Boston Flora

Tag: Berkshire Botanical Garden

  • Saturday, June 15, 10:00 am – 3:00 pm – Plant and Place: Integrating a Botanical Still Life Foreground and Background

    Using a selection of potted plants from Berkshire Botanical Garden’s greenhouse, Ann Getsinger will demonstrate the act of combining perspectives to create a cohesive connection between near and far, foreground and background, to create engaging compositions. This class, held on Saturday, June 15, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., will examine ways to create the appearance of space and relationship using light and dark forms, repeated shapes and colors, shadows, soft and hard edges, and chromatic layering. The emphasis will be on experimentation, imagination and play. A materials list will include colored pencils or a water-based medium of your personal preference (watercolors, acrylics or gouache); a surface to paint on; a palette; a variety of brushes, including a small mop brush; and a fine pointed brush. Bring along any materials that you enjoy working with.

    Using traditional realist skills, Ann Getsinger observes various natural objects, placing them life-size in landscapes, often of the imagination. Her solo exhibits include Dowling Walsh Gallery in Rockland, Maine; Carrie Haddad Gallery in Hudson, N.Y.; and Koussevitzky Art Gallery in Pittsfield, Mass. Her work was recently featured in Orion Magazine and on the Laurel Hill Association’s online series, Artists on Nature. Ann’s home and studio for the past 33 years is in New Marlborough, Mass. She studied at the San Francisco Art Institute.

    BBG members $100, nonmembers $120. Register at https://www.berkshirebotanical.org/events/plant-and-place-integrating-botanical-still-life-foreground-and-background

  • Saturday, June 14, 6:00 pm – 7:00 pm – Cross Talk: Byzantine and Nature

    According to the Icon Museum and Study Center, “An icon is an image of a holy person or event created by an iconographer who follows the strict standards of the Orthodox Church.”

    Peter D. Gerakaris, artist on view at BBG, and Kent dur Russell, Russian iconography scholar, will talk about their areas of expertise and then converse on what becomes the shared meaning between them on Friday, June 14, from 6 to 7 p.m. at the Berkshire Botanical Garden with a reception to follow. While showcasing many time-honored processes — such as Byzantine painting and gilding with gold leaf on panel — Peter’s artwork shifts our focus toward luminous images of the natural world. Motifs such as endangered flora and fauna are filtered through his artwork’s kaleidoscopic lens to create contemporary nature-based icons. In this lecture, he and Kent will explore iconography as it relates to traditional art history and the natural world. BBG members $25, nonmembers $40. Register at https://www.berkshirebotanical.org/events/cross-talk-byzantine-and-nature

    Artist Peter Gerakaris’ show, “Microcosms,” is on view June 8 through Aug. 4, in the Leonhardt Gallery at BBG. Kent dur Russell is the founding director of the Museum of Russian Icons in Clinton, Mass., and will discuss Byzantine and icon roots in broader and contemporary contexts. 

  • Saturday, June 1 through Sunday, October 6 – The Lost Bird Project

    Todd McGrain’s “The Lost Bird Project” recognizes the tragedy of environmental destruction by immortalizing North American birds that have been driven to extinction, including the Passenger Pigeon, the Carolina Parakeet, the Labrador Duck, the Great Auk, and the Heath Hen. The Berkshire Botanical Garden exhibition includes large-scale outdoor sculptures and an indoor gallery show (beginning August 10) featuring smaller-scale versions of the same sculptures, supplemented with original drawings and other related artwork. “These bronze sculptures are subtle, beautiful and hopeful reminders,” McGrain says. “The human scale of each outdoor sculpture elicits a physical sympathy. The smooth surface, like a stone polished from touch, conjures the effect of memory and time. I model these gestural forms to contain a taut equilibrium, a balanced pressure from outside and from inside — like a breath held in. As a group, they are melancholy yet affirming. They compel us to recognize the finality of our loss, they ask us not to forget them, and they remind us of our duty to prevent further extinction.”

