Boston Flora

Tag: Ecological Landscaping Association

  • Wednesday, April 25, 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm – Invasive Plants: Understanding the Threat to Our Parks and Backyards

    The Ecological Landscaping Association and the Newton Parks and Recreation Department are sponsoring a free program on Wednesday, April 25, from 6 – 8, on Invasive Plants: Understanding the Threat to Our Parks and Backyards, at Cold Spring Park, 1200 Beacon Street in Newton.  Invasive plant species damage the lands and waters that native plants and animals need to survive.  What are invasive plant species and what harm to they to to an ecosystem?  Newton native and ELA Board Member Bruce Wenning is an invasive plant specialist.  During visits to Cold Spring Park, Bruce discovered that several types of invasive plants are present and spreading along the trails.  Join Bruce for a walking tour at Cold Spring Park to learn how to identify several types of invasive plants and learn what you can do in your own landscape to safely remove them.  Bruce will explain how different types of invasive plants spread and what removal methods are effective on each.  He will also discuss the important topic of how to safely dispose of the invasive plants once removed from the landscape.  Registrations are limited. Call 617-436-5838, or email ela.info@comcast.net.

  • Saturday, April 14, 10:00 am – 2:00 pm – Recovery from Construction: A Case Study

    Perkins School for the Blind broke ground for two large new buildings in the fall of 2009, involving the removal and replacement of over 100 trees.  Two years later, the new trees are planted, the new design is done, but at what cost to the trees, the soil, the other plantings, and the environment?  Tour the site on Saturday, April 14, from 10 – 2, to see firsthand how issues like tree protection, soil compaction, and remediation actually worked out.  Visit the state of the art greenhouse and other new buildings on this historic and beautiful campus with Sonia Baerhuk, Lead Groundsperson at Perkins School for the Blind.  Please bring a bag lunch.  Fee is $44 for members of the Ecological Landscaping Association or the New England Wildflower Society, and $50 for nonmembers.  Register on line at www.ecolandscaping.org.  Image courtesy of www.boston.com.

  • Wednesday, April 4, 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm – Living Walls: Verticulture ™ Life Off the Wall

    Though the idea of living walls and green facades is not new, the modern day applications and the infinite design and business possibilities are.  Explore the benefits of living wall technology, the opportunities it presents, and learn how to incorporate the artfulness of living walls into your landscape or home.   Learn about the environmental value of living walls and see how they can serve as an innovative way to overcome landscape challenges in confined spaces with dynamic results, and learn to take Urban Farming to new heights.  This Ecological Landscaping Association seminar is co-sponsored by the New England Wild Flower Society, and will take place Wednesday, A;pril 4, from 6:30 – 8:30 at Garden in the Woods in Framingham.  Your instructor Trevor Smith is a landscape designer and LEED Green Associate with Land Escapes.  Fee is $24 for ELA and NEWFS members, $29 for nonmembers.  Register on line at www.newfs.org.

  • Thursday, March 22, 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm – Forget-Me-Nots: Working with Clients

    Anyone in pursuit of a career as a designer or builder of landscapes will eventually have to face one possibly distasteful reality.  Like it or not, part of you will have to function as a salesperson.  During our education, most of us designed in a nurturing vacuum, never forced to confront the reality of the needs, wants, personalities, tastes and budgets of clients with an ultimate veto power.  Embracing that reality needn’t be painful, although it can be if not done properly.  This Ecological Landscaping Association and New England Wild Flower Society seminar, to be held Thursday, March 22, from 7 – 9 at Garden in the Woods in Framingham, will introduce you to some of the “Forget-Me-Nots” that Tom Strangfeld, the instructor, learned by ignoring the consequences of forgetting them.  $24 for NEWFS or ELA members, $29 for nonmembers.  Register at www.newfs.org.

  • Wednesday, February 1 – Friday, February 3 – New England Grows! and Thursday, February 2, 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm – ELA and North Creek Nurseries Reception at New England Grows

    Join the  Ecological Landscaping Association and North Creek Nurseries at a free reception at New England Grows on February 2nd from 1-2 pm in Room 204 B of the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center, 415 Summer Street in Boston. The Northeast’s leading horticulture trade show and green industry seminars await you February 1 – 3 at New England Grows, one of the largest and most popular horticultural and green industry events in North America.

    New England Grows connects 13,000+ green industry professionals with the brightest horticultural ideas, hottest selling plants, latest green industry technology, and best outdoor equipment at its 1,100+ booth horticulture trade show.  Add to that dozens of ground-breaking green industry seminars led by world-renowned experts, and you’ll understand why New England Grows is the ultimate green industry event for you and your business. Register early, online at www.newenglandgrows.org.  $45 per person through January 16, $65 per person thereafter.

  • Thursday, November 10, 8:30 am – 4:30 pm – ELA Season’s End Summit

    Join the Ecological Landscaping Association on Thursday, November 10 from 8:30 – 4:30 at the Doyle Center in Leominster for two end of season panels, a locally sourced lunch, and networking.  The morning panel of Ecological success stories is “Hits and Near Misses” with landscape designers Julie Meyer, Rebecca Lindenmeyr, and Laura Kuhn, who will share their expertise and projects that demonstrate ecological landscapes with maximum aesthetic appeal, balancing ecological ideals and meeting client expectations, and lessons learned when obstacles occur.  The afternoon panel, “Hot New Services to Grow Your Business”, will be moderated by Risa Edelstein, and will feature Trevor Smith of Land Escapes on “Expanding Landscape Options with Living Walls,” Jessie Banhazl of Green City Growers (below) on “Taking Edible Landscapes to New Heights,” and Chris Rawlings of Waterhouse Pools and Ponds on “Natural Swimming Ponds.”  $55 for ELA members, $75 for non-members.  For more information, and to register, call 617-436-5838, or email ela.info@comcast.net.

