Boston Flora

Thursdays, May 17 – June 21, 10:00 am – 12:30 pm – Gardenscapes in Watercolor

Learn to capture a plant in its environment by painting with confident brushstrokes, in this six-part class at Garden in the Woods in Framingham, taught by Cecilia Sharma. Capture its delicacy through observation and detail. This step-by-step instruction will introduce you to the spontaneity of the medium as you create textures, highlights, glazes, and the final artwork. $200 for NEWFS members, $230 for nonmembers, materials not included. Register at http://www.newfs.org/learn/our-programs/gardenscapes-in-watercolor

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Tuesday, May 8, 7:30 pm – Herbivorous Insects: Studies in the Evolution of Diversity

The public is invited to attend the May meeting of the Cambridge Entomological Club on Tuesday, May 8 at 7:30 pm at Harvard University, 26 Oxford Street, MCZ 101 in Cambridge. Profesor Douglas J. Futuyma of Stony Brook University, Department of Ecology and Evolution, will discuss Herbivorous Insects: Studies in the Evolution of Diversity. Questions about coevolution, ecological specialization, speciation, evolutionary rates, and diversity apply to many or most organisms, but are dramatically exemplified by herbivorous insects, which together with their host plants account for nearly half the described species of living organisms. Professor Futuyma will recount highlights of field and laboratory studies that he and his students have pursued in trying to answer some of these questions, and he will offer some tentative answers, while yet emphasizing that puzzling problems remain. For more information visit http://entclub.org.

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Saturday, May 19 – More Plant Sales!

Saturday, May 19 will be a busy day for Garden Club plant sales. The Community Garden Club of Cohasset will hold its event on the grounds of the Historical Society, 106 South Main Street in Cohasset from 9 – 1. On the north shore, the Hamilton-Wenham Garden Club presents its Annual Plant Sale on the front lawn of the Hamilton Senior Center, 299 Bay Road in Hamilton, from 9 – noon. Finally, the Stoneham Garden Club holds its Plant Sale and Lobster Roll Luncheon from 10 – 2 at the First Congregational Church, Central Street in Stoneham (we like the lobster roll addition!)

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Saturday, May 12, 9:00 am – 3:00 pm – Mass Hort’s Gardeners’ Fair and Plant Sale

A number of vendors will be on site at The Gardens at Elm Bank on Saturday, May 12 from 9 – 3, offering everything you need to plan, dig, plant, and enjoy your home garden space. The Gardeners’ Fair is an opportunity to find rare and unusual perennials, trees and shrubs; ready-to-plant herbs and vegetables; and tomato varieties by the dozens.

It’s also a chance to hear talks by experts, find unique garden tools, garden ornaments and accessories, as well as other gardening necessities. The fair will feature tomatoes by Allandale Farm and the Herb Society Plant Sale. The event is free for Mass Hort members, and $5 per car for the general public.

The New England Unit of the Herb Society garden will have their annual plant sale, and other plant societies will be there with exciting plants for sale. The Mass Master Gardener Association will host their Ask a Master Gardener booth and offer pH soil testing.

Mass Hort will also be hosting a Tool Sale (please consider donating your tools and contact education@masshort.org) and the Library will be selling duplicate titles from their collection. Image below from http://theswellesleyreport.com.

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Tuesday, May 15, 6:00 pm – 7:30 pm – Planting Fundamentals

There’s a lot to consider when adding new plants to your garden. On Tuesday, May 15 beginning at 6 pm, learn how to choose healthy specimens at the garden center and how best to plant trees, shrubs, and herbaceous plants to get them off to a good start in your urban garden. Mark Richardson, Botanic Garden Director of the New England Wild Flower Society, will be the featured speaker.

The Urban Gardening Series is a set of lectures designed to help city dwellers grow healthy, sustainable, and beautiful gardens. Led by New England Wild Flower Society in partnership with the Cambridge Conservation Commission, these free lectures take place at the Cambridge Public Library, 449 Broadway, Cambridge, MA. Image from www.greencitygrowers.com.

