The 2016 Annual Meeting of The Garden Club Federation of Massachusetts, Inc. will be held at The Holiday Inn, 242 Adams Place, Boxborough, Massachusetts on Wednesday, June 1. For registration and complete information visit http://www.gcfm.org/Meetings/AnnualMeeting.aspx
The Boston Committee of the Garden Club of America will hold its Spring Membership Meeting and Luncheon on Thursday, May 12 from 10 – 1:30 at The Country Club, 191 Clyde Street in Brookline. Guest Speakers will be Reverend Stephen Ayers of Old North Church and Sean Sanger of Copley Wolff Design. The Beacon Hill Garden Club and Old North Foundation joined forces to create The Longfellow Garden at the Old North Church, the most visited site in Boston, so that future generations of Americans will continue to treasure this iconic structure and honor the values of freedom and civic responsibility embodied in Longfellow’s stirring words. All member clubs will receive invitations, and members of The Garden Club of the Back Bay will receive a car pool notice as well. If you are interested in attending and are not a member of one of the participating Garden Clubs which comprise The Boston Committee of the GCA, email info@bostonflora.com and will will forward your inquiry to the corresponding secretary of The Boston Committee.
Stanley Cushing, curator of rare books and manuscripts at the Boston Athenaeum, will welcome a small group from the Garden Club of the Back Bay on Thursday, January 14 in the Vershbow Special Collections Reading Room for a viewing of botanical images in the rare books collection. This special opportunity will be preceded by a docent-led tour of the building, beginning at 1 pm. If you are a member and plan to attend, please email info@bostonflora.com no later than Friday, January 8. Due to space limitations, the number of attendees is limited to 12, so responses will be accepted on a first come, first serve basis. Please indicate if you would like to be on a waitlist, should a vacancy occur. You will be contacted with a confirmation upon receipt of your rsvp. We are sorry but nonmember guests cannot be invited to this event. We will meet at the Athenaeum at 1 pm. There is no cost for this meeting.
The Boston Committee of the Garden Club of America will hold its annual fall membership meeting, lecture and luncheon on Thursday, November 12 beginning at 10 am at The Country Club, 191 Clyde Street in Brookline. Charles Waldheim will give a talk entitled From Landscape Gardening to Landscape Urbanism.
Charles Waldheim is the John E. Irving Professor of Landscape Architecture at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design. His lecture will focus on the evolution and current trends in ‘Landscape Urbanism’, a term coined by Waldheim to describe the recent emergence of landscape as a medium of urban order for the contemporary city. Professor Waldheim is a Canadian-American architect, urban theorist, and educator. His research examines the relations between landscape, ecology, and contemporary urbanism. At the same time that urban sprawl has distanced the population from the landscape, environmental literacy among designers and scholars has grown, giving rise to an architectural discourse known as ‘landscape urbanism’. In his lecture Waldheim, who is at the forefront of this movement, explores the origins, the current context and the aspirations of this relatively new field that is inspiring the future of city making. Waldheim is author, editor, or co-editor of numerous books on the subject, and his writing has been published and translated internationally. He has taught at Rice University, University of Toronto, University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Michigan. Charles is also the Ruettgers Consulting Curator of Landscape at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.
The event is open to members of Garden Clubs affiliated with The Boston Committee and their guests. Garden Club of the Back Bay members will receive separate invitations and a car pool notice in the mail. For more information email info@bostoncommittee.org.
The Metro District of the Garden Club Federation of Massachusetts, Inc. will hold its Annual Meeting and Luncheon on Wednesday, April 22, from 10:30 – 1:00 at the Wellesley College Club, 727 Washington Street (Route 16 West), Wellesley. The featured speaker is Noah Wilson-Rich, Ph.D, Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of The Best Bees Company, LLC. Parking is available adjacent to the Club, just inside the College’s rear entrance off Route 16. Additional parking is available in the lot across Route 16, and elevators are available to the 2nd floor dining room.
Noah Wilson-Rich founded Best Bees Company in his Boston apartment while getting his Ph.D. at Tufts University. Best Bees supplies gardeners and any other interested parties in the Boston area with beehives, as well as the resources, materials and appropriate consultation for their upkeep. This service is a nontraditional means of raising money for research to improve honey bee health. Profits from installing and managing these honey beehives goes to fund Wilson-Rich’s research into bee diseases.
Dr. Rich will speak at 10:30, followed by lunch at noon. The menu is butternut squash bisque, chicken Caesar salad, sorbet with fresh fruit, coffee and tea. $38 per person. Reservations are due by Wednesday, April 1. Please make check payable to Garden Club Federation of Massachusetts (GCFM) and mail to Jean McCarthy, 24 Tubwreck Drive, Dover, Massachusetts 02030. Please note the name of your Garden Club on the check.
