Boston Flora

Tag: ELA

  • Wednesday, July 29, 1:00 pm – 5:00 pm – Out of Control: Chemical-free Strategies for Invasive Plant Control

    Invasive non-native plant species surround us: along roadsides, deep in forests, and in our own backyards. After decades using synthetic herbicides to control invasives, the invasive species remain out of control and growing environmental concerns are driving landscape professionals and the public to consider alternative control methods. Join the Ecological Landscape Alliance (ELA) at the Garden in the Woods for an afternoon workshop from 1 – 5 on Wednesday, July 29 to explore chemical-free options for invasive species control.This workshop will feature six concise and information-packed presentations plus a powerhouse panel discussion. Topics will include:

    Chemical-free Riparian Restoration
    Invasive Control in Closed-loop Systems
    Comparing Control Options
    Mobilizing Volunteers for Invasive Plant Removal
    Invasive Species Management Realities
    “Goatscaping” – A 4-Legged Approach to Invasive Control
    Chemical-free Controls – Get Your Questions Answered by the Panel of Experts

    ELA members price $30, nonmembers $40. Register today at www.ecolandscaping.org. Image from www.landscapeonline.com.

  • Saturday, June 27, 10:00 am – 12:00 noon – Reclaiming the Land: Successful Invasives Management

    In Sudbury, Massachusetts, the incessant march of invasive plant species is meeting resistance by SWEET, Inc (the Sudbury Weed Education and Eradication Team).

    Established in August 2009, SWEET’s mission is to make people aware of the harm that invasive plant species do to our historic and environmentally sensitive natural areas and parks. With the help of community volunteers and students, the group teaches identification and responsible removal of invasive plants from designated Sudbury sites including the large wooded property at Lincoln Sudbury Regional High School (LSRHS.)

    Join SWEET founder, Rebecca Chizzo for a walking tour at LSRHS on Saturday, June 27, from 10 – noon, to learn how to identify common invasive plants and how you can control or reduce their proliferation on your own property – without using chemicals. On this tour, participants will learn to identify invasive species using simple characteristics and habits and learn about what works in alternative approaches for control. At LSRHS, SWEET has encountered many invasive plant species including Japanese honeysuckle, black swallowwort, Oriental bittersweet, multiflora rose, glossy buckthorn (pictured,) Cypress spurge, and many more… Come with your questions about invasives and Rebecca will share her knowledge as we walk through the LSRHS landscape. $15 for Ecological Landscape Alliance members, $25 for nonmembers. Register at http://www.ecolandscaping.org/event/reclaiming-the-land-successful-invasives-management-2/#sthash.yz7CCsSH.dpuf

  • Thursday, June 25, 10:00 am – 12:00 noon – Beaver: Building Habitat, Improving Eco-Systems

    Beaver are unique among mammals in that they alter their habitat to meet their needs by damming streams to form ponds. This behavior actually benefits other species (including people), as well. By building dams and flooding woodland swamps, beaver play an important part in the restoration of lost wetlands, providing habitat and food for a wide variety of plants and animals. Over 50 percent of our wetlands have disappeared since European settlement in North America. Beaver build their dams in order to create deep ponds that won’t freeze at the bottom in winter. Because of the flooding beaver create, trees often die off, providing nesting sites for great blue herons, wood ducks, tree swallows, and other birds. These new ponds become homes to amphibians, turtles, fish, otters, muskrats, and other animals.

    Beaver-created wetlands also enhance human habitat by storing and slowly releasing floodwater, which controls downstream flooding. They improve water quality by removing or transforming excess nutrients, trapping silt, binding and removing toxic chemicals, and removing sediment. And finally, flooded areas can also recharge and maintain groundwater levels, and provide flow to streams even during droughts.

    Join conservationist Cindy Dunn at Wachusett Meadow Wildlife Sanctuary in Princeton, Massachusetts, on Thursday, June 25, from 10 – noon, for this unique walking tour of the 85 acre beaver pond to learn about the important ecological role that beaver play. Wachusett Meadow is one of the spectacular wildlife sanctuaries within Mass Audubon. This property consists of 1,200 acres accessed by 12 miles of trails. The sanctuary protects a diverse landscape of shrubland fields and meadows, forests, Wachusett Meadow’s Wildlife Pond, and beaver wetlands. Rain or shine event. $22 for ELA members, $32 for non-members. Register at http://www.ecolandscaping.org/event/beaver-building-habitat-improving-eco-systems/#sthash.a7IC3Fga.dpuf

  • Wednesday, June 24, 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm – Edibles in the Landscape – Foraging and Growing Your Own

    Edible wild plants offer opportunities for people to connect to nature via their taste buds, thereby building enthusiasm and support for land stewardship. Reconnect with the many edible plants that are all around us.

    Join tour guide, Russ Cohen, to view plants in the landscape through a new lens. 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 is also an expert forager and the author of Wild Plants I Have Known… and Eaten, published by the Essex County Greenbelt Association. For more than 25 years, Russ Cohen has been teaching foraging and leading foraging walks each year at a wide variety of venues throughout the Northeast, including talks for the Garden Club of the Back Bay.

