Boston Flora

Category: Author Book Signing

  • Tuesday, February 12, 10:00 am – 12:00 noon – Why Grow That When You Can Grow This?

    Andrew Keys, designer , consultant, writer, and lifelong gardener, host and producer of Fine Gardening’s Garden Confidential podcast, and author of Why Grow That When You Can Grow This? will speak on Tuesday, February 12, from 10 – noon at Garden in the Woods, Framingham, in a program co-sponsored by the Ecological Landscaping Association and the New England Wild Flower Society.  Tired of fussy plants that require excessive care and maintenance?  In this presentation, Mr. Keys will discuss native New England alternatives that are sexier and more sustainable than high-maintenance plants in every way.  Pining to grow lilac but lack the full sun?  Try the fragrant pink and white flowers of Korean spice viburnum.  Love the drama of canna but need something hardier?  Tr4y the bold foliage of variegated fleece flower.  Hundreds of all-star alternatives that replace, and often outshine, popular problem plants will be discussed.  $26 for ELA and New England Wild Flower Society members, $32 for non members.  Register by calling 617-436-5838 or visit www.ecolandscaping.org.

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  • Saturday, February 2, 10:00 am – 2:00 pm – Houseplant Smackdown

    Seduced by begonias? Join the crowd. Are you crazy about cacti, spines and all? How about orchids? You must have killed at least one. Have a thing for air plants? There is always room for one in the bathroom.  On Saturday, February 2, from 10 – 2, join three mad gardeners—Tovah Martin, Rob Genneri and David Burdick—and learn how to successfully cram more plants into your house in a hands-on session with houseplants. The event takes place at the Berkshire Botanical Garden, 5 West Stockbridge Road in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Bring a plant to repot or be evaluated. Consider the different growing mixes and learn how to take cuttings and divisions and, finally, how to keep them all happy inside your house until spring. Join the fun with our favorite plant experts for a houseplant smackdown and learn their secrets. You’re guaranteed to go home with more than you came with.

    Tovah Martin is a horticulturist, writer and garden personality living in northwestern Connecticut. She writes for many horticultural publications and has authored several books. Her popular book on terrarium gardens, The New Terrarium, was published in 2009, and The Unexpected Houseplant was published in August of 2012. Rob Gennari is a garden designer and owner of Glendale Botanicals, a specialty tropical nursery located in Berkshire County. He uses tropical plants in his design work and has in-depth experience with propagating, growing and maintaining them. David Burdick is owner of Daffodils and More, a retail bulb and plant nursery located in Dalton, MA. He is a plants man extraordinaire and is well versed in a diverse range of plant groups. He has instructed for the Berkshire Botanical Garden for many years.  BBG member price $75, non-members $85, and you may register on line at www.berkshirebotanical.org.

  • Thursday, January 31, 1:30 pm – Rosemary Verey: The Life & Lessons of a Legendary Gardener

    Barbara Paul Robinson, author of Rosemary Verey: the Life and Lessons of a Legendary Gardener, will come to the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, 900 Washington Street in Wellesley, on Thursday, January 31 at 1:30 pm, to give an illustrated talk.

    The book recounts how Ms. Robinson, in mid-career as a New York City lawyer, took a sabbatical to work at Ms. Verey’s famous garden at Barnsley House in the Cotswalds, England. The short internship led to a longtime friendship, so the author was able to observe the rising fame of the great English gardener and to enlist Ms. Verey’s many other associates to contribute their memories to this intimate biography.  After her talk, Barbara Paul Robinson will be open to questions and to signing books. Light refreshments will be served. $10 for Mass Hort members, $15 for non-members. To register for the event, visit www.masshort.org or call Maureen Horn at 617-933-4912.

  • Tuesday, January 22, 7:00 pm – Buying the Farm

    “For today’s young, the economic future is far more bleak, and global warming an unprecedented threat. Out of necessity, many will be searching for meaningful forms of communal self-sufficiency, healthful food, and renewable energy. Tom Fels’ captivating and profound reflection on one earlier commune, Montague Farm, founded in the 1960s, offers hard-learned reflections, some practical, some eternal, from a time when communes were the chosen path of many. Elegantly written. An informative and worthwhile read.”
    Tom Hayden, author of The Long Sixties.

    “Buying the Farm reads like an ancient Greek tragedy, written in gripping prose by a master storyteller. The story of Montague Farm is filled with important lessons for those establishing new ways of living and organizing in the twenty-first century. Raking through the ashes of this 1960s commune, Fels does us an immense service by revealing the glowing coals, bitter embers, and enduring lessons of the final years of the last century, and the beginning of this one.”
    Anthony Seeger, Distinguished Professor of Ethnomusicology, Emeritus, UCLA.

    Tom Fels, a museum curator and writer, has for many years researched, written, and lectured on the history of the 1960s. His Farm Friends: From the Late Sixties to the West Seventies and Beyond received honorable mention for the Eric Hoffer Book Award in independent publishing.  Tom will speak about his new book at Porter Square Books, 25 White Street in Cambridge, on Tuesday, January 22, beginning at 7 pm, and will be available to sign copies as well.

