Boston Flora

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.

Thursday, October 6, 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm – The Seasonal Gardener, Online

First published in 2001, and now fully revised and updated, acclaimed bestselling author Anna Pavord’s The Seasonal Gardener features 60 ‘star plants’ — from iris to hostas — each paired with two perfect partners: shrubs, herbaceous perennials, bulbs, and annuals that no garden should be without. This classic book reveals how best to group plants in a garden to create a year-long display. Ranging from hydrangeas, salvias, and ferns to dahlias, tulips and snowdrops, each star plant is paired with two partners, offering gardeners creative planting solutions to achieve stunning results, season by season. Anna Pavord is one of today’s most inspiring and much-loved garden writers and the author of globally bestselling The Tulip and The Naming of Names. Her gardening column in the Independent in the UK ran for 30 years from the paper’s launch in 1986 until the last print edition. Today, she writes for the Sunday Times and is an Associate Editor of Gardens Illustrated. Pavord lives in West Dorset and was awarded the Gold Veitch medal from the Royal Horticultural Society in 2001.

On Thursday, October 6 at 2 pm Eastern Time, The Garden Conservancy will host a live webinar with Ms. Pavord. Conservancy Members $5 per person; General admission $15. A recording of this webinar will be sent to all registrants a few days after the event. We encourage you to register, even if you cannot attend the live webinar.

Members of the Frank & Anne Cabot Society for planned giving have complimentary access to Garden Conservancy webinars. All Cabot Society members will automatically be sent the link to participate on the morning of the webinar. For more information about the Cabot Society, please contact Sarah Parker at sparker@gardenconservancy.org or 845.424.6500, ext. 214. To register visit www.gardenconservancy.org

Tuesdays, October 4, 11, 18, and November 15, 22, and 29, 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm – Japanese Flower Arranging Course

Learn the art of Japanese flower arranging from Joanne Caccavale, Komon, Sogetsu School. In this Massachusetts Horticultural Society six-week course, you will be taught the basic curriculum and receive a certificate from Tokyo upon completion of course books. Students will be provided with school books, plant material, containers and pin frogs when you come to class. Please bring garden scissors or ikebana scissors.

Joanne was born and raised in Singapore, she came to school in the US in 1985 and stayed. Educated and trained as an attorney, she however, prefers flowers to law. A professionally trained floral designer, she switched to Japanese flower arranging twenty years ago and has been teaching for fourteen years.

She is a perennial exhibitor in the New England/Boston Flower Show and did the MFA Art in Bloom for many years for her Garden Club. She is a Past President and is now again President of Ikebana International Boston Chapter and Director elect of the Boston Chapter of the Sogetsu School. She holds the rank of Riji (highest rank) from the Sogetsu School.

She holds regular classes at her studio at home and also teaches at the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. She regularly conducts workshops for the Sogetsu School in Massachusetts. On a yearly basis, she has made the Ikebana stage installation for the Japanese Emperor’s Birthday Reception at the Massachusetts State House.

$296 for Mass Hort Members/$354 for General Admission For more information, and to register, CLICK HERE

Friday, October 7, 7:00 pm – Plants & Gardens Happy Hour: Tips and Secrets Webinar

The American Horticultural Society and GardenComm are partnering to offer virtual classes this fall. This magazine-style Webinar will feature a public garden, two topics, and a “What’s Making Us Smile” piece at the end. Learn from Andrea DeLong-Amaya with the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, Horticulturist and Landscape Designer Claire Jones, Organic Materials Review Institute’s (OMRI) Jacob Mogler and all moderated by expert garden writer and speaker, Kathy Jentz. Register for the October 7th webinar today! All registered will receive a garden-based beverage recipe from Garden Comm mixologist Ellen Zachos, and will be entered to win gift certificates from Brent & Becky’s Bulbs. $15. AHS members free.

Wednesday, October 12, 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm – Friends of the Public Garden Campaign Celebration and Members Reception

Raise a glass to the Friends of the Public Garden’s 50th Anniversary Campaign with fellow Friends Members and celebrate all the ways that Members impact these beloved greenspaces. Enjoy drinks and appetizers overlooking the sunset in the three parks from the top floor of the UMass Club on Beacon Street. RSVP today to info@friendsofthepublicgarden.org. If you are not yet a member, join now.