The Boston Preservation Alliance is proud to announce the guest speaker for its Annual Meeting, to be held Monday, March 30, beginning at 6 pm at District Hall, 75 Northern Avenue in Boston. Renowned photographer Peter Vanderwarker will share a collection of his amazing images of Boston’s unique places and spaces.
After the presentation and a short business meeting, our members will be invited to a reception. This is the perfect occasion to network with others who are passionate about the city’s character, meet other Alliance members, the Board and staff, and discuss the upcoming year and the preservation challenges and opportunities.
This event will be for members only, so now is the time to join or renew your membership with the Alliance and be a part of Boston’s leading advocacy nonprofit for historic preservation. Consider your membership as your ticket purchase to see amazing imagery from across Boston.
To RSVP for this event, please email admin@bostonpreservation.org.
The Annual Meeting of The Boston Committee of the Garden Club of America will take place Wednesday, October 29, at The Country Club, Clyde Street, Brookline, beginning with coffee and registration at 10:00 am, and the business meeting at 10:30 am, followed by a keynote speech by Peter Del Tredici on Nature in the City and Stewarding Our Native Ecology. Dr. Del Tredici is Senior Research Scientist, Arnold Arboretum, and Adjunct Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture, Harvard Graduate School of Design.
“My research interests are wide ranging and mainly involve the interaction between woody plants and their environment. Over the course of thirty plus years at the Arnold Arboretum, I have worked with a number of plants, most notably Ginkgo biloba, conifers in the genera Tsuga and Sequoia, various magnolias, and several Stewartia species (family Theaceae). In all of my work, I attempt to integrate various aspects of the botany and ecology of a given species with the horticultural issues surrounding its propagation and cultivation. This fusion of science and practice has also formed the basis of my teaching at the Harvard Graduate School of Design (since 1992), especially as it relates to understanding the impacts of climate change and urbanization on plants in both native and designed landscapes. Most recently, the focus of my research has expanded to the subject of spontaneous urban vegetation which resulted in the publication of Wild Urban Plants of the Northeast: A Field Guide (Cornell University Press, 2010).”
The program is open to members of the Garden Clubs which comprise The Boston Committee (www.bostoncommittee.org) who will receive written invitations with information on attendance fees. If you are not a member, email info@bostoncommittee.org for more information. Image from www.peterdeltredici.com.
The Friends of the Public Garden will hold a members reception on Thursday, October 9 at 6:30 pm at the Revere Hotel, 200 Stuart Street, on Preparing for Climate Change in Boston: The Vital Role of Our Greenspaces. 2012 was the warmest year on record in the US by one full degree. By 2047, the coldest years will be warmer than today’s warmest. Brian Swett, Chief of Environment, Energy and Open Space for the City of Boston, will discuss what Boston is doing to prepare for climate change, and how parks help. The Friends will also be celebrating Hill Holliday for raising the visibility of the Friends through a generous marketing campaign. Reception to follow program.
Event is free for members, but space is limited. Please rsvp by Friday October 3 at info@friensofthepublicgarden.org, or call 617-723-8144. Your membership can be renewed at this event. Motor Mart Garage is lead sponsor for this reception.
Last fall, visiting Arnold Arboretum researcher Juan Losada and Head Arborist John Del Rosso traveled to Australia to make collections of Austrobaileya, an evergreen vine found only in the rainforest of Queensland. Although the Arboretum has a century-long history of plant collecting in Asia, this trip marked only the second expedition by Arboretum representatives to the Australian subcontinent. Join us for a special presentation for Arboretum members on January 22 in the Hunnewell Building; refreshments at 6:00pm, presentation at 6:30pm. Juan and John will talk about their experiences and share pictures and videos from the tropical rainforest. Register on line at www.my.arboretum.harvard.edu.
The Friends of the Public Garden invites you to a Members Reception Wednesday, October 10, at 6 pm, at the Union Club, 8 Park Street in Boston. This is a time to socialize and to hear David Dearinger, member of the Friends Sculpture Committee, talk about the unlikely transience of large public sculptures in Boston, including some of the ones that do (or did) grace Boston’s Public Garden and Commonwealth Avenue Mall. David is the Susan Morse Hilles Curator of Paintings & Sculpture at the Boston Athenaeum, and a specialist in nineteenth-century American sculpture. The event is free but please rsvp as space is limited. Email no later than Friday, October 5 at info@friendsofthepublicgarden.org. Call 617-723-8144 for information. Your membership can be renewed at this event. Motor Mart Garage is the reception sponsor – thank you.
