Boston Flora

Tag: Grasses

  • Saturday, May 15, 8:30 am – 11:00 am – Perennial Plant Sale

    The Brockton Garden Club will hold a Perennial Plant Sale on Saturday, May 15, from 8:30 am – 11:00 am at the Brockton Park Department headquarters, 45 Meadow Lane in Brockton (former site of the Campello Swimming Pool).  See new plants, old favorites, perennials, shrubs, herbs, ground covers, grasses, house plants and more.  The Scholarship Committee will have hardy geraniums for sale in a veriety of colors.  Proceeds fund the Brockton Garden Club’s city-wide Civic Projects and Scholarship Fund.  For more information and directions, log on to www.brocktongc.org.

    http://www.cdngeraniums.com/images/shows/Before-08-Ian.jpg

  • Don’t Forget – Time to Collect

    We remind our members today that extra, interesting greens, seed pods, branches, holly, dried fruits and flowers, grasses, pine cones, and twigs in interesting shapes are all needed next week during wreath making days at The First Lutheran Church of Boston.  Below is a picture of Past President Sarah Monaco and Executive Committee Member Maureen O’Hara collecting last weekend in the Berkshires.  Please bring as much as you can to the Church, cleaned down if possible, for the decorators to use creating the beautiful wreaths, one of which is pictured below, bedecked with collected finds.

  • Thursday, November 12, 10:00 am – Garden Design Luncheon at Blithewold Mansion

    Join Blithewold Mansion, Gardens & Arboretum for their annual Garden Design Luncheon at the Rhode Island Country Club with Guest speaker William Cullina, Plant and Garden Curator for the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens.  A well known author (Native Ferns, Moss & Grasses,  Understanding Orchids) and recognized authority on North American native plants, Cullina lectures to gardens and professional groups.  The lecture price of $75 for Blithewold members, $80  for non-members includes a delicious lunch, and be sure to enter the raffle for exciting prizes, including a Boston get-away.  The date is Thursday, November 12, beginning at 10 am, at the Rhode Island Country Club, 150 Nayatt Road, Barrington, Rhode Island.  For more information, or to register, log on to www.blithewold.org, or email jmurphyedu@blithewold.org.

    http://images.barnesandnoble.com/images/25430000/25430201.JPG

  • Sunday, October 4, 10 – 5 – NRT Harvest & Crafts Fair

    The Natural Resources Trust of Easton (NRT) is a member-supported, not-for-profit organization whose mission is to educate about significant natural and cultural resources and to acquire and preserve land of special character for the benefit of the public. The NRT promotes a land ethic in the community through educational programming. The NRT provides leadership, cooperation and networking to others with a similar mission.  The Easton Garden Club (www.eastongardenclub.org) participates each year in the Annual NRT Harvest & Crafts Fair.  The Fair draws thousands of people from around New England who come to shop the many juried crafts booths.

    The Easton Garden Club’s civic role in the Harvest Fair is one of education, providing informational handouts on topics such as composting, attracting butterflies to your garden, and tips on native plants and trees.  There are many club members, knowledgeable about gardening, at its booth available to answer questions from the public throughout the day.  Club members harvest flowers from their gardens and pick (non-endangered!) native flowers, grasses, and vines growing along the roadsides.  They start in the late spring and continue through the fall.  The flowers are dried and stored until the week before the fair when many of the club members gather together to make wreaths, dried arrangements, and bouquets of flowers to sell. On Fair day they have ongoing demonstrations on subjects such as grapevine wreath making and flower arranging.  For directions to the Fair, log on to www.nrtofeaston.org.

  • Sunday, September 27, 11 am – 3 pm – Hop Brook Floodplain Walk

    The secluded Tyringham Valley is one of the most scenic areas in the southern Berkshires.  This field trip will take us through a variety of natural and pastoral landscapes, climaxing with a panoramic view of the surrounding countryside from the top of the Tyringham Cobble, a natural area owned by the Trustees of Reservations.  We will look closely at the flora of the Hop Brook floodplain, a calcareous wetland community with a remarkable variety of grasses, sedges, and wildflowers, including several rare species.  As we hike towards Tyringham Cobble, we will explore successional old fields and mixed hardwoods-hemlock slopes.  Songbirds and butterflies, as well as wildflowers, grace the meadows of this special area.  The hike is about 4 miles long and moderately strenuous.  Wear suitable foot gear (feet may get wet in the floodplain) and bring a lunch.  The walk on Sunday, September 27, will begin at 11 a.m., will be led by Ted Elliman, is limited to 15 participants, and is co-sponsored by The Trustees of Reservations. $40 fee for members of NEWFS and The Trustees of Reservations, $45 for non-members.  To register, log on to www.newfs.org, or call 508-877-7630.

    http://www.newfs.org/visit/picture-gallery/Fall/Fall%20Foliage%20GITW%20S.Ziglar%2010.14.08%20011.jpg/image_preview

  • Saturday, September 12, 9:00 a.m. – Grasses Identification Workshop

    Grasses are all around us in great beauty and abundance, yet – lacking bright colors and distinctive shapes – they can be difficult to identify.  This workshop will demystify the identification process by pointing out common species and, most importantly, explaining the key characteristics to look for.  The workshop, at Lockwood Farm Cottage in Hamden, Connecticut, will focus on naked-eye field ID, not detailed flower morphology.  If we see them, we will touch briefly on common sedges and rushes as well.

    Field trips are a long standing tradition of the Connecticut Botanical Society.  They provide an opportunity to learn about plants and habitats from some the area’s most knowledgeable botanists, and an opportunity to share your own knowledge with others.  The trips also add to the bank of knowledge of New England flora.  On each field trip. a list is made of all plant species identified, and this list becomes part of the Society’s records.  This workshop will be led by Lauren Brown, author of Grasses: A Simplified Identification Guide, published by Houghton Mifflin. For field trips, wear sturdy footwear and bring a lunch.  Sunscreen and insect repellant are also recommended.  For plant identification, you may wish to bring a field guide(s), a hand lens, and a small notebook.  Familiarity with plant taxonomy is helpful, but not required.  No pre-registration is required.  Free to CBS members.  Non-members must pay a $15 fee, which includes a one-year membership in CBS, and entitles you to join future trips this season at no additional cost.  For more information and directions, call 203-481-0377, or log on to www.ct-botanical-society.org.

    Grasses: An Identification Guide (Sponsored by the Roger Tory Peterson Institute)