Boston Flora

Tag: Harvard University

  • Thursdays, March 28 – May 16, 6:30 – 8:30 – Photographing the Landscape

    Demand more from your landscape photographs than just a depiction of a beautiful sunset or seascape. Broaden your photographic vision and push your landscape photographs to be more creative and dynamic. Capture the landscape (both rural and urban) with new and refreshing perspectives by means of weekly class assignments. You will also view the work of some contemporary landscape photographers and discuss what makes them great. Bring your camera (any kind) to class and prepare to bring in 4″ x 6″ prints each week. This Arnold Arboretum weekly eight session class begins Thursday, March 28 from 6:30 – 8:30 at the Arboretum, 125 Arborway in Jamaica Plain, and is taught by Robin Radin. Fee $210. Offered with Eliot School of Fine & Applied Arts. Register at my.arboretum.harvard.edu or call 617-384-5277.

    Image result for Robin Radin landscape

  • Monday, March 25, 7:00 pm – 8:15 pm – Giving Voice to Nature Simulcast

    Richard Powers, Robin Wall Kimmerer, and Arnold Arboretum Director William “Ned” Friedman will join voices On March 25 at 7 pm in this guided conversation about trees. Melding readings with discussion; drawing on mystery, lore, and science; they will convey the challenges and rewards of trying to represent non-humans—speaking both for and as the trees. Register online at https://www.arboretum.harvard.edu/education/adult-education/?ob-start=2019-03-13 or call 617-384-5277.

    The live Weld Hill event is filled to capacity. Register for the simulcast viewing in a the Hunnewell Building, 125 Arborway, Jamaica Plain.

    Richard Powers is the author of twelve novels, most recently The Overstory. He is the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship and the National Book Award, and he has been a Pulitzer Prize and four-time National Book Critics Circle Award finalist. He lives in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains. The Overstory has been a New York Times Bestseller; shortlisted for the 2018 Man Booker Prize; a New York Times Notable; Washington Post, Time, Oprah Magazine, Newsweek, Chicago Tribune, and Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2018.

    Robin Wall Kimmerer is a mother, scientist, decorated professor, and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. She is the author of Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teaching of Plants, which has earned Kimmerer wide acclaim. Her first book, Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses, was awarded the John Burroughs Medal for outstanding nature writing. In 2015 she addressed the general assembly of the United Nations on the topic of “Healing Our Relationship with Nature.” Kimmerer is a SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor of Environmental Biology, and the founder and director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment.

    Image result for the overstory by richard powers

  • Saturday, March 23, 10:00 am – 12:00 noon – Pruning Project: Hydrangeas

    Saturday, March 23, 10:00 am – 12:00 noon – Pruning Project: Hydrangeas

    Confused about how to prune your hydrangeas to maximize flowering and increase health? You are not alone! Join Jen Kettell on March 23 at 10 am at the Arnold Arboretum for a lively discussion on the species behind the hot trade names (Hydrangea ‘Pistachio’ reblooming shown below) and how to prune them. In addition, Jen will focus on how to match appropriate plants to your site conditions. She’ll suggest which species are drought-tolerant or benefit pollinators and other essential growing tips. Jen will focus on hydrangeas that are hardy in Zones 5-7. Class includes an indoor lecture and walk to a demonstration in the Leventritt Shrub and Vine Garden. Fee $25 Arboretum member, $35 nonmember. Register at my.arboretum.harvard.edu or call 617-384-5277.

    Image result for hydrangea

  • Saturday, March 16, 9:00 am – 11:00 am – Planning and Creating a Compact Orchard

    Become a backyard orchardist and grow your own fruit! Even with a small yard, you can enjoy fruit from your own trees with minimal effort and cost. This step-by-step Arnold Arboretum workshop at the Wakefield Estate in Milton on March 16 from 9 – 11 will teach you all you need to know to plan and create a compact orchard for years of enjoyment. Participants will spend part of the workshop outside in the orchard for a pruning demonstration, so dress accordingly. Space is limited; pre-registration required. Fee $20 Arboretum member, $30 nonmember. Offered with the Mary M. B. Wakefield Charitable Trust. Register at my.arboretum.harvard.edu or call 617-384-5277.

    Image result for small apple orchard

  • Saturday, March 9, 9:30 am – 1:00 pm – Cultivating Legacies: New England Women in Horticulture and Landscape Design

    Women are often overlooked when we discuss individuals who had great impact on botany and landscape design of the 20th century. The Arnold Arboretum was one of the few institutions in America that encouraged women to study with and be mentored by established botanical and landscape design professionals.

    Mary (Polly) Wakefield, Eleanor Cabot Bradley, Martha Brooks Hutcheson, Marian Roby Case (below), and Marjorie Russell Sedgwick developed exceptional personal garden spaces and designed outstanding professional landscapes, and were also very active in the conservation and preservation of appreciable New England open space. This March 9 seminar highlights these women’s personal legacies: significant plant collections and garden design within beloved public spaces. Presentations illuminate these women and their roles in creating and protecting New England landscapes, the discernible role that the Arnold Arboretum played in these endeavors, and how we can continue to raise the visibility of these special places. Program includes an associated exhibition in the Arnold Arboretum’s historic Library Reading Room and light refreshments. Fee $50

    Co-sponsored by The Trustees of Reservations, the Mary M.B. Wakefield Charitable Trust, and the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University

    Register at my.arboretum.harvard.edu or call 617-384-5277.