    On this Wednesday, June 24 early evening walking tour of the landscape at Mass Audubon’s Habitat property in Belmont, Russ will point out which commonly found native and non-native plants have edible potential. Russ will discuss how adding edible plants to a landscape can boost biodiversity as well as “spice up” the experience for garden visitors. Learn about dozens of tasty native and non-native plant species that area landscapes have to offer, some of which may already be growing on your property. If your landscape is not rich with edibles yet, let this presentation be your inspiration to add edibles to your landscape this season. Register ($15 ELA members, $25 nonmembers) and see more at: http://www.ecolandscaping.org/event/edibles-in-the-landscape-foraging-and-growing-your-own/#sthash.S7t4kEYV.dpuf  Photo below of the Habitat property from www.everytrail.com.

  • Wednesday, February 25 – Thursday, February 26, 7:00 am – 6:00 pm – ELA Conference & Eco-Marketplace: Sustaining the Living Landscape

    Learn more about protecting and sustaining local ecosystems at the Ecological Landscape Alliance 21st Annual Conference & Eco-Marketplace, Sustaining the Living Landscape. The event will take place Wednesday – Thursday, February 25 and 26, at the MassMutual Center, 1277 Main Street in Springfield.

    The conference includes educational sessions, an irrigation demonstration, breakfast and lunch, access to vendors of ecological products and services, Social Hour, and networking opportunities.
    Event addresses designers, architects, builders, and land care specialists of all kinds from beginner to seasoned expert.  Pricing varies depending on options chosen. Details at website, http://www.ecolandscaping.org, or call 617-436-5838.

  • Thursday, November 20, 5:30 pm – 7:30 pm – Ecological Landscaping Alliance Members’ Reception

    Current and future Ecological Landscaping Alliance Members – this one’s for you! You asked for more opportunities to gather and talk with other ELA members about projects and strategies, and ELA listened. This fall ELA invites you to the South Shore Members’ Reception – and it is FREE. This second ELA Members’ Reception will take place on November 20th in Plymouth, Massachusetts, beginning at 5:30 pm at the Southeastern Massachusetts Pine Barrens Alliance (SEMPBA) community center, 204 Long Pond Road in Plymouth. Our host for this event, SEMPBA is working to better protect, enhance and celebrate the beautiful Southeastern Massachusetts Atlantic Coastal Pine Barrens Ecoregion.  Please call 617-436-5838, or email ela.info@comcast.net if you plan to attend.

  • Thursday, June 26, 10:00 am – 12:30 pm – Native Plant Gardens: For Beauty and Bounty

    The Ecological Landscaping Association will sponsor a program on Thursday, June 26, from 10 – 12:30 on Native Plant Gardens: For Beauty and Bounty, featuring three gardens designed by Nanette Masi in Amesbury, Massachusetts.

    The gardens feature native plants, natural garden design, and beauty for humans, as well as bounty that attracts a variety of birds, butterflies and other wildlife.  Once established, native plant gardens require fewer inputs (fertilizer or water) which benefit the environment while saving on maintenance costs.

    Nanette’s private gardens were overrun with invasives when the property was purchased in 1994.  Nanette was hooked by the  natural setting: a freshwater tidal marsh, a stream, and a view of the Merrimac River.  The reclamation started with small foundation plantings, when native plants were scarce.  Now there are small shade gardens, a sunny meadow-based garden, a vegetable garden with grape-covered pergola, and a steep front hillside of clay where invasives continue to taunt.

    The second garden you will see was Nanette’s first residential design for a narrow condominium backyard.  The property was transformed from a struggling, uneven lawn to a pleasing garden with a bubbling stream, mini pond, and visiting frogs.  Along with many native perennials, a dwarf, flowing Japanese maple was included in the design, at the owners’ request.  To add depth and a sense of enclosure, trellises were attached to the fences on either side.

    The third garden is a recent design.  The property is carved out of a steep knoll with close to a 1:1 slope within 10 – 15 feet of the side of the house.  The rear of the property slopes down steeply to a series of granite terraces featuring wide granite walkways with curves and beach stone ribs as spaces.  Creative stonework was installed by the talented mason Adam Bennett of Colonial Stoneworks.

    $20 for ELA members, $25 for non-members.  Register at https://www.eventville.com/catalog/eventregistration1.asp?eventid=1010985.

  • Tuesday, June 3, 1:00 pm – 3:00 pm – The Rose Kennedy Greenway: Organic Practices, Beautiful Results

    The Rose Kennedy Greenway is the mile-long ribbon of green that replaced Boston’s elevated Central Artery when Route 93 was moved underground as part of the Big Dig.  The Rose Kennedy Greenway is Boston’s only organically maintained Public Park and one of a handful of organically maintained urban parks in the United States.  Because of the Conservancy ground-up approach that encompasses all living things including soil, plants and trees, children and pets can play freely and safely on the lawns without the worry of chemicals or pesticides.  The plants are healthier, more resilient, and better able to withstand the wear of public use.  The Conservancy’s practice of not using herbicides and toxins also ensures that run-off from the parks will not pollute Boston Harbor or harm the delicate marine life.  This tour (Tuesday, June 3, 1 – 3, with a rain date of June 4) will include in depth discussion of the Conservancy’s organic horticultural practices.

