Boston Flora

Category: Meeting

  • Tuesday, February 4, 10:00 am – 12:00 noon – The Impact of Climate Change at the Local Level

    Dr. Amy Weidensaul will speak about the effect climate change has had on local flora and fauna. In addition, she will provide suggestions on how to reduce one’s carbon footprints at the individual level. This Andover Garden Club event will take place February 4 at South Church, 41 Central Street in Andover.

    Weidensaul, who is director of Mass Audubon’s Ipswich River Wildlife Sanctuary, has more than 20 years of experience in the environmental field. Prior to assuming her current role, she served as deputy director for conservation and education at Audubon Pennsylvania and director of the Shehan Audubon Center at Audubon Maryland-DC.

    Weidensaul has also served as the outdoor center director of South Mountain YMCA near Reading PA. She has been involved in environmental issues at the state level in Pennsylvania.

    In 2011, she received the Together Green Fellowship for conservation leadership. Weidensaul earned a BS in biology from the University of New Hampshire, a master in education from Lehigh University, and a PhD in Environmental Studies from Antioch University.

    The event will begin with social time and refreshments, followed by a brief business meeting and the program.

    Cost: $10 donation requested for guests (includes refreshments)
    Hours: 10:00 AM to approximately noon. Call 978-475-3021 for more information.

  • Monday, January 27, 1:00 pm – 4:00 pm – Hynes Convention Center Meeting

    The State Administration Committee has scheduled a hearing for 01/27/2020 from 01:00 PM-04:00 PM in Room A-1 in the Statehouse regarding the Hynes Convention Center. The Baker administration is reviving the idea of expanding the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center in Boston’s Seaport and wants permission to sell the Hynes Convention Center in the Back Bay as part of a consolidation of the city’s event and convention space. The public is invited. For more details, visit http://nabbonline.com

  • Tuesday, January 28, 6:45 pm – Ikebana Demonstration

    Ikebana is the art of Japanese flower arranging. The Norwood Evening Garden Club will host Joanne Caccavale, Ikebana instructor and President of Ikebana International Boston Chapter. The public is invited to attend for a small $5 donation. Refreshments will be served and a drawing for the finished arrangements will be held. The program begtins at 6:45 pm in the Carriage House behind the First Baptist Church, 71 Bond Street in Norwood.

    Caccavale will give a brief history of Ikebana and talk about the different schools, their concepts and styles. She will also demonstrate the basic styles of the Sogetsu School, within which she holds the rank of Komon, its second highest rank.

    Raised in Singapore, Caccavale was educated and trained as an attorney in the US but prefers teaching Ikebana to practicing law. She is a perennial exhibitor in the New England/Boston Flower and Garden Show and was an invited participant in Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts ‘Art in Bloom’ event for many years.

  • Tuesday, January 28, 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm – Franklin Park Master Plan Community Workshop

    Over the next 18 months, the City of Boston is partnering with a team of landscape architects, planners, ecologists, and community engagement experts to create a master plan for an engaging and diverse Franklin Park. Help shape the future of the park and connections to the surrounding neighborhoods. This first meeting will take place January 28 from 6 – 8 at the William J. Devine Golf Course Clubhouse (and if you haven’t been, it’s worth the trip.) William J. Devine Golf Course at Franklin Park was established October 26, 1896 and is the second oldest public golf course in the nation behind Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx borough of New York City. Snow date: Thursday, January 30 from 6:00 – 8:00 pm


  • Tuesday, January 14, 7:30 pm – Mound-building Termites and How They Coordinate Their Work

    The public is invited to attend the January meeting of the Cambridge Entomological Club on Tuesday, January 14, at 7:30 pm at Harvard University, 26 Oxford Street MCZ 101. Dr. Justin Werfel, Senior Research Scientist at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University, will present a talk entitled Mound-building Termites and How They Coordinate Their Work.

    Termites construct complex mounds that are orders of magnitude larger than any individual and fulfill a variety of functional roles for the colony. The traditional understanding of how the insects organize their efforts focuses on stigmergy, a form of indirect communication in which actions change the environment and thereby provide cues that influence future work. Dr. Werfel will discuss studies that point to the importance of cues including surface geometry, active excavation, and humidity, but, surprisingly, show no role for the putative cement pheromone that has been central to the theory for six decades. There will also be robots!

    Justin Werfel leads the Designing Emergence Laboratory. His research interests are in the understanding and design of complex and emergent systems, with work in areas including swarm robotics, social insect behavior, evolutionary theory, engineered molecular nanosystems, and educational technology. His work has been featured by numerous national and international media, highlighted among Science’s “top 10 scientific achievements of 2014”, and denounced by a former assistant secretary of the US Treasury as “an enemy of the human race.” (which to our mind is high praise) The meeting is free.

  • Thursday, February 6, 8:30 am – 4:30 pm – Urban Tree Symposium: The Future of the Urban Forest

    Join Tower Hill Botanic Garden and the Ecological Landscape Alliance on February 6 from 8:30 – 4:30 (snow date February 7) as experts in the field explore the importance of our urban forests, as well as ways we can create sustainable urban forests for the future.

