Boston Flora

Tag: Gardeners

  • Thursday, May 26, 5:00 am – The Nineteenth Century Garden: John Lindley, Online

    This Gardens Trust talk on May 26 is the fifth in the Gardens Trust’s 2nd series on Victorian Gardens on Thursdays @ 10.00 GMT. £5 each or all 6 for £30. Attendees will be sent a Zoom link 2 days prior to the start of the talk, and again a few hours before the talk. A link to the recorded session (available for 1 week) will be sent shortly afterwards. Register through Eventbrite HERE

    John Lindley (1799-1865) was a leading figure in both horticulture and botany in mid-nineteenth-century Britain. For decades, he held three jobs simultaneously: Horticultural Society secretary, professor of botany at University College London, and director of the Chelsea Physic Garden. A prolific writer, he was a pioneering orchidologist and author of standard works on botany and horticulture.

    But perhaps Lindley was most influential as editor of the Gardeners’ Chronicle. Founded in 1841, the weekly Gardeners’ Chronicle circulated widely in Britain and the colonies. It numbered Charles Darwin among its contributors and closely followed current affairs. It notably raised the alarm and tracked the progress of the calamitous potato blight. Kate Teltscher assesses the contribution of Lindley – ‘a man who’, to quote the Athenaeum, laboured ‘with the steam power of twenty’. She explores too the significance of the Gardeners’ Chronicle as a forum for social, scientific and colonial debate.

  • Sunday, June 26, 10:00 am – 4:00 pm – City Spaces/Country Places

    Tower Hill’s 17th annual tour of exceptional private gardens this year will feature the gardens in Worcester and nearby Holden on Sunday, June 26.  Discover the gardeners’ unique perspectives, and return to your own garden with fresh ideas and inspiration.  As always, a ticket to “City Spaces/Country Places” includes FREE admission all day to Tower Hill Botanic Garden.

    “City Spaces/Country Places” is an important fund-raiser for the Worcester County Horticultural Society and helps to support the educational programs and the ongoing care and stewardship of the gardens at Tower Hill. You can show your support for the Garden Tour by purchasing a sponsor ticket at $125 or a patron ticket at $75. These tickets help Tower Hill meet its mission and must be purchased in advance. Order tickets in advance: Members $20, Non-Members $25.  Day of tour Members $25, Non-Members $30.  Call 508-869-6111 x 136 to order your tickets, or log on to www.towerhillbg.org and purchase securely on-line.

     

     

     

  • Saturday, November 20, 10 am – 3 pm – Wrapping Stones Japanese Style

    Participate in a hands on workshop at the Berkshire Botanical Garden in West Stockbridge, Massachusetts on Saturday, November 20 from 10:00 am – 3:00 pm. It is mysterious, but basket makers and gardeners alike love and collect beautiful stones! We keep them in our studios, gardens and touch them often. Now you can learn to “wrap stones” and further that connection between stones and people. Using raffia, waxed line and cane, each participant will weave an open pattern over each stone. Start collecting! Put them on your windowsills, line your garden paths or give them as gifts. Nancy Moore Bess is a master basket maker and exhibits her baskets worldwide. She has championed Japanese basketry in the west and is the author of Bamboo in Japan. Her popular workshops always sell out. Bring a bagged lunch. BBG members $75, non-members $85, plus a $15 materials fee paid directly to the instructor.  For more information, log on to www.berkshirebotanical.org.

  • Fridays, June 18, July 16, and August 20, 5:00 pm – 7:00 pm – Cocktails in Great Gardens of the Berkshires

    The Berkshire Botanical Garden has arranged for a series of Friday evening visits to spectacular private gardens featured in the Rich Pomerantz’s beautiful book, Great Gardens of The Berkshires. Enjoy this rare opportunity to roam these private spaces with the gardeners themselves while enjoying wine and hors d’oeuvre in the beautiful waning light of the summer day. The book’s creators will be in attendance. For advance reservations contact call the Garden: 413-298-3926. The parties will all take place from 5 – 7 p.m.    Admission is limited. Berkshire Botanical Garden Members $20, non-members $25; all three for $50/65.

