Join New York Botanical Garden’s Landscape Design Students and Alumni Association’s morning meeting Tuesday, January 18 at 10 a.m. on Zoom. Hear from Edward Harland, head gardener of Britain’s Littlethorpe Manor, as he shares an informal presentation on “The Making of a Garden.” To receive the Zoom login information for this free meeting, please add your email address to the Meeting RSVP link HERE
Please join The Neighborhood Association of the Back Bay on Thursday, February 3rd at 7 pm, as transit historian and local author Steven Beaucher discusses his recent book, Boston in Transit. He will be focusing on topics of interest to us in the Back Bay. Boston in Transit tells the story of Boston’s development and growth through the lens of public transportation, starting with a simple ferry carrying English colonists through the arrival of steam trains and fleets of electric streetcars and buses, to the creation and evolution of the MBTA. Steven will lead us through highlights of public transit in Boston from 1630 through the present day. In addition to being an author and transit historian, Steven is also a map expert and the proprietor of WardMaps on Massachusetts Avenue in Cambridge. This is a free presentation, but please register at specialevents@nabbonline.org by the cutoff date of Tuesday, February 1st. A Zoom link for the presentation will be emailed to you before the presentation on February 3rd.
For Kate Orff, landscape architects must do more than “beautify”-they must help reset ecosystems to reconnect people to each other through ecological-social design. In her firm’s signature projects-from the $60 million Living Breakwaters barrier reef and shoreline restoration project off Staten Island, to Atlanta’s Chattahoochee RiverLands, to Resilient Boston Harbor Vision-she’s also spearheading an approach to climate resilience that says we should build with nature, not just in it.
Kate Orff, RLA, FASLA, is founding principal of SCAPE. Through her publications, activism, research, and complex, creative collaborations, she focuses on retooling the practice of landscape architecture relative to the uncertainty of climate change and creating spaces to foster social life. In 2017, Orff was the first landscape architect awarded the MacArthur “Genius Grant,” and in 2019 she received a National Design Award and was elevated to the ASLA Council of Fellows.
The New York Botanical Garden is sponsoring this January 27 lecture which was to have taken at the Ross Lecture Hall at the NYBG, 2900 Southern Boulevard in the Bronx. Due to Covid concerns, the event will now be online. For more information, email adulted@nybg.org or call 718-817-8720. $32 for NYBG members, $35 for nonmembers. You may enroll online HERE.
You are invited to join the Garden Club Federation of Massachusetts for a free online lecture on January 19 at 4 pm with Christie Dustman. Conifers are unique, versatile and misunderstood plants for the garden. This lecture takes an in-depth look at what interesting cultivars of conifers can offer to modern gardens rather than being the blobs of the past. Please register HERE in advance – after registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
Christie Dustman is the owner of Christie Dustman & Company, Inc., a small landscape design, maintenance and installation company in the Boston area. Christie has won design awards, teaches at many venues including the Arnold Arboretum, for the Garden Federation, garden clubs, the Boston Flower Show, and on the national stage, and has a personal garden showcased on national tours. In 2021, her private garden was featured in Fine Gardening Magazine.
Devote special new space for herbs, vegetables, fruits, and flowers for cutting. Get design inspirations for planning your own kitchen garden and discover tried-and-true small trees, shrubs, and herbaceous plants best suited to your site. Explore annuals and perennials, herbs for tea and culinary uses, and great ways to include both classic and novelty vegetables. Winter is a great time to start planning with this New York Botanical Garden online course on January 23 from 10 – 1. $55 for NYBG members, $59 for nonmembers. Register HERE.
Are you a land manager and have been receiving requests for more information about so-called “jumping/snake worms”? Are you a homeowner who is looking to learn more, ask questions, or perhaps you just found jumping worms on your property in 2021? No matter who you are, if you are curious or concerned about jumping/snake worms, this conference is for you!
Join UMass Extension as we welcome scientists who specialize in jumping/snake worm research to discuss the latest understanding of these earthworms. How to identify jumping/snake worms, what their potential impacts are, and the latest research into how we might manage them to be discussed. Speakers include .Dr. Olga Kostromytska, UMass Stockbridge, Dr. Justin Richardson, UMass Amherst, Dr. Josef Gorres, University of Vermont, and Dr. Annise Dobson, Yale School of the Environment. These LIVE virtual presentations will also give you the chance to get your questions answered following each speaker’s presentation. So, bring your questions! $25 for individual days, $40 if registering for both days, January 26 and 27. For complete schedule and to register visit www.ag.umass.edu
Alice de Rothschild (1847 – 1922) was a member of the immensely rich European banking family of that name. Brought up on the continent, she developed Eythrope, the Buckinghamshire estate adjacent to her brother Ferdinand’s Waddesdon Manor, as ‘a showpiece’ garden. She also had a large property in Grasse, on the French Riviera, where she laid out a garden amongst the olive groves, adapting the paths specially to accommodate Queen Victoria’s donkey carriage on the latter’s various outings.
