Boston Flora

Tuesday, January 28, 5:00 am – 6:30 am (but recorded) – High Victorian Design

The High Victorian Period saw a rejection of the aesthetic rules that had shaped the English Landscape Garden. No more appeals to the picturesque. Goodbye to the line of beauty. In their place came a brilliant, gaudy, do-what-you-like swagger of color and historic revivalism; occasionally successful, often searingly bad, but always interesting and now sadly overlooked.
This talk will bring back some eccentric masterpieces of the age and follow their development from origins in Loudon’s gardenesque, to an eventual death under the crushing boot of good-taste and the Natural Garden. The Gardens Trust will present a lecture on January 28 online. This ticket is for this January 28 individual talk and costs £8 – Register HERE

Ben Dark is a writer, historian and ex-head gardener. He is author of The Grove: A Nature Odyssey in 19 ½ Front Gardens (Mitchell Beasley, 2022) and is currently writing a history of plants for the Bodley Head. His articles appear widely and in 2022 he won the Garden Media Guild’s Journalist of the Year award.

Sunday, February 16, 2:00 pm – 28th Annual Winter Lecture: Jacqueline van der Kloet

Jacqueline van der Kloet will share bulb basics, color combinations, seasonal care for bulbs including naturalizing them to become independent, layering bulbs, growing bulbs on a larger scale, and integration for constant blooms in the garden for the Berkshire Botanical Garden Winter Lecture 2025 on Sunday, February 16, at 2 p.m. Join her on the journey through her favorite spring, summer, autumn, and winter flowering bulbs, and case studies of her naturalistic garden designs from around the world, including the Netherlands, Japan, Germany, the UK, and the Lurie Garden in the United States, where she collaborated with leading plantsman, Piet Oudolf.

Growing Bulbs in the Natural Garden is a four-season guide to combining bulbs with perennials and grasses in a loose, carefree style, from a leading figure in the New Perennial movement. From the earliest snowdrops to alpine violets, tulips, alliums, late autumn crocuses, and many more, bulbs add interest and color to the garden throughout the year. Renowned naturalistic garden designer, Jacqueline van der Kloet, has mastered a casual, magical technique where bulbs emerge playfully among other plants, as if dancing freely among the perennials and grasses. Both friendly and accessible, van der Kloet will explore the recently published book; introducing bulbs as essential to any garden at any scale, inviting in pollinators, providing wonderful pops of color and personality, and extending a garden’s bloom time in the shoulder seasons.

Growing Bulbs in the Natural Garden provides unique inspiration and expert insight gained from van der Kloet’s vast career, using nature as a model. Indeed, growing bulbs in van der Kloet‘s style makes the garden appear as if nature had planted the bulbs herself.

Jacqueline van der Kloet is an internationally acclaimed garden designer and one of Holland’s best-known gardening authorities. She is a plant specialist whose advice is sought by designers and landscape architects. Her designs are prized for their beauty, naturalized schemes, bold uses of color. Van der Kloet’s client list includes some of the most prestigious public gardens in the world. In North America, she teamed with Piet Oudolf for innovative plantings at New York’s Battery Park, New York Botanical Garden, and Chicago’s Lurie Garden. Her work across Europe and Asia ranges from Holland’s famous Keukenhof, to the palace Huis ten Bosch in Nagasaki, Japan to the Newport Bay Club at Disneyland, Paris. Her work includes many private gardens and she frequently contributes to international exhibitions.

Also, please join us for a coffee and cookie reception after the lecture, to be held at the Lenox Middle High School in Lenox, Massachusetts. BBG members $40, nonmembers $55. Register at www.berkshirebotanical.org

Tuesday, February 4, 9:30 am – 1:30 pm Eastern – Introduction to Composition, Online

Betsy Rogers-Knox will lead you in exploring a range of basic principles and techniques through observation of Great Masters’ works of art and a variety of short exercises designed to open your eyes to the importance of composition. This Massachusetts Horticultural Society virtual class will take place Tuesday, February 4 from 9:30 am – 1:30 pm Eastern. $80 for Mass Hort members, $100 for nonmembers, Register at https://www.masshort.org/upcoming-classes/

Sunday, January 26, 1:00 pm – Tracking and Journaling with Will Close

Join artist and tracker Will Close on January 26 at 1 pm for this first in a series of natural history explorations. In this workshop you will get a chance to deepen your awareness and connection to the natural world through wildlife tracking and the use of nature journaling and field sketching. You will be guided through various foundational techniques designed to strengthen your observational skills. This workshop will be primarily held in the field. All experience levels are welcome. Additional explorations will be happening throughout the year.