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Sunday, May 13, 10:30 am – 1:00 pm – Duckling Day

The Friends of the Public Garden, in association with the City of Boston Parks and Recreation Department, celebrates Mother’s Day with Boston-area families during its annual Duckling Day event.

A beloved tradition for more than 30 years, Duckling Day celebrates the children’s classic book Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey. Every year, over 1,000 people meet up and parade through Boston’s most picturesque parks, dressed like characters from the story. Led by the Harvard Marching Band, the parade will begin on the Boston Common at the Parkman Bandstand and end in the Public Garden near the famous Make Way for Ducklings sculpture. Bring your camera – the parade is possibly the most adorable thing you’ll ever see!

Prior to the parade will be Playtime on the Common, a vibrant array of family entertainment including crafts, face painters, a magician, circus games with Esh Circus Arts, and climbing and jumping with the Knucklebones crew. All families are welcome to decorate their wagons or strollers, bring a picnic, and enjoy springtime in Boston’s most beloved parks!

10:00 a.m. – Registration/check-in begins
10:00 a.m. – Playtime on the Common begins
11:45 a.m. – Executive Director Liz Vizza greets families
12:00 p.m. – Parade begins

Registration fee: $35 per family in advance (before May 11th); $40 per family at the event.

Each registered family will gain free access to all the activities in the Playtime on the Common, and they will receive a special goody bag filled with Duckling Day themed items for each child in their party. Event will be held rain or shine, and there are no refunds. To register visit http://friendsofthepublicgarden.org/2018/02/05/13may2018-ducklingday/

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Friday, May 11 – Sunday, July 22, Opening Reception Saturday, May 19, 1:00 pm – 3:00 pm – Impressions of Woody Plants: Disjunction, Two Artists, and the Arnold Arboretum

The word disjunction, defined as the relationship between two distinct alternatives, can be applied to botanical artists Bobbi Angell and Beverly Duncan: their media–copper and watercolor, their plant focuses–exotic and native, their backgrounds–botany and art. In the end though, as in this Arnold Arboretum exhibition, it is all about the wonder of woody plants, and the artists’ approaches to creating images. Angell is attracted to unusual, cultivated specimens due to her long history working with botanists and horticulturalists. Her subjects, all Asian natives, several of which were introduced into cultivation by the Arboretum, represent the remarkable history of plant collecting around the world. All can be found in the collections of the Arboretum. Her drawings are developed into finely crafted copper etchings, which are then printed in limited editions. Duncan is drawn to the familiarity of native plants. She translates the common and recognizable into intimate portraits in detailed watercolor paintings.Her sketches capture the various stages in the life of a native plant. For this exhibition, Duncan focused on paintings of seedlings, the delicate early life of a tree or shrub. All her subjects can also be found as mature trees on the grounds of the Arnold Arboretum. Bobbi Angell has been drawing plants since 1978, illustrating floras, monographs, and new species for botanists at The New York Botanical Garden, Harvard University, and Smithsonian Institution. Drawing herbarium specimens has been the focus of her work. Angell’s copper plate etchings reflect her interest in fine detail. They have allowed her a satisfying and natural extension of her compositional style. Beverly Duncan is an award-winning botanical artist, the first to receive Best in Show at the annual exhibition of the Horticultural Society in New York and the American Society of Botanical Artists. Her work is in corporate and private collections around the world. Duncan exhibited and received recognition at the 2014 royal Horticultural Exhibit in London. She teaches Botanical Drawing and Painting classes, and has illustrated commissions for numerous books and magazines.

The exhibit runs from May 11 – July 22, with an opening reception Saturday, May 19 from 1 – 3. There will also be a workshop with the artists on Saturday, June 9 from 1 – 3. Note – The Hunnewell lecture hall is used for programs, classes, and other events. Please call 617 384-5209 for accessibility. Free, no registration required.

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Wednesday, May 16, 5:00 pm – 7:00 pm – Landscape Pests and Problems Walkabout: Diseases and Weeds

Get some hands-on experience scouting and identifying landscape diseases, insects, weeds, and abiotic problems. Join Randy Prostak, Extension Weed Specialist and Nick Brazee, Extension Plant Pathologist, on May 16 from 5 – 7 in Stanley Park, 400 Western Avenue in Westfield, for a walk through the landscape as they discuss and demonstrate how to put IPM practices to work efficiently and examine some of the most common pest and cultural problems of woody ornamentals. Dress for walking; workshop held rain or shine. Bring a clipboard, pencil and hand lens if possible.

