Boston Flora

Tuesday, October 11 – Deadline for Submission: Home Gardeners Exhibit

Old Sturbridge Village wants to see what you’ve been growing in your garden this year! Whether you are near or far, help us celebrate the fall harvest by entering this year’s Home Gardeners’ Exhibit. Entries will be posted in an online exhibit and photos will also be on display during the exhibition of the Village Harvest held on October 22nd and 23rd. A couple of our expert horticulturalists will also pick the best of each category, sharing feedback and comments about the winning entries.

Rules

The exhibit is open to the general public and museum staff.
Entries can be anything grown in the 2022 season – vegetables, flowers, herbs, etc. are acceptable. They do not have to be heirloom varieties, but you are more than welcome to submit heirloom produce!
The entry must be grown by the exhibitor.
There is no entry fee.
Each person may enter up to 4 items.
Vegetables eligible for entry in the heirloom category are listed below.
Entries must be submitted by Tuesday, October 11, 2022.

Photo Tips For Virtual Exhibit

Use a clean visual background (try placing a sheet or tarp behind your plants if possible)
Remove any clutter or background objects that may distract from the subject you are photographing
Take photos at a well-lit area and time of day.
If it is too dark inside, consider shooting outside in the sunlight
Make sure your camera is focused on the plant you are submitting
Photos must be at least 300 PPI (pixels per inch); Largest file size option for smart phones

Judging and Categories

Museum horticultural staff will review each entry and determine a winner and runner up in each of the following categories:

Best in young gardeners (ages 5-12)
Best in adult gardeners (ages 13 and up)
Best heirloom – eligible varieties below
Best overall

For a list of prizes and eligible heirloom varieties, and entry form, visit https://www.osv.org/event/home-gardeners-exhibit/

Cactus and Benary’s Giant Zinnias grown by Rita Borovicka, 2021 Overall Winner

Friday, October 7, 12:00 noon – 1:00 pm – Building Community Capacity Through Farming, Online

In the spring of 2020, New York Botanical Garden’s Bronx Green-Up joined with Bronx-based gardens and urban farms to address food insecurity by growing and distributing fresh fruits and vegetables to local people in need. Since then, this network has grown into a movement that unites community garden sites and BIPOC-led farms upstate with local non-profit organizations and the New York City Housing Authority for a more resilient community. $18. Register HERE.

Join them on October 7 at noon online for an inspiring panel discussion about organizing, gardening, and community building with Cayla Casciani of Morning Glory Community Garden, Regina Ginyard of South Bronx Food Hub Collective, and Kadeesha Williams of Iridescent Earth Collective, moderated by Ursula Chanse, Senior Director of NYBG’s Bronx Green-Up. The lessons learned can be applied to situations in the Greater Boston area as well.

Wednesday, October 12, 7:00 pm – 8:00 pm – Accessible Gardening: Raised Beds, Containers & More, Online

A lifelong love, or a newly discovered leisure activity of gardening, should not have to end as we age. Gardening provides exercise, stimulation, a sense of accomplishment, hope and many other benefits for mental and physical health. Enjoying gardening late into life also helps people on fixed incomes to “stretch the pocketbook and tight budget” by growing food in a garden and keeping a healthy diet. Join Deborah Krause, Horticulture Therapist, to learn how to make gardening more accessible depending on your physical abilities. Discover some of the ways you can customize your garden to suit both your physical needs and your available space. This hourlong webinar will introduce you to a variety of container gardening methods, including raised beds, garden tables.

This New England Botanic Garden at Tower Hill webinar will be held on October 12, and is free to attend thanks to the generous sponsorship by AARP Massachusetts. This webinar will be recorded and available to registrants for 1 month.

Deborah Krause is a Registered Horticultural Therapist. She is passionate about wellness and the therapeutic benefits of horticulture for people of all ages and abilities. She has served in various capacities in the American Horticultural Therapy Association (AHTA) and the Northeast Horticultural Therapy Network (NEHTN), which she co-founded, and currently is on the Board of Directors. Deborah developed the horticultural therapy program at Perkins School for the Blind and was the horticultural therapist and coordinator of the horticulture center there for 40 years. She is currently a Program Coordinator at The Nature Connection whose mission is to improve the wellbeing of individuals and communities through the therapeutic use of nature. Deborah is the horticulture educator at the Memorial Spaulding School Garden where students grow produce to donate to food pantries. She presents webinars for AARP on adaptive gardening as we age. Deborah consults with non-profit organizations to design and facilitate therapeutic and educational horticulture and nature programs. Deborah’s popular classes for adults creating sensory rich seasonal flower and plant arrangements have focused on relaxation, stress reduction and positive thinking and she is honored and happy to continue to bring this to Tower Hill.

