Boston Flora

Tag: Morven

  • Sunday, September 10, 2:00 pm – 4:00 pm Eastern – Love Your Leaves

    Learn to love your leaves with Sustainable Princeton and Morven Museum & Garden in Princeton, New Jersey. Join them for a free interactive workshop focused on loving and managing leaves in a sustainable way at your home.

    Every fall, we welcome the beautiful colors and sights of Princeton’s foliage. Fallen leaves, however, can be a nuisance for homeowners who often remove them from lawns and backyards. Unfortunately, these practices lead to piles of leaves in municipal streets, creating safety hazards, blocking stormwater drains, and feeding unhealthy algae blooms in our waterways.

    What can you do to make a difference? Leave your leaves where they can do some good for your soil!

    This FREE workshop includes:

    • A hybrid talk (in-person and virtual) with Morven Horticulturist and Master Gardener, Louise Senior, on how to use your piles of leaves to care for your yard and garden this fall (starts at 2:00 p.m.)
    • A Leaf Corral DIY Workshop with Sustainable Princeton (starts at 3:00 p.m.)
    • Leaf-inspired crafts for the whole family
    • A raffle to win an all electric leaf blower / vacuum (must be present in-person to win)

    LOVES YOUR LEAVES TALK*: The hybrid talk with Louise Senior will be offered both virtually and in-person. If you’d like to participate in the program virtually, please select the virtual ticket option upon registration. You will receive a Zoom link in your email confirmation. The program will be recorded and a link shared publicly following the event.

    LEAF CORRAL DIY WORKSHOP: Join Sustainable Princeton in a Leaf Corral DIY Workshop at 3:00 p.m. A leaf corral can hold the leaves in your yard and allow them to mature into compost, providing a rich fertilizer for future application. All materials will be provided for free. Please indicate your interest in participating upon registration (pre-registration is required). We will close registration for the workshop one week prior to the event. Questions? Contact info@sustainableprinceton.org

    *A virtual ticket does not include the DIY Leaf Corral Workshop or door prize raffle. Register through Eventbrite https://www.eventbrite.com/e/love-your-leaves-tickets-680347556857

  • Tuesday, March 8, 6:30 pm – Early American Kitchen Gardens & Gardeners, Online

    Learn about early America’s kitchen gardens, and those who created and tended them, in a Morven Museum & Garden event presented by Holly Gruntner on March 8 at 6:30 pm.

    As any gardener knows, nothing grows in a garden without skill and effort. According to Holly Gruntner, the same was true in early America as she explores the lives of those who created and tended kitchen gardens of that era.

    This enlightening virtual presentation will be an overview of some of the themes of Ms. Gruntner’s PhD dissertation, Fertile Ground: Kitchen Gardens and Knowledge Production in Early America.

    Holly’s work seeks to understand the intellectual lives and influence of lower-class, enslaved, and bound people living in eastern British North America – and the early United States – by focusing on their kitchen gardens and gardening activities.

    Holly Gruntner received her BA from the University of Minnesota, Morris. After working for three years in Congressional Relations at the Library of Congress, she completed her History MA at William & Mary in 2017. Her MA portfolio explored how botanists in early America relied upon their spouses, children, enslaved people, and servants for crucial scientific labors.

    She is currently a PhD candidate in the History Department at William & Mary, working on a dissertation about kitchen gardens and scientific knowledge in early America, 1650-1830. Her work parses the intellectual and manual garden labors of non-elite people. Her dissertation views even the smallest garden plots as scientific laboratories; units of intense and extensive intellectual work, experiment, and exchange. Discoveries and practices originating with these common gardens and gardeners also transcended households and communities and served as the basis for published and otherwise formalized scientific discourse of the day. $5 for Morven members, $10 for nonmembers. Register through Eventbrite HERE.

  • Thursday, March 3, 6:30 pm – Vizcaya: A Most Unusual American House, Online

    Morven Museum & Garden’s exciting Grand Homes & Gardens Distinguished Speakers Series returns with another stellar lineup. This year we travel to the Roaring 20’s starting at Innisfree in New York, then south to Swan House in Georgia, down to Ca’ D’Zan on Florida’s west coast; finally arriving in Miami’s Vizcaya. Held live in Morven’s Stockton Education Center, adjacent to the Museum, and simulcast on Zoom, in February and March, this illustrated lecture series brightens winter up and down the coast.

    In person program includes light refreshments tailored to the theme of each week’s featured lecturer. Online virtual program includes recipes for make-at-home fare. Tickets range from $15 – $90 (for the whole series) and may be purchased HERE.

    The final talk of this year’s series is on March 3 at 6:30 with Remko Jansonius, Senior Director, Art and Artifact Stewardship, on Vizcaya: A Most Unusual American House.

    Located along the shores of Biscayne Bay in Miami, Vizcaya was built to look like a centuries-old Italian estate, yet incorporated the most advanced technology of the day. It was the winter home of American industrialist James Deering from 1916 until his death in 1925. The house and gardens are filled with a wide array of European decorative art objects and furnishings, representing many styles and periods, countries and continents. The July 1917 issue of Architectural Review, entirely dedicated to Vizcaya, describes the estate as “the most ‘unusual’ of all the unusual American houses” illustrated that year. We will hear about Deering’s winter estate that holds the stories of tramps and movie stars, of rumrunners and prohibition.