Wednesday, October 5, 7:00 pm – Plant Life Book Talk, Live and Online

Rosetta S. Elkin reveals that planting a tree can either be one of the ultimate offerings to thriving on this planet, or one of the most extreme perversions of human agency over it. Plant Life exposes the relationship between human and plant life, revealing that afforestation is not an ecological act: rather, it is deliberately political and distressingly social. This Arnold Arboretum sponsored talk will take place live and online on October 5 at 7 pm.

Using three supracontinental case studies—scientific forestry in the American prairies, colonial control in Africa’s Sahelian grasslands, and Chinese efforts to control and administer territory—Elkin explores the political implications of plant life as a tool of environmentalism. By exposing the human tendency to fix or solve environmental matters by exploiting other organisms, this work exposes the relationship between human and plant life, revealing that afforestation is not an ecological act: rather, it is deliberately political and distressingly social.

Plant Life ultimately reveals that afforestation cannot offset deforestation, an important distinction that sheds light on current environmental trends that suggest we can plant our way out of climate change. By radicalizing what conservation protects and by framing plants in their total aliveness, Elkin shows that there are many kinds of life—not just our own—to consider when advancing environmental policy.

Rosetta S. Elkin is associate professor and academic director of landscape architecture at Pratt Institute, principal of Practice Landscape, and research associate at the Harvard Arnold Arboretum. She is author of Tiny Taxonomy: Individual Plants in Landscape Architecture.

This event will also be presented in-person at the Arboretum’s Weld Hill Research Building at 1300 Centre Street, Boston, MA 02131. To sign up for the in-person event, click here. To sign up for the virtual presentation, click here.

Thursday, October 6, 5:00 am – The 19th Century Garden – Boating Lakes and Backhanders, Online

The Gardens Trust’s third series of lectures on Victorian gardens continues on October 6 with Ben Dark’s exploration of Boating Lakes and Backhanders: J.J. Sexby and the Politics of the Public Park.

Lieutenant Colonel J. J. Sexby, Chief Officer of the London County Council’s Parks Department, has been credited with creating the model for twentieth century public parks. To contemporaries it seemed that at a wave of his magic wand ‘bandstands blossom forth, lakes sparkle, shelters spring up, delightful refreshment rooms, not to mention drinking fountains, abound and playgrounds leap into joyful existence’. But these features were far from universally popular. Contemporary landscape architects accused Sexby of being ‘the merest amateur’ and advocates for naturalistic planting derided the Parks Department for their ‘ugly tea gardens’. Meanwhile, behind the Council’s rockeries and ‘Old English’ gardens lay a bitter soup of political infighting, official corruption and bureaucratic incompetence.

This talk will re-examine Sexby and the parks he created in the light of the economic, aesthetic and moral arguments that raged around him, and will argue that his true genius has long been misunderstood.

Ben Dark is an author, gardener and horticultural journalist with a particular interest in the history of plants and landscapes. His book The Grove: A Natural Odyssey in 19½ Front Gardens (Octopus, 2022) used the plants of a single street in South London to weave together stories of the city, its people and their flowers and was called ‘the best gardening book of 2022’ by the Daily Telegraph, as well as being praised by The Sunday Times, the New Statesman and The Mail on Sunday.

Alongside writing Ben also hosts the award-winning Garden Log podcast, providing a discursive look at the culture, literature and practice of gardening. He has a degree in history from Bristol University and an MA in garden and landscape history from the University of London, writing his dissertation on J. J. Sexby and London’s Municipal Public Parks, 1889-1910.

£5 each or all 6 for £30. Register at Eventbrite HERE. The recording will be available for a week following the Zoom lecture.