$0 Member Adult; $0 Adult (Sponsored by AARP MA) This webinar will be recorded and available for all registrants until November 12, 2022.

Saturday, October 8 – Monday, October 10, 9:30 am – 4:00 pm – Agricultural Fair Weekend at Old Sturbridge Village

Fall was the time for 19th-century Agricultural Societies to hold a Cattle Show. Many shows also included an Exhibition of Domestic Manufacture. Throughout the weekend, the staff at Old Sturbridge Village is recreating such a display. Please stop by to see an exhibition of vegetables, fruit, butter, cheese, and items of home manufacture such as handwoven cotton and woolen fabrics, knitted stockings and shawls, and fancy work. Village manufactured items such as shoes, tin, pottery, brooms, baskets, straw braid, and books will also be on display.

Also this weekend, learn about saving your seeds for next year’s garden and preserving vegetables to last all year. Watch us use our dried flowers to make everlasting bouquets and weave baskets that are used for harvesting crops. For a complete schedule of events and directions visit https://www.osv.org/event/agriculture-fair-weekend/

Thursday, October 13, 5:00 am – The 19th Century Garden – Painting the Victorian Garden, Online

The fifth in a series of six online lectures from The Gardens Trust brings David Marsh back on October 13 to discuss Painting the Victorian Garden.

The Victorian Age saw gardens emerge as a major artistic subject in their own right, perhaps hand in hand with the spread of interest in garden-making. A small number of artists even specialized in recording by their own choice not just the gardens of the rich on commission but much more ordinary gardens. This lecture will look at a range of painters and paintings who after decades of neglect are beginning to be recognized as significant figures in both art and garden history. We shall, in the words of Roy Strong, go ‘sauntering past immemorial yew hedges to linger over a herbaceous border before ascending ancient stone steps leading through a weathered iron gate to who knows where’. But we’ll also look inside the conservatory and at the reality behind the chocolate box cottage garden.

After a career as a head teacher in Inner London, Dr David Marsh took very early retirement (the best thing he ever did) and returned to education on his own account. He was awarded a PhD in 2005 and now lectures about garden history anywhere that will listen to him. Recently appointed an honorary Senior Research Fellow by the University of Buckingham, he is a trustee of the Gardens Trust and chairs their Education Committee. He oversees their on-line program and writes a weekly garden history blog which you can find at https://thegardenstrust.blog. £5 each or all 6 for £30. Register on Eventbrite HERE.

Friday, October 14 – Monday, February 13 – Intricate Beauties: The Lichen Explorations of Natalie Andrew

Ceramics provide a vehicle for Natalie Andrew’s exploration into the sublime aesthetics inherent in lichen. An artist and a biologist, Andrew was permitted by the Arnold Arboretum’s curation department to observe the ‘spontaneous flora’ of lichens occurring in the landscape. The resulting works highlight the texture, depth, and form of lichen against the surface of ceramic.

Natalie Andrew is both a professional biologist and a visual artist whose explorations converge around mosses, slime molds, and other denizens of the forest floor. Integral to her practice is the crossing of the boundaries that separate art and science, allowing them to feed off of each other.

Natalie is currently a Resident Artist at the Harvard Ceramics Program, MA, is the 2018 Artist in Residence at the Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest, KY, and has had residencies at Wellesley College, MA and the McColl Center for Art, NC. She lectures and gives workshops on art and science, and has exhibited in various galleries in Massachusetts and New Hampshire.

As a scientist, Natalie has most recently worked at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self Organization in Germany, researching flows and contraction behavior in protoplasmic slime molds. Her previous positions include postdocs at Harvard University and Harvard Medical School, and she has published in Nature Cell Biology, PNAS, PLoS Computational Biology and others.

Natalie has received a Ph.D. in Biology, a Masters degree in Cognitive Science, and a Bachelors Degree in Physics with Electronics, all from the University of Birmingham, UK.

This Arnold Arboretum art show will run from Friday, October 14 through February 13. For more information visit www.arboretum.harvard.edu

Saturday, October 8, 6:30 pm – Butterflies of Honduras, Online

The Massachusetts Butterfly Club is celebrating its 30th year, and its 2022 Fall meeting will be held virtually on October 8 at 6:30 pm on Zoom. The meeting is free but registration is required.

The Club is excited to host Robert Gallardo to speak on “Butterflies of Honduras”. Robert is building a nature reserve and working on a complete guide to Honduran butterflies, and has made several discoveries of new species in the process. We hope you will join us to learn about tropical butterflies and conservation efforts in Honduras. For more information, click here.

The meeting will also feature photographs by members and announcement of the officer election results.

To register for the meeting, visit https://bit.ly/MBCFall22.

