Boston Flora

Tag: Doug Tallamy

  • Friday, June 20, 5:00 pm – 7:00 pm – Cocktails in Great Gardens

    This summer, experience an enchanting evening in bloom with Berkshire Botanical Garden’s Cocktails in Great Gardens — a rare opportunity to sip, savor and stroll through some of the most exquisite private gardens in the region. Enjoy a cool beverage and snacks in a relaxed, elegant atmosphere, all while exploring extraordinary landscapes not usually open to the public.

    On June 20, join us as we travel just up the road from the Botanical Garden to visit a recently developed garden by our neighbor and board member, Scott Lambert, in Stockbridge. Scott drew inspiration for his gardens from his attendance at our very own Rooted in Place Symposium featuring entomologist DR Doug Tallamy in 2019, and from the meadow research and experience of frequent BBG lecturer and author, Owen Wormser. To fulfill his garden vision, Scott collaborated closely with long-time BBG supporter and collaborator, Rebekah Lamphere of Hartland Designs, who added her expertise in landscape design, plant selection, and succession throughout the seasons. Please join us to experience a worthy example of how a “blank canvas” residential landscape can be transformed into a pollinator-, wildlife-, and biodiversity-friendly environment.

    BBG members $40, non-members $60. Register at https://www.berkshirebotanical.org/events/cocktails-great-gardens-june-20

  • Tuesday, July 12, 12:00 noon – 1:00 pm Eastern – Birds in Your Own Backyard, Online

    Join Bryan Prather of Wild Birds Unlimited in Warson Woods for a virtual presentation on the birds living in Missouri’s backyards and how to co-exist with them and provide sustainability for years to come. This event is sponsored by the Missouri Botanical Garden.


    Bryan will speak about the elements of creating a yard to encourage the entire family to enjoy the birds while helping create a sustainable environment for them. Bryan will elaborate on the work of Doug Tallamy and the National Wildlife Federation with a discussion on just how impactful one corner of your yard. Small changes like introducing native plants, providing a water source and place to nest, and offering quality bird food to supplement birds’ natural diets can bring a wide variety of regional and migrating birds to a backyard refuge.


    Bryan will introduce a few Missouri birds, including American Robins, Carolina Chickadees, Downy Woodpeckers, Hairy Woodpeckers, the Tufted Titmouse, and the Missouri state bird, the Eastern Bluebird. Learn more about the correlation between native plants and native birds and how one cannot exist without the other.   Registrants will receive a Wild Birds Unlimited Warson Woods coupon, valid July 12-16.

    FREE for MBG members; registration required. To become a member, or for more information, call (314) 577-5118. 

    Click here to register.

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  • Grow Native Massachusetts Online Videos

    Grow Native Massachusetts videotapes many of their Evenings with Experts lectures so that they are readily available to you whenever you wish, and to reach a large audience across Massachusetts and beyond. The speakers are some of the best experts in the country. These recordings are professionally video-edited (so you can really see the speakers’ slides). Learn and enjoy! Programs include Nature’s Best Hope with Douglas Tallamy, Climate Change, Conservation, and the Role of Native Plant Horticulture with Jesse Bellemare, and more, dating back to 2015. To watch and access, visit www.grownativemass.org.

  • Tuesday, April 14, 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm – Nature’s Best Hope: A Talk and Book Signing with Doug Tallamy – POSTPONED

    Join Doug Tallamy at 6 pm at Garden in the Woods in Framingham for a talk and book signing for his newest publication, Nature’s Best Hope. Recent headlines about global insect declines, the impending extinction of one million species worldwide, and three billion fewer birds in North America are a bleak reality check about how ineffective our current landscape designs have been at sustaining the plants and animals that sustain us. Such losses are not an option if we wish to continue our current standard of living on planet Earth. The good news is that none of this is inevitable. Tallamy, author of the acclaimed Bringing Nature Home, will discuss simple steps that each of us can—and must—take to reverse declining biodiversity and explain why we, ourselves, are nature’s best hope. The talk will be followed by a book signing. $30 for Native Plant Trust members, $36 for nonmembers. Register at http://www.nativeplanttrust.org/events/natures-best-hope-talk-and-book-signing-doug-tallamy/

  • Sunday, November 10, 9:00 am – 5:00 pm – Rooted in Place: Annual Ecological Gardening Symposium

    Berkshire Botanical Garden’s 4th annual ecological gardening symposium on November 10 at the Berkshire School in Sheffield, Massachusetts from 9 – 5 challenges gardeners to think what can we do to welcome wildlife and plant diversity in our gardens, rather than working to keep undesired pests out. Invasives are harmful, we do not want them. Pests can be detrimental so we need to look out for the health of our plants. That all holds true, but in these times of ever-present studies showing what can do harm, our symposium speakers will look on the bright side: what steps we can take to encourage beneficial insects, birds, and inspiring plants — all with a goal of creating unique and resilient landscapes.