    Join tour guides Conservancy Superintendent of Horticulture Stuart Shillaber, and Horticulture Foreman Anthony Ruggiero for a behind the scenes tour of the Greenway. Spanish translation will be provided for this tour.  $20.00 for ELA members, $25 for non-members.  For more information email ela.info@comcast.net.  Register at https://www.eventville.com/catalog/eventregistration1.asp?eventid=1010978.

  • Thursday, April 10, 11:00 am – 2:00 pm – Harvard Forest: Reflecting on the Past, Researching for the Future

    Located in picturesque Petersham, Massachusetts, the Harvard Forest has served as Harvard University’s rural laboratory and classroom for ecology and conservation since 1907. The Forest is comprised of 3,750 acres of forests, ponds, streams, wetlands, and agricultural fields providing diverse natural ecosystems and cultural landscapes for study and enjoyment, and is one of the country’s oldest intensively researched landscapes.

    The Forest is protected from development and operates under a long-term management plan designating specific areas for active forest management, long-term scientific experiments, and reserves.  Since the Forest’s founding, its researchers have been pioneers in applying the lessons from human and natural history to the interpretation, conservation, and stewardship of landscapes.  Harvard Forest scholars collaborate with conservation organizations and state and federal agencies to protect land locally, regionally, and globally.  The Forest is home to the fisher Museum, which contains the world-renowned dioramas depicting the history of landscape changes in New England since colonial settlement.

    On Thursday, April 10, from 11 – 2, the Ecological Landscape Alliance will conduct a tour of the Harvard Forest.  After exploring the dioramas in the Fisher Museum, you will go on a 1.5 mile hike to explore mixed deciduous forests, a pre-colonial hemlock stand and black gum swamp, with nearly 300 years of well-documented human land-use.  You will see a long-term deer and moose browsing experiment in a recently harvested red pine plantation, hydrology weirs that monitor headwater streams leading to the Quabbin Reservoir, a 90′ research tower that continuously measures carbon exchange between the atmosphere and the Forest, a 20 year old soil warming experiment that shows how warming the soil by just 5 degrees greatly impacts the Forest ecosystem, and the “mega-plot,” an 85 acre plot within a global array of tropical and temperate forests in the Smithsonian Global Earth Observatory, in which every tree over 1cm in diameter is mapped, tagged, and measured at 5-year intervals.

    The tour will be led by Audrey Barker-Plotkin, licensed forester, and by Clarisse Hart, education manager.  Both guides are also ecologists by training.  $20 ELA members, $25 nonmembers.  Register online at https://www.eventville.com/catalog/eventregistration1.asp?eventid=1010955 or call 617-436-5838.

    http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-y7J_k9lMlZ0/TiSBeRkWWuI/AAAAAAAACQg/afZ_g9Wcte4/s1600/diorama.jpg

  • Sunday, April 6, 1:00 pm – 3:30 pm – Tick-borne Disease: Awareness, Prevention and Treatment

    The Ecological Landscaping Association and the New England Wild Flower Society will co-sponsor Tick-borne Disease: Awareness, Prevention, and Treatment, on Sunday, April 6, from 1 – 3:30 pm at Garden in the Woods in Framingham.

    Lyme and other tick-born diseases are increasing each year and expanding northward. People who work in and enjoy gardens and wild areas are at high risk for exposure, as are their families and pets.  This panel discusses the latest research on changes in climate, habitat, and predators that affect the distribution of ticks and diseases; tick life cycles and disease hosts; and infection-prevention methods such as improved landscape practices and personal protection.

    The panel will also cover what to do if bitten, including tick removal, disease symptoms, accurate diagnosis, and treatment options.  It will explain the scope of the public health emergency: epidemiology, legal issues, and available resources.  Attendees will come away empowered with preventative strategies and knowledge of treatment options.  Please bring questions.

    Instructor Jeanne Hubbuch, MD, is a family practice physician in Newton, with experience in acute and chronic Lyme and other tick infections.  She will focus on treatment of Lyme disease, including the latest research results, and will discuss lifestyle and stress reduction for treatment and recovery.  Alan Geise, Professor of Biology at Lyndon State College, Vermont, and researcher into the rise of tick populations and disease, will highlight the environmental issues involved.  Dori Smith, M.Ed., owner of Gardens for Life in Acton, is a writer and educator in recovery from Lyme disease.  She will discuss landscape management and personal prevention, as well as the public health issues.

    $20 for ELA or NEWFS members, $25 for nonmembers.  Refreshments will be served.  Register by calling 617-436-5838 or visit https://www.eventville.com/catalog/eventregistration1.asp?eventid=1010933.

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