  • Thursday, October 27, 9:00 am – 4:00 pm – Wood Decay Fungi Common to Urban Living Trees in the Northeast

    NOTE: THIS PROGRAM HAS BEEN CANCELLED.  WE WILL PUBLISH INFORMATION ON RESCHEDULING WHEN ANNOUNCED.  In this Arnold Arboretum workshop on Thursday, October 27, Chris Luley of Urban Forestry LLC in Rochester, New York will introduce Wood Decay Fungi Common to Urban Trees, their identifying characteristics and decay pathways, and methods and equipment available to test for decay. He will also present the results of a recent research study on visual assessment, sounding, and Resistograph testing for decay in urban trees. This program will take place in the Weld Hill classroom beginning at 9 am with some demonstrations in the landscape. Morning coffee is included; please bring your lunch. Register at www.arboretum.harvard.edu. Fee $90 Arboretum or ELA member, $120 nonmember.  Offered with the Ecological Landscaping Association. Photo of Schizophyllum commune by Carla Wick.

  • Thursday, October 13, 3:00 pm – 5:00 pm – Fresh Pond Restoration: Combining Beauty and Function

    Located five miles from downtown Boston, Fresh Pond Reservation is a green oasis, an urban wild and protective watershed land covering 363 acres.  Designed by the Olmsted Brothers and Charles Eliot, over the past decade this premier open space has undergone major renovation focused upon water quality protection, habitat enhancement, and aesthetic improvement.  The Northeast Sector Project focused on improving a 30 acre section of the Reservation by closely integrating woodland and edge zone management with innovatively designed features such as a two acre constructed stormwater treatment wetland, butterfly meadow, community garden, soccer field, and new and improved walking paths.  The project received an Honor Award for Reclamation and Restoration from the Boston Society of Landscape Architects.  On Thursday, October 13, from 3 – 5, join project designer and tour guide Thomas Benjamin for an insider tour of the project’s planning and installation.  The tour is sponsored by the Ecological Landscaping Association, and you may register ($20 ELA members, $25 non members) on line at www.ecolandscaping.com, or by calling 617-436-5838.

  • Saturday, October 1, 9:00 am – 1:00 pm – Hugelkulture Workshop

    With a focus on sustainable landscaping and high quality vegetable and flower gardens, M.L. Altobelli has done extensive research to find the best way to create productive land while effectively using surplus organic materials and scrap trees from her working farm.  The solution she found is Hugelkulture (HK) beds which are versions of the European concept of mound culture – layering woody plant material, covering it with compost, manure or other organic material, and planting in the middle of it.  M.L. has added the concept of Nutrient Dense Farming as a way of looking at food production that maximizes the health of the food produced and thereby increases the health of whoever eats it. This concept combines the tenet of organic, ecological, biological, and re-mineralization agriculture to produce the best quality food.  With the help of a tractor and front end loader, participants in this hands-on workshop will learn how surplus materials from the farm along with some imported loam and minerals can produce maximum production level per developed square foot.  The beds should be able to sustain at least two growing levels at a time – double cropping.  Participants in this Ecological Landscaping Association workshop, to take place Saturday, October 1 from 9 – 1 (rain date Sunday, October 2) in Westminster, Massachusetts, will also get a tour of the HK beds from last year that are in full production.  Bring your own lunch – drinks will be provided.  $25 ELA members and M.L.’s Greenery in Motion clients, $35 for everyone else.  Register online at www.ecolandscaping.org, or call 617-436-5838.

  • Tuesday, September 20, 10:00 am – 12:30 pm – Urban Sustainability: Roger Williams Park Botanical Center and Beyond

    Join Ecological Landscaping Association and URI Research Associate Kate Venturini on Tuesday, September 20, from 10 – 12:30, for a unique insider tour of the Roger Williams Park Botanical Center complex in Providence, Rhode Island, an urban oasis nestled in the heart of the 427-acre park designed by Horace Cleveland in 1878.  Through a partnership between the URI Outreach Center and the Providence Parks Department, the Botanical Center complex is being transformed both inside and out as a model for sustainable urban horticulture.  Located on an island surrounded by man made ponds, the complex features a newly designed and installed rain garden to capture greenhouse roof runoff, Rhode Island’s largest community garden, the future site of a permaculture food forest, extensive outdoor display gardens featuring native and sustainable plants, and the largest public indoor display gardens in New England (approximately 12,000 square feet of greenhouses.)  Join Kate as she shares her insight into the successful planning and management of indoor and outdoor showcases, illustrating the latest and greatest urban horticultural and agricultural practices.  For more information, email ela.info@comcast.net, or call 617-436-5838.  $20 for ELA members, $25 for non-members.  The address of Roger Williams Park is 1000 Elmwood Avenue in Providence.