    Speakers include Doug Tallamy on Helping Migrants Justify Their Migration, Bethany Bradley on Ecological Gardening with Climate Change to Prevent Future Invasions and Assist Native Migrations, Dan Jaffe on How to Make Your Life Easier with Native Plants, and Amy Nyman on Native Plants with True Grit. Registration includes lunch and refreshments throughout the day.

    BBG Members: $95; Non-Members: $110 Full descriptions of lectures and registration information may be found at https://www.berkshirebotanical.org/events/rooted-place-annual-ecological-gardening-symposium

  • Wednesday, June 5, 9:00 am – 3:00 pm – Garden Club Federation of Massachusetts Annual Meeting

    Wednesday, June 5, 9:00 am – 3:00 pm – Garden Club Federation of Massachusetts Annual Meeting

    Please join President Suzanne McCance along with the Board of Directors of

    THE GARDEN CLUB FEDERATION OF MASSACHUSETTS, INC.

    Wednesday, June 5th, 2019 at The Hilton Boston Dedham , 25 Allied Drive, Dedham MA 02026

    9:00 – Registration, Coffee, Boutique Shopping, and Design Specialty Flower Show

    9:30 – Credentials & Call to Order. Welcome, Announcements, and Business Meeting

    10:30 – Keynote Speaker Professor Doug Tallamy: Professor of                  Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Delaware. Author of the award-winning book  ‘Bringing Nature Home’

    11:45 – Awards Presentation

    12:15 – Installation of new officers – Barbara May, former GCFM & NGC president

    12:45 – Credentials and Announcements

    12:50 – Boutique Shopping, Flower Show, and Social Hour

    1:30 – Luncheon on the lawn

    Please refer questions and inquiries to Nancy D’Ercole: nancy.m.dercole@gmail.com.

    Register online at https://www.gcfm.org/annual-meeting

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  • Wednesday, October 17, 5:30 pm – 7:30 pm – Landscaping for Bird Diversity

    This Landscaping for Bird Diversity workshop, to be held Wednesday, October 17 from 5:30 – 7:30 at Great Hall Lodge at Cedar Hill, 265 Beaver Street in Waltham, is organized by Grow Native Massachusetts, and taught by Claudia Thompson, the founder of Grow Native.

    Do you aspire to create landscapes with genuine ecological value for a wide array of avian species from songbirds, to raptors, owls, woodpeckers, and more? Claudia will lead an in-depth exploration of the principles and practices for achieving this objective, based on understanding the essential habitat requirements for bird survival.

    Our examination starts, of course, with the importance of native plants. Then we will take a deeper look at the value of different canopy layers, preferred planting strategies, techniques for providing water, and the critical role of active ecological systems to avian survival. We finish by considering our human interactions with birds. What are the pros and cons of feeding birds directly, through seed and suet? Do nest boxes really help our native songbirds to breed? And given the threats from both human activity and non-native bird species, how can we tilt the balance in favor of our native songbirds?

    Claudia Thompson founded Grow Native Massachusetts in 2010. She is nationally recognized as a leader in the native plant movement, and was featured as one of the Wild Ones in Garden Design magazine along with Doug Tallamy, Darrel Morrison, and others. She has had an extensive career as an ecologist and environmental educator. Claudia’s happiest moments are spent in her own garden where she has recorded 77 species of birds including woodpeckers, migrating songbirds, and even rare woodcocks, all using the habitat she and her husband have created on their small urban parcel in Cambridge.

    $28 for members of Grow Native Massachusetts, $38 for nonmembers. Sign up at www.grownativemass.org, or email mgallogly@grownativemass.org.

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  • Wednesday, January 18, 2:00 pm – 3:30 pm, & Saturday, January 21, 4:00 pm – 5:30 pm – Hometown Habitat, Stories of Bringing Nature Home

    Come to Garden in the Woods in Framingham on either Wednesday, January 18 at 2 or Saturday, January 21 at 4 for a screening of Hometown Habitat. Catherine Zimmerman (The Meadow Project) has teamed up with Doug Tallamy, PhD and the Chesapeake Conservation Landscaping Council to produce a new film on native plants called Hometown Habitat . The Meadow Project and CCLC missions promote the principles of conservation landscaping and expand the practice of conservation landscaping throughout the Chesapeake Bay region.

    Hometown Habitat is a 90-minute environmental, education documentary focused on showing how and why native plants are critical to the survival and vitality of local ecosystems. Entomologist Doug Tallamy, whose research, books, and lectures on the misuse of non-native plants in landscaping sound the alarm about habitat and species loss, provides the narrative thread throughout the film. The message: “We can change the notion that humans are here and nature is some place else. It doesn’t have to, and shouldn’t be that way.” Each individual has the power to conserve resources, restore habitat for wildlife and bring beauty to their patch of earth.