Mondays, October 3, October 17, & November 7, 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm – 24th Annual Landscape Design Portfolio Series, Online

Three innovative and much-honored landscape architects discuss their signature projects, unique working methods, and design philosophies-while sharing transformative stories of people and places. For these designers, a respect for history informs and inspires the creative process. This online New York Botanical Garden Series on October 3, October 17, & November 7, will be presented at 6:30 Eastern time on Zoom. $95 for the series. Register here at www.nybg.org

The first talk will be by Elizabeth Kennedy entitled At the Crossroads: Socially Just Landscapes. From her office in New York’s Brooklyn Naval Yard, Elizabeth Kennedy leads EKLA PLLC, a collaborative, interdisciplinary social justice practice noted for excellence in innovative landscape preservation, development, and management. For Kennedy, design inspiration can come from anywhere-even the quality of light and shade. Kennedy’s talk will illustrate how her projects-including the Weeksville Heritage Center in Brooklyn, the African Burial Ground National Monument in Lower Manhattan, the Inwood Sacred Site, the Peninsula Live-Work Campus in the Bronx, and Buffalo’s Michigan Street African American Heritage Corridor-exemplify landscape architecture’s potential to afford a broader understanding of place and identity.

The daughter of an architect, Elizabeth Kennedy, FASLA, knew at 14 that she wanted to be a landscape architect. She studied landscape architecture at Cornell University and founded her own firm in 1994, with the goal of collaborating with mission-driven non-profit organizations to serve communities. Much honored for her distinguished work in sustainability, Kennedy is an ASLA Fellow and the recipient of 2022’s prestigious Annual Landscape Architecture Foundation Medal.

On October 17, you will hear Julie Bargmann speak on Troubled Beauty: A Manifesto for Ugly Duckling Landscapes. Known for her innovative approaches to design and regeneration of toxic industrial sites and degraded urban landscapes, Julie Bargmann turns “ugly duckling” sites into swans. Her process begins with site forensics-finding the stories of place and then surmounting innumerable obstacles with her unique blend of fearlessness, experimentation, common sense and restraint in order to produce award-winning work. She will discuss a community-based reclamation project of an abandoned coal works; a corporate campus refashioned within an abandoned Navy yard; an obsolete water supply station reinterpreted for a small private garden; and a privately funded public park offered as a sign of optimism in a disinvested Detroit neighborhood.

Julie Bargmann is the Founder and Principal of D.I.R.T. Studio and a Professor Emerita at the University of Virginia Department of Landscape Architecture. She is the Inaugural Laureate of the 2021 Cornelia Hahn Oberlander International Landscape Architecture Prize and a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome. Bargmann received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Sculpture from Carnegie Mellon and a MLA from Harvard’s Graduate School of Design.

The final talk on November 7 will be by Roderick Wyllie and James A. Lord on Supergreen: Gardens, Placemaking, and Infrastructure. Roderick Wyllie and James A. Lord, founding partners of Surfacedesign, a San Francisco-based landscape architecture studio, challenge conventional approaches to design by asking novel questions and listening to a site and its users. By doing so, Wyllie and Lord focus on cultivating a sense of connection between the built and the natural world, inviting people to engage with the landscape in new ways. Together, the two landscape architects will present work that ranges in location and scale, from civic projects to intimate residential gardens, including Auckland International Airport in New Zealand; the 40-acre Expedia headquarters site on Seattle’s waterfront; Uber’s headquarters in San Francisco that includes a public park; and Uliveto, a private residence in Northern California.

Roderick Wyllie, FASLA, and James A. Lord, FASLA, along with partner Geoff di Girolamo, have established Surfacedesign as an international leader in landscape architecture, urban design, and sustainability. Alumni of Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, both are ASLA Fellows. For the consistent excellence of their built designs, they were honored with the 2017 Cooper Hewitt Design Award.

Friday, October 14, 10:00 am – 7:00 pm, & Saturday October 15, 9:00 am – 5:00 pm – Olmsted: Bicentennial Perspectives

The Harvard University Graduate School of Design, in partnership with the Arnold Arboretum, will host a two-day academic conference as part of the national Olmsted 200 celebration. While Olmsted was central to the conceptual formation of the degree program in landscape architecture at Harvard University and the design of the Arnold Arboretum, the interpretive ambitions of the conference are anything but parochial.

More details to come. Friday’s program will take place at the GSD, Gund Hall, Piper Auditorium, and Saturday’s program will take place at the Arnold Arboretum, 125 Arborway. Free and open to the public. Anyone requiring accessibility accommodations should contact the events office at (617) 496-2414 or events@gsd.harvard.edu.