Boston Flora

Tag: Arnold Arboretum

  • Saturday, June 11, 1:00 pm – Painters for a Purpose

    Painters for a Purpose is a group of South Shore artists who donate 30% of their sales from each exhibit to a local charity.  For their upcoming exhibit opening Saturday, June 11 at the Arnold Arboretum, they have chosen the Elizabeth Stone House. The opening reception will be in the Hunnewell Building Lecture Hall at 1 pm and is free and open to the public.  The show will run through July 23.

    Located in Roxbury, Massachusetts, the Elizabeth Stone House is committed to countering the effects of trauma and breaking the cycles of violence and abuse—one family at a time. Through residential and community support services, the Stone House helps families heal and women reclaim control over their lives. The Stone House helps women and families rebuild their lives after experiencing domestic violence, mental illness, substance abuse and other forms of trauma. The Stone House provides residential and non-residential programs, as well as an emergency shelter for those who are in immediate need.  For more information, call 617-384-5209, or visit www.arboretum.harvard.edu.

  • Thursday, May 26, 5:30 pm – Founding Gardeners: How the Revolutionary Generation Created an American Eden

    Andrea Wulf’s new book Founding Gardeners. How the Revolutionary Created an American Eden will be published in  late March 2011 by Knopf.  Ms. Wulf will travel to Boston and speak on Thursday, May 26, in a program co-sponsored by the Massachusetts Historical Society and the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University.  The talk will take place at the Massachusetts Historical Society, 1154 Boylston Street in Boston, with a reception at 5:30 pm and the lecture at 6:00 pm. The program is free but registration is required :  log on to www.arboretum.harvard.edu for more information.

    The Founding Gardeners offers a fascinating look at the revolutionary generation from the unique and intimate perspective of their lives as gardeners, plantsmen and farmers.

    For the founding fathers, gardening, agriculture and botany were elemental passions, as deeply ingrained in their characters as their belief in liberty for the nation they were creating. Andrea Wulf reveals for the first time this aspect of the revolutionary generation. She describes how, even as British ships gathered off Staten Island, George Washington wrote his estate manager about the garden at Mount Vernon; how a tour of English gardens renewed Thomas Jefferson’s and John Adams’s faith in their fledgling nation; how a trip to the great botanist John Bartram’s garden helped the delegates of the Constitutional Congress to break their deadlock; and why James Madison is the forgotten father of American environmentalism. Taken together, these and other stories are a revelation of a guiding, but previously overlooked ideology of the American Revolution.

    The Founding Gardeners adds depth and nuance to our understanding of the American experiment, and provides us with a portrait of the founding fathers as they’ve never been seen before.

  • Thursday, May 12, 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm – The Olmsted Legacy: America’s Urban Parks

    The Arnold Arboretum, in conjunction with the Emerald Necklace Conservancy, will offer an evening of film and discussion on Thursday, May 12 in the Hunnewell Building of the Arnold Arboretum, from 7 – 8:30 pm.  The documentary The Olmsted Legacy: America’s Urban Parks explores the formation of America’s great city parks, including Boston’s own Emerald Necklace, through the eyes of 19th Century landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted.   The film traces the life of Olmsted: his early struggles in school. his personal tragedies and his unorthodox career path.  Olmsted and his firm carried out more than 500 commissions, nearly 100 of which were public parks.  His work includes the linear park system that stretches from the Back Bay Fens to Franklin Park known as the Emerald Necklace.  A Q & A session will follow the screening.  For more information on the documentary, visit www.theolmstedlegacy.org.  The admission fee is $10, and you may sign up by logging in to www.my.arboretum.harvard.edu.

  • Tuesday, May 10, 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm – The Secret Lives of Honey Bees

    Most people are familiar with the sight of a honey bee forager as she visits flowers in a garden or park, but few people know the rich story of the life of a colony within the darkness of a hive.  Heather Mattila studies the social organization of honey bees at Wellesley College, where her hives lend a lively presence to the arboretum.  Heather will unravel the secret life of honey bees, including the different kinds of bees that are found in hives and the jobs that they do, as well as the means by which honey bees communicate to ensure a healthy and productive colony, in this lecture on Tuesday, May 10, from 7 – 8:30 at the Hunnewell Building of the Arnold Arboretum in Jamaica Plain.  The program is co-sponsored by the Wellesley College Friends of Horticulture.  Members of either sponsoring organization will pay $10, non-members $15.  Register at www.wellesley.edu/WCFH, or call 781-283-3094.  Image from www.treehugger.com.

  • Sundays, May 15, 22, June 5, 12, 19, and 26, 1:00 pm – 3:00 pm – ID and Use of Trees for the Urban Landscape

    Learn to identify trees and consider their appropriate uses in the designed landscape in this six session course on Sundays, May 15 – June 26 (excluding Memorial Day weekend) at the Arnold Arboretum.  Using themes such as trees that provide native habitats or those appropriate for plantings along city streets to structure this class, landscape architect Emily Hamilton will use classroom presentations in the Hunnewell Building and tours through the Arboretum to familiarize you with the many trees appropriate for a variety of growing conditions and desired effects.  Fee $145 for Arboretum members, $175 for non-members.  Sign up at www.my.arboretum.harvard.edu.