Preregistration required as space is limited; the cost is $50 per person. Registration information may be found at https://ag.umass.edu/landscape/events/landscape-pests-problems-walkabout-diseases-weeds

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Sunday, May 6 – Monday, October 8 – Ellsworth Kelly: Plant Lithographs

Berkshire Botanical Garden announces a season-long exhibition featuring the plant lithographs of artist Ellsworth Kelly beginning Sunday, May 6 in the Garden’s Leonhardt Galleries, Stockbridge. Kelly lived and worked in Columbia County, New York for nearly 50 years and was deeply drawn to the area’s natural beauty. The exhibition, assembled from Kelly’s iconic series, Suite of Plant Lithographs, is on loan from the Ellsworth Kelly Foundation through October 8.

Kelly began making lithographs in Paris in 1964, and over the next few years created a seminal body of work as both an homage to and bold departure from Matisse’s evocative line drawings. Throughout his seven-decade career, Kelly’s plant drawings were rendered in a variety of mediums, including watercolor and ink washes, but he preferred graphite pencil and the use of line only to express the plants’ intrinsic qualities. Carter Foster, considered an authority on the life and work of Ellsworth Kelly describes Kelly’s creative process:

For the series of 1964-66 lithographs that are the subject of this exhibition, he mostly chose from a range of pencil studies he’d recently made, which he then reworked on transfer paper in order to create the print portfolio. He was therefore redrawing–from his own drawing–a specimen he’d first drawn from life. In other cases, he drew while directly observing the plant, right on the transfer paper used to make the lithograph. In another case–Catalpa Leaf–he drew the form from memory. This series, taken as a whole, has a uniformity provided by the consistent size and color of the paper and by the harmonious, roughly centered placement of the forms on each sheet, even though there were several modes of generating the form: observation from life, copying, and memory. It is quite a different act to re-draw one’s own drawing or to draw from memory than to draw from life, from the object itself. In the first case, for example, one could change–even perfect–what may not have been fully satisfactory the first time.

Ellsworth Kelly: Plant Lithographs is the first major exhibition at the Garden’s Leonhardt Galleries which are located in its newly restored and renovated c. 1800s Center House. “Our objective in planning the galleries was to create unique spaces for artists who truly find their inspiration in the natural world,” said the Garden’s Executive Director, Mike Beck. “This collection of work exemplifies an extraordinary artist who throughout his career consistently returned to nature as a primary subject. We look forward to a season of sharing this collection with the Berkshire community and beyond.” The exhibit will remain on display through October 8. Gallery hours are daily, 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. Support for this exhibition has been generously provided by the Dorothea Leonhardt Fund at the Communities Foundation of Texas, Inc.

The opening of Kelly’s exhibition on May 6 coincides with the Garden’s 84th annual Roy Boutard Day, a celebration steeped in history and tradition. Admission to the Garden is free all day.

Berkshire Botanical Garden is located at 5 West Stockbridge Road in Stockbridge. For more information visit http://berkshirebotanical.org or call 413 298-3926.

ELLSWORTH KELLY Cyclamen V 1964-65 Lithograph on Rives BFK paper 35 5/8 x 24 1/4 inches (90.5 x 61.6 cm) Edition of 75 © Ellsworth Kelly Foundation and Maeght Éditeur

Friday, May 11, 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm – Trillium and Wine

Savor wine while listening to live music on a beautiful spring evening in the Garden in the Woods in Framingham on Friday, May 11 from 6 – 8. See poet and author of Intimacy with the Wind, Carla Schwartz, give a reading of her original works. Stroll the Garden after hours during Trillium Week and enjoy the largest collection of trilliums north of Delaware during their peak flowering time. $20 for NEWFS members, $25 for nonmembers. Register at http://www.newfs.org/learn/our-programs/trillium-and-wine

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