Boston Flora

Wednesday, October 19, 2:00 pm – 3:30 pm – Unforgettable Gardens: Victoria Ocampo and Her Sibling Gardens, Online

Victoria Ocampo (1890-1979) was an outstanding patron of the arts, cultural manager, writer, editor, feminist avant la lettre, but also a garden lover. Her family belonged to the most traditional Argentinean upper social class and, during the 1930s, she inherited two properties located in the Buenos Aires Province: both had splendid gardens designed by her father. She maintained and renewed them for the rest of her life. These gardens welcomed the most prestigious writers, musicians, philosophers, intellectuals and cultural characters from all over the world and hosted their talks, ideas and projects. Victoria donated both properties – including the gardens, of course – to UNESCO; today one of them belongs to the Mar del Plata City Government. Both are historical landmarks.

Sonia Berjman is an Argentinian urban and landscape historian, now residing in Uruguay. She holds two PhDs (from the Universidad de Buenos Aires and Université de la Sorbonne), is a former researcher at the Argentina National Council of Research and at the Universidad de Buenos Aires, and a former graduate professor at several Argentinean universities. She has a long-standing relationship with Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collections (part of Harvard University). Among her numerous writings, she has published more than twenty books. Sonia is also a member of editorial boards for journals in Argentina, Colombia and Brazil and is an Honorary Member of the ICOMOS-IFLA Cultural Landscapes Scientific International Committee.

A ticket is 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 4 sessions sponsored by The Gardens Trust 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.

Friday, November 4 – Sunday, November 6 – American Daffodil Society Fall Forum

The American Daffodil Society will host the 2022 Fall Forum and Fall Board Meeting (FBM) in Newport, Rhode Island at the The Newport Harbor Island Resort (formerly known as Gurney’s Newport Resort & Marina). The Fall Forum is an annual event that all ADS members and their guests are invited to attend with advance reservations. The event includes the ADS Fall Board Meeting, but it is intended to maximize the education and enjoyment of all members, at an affordable registration fee.

Registration deadline is this week (although it may be extended) but sign up today at https://daffodilusa.org/events-show-calendar/fall-symposiums/2022-fall-forum-fall-board-meeting/ The Friday speaker is Bettie Bearden Pardee, a long time friend of the Garden Club of the Back Bay. Bettie is an author, founder and editor of the luxury lifestyle website PrivateNewport.com, designer of the Parterre Bench and a national lecturer. As a Bon Appetit editor for eleven years, Bettie featured everyday sophisticates in “Entertaining in Style.” She was a host and creative producer of the PBS series, “The Presidential Palate: Entertaining in the White House.” She has also been featured for garden design in Flower Magazine and now for entertaining, for the third year in a row she is listed on “The Salonniere 100: America’s Best Party Hosts.”

Bettie’s design talents and love of landscape were put to use in the creation of her Newport retreat on Bellevue Avenue, as well as her new Parterre Bench. Her often toured gardens are documented in the Archive of American Gardens at the Smithsonian Institution and are featured in the Garden Club of America’s Gardens, Private and Personal. Her home in Newport is the inspiration for her most recent coffee table books on lifestyle and design, Private Newport: At Home and in the Garden and Living Newport: Houses, People, Style, which will be available for purchase.

Her lecture includes the newly restored “Blue Garden” whose unveiling in 1913 at the celebrated Bal Masque still resonates in the annals of Newport social and cultural history. Bettie’s lush images, played across the spectrum of stunning landscapes, captures the social pastimes, rituals and well-earned traditions of a fabled town, now celebrating its 375th anniversary.

Saturday, October 22, 10:00 am – 12:30 pm – Rare Species Require Rare Habitats

Did you know that roughly half of the endangered terrestrial species in our region make their homes in fire-adapted ecosystems; or that bobolink need a minimum of 10 acres of open grass-dominated habitat to nest? Rare species often require more than just the right plants, they require the right ecosystem. Join Dan Jaffe Wilder, Director of Applied Ecology at Norcross Wildlife Foundation in Wales, Massachusetts for a walking tour of the Norcross grounds while he discusses some of the unique habitats that Norcross is working to build, enhance, and restore on its 8000-acre wildlife sanctuary. With an emphasis on landscape maintenance and species composition this walk-and-talk will provide attendees with details about what habitat construction looks like on the large scale as well as what tools can be used on our own home landscapes to accomplish similar goals in our own backyards. The Native Plant Trust field trip costs $30 for NPT members, $38 for nonmembers. Register at http://www.nativeplanttrust.org/events/rare-species-require-rare-habitats/

Tuesday, October 18, 5:00 am – British Spa Landscapes: Edward Milner’s Buxton Pavilion Garden, Online

The final installment of the Gardens Trust’s five part series on British Spa Landscapes takes place October 18 with Anna Rhodes speaking on 150 years of Edward Milner’s Buxton Pavilion Garden.

The Pavilion Gardens in Buxton opened in August 1871. It was created out of the need to provide entertainment, particularly on rainy days, for the thousands of people that came to the town for the ‘water cure’. In under a year, the 12-acre pleasure ground was created – including 5 bridges, 2 miles of paths, 2 cascades, 5000 plants, a bandstand, and a large cast iron pavilion. In the late 1800s the Pavilion Gardens were further extended and improved, including the boating lake, ice rink, tennis courts and a new concert hall designed by Robert Ripon Duke. The Buxton Guide of 1898 declared them – ‘the finest public gardens of any health resort in Europe’. The Gardens, which now extend to 23 acres are loved by visitors and locals alike. This talk will plot their history with particular focus on the Victorian period.

