Boston Flora

Tag: Harvard University

  • Saturday, January 19, 9:00 am – 4:00 pm – Introduction to Botanical Art and Illustration

    Botanical artist Bobbi Angell will lead a class in botanical art and illustration on Saturday, January 19 from 9 – 4 at the Lyman Conservatory at the Smith College Botanic Garden, 16 College Lane in Northampton.  Free parking passes will be provided. Registration deadline is January 7. Learning to draw while learning to observe increases one’s knowledge, understanding, and appreciation of the world of plants. Botanical artist Bobbi Angell will guide participants through the process of creating an illustration that defines and depicts a particular species. Using pressed herbarium specimens and preserved flowers, participants will design a composition with a plant habit and dissected flowers and enlarged details, with a layout intended for publication or framing. Sketches can be inked or colored afterwards. Bring your hand lens, pencils and erasers; plant material and paper will be provided. The only prerequisites are curiosity and expandable interest in plants.

    Instructor Bobbi Angell draws plants for scientists at The New York Botanical Garden, Harvard University, and other institutions for floras and monographs. Ongoing work features illustrations of neotropical species new to science. To view her work, visit http://www.bobbiangell.com. She is co-author of A Botanist’s Vocabulary (Timber Press).

    Bobbi is the artist for the current logo for the New England Botanical Club. NEBC member price $30, nonmembers $60. Register at http://www.rhodora.org/whatsnew.html

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  • Saturday, January 12, 1:00 pm – 2:30 pm – An Artist’s Perspective: Nature Journal Workshop (Ages 8 – 12)

    Join artist Regina Gardner Milan in the Hunnewell Building at the Arnold Arboretum on Saturday, January 12 from 1 – 2:30 in this Nature Journal Workshop. Participants, ages 8-12, will develop observational skills while learning a new awareness of their environment. Seed pods, pine cones, and other plant material will be available for observation and drawing. If weather permits, you will go on a short walk to collect more specimens. Milan will do demonstrations of drawing and documenting important details, and then you will try your own hand at creating a personal nature journal.

    Nature holds a spellbinding allure to Milan, who finds that observing nature often produces scenes of larger-than-life beauty. The Arboretum’s exhibition of Milan’s paintings magnifies nature’s productions, fully illuminating the elegance of plant life as small as a seed pod. This show captures the wonder of the Arboretum in those larger-than-life images.

    Milan received a Certificate of Botanical Illustration with distinction from the Society of Botanical Artists in London, England, where she also received the President’s Award. She has exhibited in many juried shows throughout the US and world, including the 2016 New England Society of Botanical Artists’ show at the Arnold Arboretum. She teaches graphic design as an Associate Teaching Professor at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell, and is president of MILAN concept & design, a graphic design firm she founded in 1988.

    Simple paper journals, some drawing materials and erasers will be available. Bring your own materials if you have them.

    Free, registration required and limited. Register at www.my.arboretum.harvard.edu.

  • Saturday, December 8, 9:30 am – 12:00 noon – Measure Twice, Cut Once: Introductory Tree and Shrub Pruning

    Put down the hedge shears! Through both classroom instruction and hands-on field training, this December 8 class at the Arnold Arboretum will include what’s, whys, and how’s of proper pruning approaches and techniques. Andrew Gapinski will focus on small ornamental trees, young shade trees, and shrubs with general approaches towards maintaining a plant’s natural form and encouraging health and vigor. Note: Pruning for fruit production will not be covered in this offering. Dress for indoor and outdoor learning. Class begins at 9:30 am in the Hunnewell Building. Fee $32 Arboretum member, $42 nonmember. Register at my.arboretum.harvard.edu or call 617-384-5277.

    Introductory Tree and Shrub Pruning

  • Tuesday, December 4, 7:00 pm – 8:15 pm – The Ethics of Species Conservation

    Ronald Sandler, PhD, Chair and Professor of Philosophy; Director, Ethics Institute, Northeastern University, will speak at the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University on Tuesday, December 4 at 7 pm.

    Rapid ecological change, and climate change in particular, pose challenges to traditional conservation paradigms and strategies. It has also led some conservationists to endorse novel conservation techniques, such as assisted colonization, gene drives and even de-extinction.

    This talk will explore the values and philosophies that underlie species conservation under conditions of rapid change. It will ask us to think about what is valuable about species and why we ought to try to conserve them. Free for Arboretum members, $10 for nonmembers.

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  • Wednesday, November 14, 6:30 pm – 9:00 pm, and Thursday, November 15, 12:00 noon – 1:30 pm – The Veronica Rudge Green Prize in Urban Design: The High Line

    Please join The Harvard Graduate School of Design for two days of events in conjunction with the 2017 Veronica Rudge Green Prize in Urban Design, awarded to the High Line. The events begin Wednesday, November 14 at 6:30 PM with remarks in the GSD’s Piper Auditorium followed by a reception in the Druker Design Gallery to celebrate the opening of the exhibition. Thursday, November 15 from 12:00 – 1:30 PM, the GSD will host a panel discussion exploring the enduring impact of The High Line.

    The 13th Veronica Rudge Green Prize in Urban Design has been awarded to the High Line in New York, designed collaboratively by James Corner Field Operations, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, and Piet Oudolf. The prize committee has elected to allot the monetary prize of $50,000 associated with the award to Friends of the High Line, in recognition of the organization’s originating efforts and continued stewardship behind the project.

    The High Line, a linear public park built on elevated freight rail on Manhattan’s West Side, has been hailed as a model of urban regeneration and of collaboration across fields and perspectives. In summarizing the deliberation process, the Green Prize jury noted that a great urban-design project is one where multiple actors spanning public and private domains are involved in and committed to lasting urban change. For complete information visit http://www.gsd.harvard.edu/event/the-veronica-rudge-green-prize-in-urban-design-the-high-line/

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  • Friday, November 2, 6:45 pm – Is Plant Exploration Dead in a Plant-blind Era?

