Hundreds of orchid plants are for sale at the Lyman Estate Greenhouses, Waltham, Massachusetts, including many hard to find varieties. Among the varieties on display and for sale: cattleyas, laelias, paphiopedilums, and phalaenopsis. Both species and hybrid plants are available in bud or blooming. Free admission. Call 781-891-1985 for more information and directions, or log on to www.historicnewengland.org.
The Gibson House Annual Benefit will be held Thursday, March 25 from 6:00 – 8:00 pm at The Algonquin Club, 217 Commonwealth Avenue in Boston. This year’s event honors Carl R. Nold, President and CEO, Historic New England, and Theodore E. Stebbins, Jr., Curator of American Art at the Harvard Art Museum. Wear your best Victorian jewelry! $125 in advance, $150 at the door. For more information, and to reserve, log on to www.thegibsonhouse.org, telephone 617-267-6338, or email info@thegibsonhouse.org.
Professor Keith Morgan of Boston University will present an illustrated lecture on The Olmsted Firm and the Development of Brookline, 1880 – 1936, at the Wheelock College Auditorium, 43 Hawes Street in Brookline, on Wednesday, October 28. A reception at 6:00 pm will be followed by the lecture at 7:00 pm. Seating is limited. Please rsvp to friendsoffairsted@gmail.com, or telephone 617-566-1689 x 235. Cohosted by the Friends of Fairsted; Brookline Greenspace Alliance; Brookline Historical Society; Emerald Necklace Conservancy; Fenway Alliance; High Street Hill Association; Historic New England; Mount Auburn Cemetery; Muddy River Restoration Project Maintenance and Management Oversight Committee; NPS, Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site; Society of Architectural Historians, New England Chapter; and the Friends of Stonehurst.
Historic New England’s Spencer-Peirce-Little Farm in Newbury, Massachusetts will be the venue for the annual Family Harvest Festival. See tractors and other farm equipment spanning eighty years. Try corn husking or win a prize at the pie-eating contest. Learn how simple machines help farmers with pumping water, pressing cider, and preparing food. Find your way through a hay bale maze, harvest wild herbs, and see vegetables preserved in the traditional way. Enjoy a wagon ride through the fields, build scarecrows, go on a pumpkin treasure hunt, and make fall crafts. Listen to folk music performed by Sweet Loretta’s Snake Oil Jug Band or watch a puppet show by Martha Dana. The c. 1690 manor house is open. Cider, donuts, and hot lunch are available. For more information call 978-462-2634, or log on to www.historicnewengland.org. Free to Historic New England members, $6 non-members, $4 children.
Enjoy children’s crafts, music, and demonstrations of spinning and cider pressing at Jackson House, 76 Northwest Street in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. The house itself, dating from 1664 and the oldest house in New Hampshire, is managed and maintained by Historic New England, and will be open for tours, and crafts and refreshments will be sold as well. Free to Historic New England members, $6 for non-members, $3 children. For more information, log on to www.historicnewengland.org, or call 603-435-3205 for directions.
Few things are more rewarding than plucking a lemon off your plant in the middle of the winter or savoring your own fresh figs in the middle of summer. Learn to grow numerous types of citrus including; lemons, limes, and oranges, along with delicious figs, on your windowsill or in your garden. We will cover propagation, light, feeding, and general culture. Each participant goes home with a plant. This workshop is sponsored by Historic New England at the Lyman Estate Greenhouses in Waltham, Massachusetts. For more information and directions, log on to www.historicnewengland.org, or call Susanna Crampton at 781-891-4882. She can also be reached by email at scrampton@historicnewengland.org. The fee is $35 per participant.
Learn about planting and growing kitchen gardens from the Pilgrims to the present, and find out what past generations relied on to nourish and cure them. We will talk about heirloom varieties, their culture, and how to plant and harvest herbs and vegetables for the rest of the season. Admission is $35, and reservations are required. The event will take place at the Lyman Estate Greenhouses in Waltham, Massachusetts, and is run by Historic New England. For further information, contact Susanna Crampton, 185 Lyman Street, Waltham, MA 02452, 781-891-4882, scrampton@historicnewengland.org. You can get directions to the Lyman Estate on Historic New England’s website, www.HistoricNewEngland.org.
Take part in a special oportunity to learn about the landscape and gardens at Hamilton House, 40 Vaughan’s Lane, South Berwick, Maine, one of the properties administered by Historic New England, with Regional Landscape Manager Gary Wentzel.
After railroads made the region accessible in the late 19th century, coastal Maine became a fashionable destination for wealthy summer people. Many of the newcomers bought and restored the fine old houses built during the prosperous years following the American Revolution.
In 1898, Mrs. Emily Tyson and her stepdaughter, Elise, purchased the c. 1785 Hamilton House, built on a magnificent site overlooking the Salmon Falls River. The Tysons flung themselves into a lifelong project to restore the house to its former glory. Influenced by literary imagery, including the writings of their neighbor and friend, Sarah Orne Jewett, they decorated with a mixture of elegant antiques, painted murals, and simple country furnishings to create their own romantic interpretation of America’s colonial past.
$6 for Members of Historic New England, $12 for non-Members. For more information and directions, log on to www.historicnewengland.org.
Historic New England (www.historicnewengland.org) invites you to Castle Tucker, 2 Lee Street in Wiscasset, Maine on Sunday, July 18, from 3 to 4:30 pm, when author Martha McDowell explores the development of an American landscaping style from the formal plans of the eighteenth century to the elaborate designs of Victorian high style. The program is co-sponsored by 
the Maine Antiques Dealers’ Association.
Marta McDowell lives, writes and gardens in Chatham, New Jersey. She shares her garden with her husband, Kirke Bent, her crested cockatiel, Sydney, and approximately 30,000 honeybees. Her garden writing has appeared in popular publications such as Woman’s Day, Fine Gardening and The New York Times. Scholars and specialists have read her essays on American authors and their horticultural interests in the journals Hortus and Arnoldia.
Following the relationship between the pen and the trowel led Marta to the poet Emily Dickinson. Marta’s book, Emily Dickinson’s Gardens, was published by McGraw-Hill in 2005. If you visit the Emily Dickinson Museum in Amherst, Massachusetts, you can stroll the grounds with a landscape audio tour that Marta scripted in 2007.
Marta teaches landscape history and preservation at the New York Botanical Garden and Drew University. She teaches gardening classes for the Chautauqua Institution. A popular lecturer on topics ranging from design history to plant combinations, she has been a featured speaker at locations ranging from Wave Hill to the Garden Club of Philadelphia and the Cummer Museum of Art in Jacksonville, Florida.
Marta’s latest gardening adventure was a six-month working holiday in England. She interned at the Royal Horticultural Society’s Rosemoor in Devon and at the Chelsea Physic Garden in London.
Her husband summed up Marta’s biography as “I am, therefore I dig.”
$5 for Members of Historic New England, $10 for non-Members. Pre-registration is recommended.