    Opening reception is Saturday, Aug. 10, from 5 to 7 p.m. For more information visit https://www.berkshirebotanical.org/leonhardt-galleries-2024

  • Saturday, May 25, 9:00 am – 3:00 pm – Stonemasonry: An Overview

    This Berkshire Botanical Garden workshop, led by Sam Mercier at the Garden on May 25, will focus on the steps that are needed to start new projects as well as methods for fixing existing problems. The class will begin with a demonstration and Q&A at 9 a.m., then participants will take a walk of the grounds, examining masonry and looking at techniques for fixing stone projects that have been worn down over time. After an in-depth look at the basics on the planning board and in the field, instruction will move to masonry tools, finishes and fabrication. This will cover cutting stone with saws large and small, splitting stone, chiseling, and other finishes necessary in stone projects at 3 p.m. $140 for BBG members, $160 for nonmembers. Register at https://www.berkshirebotanical.org/events/stonemasonry-overview-0

    Sam Mercier is a local mason currently hailing from Sandisfield, Massachusetts. His career began on the island of Martha’s Vineyard where he learned from highly skilled stonemasons specializing in reclaimed granite and fieldstone. He moved to the Berkshires for an opportunity to work with a distinguished company that focused more on antique stone and brick designs. In 2015 Sam started his company Mercier Stone.

  • Saturday, May 18, 1:00 pm – 2:30 pm – Gardening for Baby Boomers: 10 Ways to Garden Smarter as We Get Older

    Join Master Gardener Chris Ferrero at Berkshire Botanical Garden on Saturday, May 18, from 1 to 2:30 p.m., to explore how to maintain perennial borders, foundation plots and vegetable gardens that have been created and tended over the years. This course will teach participants how to reshape their garden design and how to choose appropriate types of plants that can improve the gardening process.

    Chris Ferrero is a gardening speaker, writer and consultant. Chris is a Cornell Master Gardener from Dutchess County, N.Y., where in addition to speaking and teaching classes, she has led demonstration garden renovations, organized regional events and served on teams as a perennials specialist known for particular expertise in shade gardening, flowering shrubs, pollinator-approved planting designs, and native plants as alternatives to invasives. $25 for BBG members, $40 for nonmembers. Register at www.berkshirebotanical.org

  • Friday & Saturday, May 10 & 11 – Berkshire Botanical Garden 47th Annual Plants and Answers Sale

    Friday & Saturday, May 10 & 11 – Berkshire Botanical Garden 47th Annual Plants and Answers Sale

    Curated by BBG’s horticulture staff, this year’s Plant Sale features hundreds of perennials, annuals and vegetables with a focus on diversity and nature-based landscaping, a trend toward gardens that are exuberant and alive, out of the uniform and into something comfortable, and welcoming to birds, bees and butterflies.

    As always, the popular “Ask Me” staff and volunteers will be on hand to provide expert advice. All proceeds from the Plant Sale support the Garden’s horticulture and education programs. Garden members receive early buying privileges and a discount on BBG plant purchases. Free admission and free parking.

    Traditionally held on Mother’s Day weekend, the Plants-and-Answers Plant Sale began in 1977 as BBG’s harbinger of spring for gardeners in the Berkshires and beyond. This year’s sale carries on the tradition of supplying the very best robust plants for landscape and container gardens, along with a wide selection of organic vegetable and herb plants. Featured are a selection of plants which attract bees, hummingbirds, butterflies, moths and other pollinators. The Garden’s signature cone-shaped hanging container arrangements will also be available. 

    Thank you to the following businesses who have donated to the Plant Sale:

    Andrews Greenhouse
    Broken Arrow
    Callanders Nursery & Landscape
    Campo de Fiori
    Garden Magic d/b/a Country Caretaker
    Glendale
    Monrovia
    The Plant Group
    Randall’s Farm
    Sixteen Acres Garden Center
    Ward’s
    Whalen Nursery
    Zema’s Nursery

    Early buying for BBG members – Friday, May 10, 9 – 11 am. General Public, Friday, May 10, 11 – 5, Saturday, May 11, 9 – 4 Admission and parking are free.