After her brother’s death Alice inherited the Waddesdon Estate, running all three properties with ‘an unusually strong power of will and inflexibility of purpose […], looking after every detail of her estate, undeterred by any opposition that she might meet with’. This is borne out by a unique series of letters, sent from Grasse back to her head gardener at Waddesdon, which contain detailed instructions for the garden.
Still adhering to the original High Victorian bedding schemes of the late 19th-century, Alice de Rothschild also developed a close friendship with Ellen A Willmott who advocated the much more informal style of gardening of William Robinson. 2022 is the centenary of Alice de Rothschild’s death which will be marked by various exhibitions at Waddesdon Manor and at Eythrope.
Dr Sophie Piebenga is the (part-time) gardens’ archivist at Waddesdon Manor, Bucks. Born and brought up in The Netherlands, she has spent all her adult life in the UK, training originally as a gardener with The National Trust and at The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. She diverged into the world of garden history, making the works of the landscape gardener W S Gilpin the topic of her DPhil study at the University of York. Now based in The Cotswolds she divides her time between gardening and giving garden advice, undertaking historic landscape research and leading garden tours for Boxwood Tours.
This Gardens Trust lecture is £5, and you may register through Eventbrite HERE. Attendees will be sent a Zoom link 2 days prior to the start of the talk, and a link to the recorded session (available for 1 week) will be sent shortly afterwards.
This Gardens Trust online talk on January 12 at 1 pm Eastern time is sponsored in conjunction with the Kent Gardens Trust, and is £5. 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. Register HERE.
As the Italian Water Garden nears completion visitors can sense how the beauty of the past has inspired this magical blend of house and garden hidden away in the heart of historic Rochester. It is the culmination of 27 years of creative endeavour by owners Robert Tucker and Jonathan Wilmot. A new ‘restoration’ (the house is named for the visit of Charles 2nd in May 1660 on his way to London from Dover) has breathed fresh life, piece by piece, into three quite different areas of the garden, with each component using materials and craftsmanship of the highest order. It required the energy and persistence to battle with the local council and unsympathetic developers, and TO WIN, and then to share the results with the public.
In this talk, Jonathan Wilmot will outline the main features of this invigorating story. Head Gardener, Sarah Pollard will talk about the plants, the parterre, the established trees and the hard work that combine to create a harmonious whole, and about looking after the lemons that now flourish in the Italian garden. Jonathan Wilmot is one of the co-owners of Restoration House, and Sarah Pollard has been Head Gardener for over 10 years.
That weather and climate have a major influence on forests is a familiar concept to most of us. But forests also influence climate in ways that aren’t always appreciated and are still being discovered. This applies to local as well as global processes and extends from the early evolution of trees to the current era of rapid, human-induced change.
This Ecological Landscape Alliance January 19 noontime presentation will explore the fascinating role of forests as a key part of the climate system, and how researchers are still unraveling their mysteries using tools ranging from state-of-the-art satellite sensors to old-fashioned walks in the woods.
Dr. Scott Ollinger is a professor of ecosystem ecology and director of the Earth Systems Research Center at the University of New Hampshire. His research focuses on carbon, nutrient and water cycles in forests and how factors such as biodiversity and land use change affect feedbacks between forests and climate. Dr. Ollinger has been principal investigator on a number of NASA and National Science Foundation research projects and he has served on a variety of state and national science advisory boards. He was the first Director of the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) and is presently a member of NASA’s North American Carbon Program. At UNH, Dr. Ollinger enthusiastically teaches courses in ecosystem ecology and biogeochemistry.
Free for ELA members, $10 for nonmembers. Register at www.ecolandscaping.org
The American Horticultural Society is excited to launch a new virtual speaker series featuring current and past Great American Gardeners Award Winners and Book Award Winners. Since 1953, the AHS has been recognizing and celebrating horticultural champions that represent the best in American gardening. In a lively and engaging conversational format, speakers will share their knowledge and experience with our event host, Holly Shimizu, gardener to gardener. Holly Shimizu is a nationally recognized horticulturist with a rich background in public gardens and garden communication.
On January 27 at 7 pm, Holly will speak with Michael Balick. A world renowned ethnobotanist at the New York Botanical Garden (NYBG), Michael J. Balick, Ph.D., works with indigenous cultures to document plant diversity, preserve knowledge about traditional uses for plants, and help these communities sustainably manage their resources. In the course of this work, he evaluates the potential of these botanical resources for broader medical or pharmaceutical applications. His most recent project focuses on the tropical Pacific Islands in Micronesia and Melanesia, where he is documenting the diversity, local use, and management of plant resources in support of a region-wide conservation plan. Balick is currently vice president for botanical science at NYBG, where he has worked since 1980. He is also director and senior philecology curator of the NYBG Institute of Economic Botany, which he cofounded in 1981. $10 for AHS members, $20 for nonmembers. Register at www.ahsgardening.org.