    Dr. Michael Dosmann, Keeper of Living Collections, Arnold Arboretum, will address the New England Botanical Club on Friday, November 2 at 6:45 pm on the topic of Is Plant Exploration Dead in a Plant-blind Era? Meetings at Harvard University are held in Haller Lecture Hall (Room 102), Geological Museum, 24 Oxford St., Cambridge, MA 02138 (door to right of Harvard Museum of Natural History entrance). Open to the public. More information can be found at http://www.rhodora.org/meetings/upcomingmeetings.html

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  • Thursday, November 8, 6:30 pm – 8:00 pm – Thomas Woltz: Restoration Ecology

    Over the past two decades of practice, landscape architect Thomas Woltz has forged a body of work that integrates the beauty and function of built forms with an understanding of complex biological systems and restoration ecology. As principal of Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects (NBW), a 45-person firm based in Charlottesville, Virginia and New York City, Woltz has infused narratives of the land into the places where people live, work and play, deepening the public’s enjoyment of the natural world and inspiring environmental stewardship. NBW projects create models of biodiversity and sustainable agriculture within areas of damaged ecological infrastructure and working farmland, yielding hundreds of acres of reconstructed wetlands, reforested land, and flourishing wildlife habitat.

    Presently, Thomas and NBW are entrusted with the design of major public parks across the United States, Canada and New Zealand, they include Memorial Park in Houston, Hudson Yards in New York City, NoMA Green in Washington DC, Cornwall Park in Auckland, the Aga Khan Garden in Alberta, Canada, and three parks in Nashville, including Centennial Park.

    In 2013 was named Design Innovator of the Year by the Wall Street Journal magazine and in 2017 Fast Company named Woltz one of the most creative people in business. Thomas will speak at the Harvard Graduate School of Design’s Piper Auditorium on Quincy Street in Cambridge on Thursday, November 8 at 6:30 pm. Free and open to the public. For more information visit http://www.gsd.harvard.edu/event/thomas-woltz/

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  • Saturday, November 3, 1:30 pm – 4:30 pm – Introduction to Bonsai

    Bonsai is the ancient Japanese method of growing and caring for a tree whose growth is restricted by the size of the shallow pot in which it is planted and by the pruning of its branches and roots.

    In this Arnold Arboretum class on November 3 from 1:30 – 4:30, Glen Lord, who consults for the Arnold Arboretum’s bonsai (Japanese) and penjing (Chinese) collection of dwarf potted plants, will speak first about the history of bonsai. He will then demonstrate the methods employed in creating and caring for a bonsai.

    Participants will plant a tropical specimen and learn about basic pruning, styling, and aftercare. The methods learned in this class can then be applied to other plants, such as temperate trees. The class fee includes a tropical plant, tools, soil, and a pot. $80. Register on line at www.my.arboretum.harvard.edu

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  • Saturday, October 20, 10:00 am – How Does Nature Say Goodbye? Loss, Renewal, and Action in a Disappearing Hemlock Forest

    On Saturday, October 20 from 10 – 4 visit the Harvard Forest Fisher Museum for a free presentation entitled How Does Nature Say Goodbye? – Loss, Renewal, and Action in a Disappearing Hemlock Forest. A morning program beginning at 10:00 am will include presentations on the science and policy of invasive insects, a poetry reading, and a short film screening. The program will be followed by family-friendly guided tours of the field-based Hemlock Hospice art exhibit, which will close its year-long run in November 2018.

    Hemlock Hospice is an art-science collaboration between David Buckley Borden, 2016-2017 artist and designer-in-residence at the Harvard Forest, and Harvard Forest Senior Ecologist Aaron Ellison. It features innovative art installed in the Fisher Museum and along a new interpretative walking trail, focused on eastern hemlock, a foundation tree in eastern forests that is slowly vanishing from North America as it is weakened and killed by a small insect, the hemlock woolly adelgid.

    Hemlock Hospice blends science, art, and design in respecting hemlock and its ecological role as a foundation forest species; promoting an understanding of the adelgid; and encouraging empathetic conversations among all the sustainers of and caregivers for our forests—ecologists and artists, foresters and journalists, naturalists and citizens—while fostering social cohesion around ecological issues.

    Hemlock Hospice is more than an art-science collaboration; it is also an educational initiative. Associated public workshops and print and social media are available to promote reflection, critical thinking, and creativity among scientists, artists, educators, humanists, and the general public. A diverse group of media partners will bring the concepts to a broad range of people in and outside the arts and sciences.

    For directions and more information visit http://harvardforest.fas.harvard.edu/hemlock-hospice

    Image result for hemlock hospice david buckley borden & aaron ellison

  • Saturday, October 13 – Things Fall Apart: Land-Use History, Non-Native Insects, Climate Change, and the Decline of a Forest

    The October New England Botanical Club meeting will take place Saturday, October 13 at the Harvard Forest in Petersham, Massachusetts. The featured speaker is Dr. Aaron Ellison, Senior Research Fellow in Ecology at the Harvard Forest. From late morning to mid-afternoon, there will be a tree coring and dendroecology workshop with Dr. Neil Pederson, and filed trips to sites of botanical interest around Petersham. In the late afternoon and evening, you will enjoy a tour of the Hemlock Hospice installation with Dr. Ellison at 4 pm, followed by a potluck dinner with NEBC members and guests (6 pm), and a 7 pm presentation from Dr. Ellison in the Fisher Museum at the Harvard Forest. For more information visit www.rhodora.org. Image courtesy of The Harvard Crimson.

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