    The dates and locations are: June 18, Molly’s Folly in Richmond, MA; July 16, Richard Brown Garden in Stockbridge, MA ; and August 20,  Three Hills Farm in Richmond, MA.   For additional information, log on to www.berkshirebotanical.org.  Photo below by Rich Pomerantz.

    http://www.richpomerantz.com//srv/htdocs/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/kuhn-9505-nwsltr.jpg

  • Tuesdays, April 6 – 27, 6:30 – 8:30 pm – Growing Vegetables in the City

    Abby Hird, Putnam Fellow at the Arnold Arboretum, will give a three session class in the Hunnewell Building of the Arnold Arboretum on Tuesdays, April 6, 13 and 27, from 6:30 – 8:30 pm.   Learn the where, what, and why of urban vegetable gardening with horticulturist Abby Hird. Raised on a Nebraska farm, educated in horticulture, and now living here in Boston, Abby Hird will talk about her gardening adaptations in the city environment. She will guide you through site evaluation, plant selection, and common problems and possible solutions in raising home-grown food. She’ll also talk about community resources for gardening, ideas for maximizing yield from a small plot, as well as ways to grow food more sustainably. This class is for nascent gardeners and those who have been frustrated by previous run-ins with vegetables.  Fee $60 Arnold Arboretum member, $72 nonmember. To register, log on to www.arboretum.harvard.edu.

    http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3631/3642385367_0f64ebee25.jpg

  • Mondays, February 8, 22, and March 1, 6:30 – 8:30 pm – Landscaping with Native Plants

    Join Michael Lance, owner and designer with Wild Regeneration, at the Hunnewell Building of the Arnold Arboretum on three Mondays, February 8, February 22, and March 1, from 6:30 – 8:30 pm, for this native plant design class.  Gardeners, smitten by a display of natives at a garden center, erroneously infer all sorts of attributes from the word “native,”such as “hardy,”“resilient,”“tough,”or even “better.”All of these traits may indeed apply to any native plant; however, this is dependent on the conditions in which the plant is grown. For example, a tough native wetland plant won’t be resilient when planted along the hot, dry edge of a driveway. In this class with designer Michael Lance you will learn about native plants that would be most suitable to your garden site. Michael will present some of the plants that he incorporates when designing gardens for clients, with class sessions about native trees, shrubs, and perennials. He’ll emphasize edible and medicinal plants, trees and shrubs that exhibit ornamental characteristics, and perennials that can withstand and thrive in urban and suburban New England conditions. Throughout the class Michael will incorporate organic techniques and his philosophy for developing healthy and beneficial garden habitats.
    Fee $70 Arnold Arboretum member, $85 nonmember. To register, log on to www.arboretum.harvard.edu.

    http://www.newfs.org/images/visit/visit%20crop%20GITW%20spring.jpg/image_preview

  • Golden Days Contest

    National Garden Club President Renee Blaschke has a project.  All incoming National Presidents choose a project, but this year Renee is trying something a bit different.  She envisions a country gleaming with daffodils each spring, and to encourage clubs to participate, the New England Region is sponsoring a contest.  The state that has planted the most daffodils per capita by December 1, 2010 will be awarded a monetary prize, an award ribbon, and a certificate.  A “Golden Days” project might include mass plantings at retirement centers, parks, playgrounds, assisted living homes, schools and public buildings – places to plant are limited only by your imagination.  Clubs will submit the paperwork, but if you planted daffodils in 2009, or are planning to plant next fall, keep track of those bulbs and let your president know where they were planted.   Remember Lady Bird Johnson’s wild flowers?  Texas is awash with bluebonnets as a result.  Beautification of our environment is part of the mission statement of The Garden Club of the Back Bay, so we are pleased to notify Massachusetts gardeners of this opportunity.

    http://photos.igougo.com/images/p115418-London-Daffodils_in_Green_Park_London.jpg

  • Saturday, December 19 – Old South Church Winter Garden

    Old South Church’s award-winning gardeners are at it again!

