The Community Garden Club of Cohasset presents it annual Yuletide House Tour on Thursday, December 5, featuring five spectacular homes and a festive yuletide marketplace with original items to purchase as gifts. Complementary refreshments are served as well. Tickets and more complete information are available by calling Lee Drew at 781-383-0361, or emailing aeled@comcast.net. Image from www.homedit.com.
Drop off your hazardous waste on Saturday, November 23, from 9 – 2 at the West Roxbury Public Works Yard, 315 Gardner Street in West Roxbury at Millennium Park. No latex or acrylic paints, please. For Boston residents only, no commercial waste accepted, and proof of residency required. For more information please call the Mayor’s hotline at 617-635-4500, or visit www.cityofboston.gov/recycle. Thank you www.apartmenttherapy.com for yet another great photo.
Learn how to use a ring of mixed greens to form the foundation for your holiday centerpiece at Weston Nurseries, 93 East Main Street in Hopkinton, on Thursday, November 21 beginning at 6 pm. They’ll show you how to interchange décor with picks, glitter and more to move from one celebration to the next. This is recycling at its best! Of course, it goes without saying that there will be some treats, wine, soft drinks and plenty of lively conversation. Call a friend and have a Girls’ Nite Out together. Cost is $35, and you may sign up by telephoning 508-293-8091. Directions can be found at www.WestonNurseries.com. Image from www.houzz.com.
Join veteran trip leaders Larry and Joan Duprey for this look for late fall birds at one of the premier Massachusetts birding destinations, Plum Island. Warm up with a stop for some “chowda” before the end of the day. Carpool at 7:30 am from the Millers River Environmental Center, 100 Main Street, Athol, Massachusetts. Sponsored by the Athol Bird and Nature Club. For more information visit www.atholbirdclub.org.
Items for a Southeast Asian meal in the middle of a New England winter are relatively easy to source in our global world. this is possible because of research pioneered in botanic gardens, often overlooked immigrant entrepreneurs, and consumers who equate consuming ethnic food with cultural cosmopolitanism. Professor Alex Orquiza, a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in American Studies at Wellesley College, shows how many of the plants from the Wellesley College Botanic Gardens connect to our everyday lives, with individual histories that include both old and new cultural exchanges. The Wednesday, December 4 talk, beginning at 1 pm at the Wellesley College Botanic Gardens Visitors Center, includes a cooking demonstration. Professor Orquiza is completing his first book, A Pacific Palate: Food, Culture, and American Imperialism in the Philippines, 1898-1935.  WCBG members free, nonmembers $10. Sign up by calling 781-283-3094, or visit www.wellesley.edu/wcbgfriends.
Garden Club of the Back Bay members love a challenge. Tell us your colors – burgundy bow? Perhaps a red that isn’t brick but isn’t purple but isn’t too “fire engine”? How about the accents? Lots of glitz, no glitz, just a bit of sparkle? Hate birds? Love birds? Modern room calling out for a statement piece, or traditional New England not too flashy? Just let us know when you place your order. We’ve done wreaths which appeal to children, wreaths which can be seen in a dark doorway, wreaths for the side of a wind blown barn, wreaths for an ocean view. Some customers send us swatches, some have brought a vintage toy or bauble to incorporate, or sent photographs from magazines. We’ll do our best. Order here.
Run or walk the beautiful paths of “jewel†of the Emerald Necklace to start your Thanksgiving Day! The scenic 3.1 mile route includes the most beautiful and historic views of Franklin Park. You can work off your Thanksgiving calories before you sit down at the table! Tech t-shirt to first 100 registrants. Great prizes for fast finishes and costumes. Race starts at 9 am on Thursday, November 28 at the Franklin Park Golf Clubhouse, One Circuit Drive in Dorchester. For more information, and to register, visit http://www.franklinparkcoalition.org/turkey-trot-5k/.
Join Teresa Carbone, co-curator of “John Singer Sargent Watercolors,†and follow Sargent’s footsteps through some of Italy’s most beautiful and renowned Renaissance and Baroque gardens. See how the artist selected his subjects, where he stood when painting them, and what he surprisingly chose to edit out. Teresa Carbone is the Andrew W. Mellon Curator of American Art, managing curator, Arts of the Americas, Brooklyn Museum. The program will take place at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston on Sunday, December 8, from 2 – 3 in the Remis Auditorium. $10 MFA members, seniors and students, $13 general public.
To order tickets by phone, call 1-800-440-6975; to order in person, visit any MFA ticket desk.
Recent years have brought spikes in the frequency of strange weather patterns and severe storms, with many blaming the increase on human-caused climate change. Farmer, author and activist Gary Paul Nabhan proposes that we look to the past for solutions-at crops and techniques used in regions that have historically endured this kind of weather. Hear his thoughts about the need for increased biodiversity on farmlands and strategies to relink the food chain at the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University on Wednesday, November 20 at 7:30 pm in the Hunnewell Building. Read his opinions in Grist and the New York Times.
Fee $10 Arboretum member, $15 nonmember Students: call 617.384.5277 to register free.
The Jamaica Plain Historical Society will present a talk on the Walter Street Burying Ground on Tuesday, November 19, from 7 – 8 at the Loring-Greenough House, 12 South Street, Jamaica Plain. The Loring-Greenough House, Jamaica Plain’s 1760 colonial mansion, once had a family graveyard on its grounds. However, it had to be relocated as the area developed. The “residents” were moved to what was orginally the graveyard of the Second Parish Church in Roxbury, the Walter Street Burial Ground. The talk will focus on who is buried at the Walter Street Burial Ground, what graves have survived the test of time and what is still unknown about the site. Chris Child, Genealogist at the New England Historic Genealogical Society will be the speaker. Free and open to the public. For more information visit www.jphs.org.
