Boston Flora

Tag: Hudson Valley

  • Wednesday, June 24, 9:00 am – 3:30 pm – Landscapes as Essential Groundwork for Our Future

    As we move into a new age of ecological landscaping, how do we rethink our residential and civic landscapes so that they actively support biodiversity, climate resilience, and community wellbeing? As horticulture professionals, we have an essential role in the future of our world. Drawing from real-world projects and community-based design work, this workshop will explore practical approaches to creating beautiful, functional gardens that wildly expand biodiversity while connecting the human spirit back to the natural world.

    Participants in this Ecological Landscape Alliance design workshop on June 24 at Stone Barns Center for Food & Agriculture in Pocantico Hills, New York, will gain inspiration and actionable strategies for transforming landscapes from resource consumers to ecosystem contributors, strengthening connections between people and the natural realm while centering a changing world, biodiversity, and community action. We will explore real-life challenges and strategies for maintaining these ecological gardens and how to better connect design and care professionals for long-term success. We will learn how to build healthy ecosystems while at the same time connecting people back to the rhythms of the seasons, healing spirit, and building community and equity along the way.

    Walking the property at Stone Barns mid workshop, participants will enjoy a guided landscape tour of the property with real-life success and challenges on plant choices and 10+ years of garden trails from in-house staff.

    Instructor Shanti Nagel is the founder of Design Wild, a landscape design firm working at the intersection of climate, humans, and community well-being.  She believes that the relationship between humans and the natural world is essential for individual health, the strength of communities, our ecosystems, and a future on Earth. She grew up gardening as a child in upstate NY, founded an organic vegetable farm at age 20, and later managed one of New York City’s largest urban farms. Shanti is a graduate of the School of Professional Horticulture at the New York Botanical Garden, a trained horticulturist, and a skilled landscape designer.  For the last decade, she and Design Wild have been designing naturally ferocious, beautiful, ecologically rich and incredibly durable landscapes in New York City and the greater Hudson Valley.

    $405 for ELA members (lunch included) and $480 for nonmembers (lunch included) Registration closed June 15. Register at https://www.ecolandscaping.org/new-events-calendar/

  • Saturday, February 8, 3:00 pm – 5:00 pm – Wine Tasting and Talk of Boston-Developed Heirloom Grape Varieties

    Join The Massachusetts Horticultural Society on February 8 for an afternoon of wine and knowledge as we explore heirloom grapes and the wines they create.

    The life, grapes, and wines of E. S. Rogers of Salem, MA (1826-1899) will be featured at this late-afternoon talk by J. Stephen Casscles. Stephen is a Hudson Valley winemaker at the Hudson-Chatham Winery who grows many of the heirloom grape varieties that were developed by Edward S. Rogers in 1851. During our time we will talk about Rogers’ efforts to breed superior grapes in Salem, MA., his resultant grape varieties, how they grow in the field, and the kinds of wines that they make. Rogers named grape varieties include:  ‘Salem’, ‘Agawam’, Merrimac’, ‘Massasoit’, and ‘Wilder’ .

    $55/ MHS member. $75/general admission. Register here.

  • Thursday and Friday, July 21 and 22 – Our Native Roots – Then and Now

    The Hudson Valley is said by many to be the birthplace of American landscape design. Join Herb Society of America  members on July 21 and 22 as we enjoy a sampling of the area’s attractions while we learn the importance of our native plants both today and in an era gone by. Tour three private gardens that offer a diverse sample of styles representative of the area, meet the Beatrix Farrand Garden Association, relax with friends before heading to dinner, receive news from headquarters, participate in the district meeting, be tempted by our sensational raffle baskets and learn more about our useful natives from experts in their field.

    Registration: $85 per person.
    Visit http://herbsociety.org/events/documents/2016northeastgatheringmailer.pdf to view the 2016 Northeast District Gathering mailer with registration form and lodging information.  Completed registration forms with payment must be postmarked by June 19, 2016.

    For additional information contact:
    Northeast District Membership Delegate Jen Munson at jenmunson@yahoo.com

  • Saturday, March 9, 1:00 pm – 4:00 pm – Making Goat Cheese

    Join Hawthorne Valley Farm’s cheese maker, Peter Kindel, on Saturday, March 9 at the Town of Stockbridge Town Offices, 50 Main Street in Stockbridge, for a cheese-making workshop using goat’s milk. He will demonstrate how to make a fresh chevre and a hard tome and will share tips and techniques for making fresh and aged goat cheeses from start to finish. The demonstration will be followed by a tasting and discussion of different goat cheeses.

    Peter Kindel has been making, selling, tasting and teaching about cheese for 18 years. It began as a hobby, but after studying cheese-making in France, England and Scotland, he worked in such highly acclaimed cheese outlets in NYC as Picholine, Artisanal and Murray’s Cheese. He has made cheese in Vermont, Colorado and California, and currently leads the Hawthorne Valley farm creamery in New York’s Hudson Valley (below.) The program is sponsored by the Berkshire Botanical Garden and is $45 for BBG members, $50 for non members, and you may sign up at www.berkshirebotanical.org.

  • Saturday, August 18, 4:00 pm – The Sanctified Landscape: The Beginnings of Historic Preservation in the Hudson Valley

    Dr. David Schuyler will discuss New York’s Hudson Valley as America’s first iconic landscape, while unraveling a history of idealization, revolution, pre-environmentalism, and creative power in the 19th and early 20th centuries, on Saturday, August 18, beginning at 4 pm on Olana’s East Lawn.  Olana, the historic home of Frederic Edwin Church, is located at 5720 Route 9G, Hudson, New York. He traces how an emerging sense of place, aesthetic identity and American historical associations became synonymous with the Hudson Valley, and increasingly ingrained in national consciousness – ideas advanced by popular authors such as James Fenimore Cooper and Washington Irving, and Hudson River School painters including Thomas Cole and Frederic Church. David Schuyler has been a professor at Franklin and Marshall College for over thirty years.  He also serves on Olana’s National Advisory Committee.  He is the author of Apostle of Taste: Andrew Jackson Downing 1815 – 1852, and The New Urban Landscape: The Redefinition of City Form in Nineteenth-Century America.  Presented by The Olana Partnership.  Call 518-828-1872, x 103, to reserve, or email rsvp@olana.org for more information.