Will Close is an artist, designer, educator, and wildlife tracker who specializes in the intersection of nature, art, design, and teaching. He holds a degree in Fine Art Painting from Massachusetts College of Art and Design and studied wildlife track and sign under Dan Gardoqui and Daniel Hansche. Currently, Will resides in Concord, MA where he maintains an artistic studio practice and is an outdoor education instructor with the Carroll School located in Lincoln, MA. His passion for nature illustration, tracking and sharing it with others, has taken him from the spruce forests of Maine to the Ecuadorian Amazon. Most recently, he was the inaugural artist in residence with North Country Land Trust in North Central Massachusetts.

For more information visit http://www.atholbirdclub.org

Saturday, February 8, 1:00 pm – 3:00 pm – Kitchen Witch’n: Herbal Remedies from Your Garden

Your kitchen is more powerful than you think! In this Berkshire Botanical Garden workshop with Kimberly Geisler on Saturday, February 8, from 1 to 3 p.m., discover how common herbs and ingredients from your pantry, fridge and spice cabinet can be made into natural remedies for everyday ailments. We’ll explore kitchen-based solutions for cold and flu relief, stress, headaches, first aid, digestive upsets, and other ailments. Join us to unlock the healing potential hidden in your kitchen, and support wellness from the heart of your home.

Kimberly Geisler is a clinical and folk herbalist, medicine maker and educator at Transcending Roots Apothecary. Kimberly opened an apothecary and community space centered around herbal education in Philadelphia in October of 2019, which has since transitioned into a cooperatively owned healing center, The Sacred Path. Kimberly has now settled in the forests of the Berkshires with her husband and two magical children, building a botanical sanctuary and homestead, and further cultivating our relationship with the land and our communities.

Berkshire Botanical members $45, nonmembers $60. Register at https://www.berkshirebotanical.org/events/kitchen-witchn-herbal-remedies-your-kitchen

Thursday through Sunday, April 10 – 13 – Olympic Bird Fest: Registration Now Open

Olympic BirdFest, April 10 – 13, offers a major birding event in the wild and untamed Olympic Peninsula, hosted at the new facility of the Dungeness River Nature Center. The North Olympic Peninsula comprises a strip of coastlines and forests between the million-acre Olympic National Park and the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The steep rise of the mountains allows birders to sample coastal, riparian, forested and montane habitats in close proximity. The Dungeness River Watershed, for example, drops from 7800 feet to the sea in only 32 miles. The central location of the Dungeness River Nature Center puts all these habitats within reach of birders.

Participants can choose to visit Neah Bay near the northwesternmost point of the continental United States in the territory of the Makah Tribe, or to walk the longest natural sand spit in the nation at Dungeness Spit, now under management by the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe. The Elwha River, freed in 2014 by the largest dam removal project in the United States, offers riparian birding. Other field trips will explore Sequim Bay, Port Angeles Harbor, Dungeness Bay, Ediz Hook and wooded areas and fields.

The April dates of Olympic BirdFest allow birders to catch wintering birds such as harlequin and long-tailed ducks, along with spring migrants such as the rufous hummingbirds that arrive in this area with the blooming of red-flowering currants in early April.

All proceeds from BirdFest support the Dungeness River Nature Center, helping to fund environmental education programs that connect people of all ages to the Peninsula’s ecosystems. Field trip leaders and speakers donate their time and expertise advance the River Center’s mission to inspire understanding, respect, and stewardship of the natural and cultural resources of the region.

Whether you’re a seasoned birder, a nature enthusiast, or simply curious about the diverse ecosystems of the Dungeness River Watershed, we invite you to enjoy the birds and landscapes of the North Olympic Peninsula with us! In addition to the field trips, birders may participate in presentations, workshops and a banquet (with great food, a speaker and a raffle of birding-centric items).

Sequim is the ancestral home of the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe (a partner of the non-profit Dungeness River Nature Center). Their Tribal headquarters are at the head of Sequim Bay at Blyn. A tour explaining traditional Northwest Coast totemic art (totem poles, house posts, masks, and signage) at the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribal Center and their Seven Cedars Resort properties will also be offered. For more information about the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe, see https://library.jamestowntribe.org/home where you can also find pre-recorded presentations by tribal elders and leaders on the Tribe’s culture and history.

