Boston Flora

Category: Author Book Signing

  • Sunday, May 1, 1:00 pm – 3:00 pm – Flower Color Theory with Michael and Taylor Putnam

    As part of this year’s Art in Bloom celebration at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, sign up for a lecture and floral demonstration with world-famous floral designers Michael Putnam and Taylor Putnam who share their creative techniques for using color to inspire breathtaking, romantic floral arrangements. Book signing to follow. The event will be in the Harry and Mildred Remis Auditorium, Auditorium 161, on May 1 from 1 – 3, and you may order tickets by phone at 1 – 800 – 440 – 6975, or online at www.mfa.org. $40 for MFA members, $50 for nonmembers, $6 processing fee for phone orders.

  • Thursday, May 5, 7:00 pm – Good Eats 4: The Final Chapter

    Porter Square Books is delighted to present an evening with Alton Brown for Good Eats 4: The Final Years. Join us at the Somerville Theatre to celebrate the release of this fourth and final installment in the iconic Good Eats cookbook series with a live Q&A moderated by one lucky audience member! A book signing will follow the talk. 

    This event will take place on Thursday, May 5 at 7pm] at the Somerville Theatre. Purchase a ticket here: Alton Brown for Good Eats 4: The Final Years Tickets May 05, 2022 Somerville, MA | Ticketmaster.  This event will sell out quickly.

    An all-new collection of must-have recipes and surprising food facts from Alton Brown, drawn from the return of the beloved Good Eats television series, including never-before aired material, this long-anticipated fourth and final volume in the bestselling Good Eats series of cookbooks draws on two reboots of the beloved television show by the inimitable Alton Brown—Good Eats Reloaded and Good Eats: The Return. With more than 175 new and improved recipes for everything from chicken parm to bibimbap and cold brew to corn dogs, accompanied by mouthwatering original photography, The Final Years is the most sumptuous and satisfying of the Good Eats books yet.

    Brown’s surefire recipes are temptation enough: the headnotes, tips, and sidebars that support them make each recipe a journey into culinary technique, flavor exploration, and edible history. Striking photography showcases finished dishes and highlights key ingredients, and handwritten notes on the pages capture Brown’s unique mix of madcap and methodical. The distinctive high-energy and information-intensive dynamic of Good Eats comes to life on every page, making this a must-have cookbook for die-hard fans and newcomers alike.

    Alton Brown was directing TV commercials when he got the crazy idea to go to culinary school and reinvent the food show. The result: Good Eats, which has kept Brown gainfully employed for more than 20 years and earned him a Peabody Award. Along the way he also hosted Iron Chef America, Cutthroat Kitchen, and Feasting on Asphalt. Brown’s live culinary variety shows have played to sold-out theaters across the United States. He lives in Marietta, Georgia. For more information visit https://www.portersquarebooks.com/event/alton-brown-good-eats-4-final-years-somerville-theatre

  • Thursday, November 4, 12:00 noon – 1:00 pm – The Heirloom Gardener with John Forti, Online

    This Tower Hill Botanic Garden November 4 online talk beginning at noon is offered in partnership with the Herb Society of America, New England Unit. You can find additional information at the NEUHSA website. These days, we all need some good news and a way to participate in meaningful change.

    The Heirloom Gardener is a book for gardeners who want to deepen their knowledge and improve life for families, pollinators and wildlife in their own backyards. It’s a love poem to the earth; a map to the art of living intentionally and a guidepost for environmental gardeners and artisans. It unearths old-ways, storied plants and artisanal life-skills; like seed-saving, herbalism, foraging, distillation, ethnobotany and organics which contribute to a new 21st century arts and crafts movement. With woodcuts from Caldecott Medal artist Mary Azarian, The Heirloom Garden offers a dose of wild hope for a weary nation.

    Signed copies of the book are available through Tower Hill’s Garden Shop. You can shop online or stop into the garden and grab it in person.

    John Forti (www.jforti.com) is a garden historian and ethnobotanist who has directed gardens for Plimoth Plantation Museum, Strawbery Banke Museum, Massachusetts Horticultural Society, and Bedrock Gardens. As a Slow Food USA Governor and biodiversity specialist, his preservation work has helped to restore countless native and heirloom plants and has brought traditional artisanal practices to modern thinking. He has won numerous awards for historic garden preservation, children’s garden design, herbal and historical education and the 2021 Award of Excellence from National Garden Clubs, the largest volunteer gardening organization in the world. This book was inspired by his posts as ‘The Heirloom Gardener – John Forti‘ which go out regularly to millions on Facebook that value his uniquely curated blend of history, horticulture, environmentalism, poetry, art, kitchen and garden craft. He gardens and lives along the banks of the Piscataqua River in Maine.

