Boston Flora

Category: Author Book Signing

  • 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.

  • Wednesday, September 23, 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm – As Long As Grass Grows: The Indigenous Fight for Environmental Justice from Colonization to Standing Rock Webinar

    Wednesday, September 23, 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm – As Long As Grass Grows: The Indigenous Fight for Environmental Justice from Colonization to Standing Rock Webinar

    Through treaty violations, struggles for food and water security and protection of sacred sites, Native people have resisted environmental injustice and land incursions for hundreds of years. Join Indigenous researcher and activist Dina Gilio-Whitaker online on September 23 at 6:30 pm to explore this history and discuss how modern environmentalists can look to Indigenous resistance for new approaches. Dina Gilio-Whitaker (Colville Confederated Tribes) is the policy director and a senior research associate at the Center for World Indigenous Studies and teaches American Indian Studies at California State University San Marcos. She is the coauthor, with Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, of All the Real Indians Died Off and 20 Other Myths About Native Americans. She lives in San Clemente, California.

    This Tower Hill Botanic Garden lecture and Q & A will be held virtually. The book is 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 Tower Hill members, $15 for nonmembers. Register at www.towerhillbg.org

  • Friday, September 11, 6:00 pm – 7:00 pm – The Earth in Her Hands: 75 Extraordinary Women Working in the World of Plants, Online

    Enjoy a Berkshire Botanical Garden online lecture and Q&A sessionon September 11 at 6 pm with author Jennifer Jewell, about her new book The Earth in Her Hands: 75 Extraordinary Women Working in the World of Plants, available for purchase through BBG’s online shop. Focus in a wholly unique way on how horticulture intersects with our everyday world and on women whose work has enriched and expanded these intersections in the last 25 years. The Earth in Her Hands explores and celebrates how the plant world is improved by greater representation of women and by diversity amongst those women. It chronicles how working in the world of plants is a more viable and creative career path for women than ever before and how the plant-work world is demonstrating greater social and environmental responsibility, in large part due to women’s contributions. These profiles of women from a half a dozen different countries, doing innovative work in all horticultural fields, point to larger issues and shifts in our world. These women’s diverse backgrounds and identities challenge preconceived notions of what horticulturalists and gardeners look like, while their work illustrates how many challenges of our world can be met through cultivating an interdependence with plants.

    Jennifer Jewell is the creator and host of Cultivating Place, an award-winning public radio program and podcast on natural history and the human impulse to garden.

    Advance Registration required ($25 for BBG members, $30 for nonmembers) at https://www.berkshirebotanical.org/events/earth-her-hands-75-extraordinary-women-working-world-plants

  • Thursday, August 13, 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm – Writing Wild with Kathryn Aalto Online

    Join author Kathryn Aalto online on August 13 at 6:30 pm to discuss her new book Writing Wild. Who are the pioneering and imaginative women who dared … to take simple walks without the chaperone of men? To pick up a pen and write under their own names? To record their protests, poetry and prose? To change history? In Writing Wild, Kathryn Aalto lyrically profiles 25 women, both historical and current, whose influential nature writing has deepened our connection to and understanding of the natural world. This Summer Author Series presentation, co-sponsored by Tower Hill Botanic Garden, Timber Press, and Berkshire Botanical Garden , is $15 for members of sponsor organizations and $15 for nonmembers. Books are available to purchase online through the Tower Hill Garden Shop. To register visit www.towerhillbg.org.

  • Thursday, July 23, 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm – Emily Dickenson’s Gardening Life Webinar

    On July 23 at 6:30 pm, enjoy a Berkshire Botanical Garden lecture and Q&A session with author Marta McDowell about her new book, Emily Dickinson’s Gardening Life. In addition to writing poetry, The Belle of Amherst was a gardener. She cultivated flowers on her father’s property and in the glass conservatory that he added to the Homestead. This lecture explores Dickinson’s gardens through excerpts from her letters and poems and historic and modern images of her garden. The book is available for purchase through the BBG online shop. Our Summer Author Series is presented in collaboration with Tower Hill Botanic Garden and Timber Press. $10 for sponsor members, $15 for nonmembers. Register at https://www.berkshirebotanical.org/events/summer-author-series-marta-mcdowell-emily-dickinsons-gardening-life-online

    Marta McDowell teaches landscape history and horticulture at the New York Botanical Garden and consults for private clients and public gardens. Her latest book is Emily Dickinson’s Gardening Life, published by Timber Press, who also published The World of Laura Ingalls Wilder, New York Times bestselling All the Presidents’ Gardens and Beatrix Potter’s Gardening Life, now in its seventh printing. Marta is working on a new book about The Secret Garden and its author, Frances Hodgson Burnett, due out from Timber Press in 2021. She is the 2019 recipient of the Garden Club of America’s Sarah Chapman Francis Medal for outstanding literary achievement.

  • Thursday, July 9, 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm – The New Gardener’s Handbook, Online

    On July 9 at 6:30 pm, enjoy an online Berkshire Botanical Garden lecture and Q&A session with author Daryl Beyers about his new book, The New Gardener’s Handbook, available for purchase through the BBG online shop. Novice or experienced, all gardeners learn something new every time they step into a garden to check on a plant, dig in the soil or harvest the fruits of their labor. Daryl Beyers, author of The New Gardener’s Handbook, shares the why-dos of the how-tos that help gardeners grow beautiful and bountiful gardens. Daryl will discuss the fundamentals of how plants grow, the importance of soil, how to sow seeds, watering and weeding. New gardeners will come away with a foundation to help their gardens flourish, and accomplished gardeners will learn expert insights and some new tips and tricks. Our Summer Author Series is presented in collaboration with Tower Hill Botanic Garden and Timber Press.    $10 for members of sponsoring organizations, $15 for nonmembers. Register at https://www.berkshirebotanical.org/events/summer-author-series-daryl-beyers-new-gardeners-handbook-online

    Daryl Beyers is author of The New Gardener’s Handbook: Everything You Need to Know to Grow a Beautiful and Bountiful Garden, available from Timber Press. As gardening certificate program coordinator at the New York Botanical Garden, Daryl helps guide the program’s curriculum and teaches the popular Fundamentals of Gardening course and courses on container gardening and garden design. He has more than 25 years of professional landscaping experience, specializing in residential garden design and development. As a staff writer, photographer and editor for Fine Gardening magazine, Daryl authored two special issues on garden design, and he served as contributing garden editor for Martha Stewart Living. His articles on gardening and garden design have also appeared in Horticulture and HGTV Magazine.