Boston Flora

Tag: Harvard

  • Wednesday, June 15, 6:30 pm – 8:00 pm – Woody Vines for the Garden

    Effective landscape design includes creative development of vertical space, and vines should be considered from the outset.  While touring the Leventritt Garden of Shrubs and Vines at the Arnold Arboretum, horticulturist Jen Kettell will introduce you to an array of woody vines. She will explain their various growth habits and attachment mechanisms which determine how they are best used in the garden. Focusing on floral, foliar, and fruiting characteristics, she’ll recommend vines for a variety of situations. The class will take place Wednesday, June 15, beginning at 6:30 pm, and is $20 for Arboretum members, $25 for non-members.  To register, call 617-384-5277, or visit https://my.arboretum.harvard.edu/Info.aspx?/DayPlanner=1023&DayPlannerDate=6/15/2011.

  • Saturday, June 11, 1:00 pm – Painters for a Purpose

    Painters for a Purpose is a group of South Shore artists who donate 30% of their sales from each exhibit to a local charity.  For their upcoming exhibit opening Saturday, June 11 at the Arnold Arboretum, they have chosen the Elizabeth Stone House. The opening reception will be in the Hunnewell Building Lecture Hall at 1 pm and is free and open to the public.  The show will run through July 23.

    Located in Roxbury, Massachusetts, the Elizabeth Stone House is committed to countering the effects of trauma and breaking the cycles of violence and abuse—one family at a time. Through residential and community support services, the Stone House helps families heal and women reclaim control over their lives. The Stone House helps women and families rebuild their lives after experiencing domestic violence, mental illness, substance abuse and other forms of trauma. The Stone House provides residential and non-residential programs, as well as an emergency shelter for those who are in immediate need.  For more information, call 617-384-5209, or visit www.arboretum.harvard.edu.

  • Tuesday, May 10, 6:00 pm – The Secrets of Field Notes: Capturing Science, Nature and Exploration

    In a fascinating new collection, Field Notes on Science and Nature, Harvard University Press provides a rare glimpse into the journals and sketches of top scientists such as Charles Darwin, George Schaller, and Kenn Kaufman. Editor Michael Canfield, lecturer in biology at Harvard, will discuss what makes these notes and journals so important, the secrets they reveal, and how they can help us cultivate skills as a gardener, citizen scientist, or adventurer. The free lecture will take place at the Harvard Museum of Natural History, 26 Oxford Street in Cambridge, on Tuesday, May 10, from 6 – 8.  For more information, log on to www.hmnh.harvard.edu, or call 617-495-3045.

  • 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.

  • Wednesday, April 27, 5:30 pm – Ancient Grains for Modern Meals

    Food writer Maria Speck’s passion for propelling Old World staples such as farro, barley, polenta, and wheat berries to the forefront of new American cooking is beautifully presented in Ancient Grains for Modern Meals. In her inspired and highly personal book, Maria Speck draws on food traditions from across the Mediterranean and northern Europe to reveal how versatile, satisfying, flavorful, and sophisticated whole grains can be. Her lecture, to be held Wednesday, April 27 beginning at 5:30 pm in Emerson 210 at Harvard University, is free and open to the public. For directions, log on to www.harvard.edu.

  • Tuesday, May 10, 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm – The Secret Lives of Honey Bees

    Most people are familiar with the sight of a honey bee forager as she visits flowers in a garden or park, but few people know the rich story of the life of a colony within the darkness of a hive.  Heather Mattila studies the social organization of honey bees at Wellesley College, where her hives lend a lively presence to the arboretum.  Heather will unravel the secret life of honey bees, including the different kinds of bees that are found in hives and the jobs that they do, as well as the means by which honey bees communicate to ensure a healthy and productive colony, in this lecture on Tuesday, May 10, from 7 – 8:30 at the Hunnewell Building of the Arnold Arboretum in Jamaica Plain.  The program is co-sponsored by the Wellesley College Friends of Horticulture.  Members of either sponsoring organization will pay $10, non-members $15.  Register at www.wellesley.edu/WCFH, or call 781-283-3094.  Image from www.treehugger.com.

  • Monday, April 25, 4:00 pm – Fred Kirschenmann on Sustainable Agriculture

    Join farmer, agrarian philosopher, author, and sustainable food advocate Fred Kirschenmann for a lecture and discussion about the future of sustainable agriculture on Monday, April 25, beginning at 4 pm at Harvard University, Sever Hall 113. Kirschenmann’s experience as an organic farmer along with his education in philosophy combine to make him a leader in sustainable agriculture. He oversees his family’s 3,500-acre, certified-organic farm in North Dakota and is also a professor in the Department of Religion and Philosophy at Iowa State University. Kirschenmann holds a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Chicago and has written extensively about ethics and agriculture. Free and open to the public. Co-sponsored with Center for Health and the Global Environment.  For directions, log on to www.harvard.edu.

  • Thursday, April 14, 5:30 pm – Chasing Chiles: Hot Spots Along the Pepper Trail

    Chasing Chiles is both a rollicking travelogue from three guys on the hunt for authentic food and cultural experience and an adventure with a larger, sobering mission: to understand the effects of climate change by zeroing in on one critical crop and the people whose lives are most deeply intertwined with it. Chef Kurt Michael Friese is author of A Cook’s Journey: Slow Food in the Heartland and owner and founding chef of Devotay, a restaurant in Iowa City that is a community leader in local and sustainable cuisine. He is owner and publisher of Edible Iowa River Valley magazine, a board of directors member for Slow Food USA and the Iowa Food Systems Council, and a graduate and former chef-instructor at the New England Culinary Institute.

    Hear Kurt on Thursday, April 14 at Harvard University, Sever 213.  Free and open to the public.  For a campus map, log on to www.harvard.edu.

  • Thursday, April 21, 6:00 pm – Here on Earth: A Natural History of the Planet

    In his newest book, Here on Earth, Tim Flannery, Australian scientist and author, offers a sweeping account of the dual evolutionary history of Earth and the life it supports. Beginning with the birth of stars to the creation of water and the accident of simple life forms, Flannery documents life up through the 2-million-year rise of our human species and ponders our future as a “superorganism” capable of either sustaining or destroying the planet’s ecosystems. This Thursday, April 21 Harvard Museum of Natural History program begins at 6 pm. Free and open to the public, Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford Street. For more information log on to www.hmnh.harvard.edu.

  • Sunday, April 17, 12:30 pm – 4:30 pm – Invasives: ID, Ecology, and Control

    Get a head start on invasive control this year by learning to identify invasives in the early season. This New England Wild Flower Society course, co-sponsored by the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University, provides an introduction to about 40 of the most common invasive non-native plants in our local landscapes. Through lecture, discussion, power-point presentation, herbarium specimens, and a walk outside at Garden in the Woods in Framinham, become familiar with identification clues as well as the habits of a number of these plants that are so disruptive of natural ecosystems. Discuss management techniques for many of these species, on both a home and a landscape scale. The “Invaders” issue of the Society’s magazine as well as the Field Guide to Invasive Plants in Massachusetts will be available for purchase at a discount.  The session will take place Sunday, April 17 from 12:30 – 4:30, and will cost $48 for members of the sponsoring organizations, $58 for non-members.  Register online at www.newfs.org.