    $10 THBG Member Adult; $15 Adult 

  • Saturday, October 30, 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm – Victorian Flowers We Still Love

    On October 20, from 2 – 3, at Berkshire Botanical Garden, Thomas Mickey discusses the new book All about Flowers: James Vick’s Nineteenth-Century Seed Company . He illustrates how this nineteenth-century seed company influenced both gardeners and the kind of garden that became essential, the Victorian flower garden. James Vick’s story has not been told yet. He is known in his hometown Rochester, NY, but he played a key role in gardens everywhere in nineteenth century America, whether of the wealthy, the middle class, the working class, or the city dweller.  Vick inspired gardeners everywhere with his own passion for gardening with flowers and his desire to spread the love of floriculture. Vick published yearly seed catalogs and a popular monthly garden magazine. He systematized the seed business: growing seeds, drying them, packaging them, and shipping them around the country, well before Sears or Montgomery Ward sent out their first catalogs. 

    Thomas Mickey, from Quincy, MA, is Professor Emeritus of Communication Studies at Bridgewater State University, where he taught public relations writing and directed student interns. He is also a graduate of the Landscape Institute at the Boston Architectural College. He is a Master Gardener and has been gardening for over 30 years. Professor Mickey posts weekly on his blog americangardening.net. He is the former garden writer for the Seacoast Media company that publishes newspapers on New Hampshire’s seacoast and southern Maine. He is the author of three books, including Best Garden Plants for New England. The Council on Botanical and Horticultural Libraries nominated his book America’s Romance with the English Garden for its annual Literature Award. The UK magazine Spectator named the book ‘best garden book of the year’. He is a past speaker with The Garden Club of the Back Bay.

    BBG members $15, nonmembers $20. Register at https://www.berkshirebotanical.org/events/victorian-flowers-we-still-love

  • Saturday, October 9, 10:00 am – 11:30 am – The New Heirloom Garden

    Get a head start planning next years’ garden and take home fresh ideas for designing your kitchen garden, featuring Ellen Ogden’s six steps to an heirloom garden. Discover what vegetables to grow for the best flavor and what flowers for old-fashioned fragrance and why it is important to save seeds. Learn about the wide diversity of heirloom plants that you can grow to enhance your edible landscape. This class takes place on October 9 at Hollister House Garden in Washington, Connecticut.

    Award winning food and garden writer Ellen Ecker Ogden, author of The New Heirloom Garden, closes our season of Barn Talks with a history of heirloom gardens and shows us how to create our own unique garden.  Her new book will be available for sale at the talk.

    Ellen is a Vermont writer and author of The Complete Kitchen Garden. She cofounded The Cooks Garden seed catalog, introducing cooks and gardeners to European specialty vegetable, herbs and flowers.  Her articles have appeared in the New York Times, Martha Stewart Living, Better Homes and Gardens and Country Gardens.  Ellen lives  and works in Manchester Vermont.

    HHG Members $25

    Non-members $35

    REGISTRATION

  • Sunday, September 19, 1;00 pm – 2:30 pm – Keeping a Nature Journal Book Launch with Clare Walker Leslie

    Join The Friends of Mount Auburn Cemetery for a book launch for Clare Walker Leslie’s two most recent books – Keeping a Nature Journal 3rd edition (2021) and A Year in Nature (2020) including special drawing journal pages from her years of exploring Mount Auburn Cemetery.

    Enjoy a nature discovery walk led by Clare and a nature contest to win a free book. Books will be available for sale on-site through Porter Square Books.

    All ages welcome. For further information on Clare’s books and work: http://www.clarewalkerleslie.com/

    Registration required at www.mountauburn.org.

    To request an accommodation or for inquiries about accessibility, please contact friends@mountauburn.org or 617-607-1980.

  • Tuesday, July 13 – Thursday, July 15 – Nantucket Garden Festival: A Celebration of Island Gardening

    The 12th Annual Nantucket Garden Festival highlights the unique and beautiful garden ecosystems on Nantucket and focuses on the importance of sustainability, conservation and gardening ethics for the long-term health of the island. Scheduled for July 13th-15th, the festival celebrates gardening through creative in-person and virtual lectures and workshops, exquisite garden tours, and children’s activities.

    NGF21 Presenters include Keynote Presenter Stephen Orr. Stephen Orr is the Editor-In-Chief of Better Homes and Gardens and Author of The New American Herbal and Tomorrow’s Garden. Orr will be joining us to explore the versatility of herbs in all their beauty and variety.