    Lectures include:

    The State of the Urban Forest in the Northeast – Chris Roddick, Head Arborist, Brooklyn Botanic Garden

    Using Technology to Manage the Urban Forest – David J. Nowak, PhD, Senior Scientist / i-Tree Team Leader, US Forest Service

    Management Options for Insect Pests of Trees and Shrubs – Tawny Simisky, Extension Entomologist, UMass Extension Landscape, Nursery, and Urban Forestry Program

    Tree Selection, Establishment, and Care – Bill Logan, Founder and President of Urban Arborists

    How to Increase the Urban Canopy – Panel Discussion

    Breakfast and lunch are included. $110 for members of sponsoring organizations, $125 for general public. Register online at www.towerhillbg.org.

  • Thursday, February 6, 10:00 am – Polishing the Masterpiece: Naumkeag’s Garden Preservation as a Fine Art

    Thursday, February 6, 10:00 am – Polishing the Masterpiece: Naumkeag’s Garden Preservation as a Fine Art

    The Trustees of Reservations has been gifted with remarkable cultural resources that continue to connect people to place on some of Massachusetts’ most iconic properties.  The organization’s current public gardens initiative has invested in the reawakening of its landmark gardens and landscape.  Recently the organization completed a four-year restoration of Fletcher Steele and Mabel Choate’s garden masterpiece at Naumkeag, overlooking the Berkshire hills, and proved that its National Landmark gardens continue to draw members and visitors to its never-ending seasonal beauty.  

    Cindy Brockway, Program Director for Cultural Resources at The Trustees, will share the story of Naumkeag’s remarkable transformation and the discoveries learned in polishing one of the Commonwealth’s more remarkable masterpieces.  This February 6 talk will be the February meeting of The Garden Club of the Back Bay and will begin at 10 am at The College Club of Boston, 44 Commonwealth Avenue.

    rsvp to Jackie Blombach before January 31st  by clicking here:
    jdb.lily@comcast.net  Please let Jackie know if you you’ll be staying for lunch.
    Optional Lunch:   An optional buffet luncheon will be served after the program. Enjoy seasonal specialties of soup and salad with a selection of protein, followed by dessert.  

    You may purchase your lunch by clicking here:
    https://bostonflora.com/product/monthly-meeting-

  • Monday, February 3, 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm – Asa Gray, Charles Darwin, and the Discovery of Intercontinental Disjuncts

    William “Ned” Friendman, PhD, Arnold Arboretum Director and Arnold Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, will kick off the 2020 Director’s Lecture Series on Monday, February 3 at 7 pm in the Hunnewell Building of the Arnold Arboretum. The Director’s Lecture Series is a benefit of membership, so if you are not already a member, join the Friends of the Arnold Arboretum now.

    “Eastern Asia – eastern North America temperate woody disjuncts” is a mouthful. But, once you get the hang of it, you will discover the fascinating evolutionary stories of botanical emigrants that have journeyed from Asia to North America and evolved into much of what now makes up forest ecosystems in the eastern United States. You will also discover that the Arnold Arboretum holds one of the most important collections of such disjuncts, and that for nearly a century and a half, has been facilitating family reunions between such long-separated evolutionary cousins. This biogeographic story of temperate trees and shrubs began to unfold in the mid-nineteenth century with none other than Charles Darwin and Asa Gray, then Harvard Professor of Natural History. Wait until you hear about their correspondence!

    Fee Free. Members only. Registration required as seating is limited. Register at https://my.arboretum.harvard.edu/Info.aspx?EventID=1

  • Thursday, January 16, 6:30 pm – 8:00 pm – Doherty-Gibson Playground Community Meeting

    The Boston Parks & Recreation Department is holding the first in a series of community meetings for Fields Corner neighbors and Doherty-Gibson Playground users to provide feedback on proposed designs for the park. Learn about the project scope and timeline and share your thoughts. The meeting will be hald on January 16 at 6:30 pm at the Viet-AID Community Center, 2nd Floor, Suite D, 42 Charles Street in Dorchester. For more information call Annie Blair at the Boston Parks & Recreation Department, 617-961-3028. Photo courtesy of Historic New England.


  • Thursday, January 23, 3:00 pm – 5:00 pm – Garden Club of the Back Bay Annual Winter Tea

    Thursday, January 23, 3:00 pm – 5:00 pm – Garden Club of the Back Bay Annual Winter Tea

    The Garden Club of the Back Bay’s Annual Winter Tea will be held Thursday, January 23 from 3 – 5 at the Courtyard Restaurant of the Boston Public Library. Member price is $50, member guests $55. You may reserve online at https://bostonflora.com/shop/. Invitations will be sent electronically to Club members. The tea is a favorite time to socialize in the middle of winter, and we promise the food will be rich and traditional. Clotted cream, everyone?