Enjoy two days of exclusive access to stunning gardens in greater Newburyport and Amesbury.
The Museum of Old Newbury invites you to enjoy this year’s Garden Tour on Saturday and Sunday, June 13 & 14, 2026., from 10 – 4. This year’s theme is 250 Years of Growth, an homage to the originality and innovation of American gardens, and our featured gardens in particular. You’ll enjoy access to the best we have to offer, from urban pocket gardens to larger, more formal landscapes.
The 47th Old Newbury Garden Tour occurs rain or shine. It is an inspiration for those ranging from professionals seriously interested in garden design and horticulture to enthusiasts who simply love beautiful gardens.
Tickets are $25 members, $40 non-members; your ticket is good for one or both days.
Tickets can also be purchased in-person at 98 High St., Newburyport during the event.
Start at 98 High Street to pick up your garden tour guide, or use the digital guide that you’ll receive by email a week before the event! You may also purchase tickets through Eventbrite HERE.
Many of us give only a moment’s thought about the environment when considering the War of Independence: the slope of Breed’s Hill, the ice-choked Delaware River, and diseases such as smallpox. But what might we gain by connecting biology, ecology, and geology to the thinking and actions of soldiers and civilians? Rebels and British soldiers acquired and used energy in the form of food, fuel, and work animals, which shaped people’s lives, the course of the war, and the direction of environmental change. Join the Massachusetts Historical Society on May 27 at 6 pm Eastern as David Hsiung, in conversation with Joyce Chaplin, discusses the intricate and often surprising ways in which the natural environment and the war changed each other.
This is a hybrid event. FREE for MHS Members. $10 per person fee (in person). No charge for virtual attendees or Card to Culture participants (EBT, WIC, and ConnectorCare). The in-person reception starts at 5:30 and the program will begin 6:00 PM. Register at https://www.masshist.org/events/curious-and-complex-connections
The 2026 theme of the Annual Beth Chatto Symposium, Connections Through Time, will explore how plants, people and landscapes are shaped by interconnections and temporal relationships, in the past, present and future.
Over three days, we will he hosting a range of presentations, conversations, discussions and workshops which will encompass new and innovative best practice, science and research within gardening, horticulture, ecology, design and landscaping, highlighting approaches that benefit to the environment, wildlife and humans, and that help confront the challenges of the climate and biodiversity emergencies, and ensure social justice.
Join The Emerald Necklace Conservancy, The Arnold Arboretum, and plant biologist and author Beronda Montgomery for a discussion on May 19 at 6:30pm of her new book, When Trees Testify: Science, Wisdom, History, and America’s Black Botanical Legacy. Taking place at Hunnewell Hall at the Arnold Arboretum, Montgomery explores the way that eight trees and shrubs testify to the experience of black Americans and takes us through black American history with trees and shrubs as our guides. Register here www.arboretum.harvard.edu/event/when-trees-testify-by-beronda-montgomery/
From neighborhood parks to campuses to entire communities, Olmsted’s work was always about shaping identity through landscape.
We can feel that in places like Central Park—where people don’t simply pass through, but use the space to form memories, gather, protest, celebrate, and see themselves as part of something larger. Over time, those experiences become part of how a community understands itself across generations.
Join Chris Kreussling and the Massachusetts Pollinator Network online on Tuesday, May 26 from 7 – 8:15 for a talk on Little Bugs in the Big City: Urban Pollinator Habitat Gardening.
With urban real estate at such a premium, how do our smallest neighbors – especially pollinating insects – make their way? What can we do to help them survive and thrive? In the concrete jungle, is it worth it to even try? Over two decades, the speaker has transformed a barren conventional landscape into a vibrant example of urban gardening for biodiversity. Using their garden as an example, they will review some typical challenges for urban gardeners, and explain how to find and create habitat opportunities in city gardens. If you plant it, they will come!
Chris Kreussling (Flatbush Gardener), a New York Master Naturalist and Certified Interpretive Guide, has gardened in NYC for 45 years. In their current small Brooklyn garden, they grow over 150 NYC-native plant species, and documented over 500 insect species. Their garden is also a registered wildlife and pollinator habitat, butterfly garden, and monarch way station. They’ve documented this ongoing transformation on their web site, Flatbush Gardener, and the garden’s biodiversity on iNaturalist.
Spring into Summer is on June 12, 2026. Join us for this gala to benefit Gore Place. Many thanks to Fiduciary Trust, the presenting sponsor. Thank you also to Stanton Insurance Agency, Grogan & Co, and Fireside Catering, along with other silver and bronze level sponsors.
RSVP by May 29 for this festive evening. Enjoy live music and cocktails in the Mansion, then join us in the event tent for a catered dinner. Single tickets $300, pair $500.
The last in The Gardens Trust’s online course celebrating the bicentenary of The Gardener’s Magazine takes place May 27 at 5 am Eastern. Register through Eventbrite 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 until 10 June) will be sent shortly afterwards.
It was exactly two hundred years ago that John Claudius Loudon (1782-1843) started publishing The Gardener’s Magazine, the first periodical devoted solely to horticulture. As Loudon described it, the aims of the magazine were ‘to disseminate new and important information on all topics connected with horticulture, and to raise the intellect and the character of those engaged in this art.’
In celebration of this bicentenary, the Gardens Trust is hosting a six-part online series that explores the ideas and inventions of this extraordinary Scottish writer and designer, and his equally industrious and radical wife, Jane (?1807-1858). Jane has her own centenary celebrations this year: her novel The Mummy! is set exactly 100 years in the future, in 2126.
Between them, the Loudons were the driving force behind the rise of the amateur middle class gardener, and also the real professionalism of the 19th century head gardener. Their story is fascinating and will make you realise how much we owe to their non-stop work ethic and enthusiasm.
The final session of the series will bring together two experts on the Loudons and the nineteenth-century garden for what promises to be a fascinating discussion. They will debate the distinctive contributions and importance of the Loudons, their legacies viewed from a twenty-first century perspective and take questions and comments from the audience.
Dr Brent Elliott was formerly the Librarian of the Royal Horticultural Society. For 21 years he was a member of the Historic Parks and Gardens Advisory Committee of what was then English Heritage and has been a member of the Victorian Society’s Buildings Committee for over 45 years. He was also a former editor of Garden History. He is the author of Victorian Gardens (Batsford, 1986) and of various subsequent works on garden history. His book The British Cemetery, co-authored with Roger Bowdler, will be published in April.
Dr Sarah Dewis is the author of The Loudons and the Gardening Press (Routledge, 2014). She completed her doctorate at Birkbeck University of London. She contributed to The Lure of Illustration in Nineteenth Century Picture and Press (Palgrave and Macmillan, 2009) and to the Dictionary of Nineteenth Century Journalism in Great Britain and Ireland (Academia Press, 2009). With Brent Elliott she co-edited the six-volume collection, Nineteenth-Century Gardens and Gardening(Routledge, 2024).
The date is set for Wright-Locke Farm’s most anticipated farm event of the year – the Summer Solstice Cocktail Party on June 12 from 7 – 10. This celebration only gets better each year, showcasing the magic of the farm and the strength of our community. It’s the perfect way to kick off summer—an evening filled with great energy, connection, and shared support. Mark your calendar now, and secure your tickets at https://wlfarm.org/ The night will feature both a live and silent auction, incredible food, and live music—everything you need for an unforgettable evening. This year, a warm evening welcoming summer on the farm will feel even better after the winter we had.