    Image result for Marian Roby Case

  • Friday, March 1, 6:45 pm – Floristic and Climate Change on Mount Desert Island, Maine

    Dr. Nancy M. Eyster-Smith, Associate Professor Emerita, Bentley University, Waltham, Massachusetts, will address the New England Botanical Club on Friday, March 1 at 6:45 pm in the Haller Lecture Hall (Room 102) of the Geological Museum, 24 Oxford Street in Cambridge, on Celebrating Edward Lothrop Rand, NEBC Corresponding Secretary for 25 Years. Additionally, Dr. Caitlin McDonough MacKenzie, Postdoc, Climate Change Institute, University of Maine, Orono, Maine will address Floristic and Climate Change on Mount Desert Island, Maine, from the Champlain Society to Acadia National Park’s Centennial. Free and open to the public. For more information visit http://rhodora.org.

    Image result for Acadia National Park Centennial

  • Tuesday, February 26, 5:15 pm – 7:30 pm – Our Own Orient: Mecca, California, and Dates

    The Massachusetts Historical Society will hold a free Modern American Society and Culture Seminar on February 26 at 5:15 at its headquarters on Boylston Street, with Eleanor Daly Finnegan of Harvard University and comment by Laura Barraclough of Yale University on the topic of dates. Residents changed the name of Walters, California to Mecca in 1904. They were trying to use the exoticism of the Middle East to sell dates. This paper will focus on Mecca, California and the Indio Date Festival, looking at the complicated ways in which Orientalism has changed in the United States, its relationship to consumerism, and the economic connections made to the Middle East.

    To RSVP: email seminars@masshist.org or call (617) 646-0579.

    Image result for historical postcard Mecca California date trees

  • Sundays, March 3, 10, 31, and April 7, 2:00 pm – 4:00 pm – Get Rooted in Urban Gardening

    Catherine Chamberlain, MSc, Biodiversity and Conservation, Trinity College Dublin and PhD student, Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, and Wayne Daily, MSc, Biodiversity and Conservation, Trinity College Dublin, Assistant Property Manager, Habitat Sanctuary, will conduct a class entitled Get Rooted in Urban Gardening in four sessions: Sunday, March 3, 10, 31, and April 7, 2:00–4:00pm at the Arnold Arboretum in Boston. Cat and Wayne will introduce basic gardening concepts and satisfy your desire to get growing. The class will include:

    • Basic Botany and Gardening

    • Site Analysis, Soil Preparation, and Irrigation

    • Growing Goals and Identifying Your Plant Palette

    • Horticultural Care and Maintenance

    Whether you want to grow perennials or vegetables, Cat and Wayne will proffer basic principles essential to good gardening.

    Fee $120 Arboretum member, $150 nonmember

    Register at my.arboretum.harvard.edu or call 617-384-5277.

    Image result for horticultural care and maintenance

  • Thursday, February 28, 7:00 pm – 8:15 pm – Do Your Garden Plants Have a Backstory?

    Michael Dosmann, PhD, Keeper of the Living Collections, Arnold Arboretum, will speak at the Arboretum on February 28 beginning at 7 pm on a subject worthy of prime time television: Do Your Garden Plants Have a Backstory? Museums assign value to their collections by understanding each piece’s backstory – for instance, where did it come from (and please note, we don’t recommend stealing plants – see below), who created/collected it, what does it represent, what feeling does it elicit from a visitor? The plants in our own gardens can and should do the same, but too often have become generic and mundane because we have forgotten their backstories. Perhaps even worse, we may be losing our own personal connections to what we grow. Michael Dosmann will provide his own perspective on how to re-engage with our garden plants in ways that make it personal.

    Fee Free for Arboretum member, $10 nonmember.  Register at my.arboretum.harvard.edu or call 617-384-5277.

    Image result for plant thief

  • Sunday, February 24, 2:00 pm – 4:00 pm – Build a Better Birdhouse

    On Sunday, February 24 from 2 – 4 pm at the Hunnewell Building of the Arnold Arboretum, 125 The Arborway, learn how to build safe homes for native birds. This class, taught by Brendan Keegan, covers best practices for general bird house design using the Arboretum’s own nest boxes (for tree swallows, eastern bluebirds, black capped chickadees, and screech owls) as examples. You will learn tips for deterring predators and non-native competitors, as well as how to safely monitor young nestlings. Finally, you will build and take home your own “Chickadee Tube,” a design suitable for many Boston yards.

    Fee $28 Arboretum member, $35 nonmember. Register at my.arboretum.harvard.edu or call 617-384-5277.

    Image result for bird nest boxes