Wednesday, October 5, 2:00 pm – 3:30 pm – Unforgettable Gardens: Restoring Fehérvárcsurgó, Online

The stately home and park in Fehérvárcsurgó, 50 miles west of Budapest, were originally Baroque, overlaid in the 19th century with an eclectic mix of naturalistic landscape style and a touch of Art Nouveau. Nationalized after World War II, the historic house was at risk of collapse by the late 1980s and the park had become a jungle. This Gardens Trust online talk will explore how Georges Károlyi – great-great-grandson of Fehérvárcsurgó’s creator – and his Paris-born wife Angelica have restored the former family estate, turning it into a European cultural meeting center, and have started to restore the park, which since 2005 has hosted an annual European Art of Garden exhibition.

Angelica Karolyi was born in Paris in 1947 to German parents, both painters. She studied political science at the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris, and has a master’s degree in history from the Sorbonne. In 1971 in Paris, she married Georges Károlyi, who was originally from Hungary. They had 4 children and still have a home in Paris but live most of the time in Hungary. In 1994 they created the Joseph Károlyi Foundation, a non-profit organization that aims to promote relations between Hungary and the rest of Europe, and to ensure the restoration of her husband’s former family property in Fehérvárcsurgó, Hungary. Under the auspices of the Foundation, Angelica organizes numerous international conferences on political science and history, as well as exhibitions and concerts, including an annual string quartet festival.

This is the first in a series of four talks, organized by the Historic Gardens Foundation in partnership with The Gardens Trust, exploring international examples of Unforgettable Gardens, seen through the eyes of their owners, managers, creators and restorers.

The Historic Gardens Foundation is an international not-for-profit organization, launched in 1995, which works to bring together lovers of historic parks and gardens across the world. Its magazine Historic Gardens Review provides a portal for the views of both enthusiasts and professionals and is a strong voice in championing the cause of our global garden heritage.

You may purchase a ticket for the entire course of 4 sessions at a cost of £16 via the link here. (Subscribers to Historic Gardens Review will be able to purchase a series ticket for £8.) Attendees will be sent a Zoom link 2 days prior to the start of the talk, and again a few hours before the talk. A link to the recorded session (available for 1 week) will be sent shortly afterwards.

Wednesday, October 19, 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm – Walk and Talk: Outstanding Plants to Add Fall Color in the Garden

Walk and Talks give you an in-depth behind the scenes look at what goes on at New England Botanic Garden at Tower Hill. Learn from New England Botanic Garden staff as they dive into what makes New England Botanic Garden so special. For this October 19 walk and talk join join Formal Gardens Manager Dawn Davies to learn about some of the autumnal plants on display that you can use to beautify your own outdoor spaces. The walk begins at 2 pm. Wear proper attire for walking around the garden.

Dawn Davies is the Horticulture Manager at New England Botanic Garden at Tower Hill. She began her horticulture career in 1989 at Tarnow Nursery and Garden Center as an assistant manager. She also attended the Longwood Garden Professional Gardener Training program. Following that, she owned and operated her own garden maintenance business for 2 years before beginning at New England Botanic Garden in 1999 as a gardener. In 2002, she was promoted to Outdoor Horticulturist with a focus on the Vegetable and Systematic Gardens.

$10 Member Adult; $20 Adult (Registration includes admission to the Garden) Register HERE

Tuesday, October 4, 5:00 am – British Spa Landscapes – Leafy Leamington, Online

In 1800 Leamington Priors was a village of a few hundred people. A saline spring had been known since the fifteenth century, but only then were new springs being discovered and developed. by local enterprise. Then followed the growth of a new and planned town north of the river, furnished with houses to attract the upper class clientele coming to take the cure. Public walks and gardens were an essential part of the treatment, which prescribed the amounts of water and exercise to be taken. The earliest gardens were attached to commercial operations. Contemporary correspondence shows the aspirations of some of the participants in creating these spaces: tree – lined streets, garden squares and subscription parks and how they responded to changing fashions. As the century progressed, the needs of the inhabitants of the town became more prominent and a “People’s Park” was created to complete a string of five riverside parks. On October 4, The Gardens Trust will present a Zoom presentation with Christine Hodgetts as part of its British Spa Landscapes series. Christine Hodgetts took her degrees in history at London University. Since completing her PhD she has concentrated on adult education, giving courses on the skills of researching and writing history from the sources. She also works on commission on building and landscape history.

A ticket for this individual session costs £5, and you may purchase tickets for other individual sessions, or you may purchase a ticket for the entire course of 5 sessions at a cost of £20 via the link here. Attendees will be sent a Zoom link 2 days prior to the start of the talk, and again a few hours before the talk. A link to the recorded session (available for 1 week) will be sent shortly afterwards.