Boston Flora

Tag: Columbia University

  • Friday, June 5, 5:00 pm – 7:00 pm – Grounded in Nature: Paintings by Adam Van Doren Opening Reception

    Experience the intersection of architecture, history and landscape in the evocative paintings of award-winning artist and author Adam Van Doren. Trained as an architect at Columbia University, Van Doren brings a profound understanding of form and design to his impressionistic oil and watercolor paintings, capturing the poetic beauty of historic buildings situated within their natural surroundings from New York to Rome. Van Doren’s work celebrates the dialogue between the built environment and the landscape, translating his love of old buildings into detailed compositions of a particular place, illuminated by strokes of color.

    The exhibition at Berkshire Botanical Garden runs June 6 – August 23 in the Leonhardt Galleries. Opening reception is Friday, June 5, 5-7 p.m.

    Exhibition hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m, daily. Guest curator is Donna Hassler. For more information visit https://www.berkshirebotanical.org/leonhardt-galleries-2026

  • Tuesday, November 18, 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Eastern – Life with Flowers: Inspiration and Lessons from the Garden, Online

    Drawing on insights from her latest publication, Life with Flowers: Inspiration and Lessons From the Garden, Frances Palmer will discuss her approach to gardening, consisting of six growing periods, from prevernal—those late winter days when the first snowdrops and hellebores appear—through summer and fall, with its dahlias and Japanese anemones, to hibernal, as we move back indoors and enjoy forced bulbs and greenhouse flowers. Join Palmer as she shares her rich and varied experience growing a life with flowers, offering practical tips, DIY projects, favorite floral recipes, meditations on patience, and more.

    FRANCES PALMER, celebrated author, ceramist, gardener and photographer, trained as an art historian at Columbia University and for the past 38 years has focused on the process of changing ideas into form in her functional work—handmade ceramics. Her work is represented in leading private craft and contemporary art collections around the world.

    Note: You will receive the webinar link directly from Zoom. A recording of this webinar will be sent to all registrants a few days after the event. We encourage you to register, even if you cannot attend the live webinar. $5 for Garden Conservancy members, $15 for nonmembers. Register at https://www.gardenconservancy.org/events/web25-life-with-flowers-11-18-2025

  • Tuesday, March 16, 1:00 pm – Britt Zuckerman: The Healing Power of Nature and Design, Online

    Tuesday, March 16, 1:00 pm – Britt Zuckerman: The Healing Power of Nature and Design, Online

    Britt Zuckerman is Senior Landscape Architect at Dirtworks – a NY Landscape Architecture practice dedicated to creating spaces that bridge differences in age, ability, and culture through shared experiences and a close connection to nature. On March 16, through the New York Botanical Garden, she will present, online, recent Dirtworks projects, including their master plan for The Lakeshore Foundation in Birmingham, Alabama, an internationally renowned organization serving some 4,000 unique individuals annually through physical activity, sport, recreation, advocacy, policy and research.

    Zuckerman earned her Master’s degree from Columbia University, and speaks regularly at venues such as AIA’s New York Chapter, the NYC Parks Dept, The North Shore Garden Club and on various conference panels. $18 for general public, pre-registration required by clicking HERE.

  • Wednesday, February 3, 2:00 pm – Eltham Palace and Gardens: Medieval Palace and Millionaire’s Mansion, Online

    Wednesday, February 3, 2:00 pm – Eltham Palace and Gardens: Medieval Palace and Millionaire’s Mansion, Online

    Eltham Palace in Southeast London has an 800-year history of luxury and glamour. In her richly illustrated Royal Oak Foundation February 3 online lecture, Dr. Dominique Bouchard will explore the story of Eltham from its first mention in the Domesday survey of 1086, to its role as the 1490s boyhood home of King Henry VIII, to its transformation into a chic Art Deco residence.

    In its early history Eltham was renovated and added onto by England’s most famous kings and queens so much so that by the late 16th century it was larger and more ornate than Hampton Court Palace! By the early 17th century, however, Eltham fell into decline. During the English Civil War, Parliamentary troops ransacked the palace, after which it remained a ruin for more than 250 years. In 1936 it was saved and transformed by eccentric millionaires Stephen and Virginia Courtauld. They combined the medieval hall with a new, ultra-modern 1930s Art Deco residence. After WWII the Ministry of Works became responsible for management of the palace. English Heritage took over in 1995 and is restoring the interiors of the 20th-century house and the gardens to their 1930s Courtauld-era appearance.

