Boston Flora

Tag: Frederick Law Olmsted

  • Wednesday, May 16, 11:00 am – 2:00 pm – Party in the Park

    We’ve just received a Save the Date card from the Emerald Necklace Conservancy.  This year’s Party in the Park, the Justine Mee Liff Fund Luncheon, will take place Wednesday, May 16, will an 11 am reception followed by a 12:30 luncheon in the Kelleher Rose Garden, Back Bay Fens, The Fenway, Boston.  The Justine Mee Liff Fund, named for our late Commissioner of Parks and Recreation, preserves the legacy of Frederick Law Olmsted’s Emerald Necklace.  If you have been to this event in the past, you know it is splendid, beautiful, and benefits a worthy cause.  For more information, visit www.emeraldnecklace.org/partyinthepark, or call 617-522-2700.

  • Tuesday, October 18, 10:00 am – 12:30 pm (Corrected Time) – Genius of Place

    The True North Author Series, a joint presentation of the Library of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society and North Hill, opens Tuesday, October 18 at 10 am  with Justin Martin, the author of Genius of Place: The Life of Frederick Law Olmsted, a biography of the pioneering landscape architect of Central Park and 50 other green spaces around the United States. There will be no charge to attend the event, which will be held in the Hunnewell Carriage House at Elm Bank.  Martin, a former staff writer at Fortune magazine, is the author of two previous biographies, Greenspan: The Man Behind Money and Nader: Crusader, Spoiler, Icon. Martin’s bestselling Greenspan biography was chosen as a notable book by the New York Times Book Review.  To enroll and for more information, please contact North Hill Courses & Events at 781-433-6400.

  • Thursday, May 12, 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm – The Olmsted Legacy: America’s Urban Parks

    The Arnold Arboretum, in conjunction with the Emerald Necklace Conservancy, will offer an evening of film and discussion on Thursday, May 12 in the Hunnewell Building of the Arnold Arboretum, from 7 – 8:30 pm.  The documentary The Olmsted Legacy: America’s Urban Parks explores the formation of America’s great city parks, including Boston’s own Emerald Necklace, through the eyes of 19th Century landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted.   The film traces the life of Olmsted: his early struggles in school. his personal tragedies and his unorthodox career path.  Olmsted and his firm carried out more than 500 commissions, nearly 100 of which were public parks.  His work includes the linear park system that stretches from the Back Bay Fens to Franklin Park known as the Emerald Necklace.  A Q & A session will follow the screening.  For more information on the documentary, visit www.theolmstedlegacy.org.  The admission fee is $10, and you may sign up by logging in to www.my.arboretum.harvard.edu.

  • Saturday, April 30, 12:00 noon – Grand Opening of the Emerald Necklace Visitor Center

    Celebrate the grand opening of the Emerald Necklace Visitor Center at 125 The Fenway, Boston, on Saturday, April 30 and Sunday, May 1.  All events are free and open to the public.  At noon, Mayor Thomas M. Menino will cut the ribbon along with special guests.  From noon until 3:30, a very special Art in Bloom floral arrangement inspired by the Back Bay Fens will be on display, courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.  From 12:30 until 2, Gerry Wright will appear in his “other” persona, Frederick Law Olmsted, and the Park Rangers Mounted Unit “Adopt a Horse” program will be featured.  At 2, 2:30 and 3, there will be screenings of Stories from the Emerald Necklace, a documentary film depicting the variety of visitor stories found in the Necklace.  Also, between 12:30 and 1:15, artist Dustan Knight will talk about the creative process as Dustan works in watercolors to capture the special Art in Bloom floral arrangement on paper.

    From 12:45 – 3 pm, you may meet the gardeners at the Fenway Victory Gardens and visit the newly renovated Special Needs Garden, as well as participate in hands-on workshops.  From 1 – 2:30, Alan Banks, Supervisory Park Ranger, will lead an interpretive walk through the Back Bay Fens beginning at the Visitor Center entitled “Garden in the Machine.”  For the athletes, join a fun run with 3, 5 and 7 mile options led by Mark Lowenstein, author of Great Runs in Boston, with a route starting at the Visitor Center, continuing along the Necklace out to Jamaica Pond, and returning to the Visitor Center, starting at 1:15 pm.