    Orr has been a regularly featured gardening expert on “The CBS Early Show,” “The Martha Stewart Show,” and “The Today Show.” In addition he was a segment producer for the PBS television series “Cultivating Life” and edited two cookbooks by British author Sarah Raven for Rizzoli.

    Orr is a featured speaker across the country for organizations such as The Garden Conservancy, The Garden Club of America, the Garden Writers Association, and a variety of national programs.

    Also presenting will by Craig LeHoullier. Craig lives and gardens in Raleigh, North Carolina. A Rhode Island native, he caught the gardening passion from his grandfather, Walter, and dad, Wilfred. Craig achieved his PhD in chemistry at Dartmouth College, which resulted in a 25 year career in pharmaceuticals that ended in 2008.

    Craig’s gardening obsession, which started the year he and Susan were married (and their first garden, in 1981), is passing through several stages. His love of heirloom tomatoes began with his joining the Seed Savers Exchange, an organization for which he continues to serve as adviser for tomatoes, in 1986. He is responsible for naming and popularizing many well known tomatoes, such as Cherokee Purple.

    In 2005 he added amateur tomato breeding to his garden resume, and continues to co-lead the Dwarf Tomato Breeding project, responsible for creating 90 (and counting) new compact growing varieties for space-challenged gardeners. His writing career kicked off with a 2012 request from Storey Publishing to write a book on tomatoes, resulting in Epic Tomatoes (2015). His second book, Growing Vegetables in Straw Bales, soon followed (2016).

    Craig is a popular lecturer across the country at major gardening events, as well as a frequent guest on podcasts and radio shows. His upcoming projects include a third book, which will focus upon the story of the Dwarf Tomato Breeding Project, and a webinar series & online courses in which he will share his gardening knowledge.

    The star quality continues with Peggy Cornett. Peggy is the Historic Gardener and Curator of Plants at Monticello and received the SGHS Flora Ann Bynum Medal for exemplary service in the garden history field and the Garden Club of America’s Zone VII Horticultural Commendation for Horticultural Expertise.

    In addition to managing the historic plant collection, Cornett oversees educational programs at Monticello including the Garden and Grounds tour and the Garden Tasting Tours as well as natural history walks, lectures, and horticultural workshops throughout the year. She is the co-director of the Historic Landscape Institute, a unique one-week educational experience in the theory and practice of historic landscape hosted at Monticello.

    Cornett also shares her knowledge in horticulture as a frequent guest on NPR and PBS. She also writes articles and lectures nationwide on vegetable gardens and historic plants.

    Another Keynote Presenter, Christin Geall, is a Canadian floral designer, writer, gardener, photographer, and author of the book Cultivated: Elements of Floral Style (Princeton Architectural Press, 2020). Trained in horticultural at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, she completed a BA in Environmental Studies & Anthropology and a MFA in nonfiction before becoming a gardening columnist for Gardenista, a professor, and designer. Through her company, Cultivated, she teaches floral design in the UK, US, and Canada. Her writing and floral work focuses on the intersections of nature, culture, and horticulture.

    Lastly, Jennifer Jewell, the creator/host of Cultivating Place, an award-winning public radio program & podcast on natural history and the human impulse to garden, will round out the speakers list. Her first book, The Earth In Her Hands, 75 Extraordinary Women Working in the World of Plants, centering on women transforming horticulture around the world, is published by Timber Press.

    Jewell’s writing and photography have been featured in publications including Gardens Illustrated, House & Garden, and Pacific Horticulture. From 2008 – 2016 Jewell created, wrote and hosted the weekly, regionally-focused In a North State Garden on North State Public Radio. From 2010 -2017 she worked as the curatorial assistant to the director and the curator of the native plant garden at Gateway Science Museum on the campus of CSU, Chico in Chico, CA. 

    Registration is now open at https://www.ackgardenfestival.org/ You may also sign up for garden tours, fairy garden workshops, tea parties, and book signings. The Nantucket Lighthouse School is the beneficiary of all NGF events.

  • Tuesday, May 18, 6:00 pm – 7:00 pm – Gardens as Agents of Change, Online

    This virtual Author Talk is presented in collaboration with Berkshire Botanical Garden and Timber Press, an imprint of Workman Publishing. All books will be available for purchase through Tower Hill’s Garden Shop. A link to the Zoom webinar will be sent after registration in the confirmation email. This Author Talk will only be available live. It will not be recorded. Tuesday, May 18, 2021 6-7 PM. Webinar only: $10 members, $12 nonmembers. With signed book, $60 members, $62 nonmembers. Register at www.towerhillbg.org

    In her presentation, Jennifer Jewell will explore the philosophy of her Cultivating Place podcast that gardeners and gardens are potentially powerful agents and spaces for positive change in our world, helping to address challenges as wide ranging as climate change, habitat loss, cultural polarization and individual and communal health and well-being. She will go on to explore how this power of gardens and gardeners is exemplified in the beautiful and innovative place-based gardens that celebrate western landscapes in the her book, Under Western Skies; Visionary Gardens from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Coast (Timber Press, May 11, 2021) – with striking photography by Caitlin Atkinson.