    Award winning director Catherine Zimmerman and her film crew traveled across the country to visit Hometown Habitat Heroes, people – young and old and with varied backgrounds – who are reversing detrimental impacts on the land and in the water of major U.S. watersheds, one garden at a time. Catherine and the film crew wind their way through the watersheds of Florida, the prairies of the Mississippi River Basin, the streams and rivers of the Rocky Mountains, the Chesapeake Bay, the Great Lakes and Columbia River to share success stories and works-in-progress that celebrate conservation landscaping that re-awakens and redefines our relationship with Nature.

    Along with the everyday Hometown Heroes, we meet ecologists, entomologists and other experts who will share the science behind how today’s ‘native-plants-know-best’ enthusiasts, landscape architects, and conservation groups are helping 20th century-minded city planners, businesses and developers appreciate the myriad 21st century benefits of low-maintenance, seasonally-dynamic, and eco-healthy landscape installations, that respect Nature’s original best practices.

    $18 ELA members, $25 nonmembers – See more at: http://www.ecolandscaping.org/event/screening-hometown-habitat-stories-of-bringing-nature-home/2017-01-18/#sthash.QuSWorED.dpuf

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  • Wednesday, November 4, 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm – Bringing Nature Home

    On Wednesday, November 4, from 7 – 8:30 at Tower Hill Botanic Garden, Doug Tallamy will discuss the important ecological roles of plants in landscapes, and emphasize the ecological, educational, physical and emotional benefits of designing landscapes with these roles in mind. Tallamy is a professor at the University of Delaware and won the Silver Medal from the Garden Writer’s Association for his book, Bringing Nature Home. His most recent book, with Rick Darke, is The Living Landscape: Designing for Beauty and Biodiversity in the Home Garden. Tower Hill members $15, nonmembers $25.  Register online at www.towerhillbg.org.

  • Wednesday, February 11, 7:30 pm – 8:30 pm – Edible Native Plants for Your Landscape

    There’s an increasing inclination to utilize more native species in home landscaping and in parks and other conserved landscapes, thanks to books like Doug Tallamy’s Bringing Nature Home, which extol the virtues of native plants over exotic ornamentals for attracting and sustaining beneficial insects. Yet, for some property owners/managers, this alone may be insufficient motivation to “go native”. Perhaps knowing that many native species are edible by people too will provide an additional incentive to plant native species. Juneberries (Amelanchier spp.), for example, are equally edible by songbirds and people. Picture below from www.blogs.cornell.edu. The taste of the ripe fruit is like a cross between cherries and almonds. Edible wild plants offer opportunities for people to connect to nature via their taste buds, thereby building their enthusiasm and public support for adding edible native plants to their home landscaping, as well as for conserving other lands that offer foraging opportunities. Adding native edible plants to a landscape can boost biodiversity as well as “spice it up” (literally as well as figuratively – i.e., we can have our acorn cake and eat it too). Learn about at least three dozen of the tastiest native species the Northeast U.S. region has to offer. Keys to the identification of each species are provided, along with edible portions, seasons of availability and preparation methods, along with guidelines for safe and environmentally responsible foraging.

    Russ Cohen’s “day job” is serving as the Rivers Advocate for the Massachusetts Department of Fish and Game’s Division of Ecological Restoration. He has spoken to The Garden Club of the Back Bay as well.  One of his areas of expertise is in riparian vegetation. He has compiled a list of native plant species suitable for planting in riparian areas; wrote nine fact sheets on the ecological and other beneficial functions of naturally vegetated buffers along rivers and streams, intended to aid the effective implementation of the Mass. Rivers Protection Act; and (in partnership with the Appalachian Mountain Club) prepared “Trees, Paddlers and Wildlife”, a set of outreach materials (YouTube video, brochure and PowerPoint presentation) intended to raise the awareness of paddlers, riparian land owners and managers, and others about the ecological and other beneficial values of retaining trees and other woody vegetation (living or dead) in and along rivers and streams. In his spare time, Cohen pursues his passion of connecting to nature via his taste buds. He is an expert forager and the author of Wild Plants I Have Known…and Eaten, published in 2004 by the Essex County Greenbelt Association. Mr. Cohen has been teaching foraging since 1974 and leads foraging walks each year at a wide variety of venues throughout the Northeast. The Ecological Landscaping Alliance’s free webinar with Russ will take place Wednesday, February 11, from 7:30 – 8:30. See more at: http://www.ecolandscaping.org/event/webinar-edible-native-plants-for-your-landscape/#sthash.yQGWH35b.dpuf