors may find themselves forming unexpected connections with the sculptures. According to Procter, the vessels communicate in a non-verbal language that reaches beyond the intellect: “Their mode of communication bypasses the realm of the intellect and goes directly to something deeper.” If they could speak, he adds, “they might be, ‘Be here now. I am with you.’”
In addition to the outdoor installation, smaller, classically inspired works by Procter will be on view in the Leonhardt Galleries.
After decades of refining his craft, Procter still finds each installation moment meaningful. “We set it down, and so often someone in the party exclaims words I love to hear: ‘It looks like it has always been here!’”
For more information visit https://www.berkshirebotanical.org/
Join The Garden Museum online on May 20 for an extraordinary evening with Kazuyuki Ishihara – the Japanese garden designer christened the “Magician of Greenery” by the late Queen Elizabeth II after she encountered his breathtaking work at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show.
This year, Ishihara will exhibit the Tokonoma Garden – Samumaya no Niwa, a nostalgic Japanese courtyard garden that invites visitors to reflect, connect, and appreciate traditional beauty.
Born in Nagasaki, Ishihara began his journey studying Ikebana, the Japanese art of flower arrangement, before finding his singular vision: weaving traditional Japanese elements – stone gardens, bonsai, moss – into an internationally acclaimed design language. Since his Chelsea debut in 2004, he has amassed an extraordinary 12 gold medals, and in 2025 took home both Garden of the Year and the People’s Choice Award for his garden Cha No Niwa.
In this rare and intimate lecture, Ishihara will share the philosophy, craft and creative process behind his celebrated gardens. £10 Livestream. Register at www.gardenmuseum.org