    Dr. Dominique Bouchard is Head of Learning and Interpretation at English Heritage where she leads teams delivering award-winning interpretation and exhibitions, publishing, learning, youth engagement, digital curatorial and contemporary arts commissioning across more than 420 historic buildings, monuments and sites, from Stonehenge to Hadrian’s Wall and from Osborne House to a Cold War bunker in York. She has led exhibitions, public programmes and learning in museums in Hong Kong, Ireland and the UK. Dominique holds a BS in Applied Physics and BA in Mathematics from Columbia University in New York and received her DPhil at the University of Oxford in classical archaeology. Her doctoral research explored the relationship between public art, identity and power in Medieval and early Renaissance south Italy. Dominique is a trustee of the William Morris Society and has worked as expert consultant for the European Commission, Council of Europe and UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in the area of museums, heritage and divided societies.

    $20 general admission. Registration required. Visit https://www.royal-oak.org/events/winter-2021-online-lectures-tours-eltham-palace-and-garden/

  • Friday, November 2, 7:30 pm – American Eden: David Hosack, Botany, and Medicine in the Garden of the Early Republic

    Family doctor and friend to both Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr, and attending doctor at the famous duel, David Hosack is today a shadowy figure; the great achievements of his life forgotten. In this Smith College Chrysanthemum Show Opening Lecture on November 2 at 7:30 in the Campus Center Carroll Room, featuring her book, American Eden, Victoria Johnson rescues Hosack from obscurity and highlights his significant contributions to botany and medicine.

    In 1801, on twenty acres of Manhattan farmland, Hosack founded the first botanical garden in the new nation, amassing a spectacular collection of medicinal, agricultural, and ornamental plants that brought him worldwide praise from the likes of Thomas Jefferson and Alexander von Humboldt. Hosack used his pioneering institution to train the next generation of American doctors and naturalists and to conduct some of the first pharmaceutical research in the United States. Today, his former garden is home to Rockefeller Center.

    Victoria Johnson is an Associate Professor of Urban Policy and Planning at Hunter College in New York City. She earned her undergraduate degree in philosophy from Yale University and her PhD in sociology from Columbia University. Before joining Hunter College, she taught at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor for thirteen years. Her first book, Backstage at the Revolution, a history of the Paris Opera under the Old Regime, was published by the University of Chicago Press in 2008. In the 2015-2016 academic year, she was a Fellow at the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library, and in the summer of 2016 she was a Mellon Visiting Scholar at the New York Botanical Garden, where she conducted some of the research for her new book, American Eden. The lecture is free and open to the public, and will be followed by a reception, book signing, and view of the Chrysanthemum Show at the Lyman Plant House. For more information visit www.smith.edu/garden/

    Image result for victoria johnson american eden

  • Tuesday, October 28, 6:30 pm – 8:00 pm – Olmsted Lecture: On the Theoretical and Practical Development of Landscape Architecture

    The Harvard University Graduate School of Design will present its Olmsted Lecture on Tuesday, October 28, from 6:30 – 8 in the Piper Auditorium of Gund Hall, 48 Quincy Street in Cambridge.  The speaker will be Joseph Disponzio, and his topic is On the Theoretical and Practical Development of Landscape Architecture.

    Exploring the transformation of the modeling of land from garden-making to landscape architecture, this lecture by Joseph Disponzio will establish the intellectual origins of landscape architecture in relation to the new garden practices that emerged during the 18th century, and the texts that codified these practices, amid Enlightenment-era changes in the understanding of nature. Disponzio is Preservation Landscape Architect for the City of New York Department of Parks and Recreation, and Director of the Landscape Design program at Columbia University. He has taught at several institutions, published widely on garden history from the 18th century to the present, and is currently writing introductions for an edition of N. Vergnaud’s L’Art de créer les jardins (1835) and a translation of Jean-Marie Morel’s Théorie des jardins (1776).

    For accessibility issues, please contact the events office two weeks in advance at (617)-496-2414 or events@gsd.harvard.edu. Free and open to the public.

  • Monday, September 15, 6:30 pm – 8:00 pm – Charismatic Megaflora: What Do Old Trees Look Like?

    As with many things, one person’s charismatic megaflora is another person’s tree. For Neil Pederson, PhD, Ecologist, formerly with Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University and now with the Harvard Forest, Harvard University,  a tree that would capture his attention as a younger person is very different from the charismatic specimen that wows him today. What has changed? His understanding of old and the dimensions of time and space as applied to trees. On Monday, September 15, from 6:30 – 8 at the Hunnewell Building at the Arnold Arboretum, Neil Pederson will share how his assumptions were dashed (more than once) and what he has learned while searching for the oldest trees to obtain the longest possible tree-ring based records of environmental history.
    Fee $5 Arboretum member, $10 nonmember.  Register at http://my.arboretum.harvard.edu/Info.aspx?EventID=1.