  • Thursday, April 28, 6:30 pm – Ghost Bird

    To kick-off the 6th annual Birds and Bards Festival, The Arnold Arboretum, the Boston Nature Center, the Emerald Necklace Conservancy, and the Franklin Park Coalition will screen the movie Ghost Bird —a fascinating look at the controversial “rediscovery” of the extinct (or is it?) Ivory-billed woodpecker.

    The screening will take place at 6:30pm on Thursday, April 28th at the Boston Nature Center, 500 Walk Hill Street, Mattapan, Massachusetts 02126.

    In 2005, scientists announced that the Ivory-billed woodpecker, a species thought to be extinct for 60 years, had been found in the swamps of Eastern Arkansas. Other creatures have wrongly been presumed extinct, but the reappearance of the Ivory-bill was celebrated around the world as the rediscovery of a lifetime, prompting the largest recovery effort ever undertaken for a lost species. Millions of dollars poured in from the government while ornithologists and birders flooded the swamps to find the rare bird.

    Down the road, the town of Brinkley, Arkansas – itself on the brink of extinction – was transformed by the hope, commerce and controversy surrounding their feathered friend. But continued sightings by expert birders only highlighted the mysterious absence of credible evidence. Now six years later, the woodpecker remains as elusive as ever. Ghost Bird brings the Ivory-bill’s blurry rediscovery into focus revealing our uneasy relationship with nature and the increasing uncertainty of our place within it.

    Following the film, there will be a panel discussion about the state of conservation and endangered species in Massachusetts and around the world. Experts from three of the leading conservation organizations in MA will be available to answer questions:

    Pearl Yusuf, Asst. Curator of the Hooves and Horns, Franklin Park Zoo

    Joan Walsh, Director of Bird Monitoring, Mass Audubon

    Wayne Klockner, Director of the Massachusetts Program of The Nature Conservancy

    For more info visit

    http://ghostbirdmovie.com/

    http://arboretum.harvard.edu/news-events/birds-and-bards/

    http://www.massaudubon.org/Nature_Connection/Sanctuaries/Boston/news.php?id=1430&event=no

    Contact: Marc Devokaitis 617.384.5209 marc_devokaitis@harvard.edu

  • Thursday, April 28 – Sunday, May 1 – Birds and Bards: A Festival Celebrating Birds, Poetry, and Nature

    Visit the Arnold Arboretum, Boston Nature Center, Forest Hills Cemetery, Franklin Park Coalition and the Franklin Park Zoo,  Thursday, April 28 to Sunday, May 1 for Birds and Bards: A Festival Celebrating Birds, Poetry, and Nature. Spend the weekend exploring birds, poetry, and nature in over 1000 acres of green space along Boston’s Emerald Necklace. The festival includes activities for children and adults, most of which are free!

    For complete event listings and information, log on to www.arboretum.harvard.edu/news-events/birds-and-bards.

     

  • Saturday, May 14, 8:00 am – 11:00 am – Nature Photography Workshop

    Come to the Dana Greenhouses at the Arnold Arboretum in Jamaica Plain on Saturday, May 14, from 8 – 11 in the morning, for a Nature Photography Workshop led by Erik Gehring, freelance photographer and multi-media producer.  Improve your photographs of nature in this half-day workshop – a talk followed by hands-on experience.  The class takes place at the Arnold Arboretum during one of the most beautiful times of the year.  Learn about composition, color, light, depth of field and focus.  Bring your camera and manual and familiarize yourself with the operation of your camera prior to the workshop.  Offered with the Eliot School of Fine & Applied Art, the fee is $60, and there is a rain date of May 21.  To sign up, visit www.my.arboretum.harvard.edu.  And although the Erik Gehring photo below (www.northernwoodlands.org) is hardly a spring shot, it is so arresting we thought you should see it as an example of Mr. Gerhring’s talent.

  • Tuesdays, April 26 and May 3, 6:30 – 8:30 pm – Urban Vegetable Gardening for Beginners

    Join Abby Hird, Researcher, Botanic Garden Conservation International, on two consecutive Tuesdays, April 26 and May 3, from 6:30 – 8:30 at the Hunnewell Building at the Arnold Arboretum, to learn the where, what, and why of urban vegetable gardening.  She will guide beginners through site evaluation, plant selection, and common problems and possible solutions in raising home-grown food.  She’ll talk about community resources, maximizing yield from a small plot and ways to grow food more sustainably.  $45 for Arboretum members, $55 for non-members.  Sign up at www.my.arboretum.harvard.edu, or call 617-384-5277.  Image from www.urbanlandarmy.com.

  • Sunday, April 17, 12:30 pm – 4:30 pm – Invasives: ID, Ecology, and Control

    Get a head start on invasive control this year by learning to identify invasives in the early season. This New England Wild Flower Society course, co-sponsored by the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University, provides an introduction to about 40 of the most common invasive non-native plants in our local landscapes. Through lecture, discussion, power-point presentation, herbarium specimens, and a walk outside at Garden in the Woods in Framinham, become familiar with identification clues as well as the habits of a number of these plants that are so disruptive of natural ecosystems. Discuss management techniques for many of these species, on both a home and a landscape scale. The “Invaders” issue of the Society’s magazine as well as the Field Guide to Invasive Plants in Massachusetts will be available for purchase at a discount.  The session will take place Sunday, April 17 from 12:30 – 4:30, and will cost $48 for members of the sponsoring organizations, $58 for non-members.  Register online at www.newfs.org.