Massachusetts Horticultural Society’s 17th Festival of Trees showcases dozens of decorated trees as well as Snow Village, including a model railroad display. This annual event takes place at The Gardens at Elm Bank, 900 Washington Street, Wellesley, MA 02482. The venues are handicapped accessible.
Mostly displayed in the Hunnewell Building, the Festival offers beautifully decorated holiday trees that are donated and decorated by local businesses, garden clubs and other organizations, and individuals. Holiday lights and decorations fill the Garden. See the Garden at Elm Bank in a new light with holiday lightscapes, magical displays, and the perfect photo opportunities. You’ll get a hot cocoa at the gate and finish your visit with s’mores by the firepits.
Visitors ‘vote’ with their raffle tickets, selecting the tree(s) they would like to win at the end of the event. Tree sizes vary from one foot to nine feet in height and some have gifts in addition to the decorations. This year there will also be a virtual Festival in addition to the physical display.
Another and totally different experience is provided by Snow Village, an indoor exhibit occupying a whole room. This large display features model trains wending their way through villages and vignettes, including Christmas in the City (Boston of course!), Fenway Park, a Dickensian village, the North Pole and hundreds of decorated houses and lights. There are too many Santas to count as well as skaters galore. This is a visual treat for young and old alike and each year it is a little different.
At the intersection of art and science, the still life paintings of Rachel Ruysch (1664–1750) present an extraordinary variety of plants, reptiles, and insects. Though she achieved great success in her lifetime, Ruysch’s work was largely overlooked in the centuries following her death and has not been the subject of a major exhibition—until now. Rachel Ruysch: Artist, Naturalist, and Pioneer at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA), is the first-ever retrospective dedicated to the artist, tracing the full arc of her seven-decade career.
The exhibition presents 35 of Ruysch’s finest paintings—some being shown to the public for the first time— alongside plant and insect specimens from Harvard University’s Herbarium and Museum of Comparative Zoology. Ruysch’s paintings of species imported from Dutch colonial territories revolutionized the genre of still lifes while reflecting the intertwined histories of exploitation, resource extraction, and colonial expansion. The exhibition also includes works by other women artists including her sister Anna Ruysch, Maria Sibylla Merian, and Alida Withoos. Together, these works reveal how women advanced scientific knowledge in Europe during the 17th and 18th centuries.
The exhibition was curated by Anna Knaap, Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo Curator of Paintings, Art of Europe, with guidance for the scientific content from Charles Davis, Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University and Curator of Vascular Plants in the Harvard University Herbaria.
Land Portal is a walking tour and published resource by artists Ellie Irons and Aubrie James that reveals ecological and geological features throughout deCordova’s Sculpture Park. Through this project, Irons and James aim to “foster a sense of place (in space, and in time) by calling attention to the ‘background’—the vast, alive, and ever-transforming ‘negative space’ that makes up the parts of the museum and park that are not sculptures or artworks.”
By following their annotated map, visitors are drawn to lesser-known environmental sites of deCordova’s campus, including unique tree specimens, remnants of earlier agricultural land use, and bedrock shaped by glacial sheets. At each station, visitors can follow a series of activations to connect sky and earth and ground themselves further within the surrounding landscape.
Ellie Irons is an artist and educator living and working on Mohican land in current-day Troy, New York, USA. From foraged watercolor paintings to un-lawning experiments, her work combines socially engaged art, ecology fieldwork, and embodied learning. She is a co-founder of the Next Epoch Seed Library and the Environmental Performance Agency, collaborations investigating relationships between humans and spontaneous urban plants (aka weeds). Her solo and collaborative work has been part of recent exhibitions on contemporary environmental art, including Seeds: Containers of a World to Come at the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Ecological Consciousness: Artist as Instigator at Wave Hill, and Unsettled Nature at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. Her work has been covered by publications ranging from Art in America to the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Irons received a BA from Scripps College in Los Angeles and an MFA from Hunter College in New York. In December 2021, she completed a PhD in arts practice at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, focused on socially engaged environmental art. Her book Feral Hues: A Guide to Painting with Weeds was published by PS Hudson in spring 2023. She is currently Co-Director of The Sanctuary for Independent Media’s NATURE Lab.
Aubrie James is an artist and scientist who uses her intimate understanding of ecology to probe systems of knowing—scientific, artistic, and otherwise. Her wide-ranging art practice intervenes on scientific convention to theorize ecology as an interactive practice of co-constructing internal (psychic) and external (material, organismic) landscapes. Holding a Bachelor’s Degree in Animal Ecology from Iowa State University and a PhD in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Cornell University, her research led her to question how scientific convention had limited her perception and communication of the natural world. Her art practice began as scientific experiments which were covertly designed as land art, and has expanded to include sculpture, multimedia installation, and walks. She formalized her artistic practice with a Master of Science Degree in Art, Culture, and Technology at MIT. Her artworks have been exhibited at the MIT Museum, MIT.nano, and the Weisner Gallery in Cambridge, MA; the Distillery Gallery in Boston, MA; and Espacio Enredo in Madrid, Spain. Her ongoing scientific research focuses on plant biodiversity and has most recently been published in academic journals including Ecology Letters, Ecological Monographs, and Ecology. She currently lives and works in Queens, New York.