    Over at the Wentworth Institute, Frederick Law Olmsted, a one-man play written by performed by Gerry Wright, will begin at 3 pm, followed by a short reception, and at 4:30, in the same venue, there will be a screening of The Olmsted Legacy: America’s Urban Parks documentary.  If you prefer, at 3 pm you may join Conservancy president Julie Crockford and City Councilor Mike Ross for a bike ride to Franklin park, and stay for the 4 pm Weeds as Feed walk led by a Franklin Park coalition naturalist.  For complete times and directions, log on to www.emeraldnecklace.org/visitorcentergrandopening/.

     

     

     

     

     

  • Saturday, April 16, 10:00 am – 12:00 noon – Franklin Park Walking Tour

    Join the Franklin Park Coalition and Historic New England’s Phillips House Site Manager Julie Arrison for a series of free walking tours in the “crown jewel” of Boston’s Emerald Necklace—Franklin Park. Each tour explores a portion of the 527-acre park designed by Frederick Law Olmsted. This first tour, on Saturday, April 16 from 10 – noon, meets at the Ellicott Arch (pictured below on a vintage postcard) and ends at the Nursery. Please call Franklin Park Coalition at 617-442-4141 to register or for more information.

  • Saturday, May 14 – Sunday, May 15 – Annual Gardeners’ Weekend

    MIT Endicott House is having its Annual Gardeners’ Weekend Retreat May 14 and 15.  Learn all the tips to make your gardens the envy of your neighbors this year.  Program begins Saturday at 9 am and runs through brunch on Sunday.  $199.00 per person plus tax includes meals, the gardening program, overnight room and tour of the Frederick Law Olmsted designed grounds and gardens of MIT Endicott House, 80 Haven Street in Dedham.  For more information call 781-326-5151, or log on to www.mitendicotthouse.org.

  • Saturday, August 28, 10:00 am – 1:00 pm – World’s End

    World’s End, a 275-acre peninsula owned by The Trustees of Reservation, is well known for the beauty of its landscape and its views of Boston Harbor. The property, which was farmed for several hundred years, was slated in the late 19th century to be subdivided under a plan (later abandoned) designed by Frederick Law Olmsted. It has a remarkable variety of naturalized as well as native flora. Its woodlands include communities dominated by Norway maple and English oak as well as an impressive stand of native red oak and hop hornbeam. Its old fields and thickets contain an exceptional diversity of herbaceous plants, including the rare showy goldenrod, and its lowland habitats have both freshwater wetlands and salt marshes. This New England Wild Flower Society walk led by Jessica Korecki on Saturday, August 28, from 10 – 1 will cover a variety of communities from the high points of the property’s open drumlins to rocky coves and shaded overlooks. We will look at both native and naturalized flora, and at the dynamics of their coexistence in this unique environment. World’s End is also a great place for birding, and binoculars are recommended. Bring a bag lunch and a hand lens if you have one. Fee: $24 (Member) / $27 (Nonmember).  To sign up, log on to www.newfs.org, or call 508-877-7630.

  • Wednesdays, June 16 – July 21, 10:00 am – Great Newport Landscapes, 1840 – 1940

    The Preservation Society of Newport County and Rhode Island School of Design Continuing Education present a six-week landscape course, led by John R. Tschirch, Architectural Historian of the Preservation Society, beginning June 16 through July 21.  Each session will begin at 10:00 am at 424 Bellevue Avenue in Newport.

    This course will examine the landmark landscapes of Newport, created during the 19th and early 20th centuries, when the city was one of the most fashionable summer resorts in the nation. Known as the “Eden of America,” Newport and its environs have a rich garden design and horticultural heritage. Lectures and site visits will consider Newport landscapes by leading figures in American design and planning, horticulture, the history of plant and tree collection and propagation, species identification, garden architecture and sculpture, preservation practices, and stylistic elements of Victorian and Gilded Age period landscapes.