  • Tuesday, November 1, 7:00 pm – The La Farge Christ Preaching Window

    John La Farge’s Christ Preaching (1883) –newly returned to Trinity Church after a multi-year restoration–is Trinity Church’s crowning glory and one of the artist’s most significant windows. Julie Sloan, consultant to the restoration, will explore the window’s history, design, and restoration and La Farge’s relationship to Trinity Church in a lecture to be held Tuesday, November 1 beginning at 7 pm.

    Julie Sloan is one of the leading stained-glass consultants in North America. She is the author of Conservation of Stained Glass in America and is adjunct professor of historic preservation at Columbia University, where she has taught stained glass restoration since 1985. Ms. Sloan’s conservation projects include Saint Thomas Episcopal Church, New York; H. H. Richardson’s Trinity Church in Boston; Harvard University’s Memorial Hall; Princeton University’s Chapel, and the State Houses of Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Her conservation and research projects have won many awards, including grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Samuel Kress Foundation, the Graham Foundation for Advancement in the Arts, and the Arts & Crafts Fund.

    Tickets: $10 per person, available at The Shop at Trinity (206 Clarendon St.) or by phone 617.536.0944 x225. Questions: Kathy Acerbo-Bachmann, kacerbobachmann@trinitychurchboston.org.

  • Thursday, November 10, 2:00 pm – The Gardens of Kyoto

    The November meeting of The Garden Club of the Back Bay will take place Thursday, November 10, at 2 pm, at The College Club, 44 Commonwealth Avenue in Boston. Rita Bond will speak on The Gardens of Kyoto. Originally from Brooklyn, New York, and New Jersey, Rita W. Bond is a longtime resident of Simsbury, Connecticut. She holds a Master’s Degree from Teachers College, Columbia University in the teaching of English. Rita studied landscape design at the New York Botanical Garden, and has had her own business as a residential landscape designer. Rita resumed her studies in art, and particularly color, in order to refine her skill as a landscape designer. As she has progressed in her art studies, she has found a new love and a new voice for expressing her creativity and love of the New England landscape. Rita’s illustrated lecture will provide a short history of, and an examination of, the cultural and religious significance of the gardens of Japan, in particular those of Kyoto. She will discuss design principles and plants that can be used here as well. The program will be followed by tea. Members will receive written notice of this meeting in the mail. Non members who may wish to attend ($20 fee) may email info@bostonflora.com.

  • Saturday, February 19, 1:30 pm – Nature Revisited

    The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum’s Landscape Visions Lectures continue Saturday, February 19, beginning at 1:30 pm in the Kotzen Meeting Center, Lefavour Hall, Simmons College, with Amale Andraos, co-founder of WORKac, NYC, speaking on Nature Revisited.

    Today, in the face of global urbanization, exploding population, and shrinking resources, architecture, cities, and nature are at a crossroads. Moving beyond the binary—white or green, architecture or landscape, urban or rural—we must ask how we can reinvent nature for the twenty-first century. Andraos examines recent projects by WORKac that shed light on the current situation and suggest a new course for the future.

    Based in New York City, WORKac develops architectural and urban projects that engage culture and consciousness, nature and artificiality, surrealism and pragmatism. WORKac is involved in projects at all scales, ranging from a master plan for the new BAM cultural district in Brooklyn, to a single family villa in Inner Mongolia, China. Recent completed projects include the installation ‘Public Farm 1’ at PS1/MoMA and the new headquarters for Diane von Furstenberg. Current work includes the new Kew Gardens Hills Library in Queens, the extension of the Clark Art Institute at Mass MoCA, a new Children’s Museum for the Arts, and the first Edible Schoolyard New York City with Alice Waters’ Chez Panisse Foundation.

    Amale Andraos is a visiting professor at Princeton University’s School of Architecture and has taught at numerous institutions including Harvard and Columbia Universities, the University of Pennsylvania, Parsons School of Design, and the American University in Beirut. She was born in Beirut, Lebanon. She has lived in Saudi Arabia, France, Canada and the Netherlands prior to moving to New York in 2002. She currently serves on the Architectural League of New York’s Board of Directors.  Tickets ($15 general public, $12 seniors, $5 members, students free) are available on line at www.gardenermuseum.org.  You will also find directions to the Kotzen Meeting Center on the site.