The exhibit will be on view at the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, 51 Sandy Pond Road in Lincoln, through May 31, 2026. For more information visit https://thetrustees.org/exhibit/land-portal/
The Boston Parks & Recreation Department announce the dates and times of upcoming holiday lighting events. More may be added, and we will keep you informed.
Color Flows on Winter Street is a multi-week event that will transform Downtown Crossing into a vibrant, welcoming destination for residents and visitors. As part of the City of Boston’s effort to reimagine our streets and pedestrian zones as safer, more engaging, and enjoyable for all, the event features public art programming, lighting, games, food, and live performances for all ages. This pilot program will test new approaches to street use and encourage long-term investment in this corridor, as part of the City of Boston’s Design Vision, led by the Planning Department. The installation will feature art by Massiel Grullón and food from local restaurant jm Curley and is being done in partnership with the Downtown Boston Alliance and Groundswell Design Group.
SOLSTICE: Reflections on Winter Light is an annual event at Mount Auburn Cemetery that includes an outdoor journey with large-scale light and sound artworks created by MASARY, and an indoor experience with live music and candle lighting. Guests are invited to walk through the light-filled landscape, explore the Winter Solstice atmosphere, and to reflect on moments of change as the year ends and a new cycle begins. Connect to a landscape of exceptional beauty, consider an intention for the new year, or commemorate the memory of a loved one. Let SOLSTICE light your way as you encounter the unique spirit of Mount Auburn. Tickets on sale at https://www.mountauburnsolstice.org/
“Step into the world of Downton Abbey and be transported to early 20th-century England, where the aristocratic Crawley family and their devoted staff navigate a rapidly changing era. Marvel at a curated collection of one-of-a-kind fresh floral mannequins inspired by the series’ unforgettable characters and iconic period fashion. From Lady Mary’s sophisticated beaded gowns and statement hats, to the impeccably tailored uniforms of the household staff, each floral masterpiece will bring Downton Abbey’s timeless style and compelling narratives to life.” The Prudential Center will display this traveling exhibition November 5 – 9. For more information visit https://www.fleursdevilles.com/post/announcing-fleurs-de-villes-downton-abbey
If you are a member of The Garden Club of the Back Bay, you may join other members on Thursday, November 6 at 10 am – meet at the indoor entrance to Eataly. The exhibit is free and open to the public.
In June 2025 deCordova opened Nature Sanctuary, an outdoor exhibition that explores relationships between the natural world and ideas of home. Spanning the Sculpture Park’s front lawn and beyond, this exhibition features original, site-inspired commissions and loans by six women artists: Venetia Dale, Kapwani Kiwanga, Joiri Minaya, Zohra Opoku, Kathy Ruttenberg, and Evelyn Rydz. The exhibit will remain on view through October 4, 2026.
The artworks of Nature Sanctuary express refuge, care, and shared protective relationship between humans and the natural world. Through their work, these artists consider past, present, and future ramifications of climate change, as well as deeper histories of land use and the migration of people, plants, and animals across homelands. Their projects also reveal contradictions inherent to a “nature sanctuary” and expose how the exclusion or displacement of living beings has been justified to protect the natural world.
Nature Sanctuary is framed by deCordova’s former identity as a family home and the museum’s present-day integration within The Trustees. As Massachusetts’ largest and the nation’s first conservation and preservation nonprofit, The Trustees protects more than 120 special places, as well as countless plants and animals. The exhibition deepens awareness of deCordova’s “more than human” landscape and its unique ecological and geological features. Programming and interpretation led by environmental caretakers will center these interconnections of art and place. The deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum is located at 51 Sandy Pond Road in Lincoln, and more information may be found at https://thetrustees.org/exhibit/nature-sanctuary/
Flock, the Berkshire Botanical Garden exhibition running October 18 – November 30 at the Leonhardt Gallery in Stockbridge, will feature all of the paintings from The Illuminated Book of Birds (Timber Press), a new book written and illustrated by Robin Crofut-Brittingham, alongside a selection of works from her ongoing fine art practice. Crofut-Brittingham’s work is grounded in a long-standing interest in natural history. What began as quiet notes in sketchbooks — observations, scribbled bird facts, myth fragments, and found images — has grown into a visual archive that now takes the form of a richly illustrated book featuring birds from around the world and interesting factoids about each one.
Each painting in The Illuminated Book of Birds is a page of research made visible: a conversation between science and story, observation and imagination. The book is both part of and a natural extension of the artist’s broader practice. Come and see the original paintings from the book, featuring over 300 hand-painted birds from around the world. For more information visit https://www.berkshirebotanical.org/leonhardt-galleries-2025
If you find yourself on Martha’s Vineyard this fall, you are warmly welcome to experience award-winning photographer Libby Ellis’s new collection of black-and-white photographic portraits of garden-grown flowers. Interweaving “little particles of dream,” Ellis has reenvisioned the Kunstkammers, or Collector’s Cabinets, in the reading room at The Carnegie, part of the Vineyard Preservation Trust, in the seaside village of Edgartown.
Libby Ellis is a photographer creating contemplative photographic portraits of garden-grown flora. Her work has been exhibited in museums and galleries in the US and Europe, including the Saatchi Gallery in London. Ellis’s flora portraits have been awarded distinguish by the Royal Horticultural Society and can be found on exhibit in the permanent collections of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and the Harvard Divinity School.
