Boston Flora

Tag: Doug Reed

  • Thursday, November 18 – A Carefully Curated Daylong Excursion to Nashville’s Great Cultural Landscapes

    The Cultural Landscape Foundation’s (TCLF) annual excursion in Nashville will be memorable for its sweeping historic narrative of the city’s most significant cultural landscapes and the depth of knowledge that visitors will be afforded by guides Tara Armistead, Doug Reed, FASLA, Susan Turner, FASLA, and Thomas Woltz, FASLA. Complementing the excellent destinations will be exquisite food and refreshments including mid-morning hors d’oeuvres followed by a lunch prepared by celebrated Chef Jason LaIacona from Miel Restaurant, and an optional capstone reception. Transportation is provided.

    The day begins at Fort Negley, located just over one mile south of Nashville’s downtown built on land seized by the Union Army in 1862. Constructed of local limestone by African American laborers on the crest of Saint Cloud Hill, Fort Negley was the crown jewel of the federal fortifications and entrenchments that ringed the city.

    Antebellum Glen Leven Farm was part of a 640-acre Revolutionary War land grant. The Federal-style mansion (1857) is fronted by the remnants of a formal garden and carriage drive. The surrounding landscape is crisscrossed by hedgerows, stone fences and is drained by Brown’s Creek. The property is dotted with magnolias, ash, gingko, black walnut, laurel oak, and pecans, the rolling upland terrain also includes a dogwood planted ca.1883 and an English hedge maple reportedly brought from Kew Gardens in the 1880s. The farm is also the home of the Tennessee Land Trust.

    Centennial Park’s origins date to the late 1700s. It was the state fairgrounds (1884-1895) and the site of the 1897 Tennessee Centennial Exposition, which featured neoclassical buildings including a full-scale plaster replica of the Parthenon, rebuilt in concrete ca.1920. Over the past decade significant project work has been undertaken and the second phase of the master plan, now underway, involves the addition of an entry plaza with a multispecies allée, a formal events lawn, and new gardens near the Parthenon.

    The excursion will conclude at Cheekwood Museum and Botanical Garden, which was originally the estate of coffee investors Leslie and Mabel Cheek who purchased the property in the late 1920s. They hired architect/landscape architect Bryant Fleming to design what is now one of the great surviving Country Place Era estates. Fleming designed a Georgian-style mansion and series of terraced formal gardens inspired by eighteenth-century English estates. In the 1950s Huldah Cheek and Walter Sharp gifted the estate to a group of civic organizations; it opened in 1960. Today, much of Fleming’s original gardens remain, alongside more recent garden additions.

    Following the excursion there will be a reception at Cheekwood (a separately ticketed event). The event will include exclusive access to the Holiday lights display before it opens to the public, and a catered reception that will also showcase a presentation of TCLF’s Annual Stewardship Excellence Awards.

    Space is strictly limited, and this event will sell out. Excursion tickets are fully tax-deductible thanks to the generosity of our sponsors.

    To learn more about the Reception click here.

  • Tuesday, March 7, 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm – Planting in the Public Realm: Projects and Projections

    The Harvard Graduate School of Design will conduct a panel discussion on Tuesday, March 7 from 6:30 – 8:30 in Gund Hall, Piper Auditorium, Quincy Street in Cambridge.

    Plant life, long regarded in cities as an amenity, has throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries also become an accepted necessity integral to the urban fabric. Yet, there are multiple challenges facing plants and planting design in urban areas. Pollution, climate change, increasingly restricted space, and insufficient or nonexistent public budgets for plants are only some of the factors that make it difficult for vegetation in our cities to survive. Yet numerous new public urban parks have been created, tree planting programs persist, new plant cultivars are developed, spontaneous plant growth is studied, and new planting design paradigms are proposed.

    In a series of short presentations and a moderated discussion, landscape architects, planting designers, and ecologists will assess the current state of the art in planting the public realm. The event seeks to draw out ideas for how plants can be used in the future design of urbanizing areas to create healthy, sustainable, inclusive, and appealing environments. What is the importance of planting the public realm today, and what are its biggest challenges? What are the roles of landscape architects, designers, ecologists, and plant scientists in accommodating plant life in cities and in areas that are becoming urbanized, and are we beyond botanical xenophobia? Moderated by author Sonja Dümpelmann, associate professor of landscape architecture, with Steven Handel, visiting professor in landscape architecture; Noel Kingsbury, writer and garden designer; Norbert Kühn, TU Berlin; Doug Reed MLA ’81, lecturer in landscape; and Matthew Urbanski MLA ’89, associate professor in practice of landscape architecture.

    Anyone requiring accessibility accommodations should contact the events office at (617) 496-2414 or events@gsd.harvard.edu. The event is free and open to the public.