Boston Flora

Garden Club of the Back Bay Holiday Wreath Store Now Open

The Garden Club of the Back Bay is pleased to announce the full resumption of its annual Holiday Wreath Sale, after a couple of years of suspension due to COVID and a year of limited sales and outreach for the same reason. As past customers remember, each wreath is lovingly created, by hand, by talented Club members, to the custom specifications of the purchaser, and all fully decorated wreaths must be ordered in advance. The November 30 deadline allows the committee to acquire all the necessary ribbons, greens, and decorations to enhance the wreath. To see examples and to order online, visit https://gardenclubbackbay.org/store Wreaths can be delivered free of charge to addresses in Back Bay, Beacon Hill, and the South End, or can be picked up at The First Lutheran Church of Boston, 299 Berkeley Street, on December 5, 6, and 7. Sadly, the wreaths cannot be mailed due to their fragility. We will post additional wreath pictures on Boston Flora now through Wreath Week as a reminder and incentive to support this important not for profit organization fundraiser. Proceeds benefit the street trees of Boston.

Saturday, October 21, 11:00 am – Women’s Memorial 20th Anniversary Celebration

The Boston Women’s Heritage Trail invites you to celebrate the 20th Anniversary of the Boston Women’s Memorial on Saturday, October 21 at 11 am. Meet at the statue on Commonwealth Avenue at Fairfield Street, on the Commonwealth Avenue Mall. Meredith Bergmann, Sculptor, will be the featured speaker. The event is co-sponsored by the Neighborhood Association of the Back Bay and by The Friends of the Public Garden. In case of inclement weather, the event will take place at the Boston Public Library in Copley Square. Free.

Wednesday, October 25, 6:45 pm Eastern – Nature’s Toxins: From Spices to Vices, Online

Scratch beneath the surface of a coffee bean, a red pepper flake, a poppy seed, a mold spore, a foxglove leaf, a magic mushroom cap, a marijuana bud, or an apple seed, and you’ll find a bevy of strange chemicals. We use these to greet our days (caffeine), titillate our tongues (capsaicin), recover from our surgeries (opioids), cure our infections (penicillin), mend our hearts (digoxin), bend our minds (psilocybin), calm our nerves (CBD), and even kill our enemies (cyanide). But why do plants and fungi produce such chemicals? And how did we come to use and abuse some of them?

Using cutting-edge science in the fields of evolution, chemistry, and neuroscience, author and evolutionary biologist Noah Whiteman reveals the origins of toxins produced by plants, mushrooms, microbes, and even some animals, the mechanisms that animals evolved to overcome them, and how a co-evolutionary arms race made its way into the human experience. This perpetual chemical war drove the diversification of life on Earth and is also intimately tied to our own successes and failures. Whiteman uncovers the deadly secrets that lurk within our spice racks, medicine cabinets, backyard gardens, and private stashes.

This Smithsonian Associates lecture will take place on Zoom on October 25 at 6:45 pm Eastern. $20 for Smithsonian Associates members, $25 for nonmembers. Register at www.smithsonianassociates.org

Wednesday, November 1 – Boston Urban Forest Plan

The Garden Club of the Back Bay will hold its November meeting on the first of November (time to be announced) at The Chilton Club, 152 Commonwealth Avenue in Boston. Speakers Amy Whitesides and Todd Mistor will present on the new City of Boston Urban Forest Plan. Amy, a Design Critic in Landscape Architecture at Harvard Graduate School of Design, works with Stoss Landscape Urbanism, the design firm that played a central role in developing the plan, and is currently the Resilience Advisor. Todd, a former priest turned urban forester, is the new Director of Boston Urban Forestry for the City of Boston. This is a members-only event, but to attend, all you need to do is join, at https://gardenclubbackbay.org/ You will receive sign up details and be set for the rest of the 2023/2024 program year, while supporting the not for profit organization, now entering its 56th year.

Thursday, October 19, 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm Eastern – In the Life of Bees: Nesting in Darkness, Online

When you think of bees, you probably imagine the things they do on sunny days, like flying around and pollinating flowers. But this is only half of the story, as most of the 20,000 species of bees found around the world nest belowground, and spend the majority of their lives in darkness. What are they doing underground? How do they navigate their burrows and communicate with other bees? What happens when it rains? There are many interesting questions surrounding this lifestyle, and also plenty of uncertainties remaining to be resolved about subterranean living. In this webinar, we will learn about the diversity of ways that bees live and reproduce belowground, and we’ll ponder some of those unsolved mysteries. We’ll also talk about how the belowground lifestyle affects threats to bees, such as exposure to pesticides and pathogens. This webinar will cover some bees you may be familiar with, such as bumble bees, but we’ll be focusing our time on soil-nesters who we generally know less about, including the many solitary bees that do not live in colonies.

This October 19 webinar from 1 – 2 will be recorded and available on our YouTube channel. Closed Captioning will be available during this webinar.

Learn more and register here today! Xerces Society speaker Leif Richardson is a conservation biologist who coordinates the California Bumble Bee Atlas project. His research focuses on the ecology, distribution, and declines of North American bumble bees. Leif previously worked as an environmental consultant, studying pesticide risk to bee pollinators, and as an ecologist for Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department. He is co-author of a range of scientific publications on bees, including Bumble Bees of North America: An Identification Guide (2014, Princeton University Press), the standard reference manual on this group of insects. He is an expert in the inventory and identification of bumble bees, and has extensive experience training others to collect bumble bee distribution data in the field. Leif holds a Master’s degree from the University of Arizona and a PhD from Dartmouth College.

