The Garden Club of the Back Bay will hold its first meeting of 2026/2027 on Tuesday, September 22 at the Massachusetts Audubon Society’s Boston Nature Center & Wildlife Sanctuary in Mattapan, followed by a picnic lunch. This is a members only event. The Sanctuary is an oasis not far from the center of the city that is home to over 150 species of birds, 40 species of butterflies, and more than 350 plant species. We’ll explore a young Miyawaki Method mini-forest, as well as learn about an exciting new initiative to de-channelize the canterbury brook with a full restoration of the brook and its wetlands.
Bring your lunch and enjoy an optional picnic with fellow GCBB members outside if the weather cooperates, or inside if it doesn’t. If you are not yet a member of the Club but wish to become one, visit https://gardenclubbackbay.org/join
Join the Groveland Garden Club for Gardening Basics with Massachusetts Master Gardener Gretel Anspach, at 7:30 pm in the Little Red Schoolhouse, 26 Broad Street in Groveland. Learn about basic needs of your plants and find out how you can most easily meet the needs of your botanical companions for years of happiness in the garden. For more information on the Groveland Garden Club visit https://www.grovelandgarden.club/. Open to the public.
Mark your calendars and join The Stone Living Lab for its fourth conference dedicated to nature-based approaches. The 2027 Stone Living Lab Conference will take place from April 28-30, 2027 at the University of Massachusetts Boston. Stay tuned for more information including the conference schedule, abstract submissions, speakers, breakout session topics, field trip options, and more! Visit https://stonelivinglab.org/
For New England Botanical Society’s 130th anniversary, we’ll be celebrating with the ‘Dead Botanists Society’ of Mount Auburn Cemetery. The cemetery, established in 1831, is a National Historic Landmark and considered the first “garden cemetery” in the United States. The collection features more than 2,500 taxa (in over 20,000 plantings) throughout 175-acres. It is also the final resting place for several notable botanists in NEBS’s history. The event begins at 9:30 am on September 13 (rain date September 21).
Jim Gorman of Mount Auburn Visitor Services will provide a list of plants in flower and talk about the cemetery and eminent botanists prior to the founding of New England Botanical Club in 1896. This includes Asa Gray and the garden named in his honor that was recently renovated and Jacob Bigelow, the architect of the cemetery. Samantha Richardson, Mount Auburn Manager of Horticulture Records, will provide a customized tour map and describe the Flora of Mount Auburn online plant records database of trees, shrubs, and ground covers. Nancy Eyster-Smith, NEBS Corresponding Secretary, will provide biographical highlights of members of the “Dead Botanists Society,” at the burial sites. This includes founding members of NEBC who served as President, Vice President, Treasurer, Corresponding Secretary, Curators of herbaria, and Editor-in-Chief of Rhodora, as well as the well-known Merritt Lyndon Fernald. Additional highlights of the tour will include trees recorded as Massachusetts or New England champions for their species and the Franklin Tree (Franklinia alatamaha), now extinct in the wild, named in honor of Benjamin Franklin.
Location: Mount Auburn Cemetery. Meet at the Story Chapel, 580 Mt Auburn St, Cambridge, MA, for an introduction before we head out on the tour. The walk is about 1 mile. Bring water and wear comfortable shoes. Picnicking is not permitted on the cemetery grounds.
This November, the Newport Symposium explores the theme “What Makes It American” with a series of lectures and tours examining the origins and legacy of art, architecture, landscape and design in the United States. As we celebrate America’s 250th anniversary, presenters will discuss the history of our national—and Newport—identity through visual culture. The event takes place over two days at Marble House and Rosecliff. A star-studded list of speakers includes Robyn Asleson, Curator of Prints and Drawings at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, Raissa Bretaña, Fashion Historian at the Fashion Institute of Technology, Rachel A. Heslop, Senior Project Coordinator at the Oak Spring Garden Foundation, Thomas Jayne, Interior Designer with Jayne Design Studio, K.L.H. Wells, Author and Assistant Professor of Art History, University of Wisconsin-Milwaulkee, and Christopher YOung, Vice President and Creative Director of Tiffany & Co. Register at https://www.newportmansions.org/events/save-the-date-newport-symposium/
Join Orleans Conservation Trust on August 25 at 5 pm at the Orleans Yacht Club, 39 Cove Road in Orleans for our 2026 Annual Meeting. Doors open at 4:30 pm. Enjoy refreshments and the gorgeous view over Town Cove as we celebrate OCT’s work to protect and restore land for people and wildlife. Attendees will learn about the Trust’s projects, highlights of 2026 and what’s to come in the new year. OCT members are encouraged to vote on the Slate of Trustees, including five renewing members and two incoming Trustees. Free with cash bar.
The meeting’s keynote presentation will be by guest speaker Nick Nelson. A fluvial geomorphologist and regional director with Inter-Fluve, Nick will present on “Opportunities to Transform Ecosystem Health on Cape Cod.” His talk will cover topics such as restoration of degraded wetlands and waterways throughout Cape Cod and active work on OCT’s Namequoit Bog eco-restoration project in South Orleans.
At this year’s Provincetown Conservation Trust Annual Meeting we welcome Andrew Gottlieb, President of the Association for the Preservation of Cape Cod as our keynote speaker. He will present on the critical campaign his organization is undertaking to help preserve and protect the last 14% of developable land on Cape Cod. He will be introduced by friend, former State Senator, and Cape Air owner Dan Wolfe. The event takes place August 27 at the Harbor Hotel.