Anna Rhodes has been a curator at Buxton Museum and Art Gallery since 2010. Her research interests include eighteenth-century tourism to Derbyshire, focusing on travel journals and the picturesque tour. Recently she has been involved in cataloguing and researching the Pavilion Garden material in the Museum and working with the Pavilion Gardens to create an exhibition to celebrate their 150th year anniversary. www.derbyshire.gov.uk/leisure/buxton-museum/buxton-museum-and-art-gallery

The individual ticket (£5 through Eventbrite) may be purchased 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.

Tuesday, October 18, 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm – Hike Boston: Commonwealth Avenue Mall

Hike Boston is a week-day day-time hiking series where we invite you to join us for a walk in one of Boston’s parks or urban wilds.

Boston Park Rangers, Urban Wilds staff, and Parks employees will provide formal and informal discussions or tours during the hikes. Some hikes may be more focused on taking a walk in the park, while others may be more informational.

This event is an interpretive program – a tour led by a Boston Park Ranger. Meet at the corner of Commonwealth Avenue and Arlington Street. For more information visit www.boston.gov

Sundays (Ongoing) – Flower Arranging Class with Vizcaya Museum and Gardens, Online

Learn how to make flower arrangements for your home from Vizcaya’s floral designer and horticulture expert, David Hardy. He is the same horticulture expert who creates floral designs and cares for the gardens at Vizcaya Museum and Gardens in Florida

This online video class covers the foundational principles of floral design and walks you, step-by-step, through different arrangement demonstrations each week.

The content of the class is delivered as a pre-recorded video. You will have access to the content immediately upon purchasing and can watch at your own pace. There is no specific date that this class takes place or becomes available. You can purchase and start taking the class anytime.

COST: $10 Once you purchase the class, you will receive an email with instructions to access the videos. The entire class will be outlined on a website, which you can access from your computer, tablet or smartphone. Register via Eventbrite HERE.

Thursday, October 20, 12:00 noon – 1:30 pm ET – The Market Garden, Past and Present, Online

Lecture by Liz Wright, writer and editor of Smallholder magazine, on the history of the market garden from the 1930s, through the Second World War years and beyond, will take place October 20 at 7 pm GMT (noon Eastern), sponsored by the Oxfordshire Gardens Trust. Liz Wright is a writer and author and the editor of Smallholder magazine. She has a special interest in pre and post Second World War history and speaks t on the market garden.

Booking here £5.00.

Thursday, October 20, 5:00 am – The 19th Century Garden – The Women Who Broke the Glasshouse Ceiling, Online

The unveiling of a prestigious English Heritage Blue Plaque in the summer of 2022 to commemorate Fanny Rollo Wilkinson (1855-1951) at her central London address, finally threw a spotlight on one of Britain’s earliest pioneers of women’s horticultural education. Wilkinson’s career, as the first female landscape garden designer for, among others, the Metropolitan Public Gardens, Boulevard and Playground Association and the Kyrle Society, and later as head of Swanley Horticultural College, is rightly recognized as helping other women smash the glasshouse ceiling that had previously prevented them from being employed in the gardening world. This talk will look not only at Wilkinson’s life but also at the stories of many of the students she taught and encouraged in the early twentieth century during her time at Swanley as well as the first women to be accepted at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. The Gardens Trust wraps up its third series on The 19th Century Garden with this lecture by the excellent Catherine Horwood on October 20. The Zoom lecture will be available to view at your leisure for one week following the live presentation. £5 Register at Eventbrite HERE.

Dr Catherine Horwood is a social historian with a passion for plants. She is an experienced speaker and has published widely including for Gardens Illustrated, The English Garden and the Daily Telegraph. Her biography, Beth Chatto. A life with plants (Pimpernel Press, 2019), was selected as the European Garden Book of the Year in 2020. Other books include Rose (Reaktion, 2018) and Potted History. How Houseplants Took Over Our Homes (Pimpernel Press, 2020). Catherine is also the author of Gardening Women. Their Stories from 1600 to the Present (Virago, 2010), described by The Sunday Times as ‘beautifully constructed and cogently written…Neither gardens nor women will seem quite the same again’.

Monday, October 17, 3:00 pm – 5:00 pm – Mini Pumpkin Decorating Pop Up

Garden Club of the Back Bay member Nancy Cyr will demonstrate how to embellish mini pumpkins with succulents and dried flowers, in a workshop to be held October 17 from 3 – 5. The cost of $20 will include all materials, including the glue! RSVP no later than Friday, October 14 if you plan to attend, so she may purchase the correct number of pumpkins and accessories. The event will be held at 181 Marlborough St Unit 2. Please pay in advance at https://gardenclubbackbay.org/shop/

Tuesday, October 25, 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm – Director’s Series – Obsessions: Fellow Organisms in the Arnold Arboretum, In Person and Live Streamed

Join the Arnold Arboretum’s Director William (Ned) Friedman for the annual Director’s Series. To celebrate the Arboretum’s sesquicentennial, this year’s series will explore the Magic and Meaning of a Garden of Trees. Over the course of four sessions, we will trace the Arnold’s significance in the landscape architecture movement, value for the people of Boston, and leadership in creating global connections between plants and people. This final session will feature a talk from Director Friedman on fellow organisms in the Arboretum. The program is free and is offered both in person and livestreamed.

Parking is available on-site at the Weld Hill Research Building, 1300 Centre Street in Boston. Find directions here. All attendees must be masked while indoors. Register HERE for live event.

This event will also be livestreamed to YouTube. To sign up for the virtual live stream instead, click here.