The Olympic BirdFest is a partnership of the Olympic Peninsula Audubon Society, Dungeness River Nature Center and Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe. Proceeds from this festival help support the educational programs of the Dungeness River Nature Center. For more information, call 360-681-4076, or email: info@olympicbirdfest.org.

Saturday, February 1, 2:00 pm – 3:30 pm – Holographic Chocolate: The Secrets of Structural Color

In nature, brilliant colors appear in myriad places—along the surface of a bubble, on butterfly wings, after a rainy day, or through a windowpane. Remarkably, many of these hues don’t involve any chemical dyes or paints. Instead, these colors originate from the internal material structure and their interactions with light. This Harvard Museum of Natural History workshop on February 1 from 2 – 3:30 pm will dive into the world of “structural color,” zooming in on fascinating structurally-colored materials in nature with microscopes and zooming out to applications of structural color for next-generation materials. As the finale, workshop attendees will craft holographic rainbow chocolate to take home. No prior science background is required to participate in this class. All attendees must be 18 or older. $30 Harvard Museum members, $35 nonmembers. Register at https://www.hmnh.harvard.edu/event/holographic-chocolate-secrets-structural-color

Tuesday, January 28, 7:00 pm – 8:15 pm Eastern – Impacts of Artificial Light on Insects, Online

The Massachusetts Pollinator Network hosts monthly presentations by experts in a wide range of topics related to pollinators and how to support them. These are recorded. We welcome everyone, whether you are a seasoned community organizer, a home gardener, researcher, teacher, work in the field already, or are new to pollinator protection concerns. Please join us! On January 28 at 7 pm meet Dr. Avalon Owens, who will speak on the Impacts of Artificial Light on Insects. The Zoom program link will be sent upon registration HERE

Tuesday, January 21, 5:00 am – 6:30 am (but recorded) – A History of Gardens 4 – The Rise of the Gardening Press

With improvements in literacy, and the end of taxes on newspapers, the nineteenth-century garden press emerged with a willing press corps of garden writers, many of whom were private gardeners, florists or nurserymen, who wielded immense power. From the monthly periodical, the Gardeners’ Magazine, launched by J C Loudon to weekly newspapers such as Glenny’s Gardeners’ Gazette and Lindley’s Gardeners’ Chronicle these publications significantly contributed to the professionalization of the horticultural trade. Editors of gardening newspapers needed interesting copy to entertain their readership and advertising to grow their profits. New horticultural institutions needed nationwide coverage to promote their organizational aims to recruit new members and obtain subscriptions. Dialogues of working voices (at the editor’s discretion) can be seen in the gardening newspapers and reveal what was going on in gardeners’ lives and their concerns. JC Loudon pioneered this method of correspondence and knowledge exchange between professional and amateur gardeners. We shall explore his legacy and how it improved the field of horticultural education for all, in this Gardens Trust online lecture on January 21.

After working in the design industry, Francesca Murray studied horticulture and garden design at Berkshire College of Agriculture before running her own garden design business. She has an MA in Garden History and is currently in her fourth year of a PhD at Queen Mary’s University of London, researching nineteenth-century gardeners, nurserymen, and the associations that came to their aid. She is a trustee of the Gardens Trust and a life member of Buckinghamshire Gardens Trust and London Parks and Gardens Trust as well as Archivist and guest speaker for Perennial (formerly known as the Gardeners Royal Benevolent Institution). She leads walks around London on the nineteenth-century horticultural press and is a regular speaker on garden history to horticultural societies around the country. The ticket for this individual talk costs £8. Click 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 will be sent shortly after each session and will be available for 2 weeks .

Saturday, January 25, 11:30 am – 1:30 pm Eastern – Herbs for Winter Wellness, Online

Nurture a sunshiny feeling and boost your immune system with foods and herbal remedies for your daily routine to support your health throughout the winter. Recipes and demonstrations are included.

This Chicago Botanic Garden class on January 25 will be taught online via Zoom. All registrations must be submitted online two days before your class starts. Registered students will receive login instructions one day in advance. $32 for CBG members, $40 for nonmembers. Register at www.chicagobotanic.org

Dawn Petter, herbalist, Petalune Herbals is the instructor.