We will have our popular silent auction featuring fantastic items donated from local businesses, complimentary food, wine and beer donated from local businesses. REGISTER TODAY. Genevieve Martin will receive the Trust’s inaugural Conservation Hero Award.
The Provincetown Conservation Trust is a private, non-profit (501c3) organization, founded in 1980, dedicated to preserving the woods, wetlands, heathlands, dunes and forests of Provincetown, home to a great variety of native flora and fauna, some of it not found anywhere else. These natural habitats are an important Greenway, key links in the wildlife corridors of Cape Cod, and vital to the ecological health of the United States Eastern Seaboard. Our uplands provide habitats not found in the Cape Cod National Seashore.
The Olmsted Network’s 2026 Annual Conference—The Power of Connection: Shaping Resilient Public Landscapes—will convene park leaders, designers, advocates, funders, policymakers, and practitioners from across the country September 23 – 25 to explore how connection shapes resilient public landscapes.
Set against the backdrop of Portland Oregon’s renowned park system and enduring Olmsted legacy, this year’s conference examines the relationships that sustain public spaces—linking people to parks, history to innovation, and vision to stewardship.
As public landscapes face mounting pressures from climate change, funding constraints, public health needs, and evolving community expectations, the conference offers a timely forum for collaboration and problem-solving. Through panels, roundtables, and site visits, participants will exchange ideas, strengthen partnerships, and gain practical strategies to support the future of public spaces.
Grounded in the principles of Frederick Law Olmsted while looking firmly toward the future, the conference invites participants to learn from the communities and environments of the Pacific Northwest and to experience connection in action: between parks and policy, design and equity, and climate response and cultural stewardship. As public landscapes face mounting pressures from climate change, funding constraints, public health needs, and evolving community expectations, the conference offers a timely forum for collaboration and problem-solving. Through panels, roundtables, and site visits, participants will exchange ideas, strengthen partnerships, and gain practical strategies to support the future of public spaces.
Grounded in the principles of Frederick Law Olmsted while looking firmly toward the future, the conference invites participants to learn from the communities and environments of the Pacific Northwest and to experience connection in action: between parks and policy, design and equity, and climate response and cultural stewardship.
Additional information about conference scholarships, hotel blocks, and LA CES is available below. For logistical questions, please contact Ella Menees, Logistics & Engagement Manager, at emenees@olmsted.org.
Tickets & Pricing Each ticket includes access to the welcome reception, conference sessions, happy hour, and awards dinner (with RSVP), as well as two breakfasts, two lunches, and a swag bag. The menu is available here; let us know of any food allergies during registration.
June 1 to September 15: Partner (with code): $350 Student (with scholarship code): $40 Regular: $400
Partner Code & Scholarship Codes: All listed partner organizations will be provided a partner discount code for $350 tickets. This code will come to your organization’s listed contact via email. You can also reach out to us if needed. Visit https://olmsted.org/events/2026-annual-conference/
The Ecological Landscape Alliance (ELA) is excited to announce the 2026 Annual Conference & Eco-Marketplace to be held in Providence, Rhode Island. The Annual Conference brings together leaders in ecological landscape practices with a diverse range of professionals involved in landcare, including landscape architects, designers, growers, horticulturists, land stewards, arborists, and installation/maintenance technicians. We also welcome students, educators, native plant enthusiasts, community activists, and home gardeners. The event will feature a two-day, multi-track program with opportunities to network, learn, and share new insights and strategies that contribute to sustainable and regenerative landscape management.
Explore innovative ways to use native plants, mitigate climate change, and design spaces that encourage biodiversity, including habitats for birds, butterflies, and other wildlife. Join us for some interactive workshops and discussions that will equip participants with practical tools and ideas for integrating ecological principles into landscape design.
One keynote presentation will be led by Dr. Evelyn Beaury of the New York Botanical Garden on Seeding Ecosystems of the Future. The decisions we make in our gardens will have a large effect on what species will persist under climate change, which is already impacting the distribution of biodiversity across time and space. In this talk, Dr. Beaury will discuss the latest research on these impacts and give you some ideas for how your garden can help ecosystems for the future, such as reducing the spread of invasive species and supporting climate-resilient native plants.
Another talk will be by Christopher Roddick , head arborist of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. Working with trees is hard. The work can be demanding and sometimes dangerous: long hours in all kinds of weather, cutting wood with a chainsaw while hanging from a rope, or chipping brush into a man-eating machine.
As hard as all of that is, it was actually far more difficult and stressful for me to acquire the level of knowledge I needed to do the job well. Thousands of plant names to memorize, insects and diseases to identify, soil science, biology, ecology, and the list goes on. It’s daunting, especially for people like myself who aren’t traditional learners. But not knowing a plant, a pollinator partner, or a mushroom growing on a tree seemed far more unsettling.
This is the story of one tree guy’s 40-year journey, seeking knowledge from plants, trees, eccentric plant people, while fighting distraction, trying not to get killed or joining too many plant societies.
The Federated Garden Clubs of Vermont will host the New England Garden Clubs’ Tenth Annual Meeting: Our Vermont Green Mountains: Fostering the Birth of the Republic, in Killington, Vermont on October 13 and 14.
As we mark the 250th anniversary of our country’s founding, we will fill our conference sessions with patriotic spirit and gardening joy. Join us at the Killington Grand Resort Hotel to connect with friends, new and old! We promise an engaging program of fun and inspiring sessions. And plan to be wowed by Vermont’s unparalleled fall foliage.