  • Saturday, April 20 – Monday, May 27 – “Re-Rooted”

    Berkshire Botanical Garden’s 2024 Art/Garden series continues with “Re-Rooted,” an exhibition featuring the drawings of Brooklyn-based artist Ellen Driscoll, who takes her inspiration from the resilience and regenerative power of plants.

    The exhibition runs from April 20 through May 27, in the Leonhardt Galleries. The public is invited to the opening reception on Saturday, April 20, from 5 to 7 p.m.

    “Plants have been on the Earth much longer than human beings — adapting through eons of environmental change,” said Driscoll. “As our environmental crisis becomes ever more urgent, my art takes its inspiration from the quiet work plants do to survive, adapt and heal our planet.” These drawings reflect on the process by which plants use their root system to clean up toxic contaminants in soil, air and water.

    Driscoll’s work is in major collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum of Art.  Her awards include fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Bunting Institute, the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Massachusetts Council on the Arts, the LEF Foundation, the Rhode Island Foundation, Anonymous Was a Woman, and a Fine Arts Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. 

    Berkshire Botanical Garden’s Leonhardt Galleries are open seven days a week, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The address: 5 West Stockbridge Road, Stockbridge, Mass.

  • Friday, April 12, 5:00 pm – “Le Poète Lucide”

    Come join the fun with Berkshire International Film Festival (BIFF) and Berkshire Botanical Garden for a film screening, Q&A, wine tasting, and nibbles on Friday, April 12, at 5 p.m., at BBG in West Stockbridge. This film is “Le Poète Lucide,” directed by Keith Aumont.  This screening is part of the Environmental Film Focus with BIFF.

    Nicolas Joly is one of the founding fathers of the natural wine movement known as biodynamics. Set upon the stage of his Loire Valley vineyard, “The Lucid Poet” illuminates the wisdom, warmth and passion of this winemaking legend.

    Mary and Ben of Dare Bottleshop and Provisions in Lenox and Great Barrington, will be pouring the wine.

    Sponsored by the Roaring Brook Family Foundation.

    Tickets are $35 for BBG members and $40 for the general public.

    Click here for tickets.

  • Saturday, April 27, 10:00 am – 12:00 noon – Mindful Beekeeping

    Beekeeper and founder of Bee Resonance Project Asher Silverwolff takes participants on a grounding and calming journey into the inner world of bees on Saturday, April 27, from 10 a.m. to noon at Berkshire Botanical Garden in West Stockbridge. Participants will experience meditation, show and tell, touch and feel and lots of time for Q&A. Asher will share stories of his relationship with bees, how it helps him relax and stay focused, what the year ahead looks like, and explore together as a group how the Bee Resonance Project might support those interested in taking up the mantle of beekeeping or already keeping bees.

    Bee Resonance Project is an organization focused on connecting people to themselves and nature by tuning into bees. They manage beehives on behalf of farms, educational organizations and private clients. They also host educational experiences and training for schools, companies and community organizations. $25 for BBG members, $40 for nonmembers. Register at https://www.berkshirebotanical.org/events/mindful-beekeeping

  • Saturday, March 30, 10:00 am – 1:00 pm – Spring Hoppening

    Berkshire Botanical Garden begins its 90th season festivities with its second annual Spring Hoppening on Saturday, March 30, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.

    Highlights of the event include egg hunts, a story walk, crafts, pony rides, games, food trucks, drinks, and opportunities to have photos taken with a rather large and friendly bunny. The Garden’s gift shop will be open with garden items for sale

    At 10:30 a.m. the first of three egg hunts begins for children 3 and under, followed at 10:45 a.m. with an egg hunt for ages 3 to 6. At 11 a.m. the egg hunt for children of ages 7 through 12 begins. Older children are welcome to come help their younger siblings/friends.

    Spring Hoppening is sponsored by the Kinney Family and Lee Bank.

    Admission is $10 per person for members, $15 for non-members. Free admission for all children under the age of 4. Become a member here!

    Registration is recommended. https://www.berkshirebotanical.org/events/spring-hoppening