Continuing a 54-year tradition of growing and showing at Berkshire Botanical Garden, the Grow Show is back! Floral designers and backyard gardeners are the celebrities at the Garden’s annual Grow Show on Aug. 9 – 10, where beautiful floral arrangements and the peak summer harvest are spotlighted in this upbeat, judged event featuring five design and nearly 80 horticulture classes on display in the Exhibition Hall. Details here.
The Grow Show is free with Garden admission.
The new bio-absorption garden – aka rain garden – next to the Marble House visitor parking lot in Newport was officially dedicated in June, though with recent rains it had already been doing its job of preventing stormwater runoff.
A project of Scenic Aquidneck (The Preservation Society of Newport County, Aquidneck Island Land Trust, Preserve Rhode Island and the van Beuren Charitable Foundation), the garden was constructed by O’Connor Design Build in Middletown.
This 2,800-square-foot garden will capture and filter stormwater runoff, reducing pollution and mitigating flooding. It is functional and environmentally friendly but also beautifies the space with an array of new native plantings that will promote biodiversity while attracting birds and pollinators. Preservation Society CEO Trudy Coxe noted that this new rain garden is the latest in a series of important projects completed by Scenic Aquidneck. Others include rebuilding hundreds of feet of stone wall, a project to bury power lines along Second Beach in Middletown, documenting historic barns across Aquidneck Island and pushing for historic tax credits at the state level. For more information on properties managed by The Preservation Society of Newport County, visit https://www.newportmansions.org/. Photo credit to Natasha Harrison of the Newport Tree Conservancy, far left.
This summer, Berkshire Botanical Garden has become a sanctuary for art lovers with “DayDream,” a captivating exhibition showcasing works by celebrated contemporary and modern artists. As part of the exhibition’s summer programming, curator James Salomon will host a special evening of conversation and exploration on Saturday, July 26, from 5 to 7 p.m. Salomon will be joined by a selection of featured artists — John Gordon Gauld, Peter D. Gerakaris, Ann Getsinger, Cate Pasquarelli, Anastasia Traina, and Cynthia Wick — for an engaging gallery talk that delves into the ideas and inspiration behind their work. They may even read passages from the exhibition catalogue, where every participating artist contributes their personal daydreaming stories and insights. For more information, and to register, visit https://www.berkshirebotanical.org/events/daydream-curator-and-artist-talk
Visit Grow Native Mass in Lexington and enjoy some art. At Grow Native, we seek to build a shared vision of the world that views humans as being “of nature,” not separate from it. This helps us reframe our landscapes and integrate our built environment into a native plant heritage that must be reclaimed it we are to sustain life as we know it. We must embrace local systems while we also operate in a globally connected world. With that in mind, we are delighted to present our summer art show, Native Plants & Northeast Ecosystems.
We are pleased to feature nine New England artists:
Julie C. Baer • Steve Bennett • Paula Pitman Brown • Mike DeRosa • Daisy Hebb Barbara Kibler • Michaela Nielsen • Michele O’Neil • Bella Rozza
Art Show open hours will be 11:00 am – 3:00 pm Monday-Friday until August 15— in the First Parish Church in Lexington at 7 Harrington Road. Drop in during those hours to immerse yourself in this broad collection of works that focus in on the detailed beauty of native plants, and zoom way out to ponder dilemmas like development and plastic pollution that natural ecosystems face. Bring the kids— there are activities for them, too!
Three life-size bronze portrait busts — of Leonardo da Vinci, Confucius, and Hypatia of Alexandria — are now on view in the garden of the King Hooper Mansion, 8 Hooper Street in Marblehead, home to the Marblehead Arts Association. Created by the artist to honor the human capacity for thought, the series invites reflection on our innate ability to reason, imagine, and shape the world — just as these great thinkers once did. Their lives exemplify the profound personal and collective transformations made possible through deep inquiry. This exhibit, on view though October 1, is generously supported by Landry & Acari. For more information, visit https://www.studiojonathansherman.com/visit-the-sculpture-exhibit
Join Historic New England at the Sarah Orne Jewett House, 5 Portland Street in South Berwick, Maine on Joly 10 from 5 – 7 for an opening reception of our new exhibition!
In partnership with the Dover Arts Commission, this summer’s gallery exhibition at the Sarah Orne Jewett House is A Seacoast Garden. This exhibition is inspired by the new collections going on displayed at Hamilton House. This new display examines Elise Tyson’s early 20th century photography of the Hamilton House Gardens and her floral arrangements. Tyson found inspiration for her photography and art in her garden and others along the seacoasts of Maine and New Hampshire. Elise was inspired by the beauty and uniqueness she found in these gardens. A Seacoast Garden weaves together the works of local artists that are interpretations or are inspired by the local seacoast gardens of today with Elise Tyson’s garden photographs. Together, this exhibition examens the unique beauty of seacoast gardens and the purposes they serve today and in the past.
Free. Please call (207) 384-2454 for more information.
“There is no record so true as the good photographic study; as we see the conditions of plant life eternally changing everywhere, the value of these permanent authentic records to future generations cannot be overestimated.” — Edwin Hale Lincoln, 1916
Photographs of daisies, lilies, ferns, milkweed and other plants welcome visitors to Wild Flowers of New England. The exhibit at the Boston Athenaeum, 10 1/2 Beacon Street in Boston, is on view now through September 5. Centering around the work of Massachusetts-based photographer Edwin Hale Lincoln, this exhibition explores his photographic effort to document and preserve New England’s wildflowers.
Over three decades, Lincoln explored the forests around his Berkshire home, studying the lives of native wildflowers, and photographing the plants in his studio. Lincoln created a unique photographic language, blending scientific specificity and artistic expression, producing portraits that celebrate the ephemeral beauty of native plants.
Wild Flowers of New England places Lincoln’s work in conversation with botanical printers and photographers of the past and present and contextualizes his practice within larger preservationist movements. Through Lincoln’s lens, visitors will see the timeless allure of New England’s wildflowers and the enduring power of botanical artistry.
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.
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.
What is a garden? A wild space? A curated collection of plants? Or a plot of soil in which to seed memory, connection, and creativity? This summer, the Gardner Museum’s Hostetter Gallery springs to life with the large-scale sculptures of Ming Fay (1943 – 2025), whose work reconsiders gardens as sites of creative potential that reflect the lives and desires of those who cultivate them.
At once playful and contemplative, Ming Fay: Edge of the Garden constructs a space of wonder that calls on visitors to view the world around them with new appreciation. Sculptures of fruits, seeds, shells, as well as hybrid plants borne of his boundless imagination, surprise in their unexpected pairings and sizes. Together, they conjure new meanings through familiar shapes, scents, and symbols. In his papier-mâché, bronze and ceramic gardens, Fay unites personal, collective, and cultural memories, building gardens as fantastical spaces born of curiosity, longing, and his own lived experiences as part of the Chinese diaspora in the United States.
On view from June 26 – September 21, 2025, Ming Fay: Edge of the Garden invites visitors to escape the city for a brief moment and marvel at the extraordinary, ordinary beauty of a maple tree twirler, a ripe cherry, or a crooked wishbone—and how they can unlock memory and imagination.
Where We Meet: Imagining Gardens and Futures, a partner exhibition at Pao Arts Center will explore the city of Boston’s Chinatown gardens through the art of Ming Fay, Mel Taing, and Yu-Wen Wu from July 18 – October 10, 2025.
For details visit https://www.gardnermuseum.org/ming-fay-exhibition