Wednesday, October 18, 6:00 pm Eastern – People’s Forum for Nature-Based Solutions, Live and Online

The Crane Ledge Woods Coalition invites you to the People’s Forum for Nature-Based Solutions on October 18 at 6 pm. This will be an inclusive community update meeting and roundtable discussion. Mayor Michelle Wu and Chief of Staff White-Hammond have been invited. Nature-based solutions are an essential element in addressing the climate challenge and its impacts on Boston’s environmental justice neighborhoods. Co-sponsored by Speak for the Trees, Alternatives for Community & Environment, Boston Clean Energy Coalition, Boston Green Action, Environmental Health is Wealth Coalition, Friends of Melnea Cass Boulevard, Green New Deal/Nature Based Solutions Committee, Sierra Club Massachusetts, The Trustees of Reservations, and Trees as a Public Good. The hybrid meeting will take place live at Mass Audubon’s Boston Nature Center, 500 Walk Hill Street in Mattapan, and on Zoom. Contact craneledgeinfo@gmail.com or visit https://savecraneledgewoods.org

Friday – Sunday, October 13 – 15 – Boston Chapter of Ikebana International Show & Sale

Ikebana (Japanese for “arranged flowers” or “living flowers”) has been practiced in Japan for centuries and is now practiced worldwide. Members of Boston Chapter #17 of Ikebana International participate in three of the many schools of Ikebana. The Ikenobo school is the oldest of the schools, dating back to the 1400s, and considers itself the origin of Ikebana. Ikenobo emphasizes the Rikka and Shoka styles, in both traditional and modern forms. The Ohara school, founded in the 1890s, emphasizes naturalistic arrangements and created the popular Moribana style. The Sogetsu school, founded in the 1920s, emphasizes personal expression through Free Style arranging.

Members of Boston Chapter #17 of Ikebana International are pleased to display arrangements and give demonstrations representing these three schools of Ikebana at Tower Hill. Free with Admission to Tower Hill. Hours are Friday, October 13, 12 – 5, Saturday, October 14, 10 – 5, and Sunday, October 15, 10 – 4. For details on hours of special demonstrations and workshops, visit https://nebg.org/shows/

Tuesday, October 10, 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm Eastern – Where Bulbs Shine … On and On, Online

Integrate bulbs that last – and increase – into the designed landscape – there’s always room for more. Why do some bulbs persist in the garden, while others disappear?

It’s so easy to fall for those seductive photos in the bulb catalogs, to optimistically plant every pretty thing that catches our eye only to be disappointed in spring. Some disappear without a trace. Others we expectantly watch as they emerge from the cold ground, elongate, and develop fat, promising buds that become deer candy before they have a chance to open. Some are great in the first season, O.K. the next, and totally wimp out after that. Others are so enthusiastic we wish they would wimp out. A lot depends on breeding, site conditions, origin, and palatability to critters.

With a commitment to sustainability and a preference for conserving time and money, come to depend on an array of bulbs that come up every spring with no effort on my part, bloom their heads off, disappear without much fuss to make room for successive plantings and increase year by year. Seductive photos of long-lasting bulbs in real gardens and landscapes around the country will be accompanied by advice on selection, siting, bulbs for difficult conditions, naturalizing, perennializing and artfully combining with perennials for a long season of bloom. This Massachusetts Horticultural Society webinar will take place October 10 from 6:30 – 7:30 Eastern. $23 – $32. Register at www.masshort.org

Saturday, October 14, 10:30 am – 12:30 pm – Cacao at the Garden

Join The New England Botanic Garden at Tower Hill for a special program on October 14 from 10:30 – 12:30 that will highlight the ceremonial aspects of cacao. During this program, you will participate in guided meditation and reflection, sample ceremonial cacao, and learn more about its spiritual and scientific properties.

Instructor: Rachel Goldberg

As a Certified Professional Coach (CPC) and Energy Leadership Index Master Practitioner (ELI-MP), Rachel integrates her devotion to energetic health with intuitive pattern recognition skills and iPEC coaching tools to facilitate attitudinal awareness for her clients. Creating a safe space for her clients to withdraw from external pressures and witness their patterns without judgment, Rachel’s coaching practice empowers her clients to radically accept what currently is, while making clear focused decisions for moving forward. Working as a team, Rachel supports her clients in designing and achieving goals born from their authentic spirits.

Rachel’s greatest passion is cultivating intimate connections through ceremony. Connection between self and spirit, humanity, and nature, and most of all, unconditionally loving and accepting connection between people. She believes the art of ceremony is one of the most potent ways to create a sacred space in which each soul feels seen, heard, and witnessed. A space in which to surrender to vulnerability and expression. After having developed a ceremonial practice over the past five years with cacao as her guide, Rachel is honored to spread this heart-opening medicine to the western world. To foster and nurture intimacy among those called to take the journey. To hold space as we drop from the busy and guarded head space into the raw and open-heart space.

$45 Member Adult; $60 Adult (includes admission to the Garden)

Saturday, October 28, 3:00 pm – 4:00 pm – The Seed Keeper

Join the Native Plant Trust and author Diane Wilson (Dakota) on October 28 for a conversation about her award-winning book The Seed Keeper. A haunting novel spanning several generations, The Seed Keeper follows a Dakota family’s struggle to preserve their way of life, and their sacrifices to protect what matters most. Weaving together the voices of four indelible women, The Seed Keeper is a beautifully told story of reawakening, of remembering our original relationship to the seeds, and, through them, to our ancestors. The venue will be announced shortly. $15 for NPT members, $18 for nonmembers. Register HERE.

Please note: We do not make video or audio recordings of classes or programs available after the fact, because we believe education is interactive, with instructors and students building a community and culture of learning. Some programs may be recorded strictly for instructor-training purposes. Please visit this page to review this and other FAQs about our policies.