    June 16: The Picturesque 19th Century Landscape in Newport
    June 23: Kingscote: A Victorian Landscape in Newport
    June 30: Frederick Law Olmsted and Sons: Masters of American Landscape Architecture
    July 7: The Breakers Cutting Garden: Caring for the Gilded Age Landscape
    July 14: The Elms: A Classical Revival Garden
    July 21: Green Animals: An American Original

    Admission for each lecture: Preservation Society members $10, general admission $15.  Advance registration is required.  You may register on-line at www.newportmansions.org, or call 401-847-1000, ext. 154.  If you wish to register for the entire lecture series as part of a RISD Continuing Education course, please contact RISD at 401-454-6209.

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  • Friday, May 21 – Sunday, August 29 – Romantic Gardens: Nature, Art, and Landscape Design

    The pen and ink drawing that won Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux the commission to design Central Park, and a drawing by J.M.W. Turner, former owned by John Ruskin, are among the treasures in “Romantic Gardens: Nature, Art, and Landscape Design,” at the Morgan Library & Museum in New York City, running from May 21 through August 29.   Scenic vistas, winding paths, bucolic meadows, and rustic retreats suitable for solitary contemplation are just a few of the alluring naturalistic features of gardens created in the Romantic spirit. Landscape designers of the Romantic era sought to express the inherent beauty of nature in opposition to the strictly symmetrical, formal gardens favored by aristocrats of the old regime.

    The Romantics looked to nature as a liberating force, a source of sensual pleasure, moral instruction, religious insight, and artistic inspiration. Eloquent exponents of these ideals, they extolled the mystical powers of nature and argued for more sympathetic styles of garden design in books, manuscripts, and drawings, now regarded as core documents of the Romantic Movement. Their cult of inner beauty and their view of the outside world dominated European thought during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

    The exhibition features approximately ninety highly influential texts and outstanding works of art, providing a compelling overview of ideas championed by the Romantics and also implemented by them in private estates and public parks in Europe and the United States, notably New York’s Central Park. If you plan to be in New York during that period, don’t miss this rare treat.  For information and hours, call 212-685-0008, or log on to www.themorgan.org.

    View of the Welbeck Estate, Humphry Repton (1752–1818), Sketches and Hints on Landscape Gardening (London, 1794). PML 46448. Gift of Henry S. Morgan and Junius S. Morgan, 1954. Photography, Graham Haber, 2009.

  • Wednesday, April 14, 10:30 am – The Boston Committee of the Garden Club of America Spring Lecture Luncheon

    On Wednesday, April 14, The Boston Committee of the Garden Club of America will host the Spring Lecture Luncheon at The Country Club, 191 Clyde Street, Brookline, with guest speaker Tupper Thomas, Administrator of Prospect Park in Brooklyn, New York, who will speak on “Continuing the Olmsted Legacy.”  Also, the 2010 Boston Bowl will be awarded this year to two outstanding individuals, Betsy Shure Gross and Corliss Knapp Engle.  Registration begins at 10:30 am, with an 11:00 am lecture, followed by lunch.

    Appointed in 1980 as the first administrator of Prospect Park, designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, Ms. Thomas is responsible to the Commissioner for planning and overseeing the $100 million dollar capital restoration of Prospect Park.

    The meeting is open to members of the fourteen member and affiliate member clubs of The Boston Committee: Beacon Hill Garden Club, Garden Club of Buzzards Bay, Cambridge Plant & Garden Club, Chestnut Hill Garden Club, Cohasset Garden Club, Fox Hill Garden Club, Milton Garden Club, Noanett Garden Club, North Shore Garden Club, Piscataqua Garden Club, Garden Club of the Back Bay, Garden Club of Brookline, Junior League of Boston Garden Club, and the Manchester Garden Club, and their guests. The fee to attend is $45 for the lecture and lunch, $20 for the lecture only.  Please make checks payable to “The Boston Committee of the GCA” and mail to Mrs. William U. Shipley, 40 Dunster Road, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467 before April 8.  Please note the name of your Club on your check.  If you have questions, you may email jwshipley@aol.com.

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