    Jennifer Jewell is the host of the national award-winning weekly public radio program and podcast Cultivating Place: Conversations on Natural History and the Human Impulse to Garden. She is the author of The Earth in Her Hands, 75 Extraordinary Women Working in the World of Plants (Timber Press in 2020), and Under Western Skies, Visionary Gardens from the Rockies to the Pacific Coast (Timber Press, May 2021). Her greatest passion is elevating the way we think and talk about gardening, the empowerment of gardeners and the possibility inherent in the intersection between culture and gardens.



  • Thursday, October 22, 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm – Uprooted With Page Dickey, Online

    Enjoy a virtual lecture and Q&A session on October 22 at 6:30 with author Page Dickey about her new book, Uprooted: A Gardener Reflects on Beginning Again. Page Dickey knew the transitions she faced walking away from her celebrated garden at Duck Hill after thirty-four years. What surprised her were the happy opportunities that came with starting over. Uprooted follows Dickey’s evolution from old to new, cultivated to wild, and from one type of gardener to another. It is a story for anyone who has had to begin anew—in gardening or in life. This virtual Author Talk is presented by Tower Hill Botanic Garden in collaboration with Berkshire Botanical Garden and Timber Press, an imprint of Workman Publishing. All books available for purchase through Tower Hill’s online Garden Shop. A link to the Zoom webinar will be sent after registration in the confirmation email. Author Talks will only be available live. They will not be recorded. $10 for sponsor members, $15 for nonmembers. Register at www.towerhillbg.org or at www.berkshirebotanical.org

    Page Dickey has been gardening passionately since her early twenties and writing about gardening, as well as designing gardens for others, for three decades. She has written eight books and edited another, most of which concentrate on aspects of garden design such as creating gardens that reflect their settings. Page was the editor of Outstanding American Gardens, celebrating 25 years of the Garden Conservancy with photographs by Marion Brenner. Her new book, Uprooted: A Gardener Reflects on Beginning Again, describes leaving a beloved garden of thirty-four years, finding a home in the northwest corner of Connecticut and falling in love with its land. Page lectures around the country about plants and garden design and has written for House and Garden, House Beautiful, Architectural Digest, Horticulture, Elle Décor, Garden Design and The New York Times. She serves on the boards of the Garden Conservancy; Stonecrop Garden in Cold Spring, NY; Hollister House Garden in Washington, CT and The Little Guild in Cornwall, CT and is a member of the Friends of Horticulture at Wave Hill. Page was recently elected an Honorary Member of The Garden Club of America.

  • Thursday, October 8, 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm – Raised Bed Revolution, Online

    Enjoy a virtual talk and Q&A on October 8 at 6:30 pm by Tara Nolan about her book Raised Bed Revolution: Build It, Fill It, Plant It … Garden Anywhere! Raised bed gardening is the fastest-growing garden strategy today, and Raised Bed Revolution is the definitive guidebook to mastering this consistently proven and effective gardening method. Raised Bed Revolution provides you with information on size requirements for constructing raised beds, height suggestions, types of materials you can use, and creative tips for fitting the maximum garden capacity into small spaces–including vertical gardening. This program will be held virtually. Once you register you will receive a Zoom link in the confirmation. This Author Talk will only be available LIVE. The book is available in Tower Hill Botanic Garden’s Garden Shop.

    Tara Nolan, author of Raised Bed Revolution, is a garden writer and editor with a diverse background in publishing. Her work has appeared in the Toronto Star, as well as in magazines, including Reader’s Digest and Canadian Living, and on websites, like Design*Sponge. Tara is a co-founder, with three other garden writers, of Savvy Gardening (savvygardening.com) and was the award-winning web editor of Canadian Gardening magazine’s website (CanadianGardening.com) for six years. Tara does work for the Toronto Botanical Garden and the Canadian Garden Council, and volunteers for the Royal Botanical Garden. She is also a member of GWA: The Association for Garden Communicators. Tara is from the Toronto, Canada area.

    Tower Hill members $10, nonmembers $15. Register at www.towerhillbg.org.