Boston Flora

Tag: Better Homes & Gardens

  • Thursday, February 25, 11:00 am – 12:00 noon – Leslie Bennett: Gardens of Sanctuary, Online

    Founder and owner of Pine House Edible Gardens, Leslie Bennett designs, builds, and maintains edible and culturally resonant landscapes that are beautiful and productive. The gardens she creates provide visual, physical, and cultural inspiration-along with nourishing organic harvests of food, flowers and medicinal herbs. With degrees from Harvard, Columbia Law School, and University College London in the fields of environmental law,cultural property, and social justice, Bennett brings a rare and important perspective to her landscape designs and her business practices. One effort of Pine House Edible Gardens is the Oakland, CA-based Black Sanctuary Gardens project, founded by Bennett in 2018, which actively works to create garden spaces of refuge and beauty in collaboration with Black women and communities.

    Recently, Leslie Bennett received the American Horticultural Society’s 2020 Great American Gardeners Landscape Design Award. She is co-author of The Beautiful Edible Garden, and has been featured in Better Homes & Gardens, Martha Stewart Living, and Garden Design. Joining Bennett in conversation will be Jennifer Jewell, creator and host of the award-winning public radio program and podcast Cultivating Place.

    This February 25 online program is sponsored by the New York Botanical Garden as part of its Winter Lecture Series, and begins at 11 am Eastern time. To register, or for more information, visit www.nybg.org.

  • Wednesday, August 9, 7:00 pm – 8:00 pm – Harvest: Unexpected Projects Using Extraordinary Garden Plants

    In their beautifully photographed guide to growing, harvesting, and utilizing 47 unexpected plants, Harvest, Stefani Bittner and Alethea Harampolis encourage gardeners to discover the surprising usefulness of petals and leaves, roots, seeds, and fruit. Turn turmeric root into a natural dye and calamintha into lip balm. Make anise hyssop into a refreshing iced tea and turn apricots into a facial mask. Crabapple branches can be used to create stunning floral arrangements, oregano flowers to infuse vinegar, and edible chrysanthemum to liven up a salad. With the remarkable, multi-purpose plants in Harvest, there is always something for gardeners to harvest from one growing season to the next. Stefani will appear at Tower Hill Botanic Garden on Wednesday, August 9 for a talk beginning at 7 pm, followed by a book signing. Free with admission to the gardens.

    Stefani Bittner and Alethea Harampolis are the co-founders of Homestead Design Collective, a San Francisco Bay Area landscape design firm focused on creating beautiful gardens that provide harvest. Stefani is the co-author of The Beautiful Edible Garden (Ten Speed Press, 2013) and Alethea is the co-author of the best selling books, The Flower Recipe Book and The Wreath Recipe Book (Artisan 2013 and 2014). Stefani and Alethea’s latest collaboration, Harvest, was released by Ten Speed Press in February 2017. Stefani and Alethea’s work has been featured in San Francisco Chronicle, Sunset Magazine, C Magazine, Los Angeles Times, NY Times, Martha Stewart Living, Better Homes & Gardens, Vogue, Food and Wine, and Gardenista.com.

  • Sunday, January 29, 2:00 pm – 3:30 pm – Gardening Simplified: Exceptional Plants and Design Solutions for Time-Pressed & Maturing Gardeners

    Change happens. Job demands, kids, hectic schedules, aging bodies, and changing interests have led to gardens that are not in balance with our lifestyle. Time for some ‘editing’. This inspiring Kerry Ann Mendez free lecture at Tower Hill Botanic Garden, 11 French Drive in Boylston on Sunday, January 29 at 2 pm provides easy-to-follow right-sizing strategies, recommended no-fuss plant material, and design tips for stunning year-round gardens that will be as close to ‘autopilot’ as you can get… Co-sponsored with the New England Hosta Society. Please register at www.towerhillbg.org.

    As an award-winning garden designer, author, and lecturer, Kerry Ann Mendez focuses on time-saving gardening techniques, workhorse plants and sustainable practices. She has been on HGTV and in numerous magazines including Horticulture, Fine Gardening, Garden Gate and Better Homes & Gardens. Kerry Ann was awarded the 2014 Gold Medal from the Massachusetts Horticultural Society for her horticultural accomplishments. She has published three popular gardening books – her most recent, The Right-Size Flower Garden (St. Lynn’s Press, 2015), focuses on exceptional plants and design solutions for busy and aging gardeners. For more about Kerry Ann visit www.pyours.com.

  • Tuesday, May 14, 7:00 pm – Backyard Foraging: 65 Plants You Didn’t Know You Could Eat

    Porter Square Books, located in the Porter Square Shopping Center, 25 White Street in Cambridge, will host author Ellen Zachos, who will speak about her new book Backyard Foraging: 65 Plants You Didn’t Know You Could Eat, on Tuesday, May 14, beginning at 7 pm.  Following her talk she will sign copies of her book as well. Ideal for first-time foragers, this book features 70 (not 65 – who knew?) edible weeds, flowers, mushrooms, and ornamental plants typically found in urban or suburban neighborhoods. You’ll be amazed by how many of the plants you see each day are actually nutritious edibles.  Full-color photographs make identification easy, and tips on where certain plants are likely to be found, how to avoid pollution and pesticides, and how to recognize the plants you should never harvest make foraging as safe and simple as stepping into your own backyard.

    Zachos leads foraging walks and currently teaches at the New York Botanical Garden, where she received her certification in Commercial Horticulture and Ethnobotany. She writes two blogs, which can be found at “downanddirtygardening.com” and “gardenbytes.com” and has written numerous gardening books and contributed to publications including Horticulture and Better Homes & Gardens.

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