    While hundreds of deeply planted tulip bulbs await the spring, the garden will be dressed in a contemporary, winter arrangement of upright stakes.  Stained in the dark hues of Red Osier Dogwoods, hundreds of these stakes will be “planted” by church volunteers on Saturday, December 19 to conjure the image of a drift, to reflect the colors of the season and to complement the decorative Northern Italian Ruskinian architecture of the National Historic Landmark Building.

    Old South’s volunteer gardener, Jim Hood, says this about his latest undertaking, “Winter is mostly a time of quiet color, yet in rural areas of the northeast United States fields of snow are often striped with stands of Red Osier Dogwood, a woody shrub that goes little noticed in summer but that comes to visual life in winter. Red Osier Dogwood exposes its brilliant red bark once its foliage falls away offering a sense of warmth amidst the cold.”

    Old South’s Associate Minister, Quinn Caldwell, describes the garden as “a labor of love to the city. Besides being a thing of beauty, the stick garden is also a proclamation of our faith: that beauty will spring from barrenness, form out of chaos, life out of death.  Here in the coldest and darkest time of year, we make bold to proclaim that spring and life are on their way.”

    In the last 30 years stick gardens (sculptural installations made of color-stained sticks of wood) have been mounted in the U.K. U.S. and Canada – see picture of blue stick garden below.

    Old South’s gardens and gardeners are the recipients of the Garden Club of the Back Bay’s Magnolia Award (2009), the Mayor’s Golden Trowel Award (2007), and the Mayor’s Runner Up Award (2008).  For information, and to volunteer with the staking, call (617) 536-1970 ext 222, or email nst@oldsouth.org.http://mocoloco.com/archives/flora_claude_cormier_blue_s.jpg

  • Saturday, November 21, 10:30 – 12:30 pm – Specialty Perennials: Five Genera for the Shade

    Many excellent perennials thrive in the shade. A continuation of bloom with outstanding foliage is the dream of many gardeners. Exciting new cultivars will be featured including many rare forms of Polygonatum, Astilbe, Anemonella (below), Primula sieboldii and hardy Arisaema. This lecture at the Berkshire Botanical Garden in West Stockbridge, Massachusetts will focus on specialty perennials for the shade border. Learn from an expert propagator. Leo Blanchette is the owner and propagator of Blanchette Gardens in Carlisle, Massachusetts a nursery specializing in perennials. It features numerous rare and unusual varieties. He lectures through out the United States as well as in Canada and Japan. He was awarded the Silver Medal from the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, the Bronze Medal from the American Rhododendron Society and he has been featured in national gardening magazines.  The lecture will take place Saturday, November 21 beginning at 10:30 am, and will cost $20 for BBG members and $25 for non-members.  For more information, log on to www.berkshirebotanical.org.

    http://www.alpinegardensociety.net/image_files/showreport/sizedAnemonella%20thalictroides%20-%20Ian%20Leslie1420.jpg

  • Saturday, November 21, 10 am – 3 pm – Wrapping Stones Japanese Style

    Participate in a hands on workshop at the Berkshire Botanical Garden in West Stockbridge, Massachusetts on Saturday, November 21 from 10:00 am – 3:00 pm. It is mysterious, but basket makers and gardeners alike love and collect beautiful stones! We keep them in our studios, gardens and touch them often. Now you can learn to “wrap stones” and further that connection between stones and people. Using raffia, waxed line and cane, each participant will weave an open pattern over each stone. Start collecting! Put them on your windowsills, line your garden paths or give them as gifts. Nancy Moore Bess is a master basket maker and exhibits her baskets worldwide. She has championed Japanese basketry in the west and is the author of Bamboo in Japan. Her popular workshops always sell out. Bring a bagged lunch. BBG members $55, non-members $60, plus a $15 materials fee paid directly to the instructor.  For more information, log on to www.berkshirebotanical.org.

    japan2009-96.jpg image by bricology3