  • Tuesday, January 29, 6:30 pm – 8:00 pm – When America First Met China: An Exotic History of Tea, Drugs, and Money in the Age of Sail

    The Arnold Arboretum will present When America First Met China: An Exotic History of Tea, Drugs, and Money in the Age of Sail on Tuesday, January 29 in the Hunnewell Building, 125 Arborway, beginning at 6:30 pm. Best-selling author Eric Jay Dolin will trace America’s fraught relationship with China back to its roots: the unforgiving nineteenth-century seas that separated a brash, rising naval power from a battered ancient empire. He will delve into the furious trade in furs, opium, and bêche-de-mer–a rare sea cucumber delicacy—which might have catalyzed America’s emerging economy, but also sparked an ecological and human rights catastrophe of such epic proportions that the reverberations can still be felt today. Hear about this period in history that preceded and spurred American botanical expeditions to China in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Fee $5 Arboretum member, $15 nonmember. Other books by Eric Jay Dolan include Fur, Fortune, and Empire, Leviathan, and Political Waters: The Long, Dirty, Contentious, Incredibly Expensive but Eventually Triumphant History of Boston Harbor.  Register on line at www.my.arboretum.harvard.edu.

  • Thursday, January 17, 7:00 pm – Folks, This Ain’t Normal

    In association with the exhibition, The Greatest Source of Wealth: Agriculture in Concord, the Farm to Lectern Speakers Series brings nationally-recognized agrarian activists to Concord.

    On Thursday, January 17, 2013, the Concord Museum welcomes Joel Salatin, author and full-time farmer at Polyface, a multi-generational, beyond organic farm in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. In his talk, Folks, This Ain’t Normal, based on his book by the same title, Salatin gives a whimsical performance filled with history, satire, and prophecy in defense of small farms, local food systems, and the right to opt out of the conventional food paradigm. He relates his dirt-under-the-fingernails experiences with mischievous humor and based firmly on a lifetime spent communing with ecology, economics, and emotion in their full reality, as a farmer. Both sobering and inspiring, his performance empowers people to tackle the seemingly impossibly large tasks that confront our generation.

    Book signing to follow lecture. 7:00 p.m., at the Fenn School, 516 Monument Street in Concord. The speakers series is free, but reservations are requested, 978-369-9763 ext. 216.

  • Thursday, December 13, 6:00 pm – Nature Wars: The Incredible Story of How Wildlife Comebacks Turned Backyards into Battlegrounds

    Although Americans may spend 90 percent of their time indoors, we now live in closer proximity to wild animals now than anytime in our history. Journalist Jim Sterba traces our 400-year relationship to wild animals, from the 19th-century “era of extermination” to the conservation movement of last century, and up through the current age of “sprawl.” Today, Sterba argues, our well-meaning efforts to protect certain species has allowed some wild populations to burgeon out of control, costing billions in damage, degrading ecosystems, and deepening disputes that have polarized communities. The talk will take place this Thursday, December 13, beginning at 6 pm. Free and open to the public, Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford Street. Free event parking in the 52 Oxford Street garage.

  • Thursday, November 29, 6:00 pm – 7:00 pm – The Ants of New England

    Ecologist Aaron Ellison (of the Harvard Forest in Petersham, MA) and co-authors have just completed the new Field Guide to the Ants of New England (Yale University  Press), the first user-friendly regional guide devoted to the diversity, ecology, natural history and beauty of the “little things that run the world.” Lavishly illustrated with more than 500 line drawings and 300 photographs, Ellison’s guide introduces amateur and professional naturalists alike to more than 140 ant species found in the northeast U.S. and eastern Canada. On Thursday, November 29, beginning at 6 pm at the Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford Street, hear a free lecture by the author followed by a book signing. Free event parking in the 52 Oxford Street garage.  For more information call 617-495-3045, or visit www.hmnh.harvard.edu.

  • Sunday, November 18, 12:00 noon – Clean Food Revised Edition

    Clean Food is a feast for the senses that will nourish mind, body, and soul–and this revised edition by author Terry Walters offers lovers of fresh, seasonal vegan fare even more than before. In addition to all-new color photographs and 20 entirely new recipes, acclaimed chef and nutritionist Walters has updated the dishes to feature today’s most healthful ingredients. Hear her on Sunday, November 18 at 12 noon.

    Note: This event is happening at TAGS right next door to the Porter Square Bookstore in the Porter Square Shopping Center in Cambridge and is part of their Customer Appreciation Weekend celebration. Porter Square Books will be selling books and Terry will be signing after her demo. For more information visit www.portersquarebooks.com, or call 617-491-2220.

  • Tuesday, November 27, 5:30 pm – International Preservation Talk

    Join members of the Victorian Society of America/New England Chapter on Tuesday, November 27, at the Gibson House, 137 Beacon Street, for a lecture by Melanie Hall, Associate Professor of Art History at Boston University. Melanie Hall teaches courses in American and English architecture and preservation, decorative arts, and Museum Studies. She is currently the Director of the Museum Studies Program at Boston University. Ms. Hall will speak on her new book about international preservation, Towards World Heritage.  A reception will begin at 5:30, with testimonials on behalf of the Victorian Society London and Newport at 6:30, and the lecture at 6:45.  RSVP: 617.267.6338 or email: lauragresh@thegibsonhouse.org.