  • Tuesday, February 22, 2:00 pm – Rose Workshop with Michael Marriott, Online from the UK

    Tuesday, February 22, 2:00 pm – Rose Workshop with Michael Marriott, Online from the UK

    Join the Morven Museum & Garden for an online afternoon (February 22, 2 pm Eastern) surrounded by roses and lush gardens with renowned rosarian and garden designer Michael Marriott as he presents a special rose workshop just for Morven.  Mr. Marriott did this virtual event last year to great acclaim.

    This virtual program – live from the UK – will include highlights and history of some of Morven’s roses as well as garden design techniques and Mr. Marriott’s common sense approach to growing and caring for roses. 

    Michael Marriott was an integral part of David Austin Roses for 35 years and at the firm’s headquarters in Albrighton where he was the font of knowledge for all matters relating to roses. Michael has played an important part in the development and popularization of English Roses and therefore has intimate knowledge of all of the 200 plus English Roses bred and introduced by David Austin Roses.

    As a garden designer, he is known for dense romantic beds whether purely roses or mixed in with perennials. He has designed many rose gardens and borders around the world of varying sizes, both public and private. Public gardens include the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, Queen Mary’s Rose Garden in Regent’s Park, Hampton Court Palace, Wynyard Hall, Trentham Gardens and the David Austin garden near Osaka in Japan. His private clients are primarily in the United Kingdom, the United States and Europe, but he has also worked on gardens in New Zealand, China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Russia and even Bhutan.

    $10 for Friends of Morven, $15 for general public. A personal Zoom link will be emailed the day of the event. A recording of this lecture will be sent to all registrants following the presentation, Register HERE.

  • Thursday, February 10, 6:30 pm – Innisfree: An American Garden, Online

    Morven Museum & Garden’s exciting Grand Homes & Gardens Distinguished Speakers Series returns with another stellar lineup. This year we travel to the Roaring 20’s starting at Innisfree in New York, then south to Swan House in Georgia, down to Ca’ D’Zan on Florida’s west coast; finally arriving in Miami’s Vizcaya. Held live in Morven’s Stockton Education Center, adjacent to the Museum, and simulcast on Zoom, in February and March, this illustrated lecture series brightens winter up and down the coast.

    In person program includes light refreshments tailored to the theme of each week’s featured lecturer. Online virtual program includes recipes for make-at-home fare. SERIES TICKETS INCLUDE LIVE OR VIRTUAL TICKETS TO ALL 4 WEEKS OF PROGRAMMING. You may, however, sign up for individual sessions.

    On February 10 at 6:30, Katherine H. Kerin, Landscape Curator, will discuss Innisfree. While the making of Innisfree spanned about 70 years, its roots are in the 1920s when Walter Beck and his wife, avid gardener and heiress Marion Burt Beck, began work on their Millbrook, New York country residence. Decidedly American, Innisfree merges traditional Chinese and Japanese design with Romantic and Modernist ideals and ecological design principles. While the house is no longer standing, it was adapted from an Arts and Crafts building at the Royal Horticultural Society Garden, Wisley, and we will have a view into the Beck’s collection of Asian, primarily Chinese art, which filled it.

    Pricing is $15 – $90 for entire series. Register HERE.

  • Thursday, January 27, 6:30 pm – Frederick Law Olmsted: Designing America, Online

    Historian and filmmaker Laurence Cotton joins The Morven Museum & Garden virtually to present a “mini-travelogue” of select Olmsted landscapes across North America in this special evening event. Discover the extraordinary legacy of a true Renaissance man and how Olmsted’s philosophy, his writings and his designs are still relevant today.

    Mr. Cotton originated and served as Consulting Producer to the NEH-funded, nationally broadcast PBS special “Frederick Law Olmsted: Designing America.”

    He will present an information rich and entertaining talk about Frederick Law Olmsted’s life, career and legacy including those sites designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, Senior, the two sons and the Olmsted Brothers landscape architecture firm. They left a huge imprint upon the landscapes of North America. Public parks, private estates and gardens, residential neighborhoods, entire community designs, and institutional campuses. Not only did Frederick Law Olmsted and his progeny found the field of American landscape architecture, they also were early proponents of urban planning. The Olmsted design philosophy addressed public health—physical and mental health, and issues of equity and access that are even more relevant to contemporary park managers and users. Frederick Law Olmsted foresaw the crucial role of the experience of nature in the urban setting and the very role that parks can play for the enactment of democracy in a multi-ethnic, multiracial society.

    Tickets are $10 for Morven members, $15 for nonmembers. Register HERE. Zoom link provided day of program. Recording link available to attendees following program.

    Image credit: Olmsted’s 1874 plan for the U.S. Capitol grounds in Washington, D.C. Architect of the Capitol

  • Tuesday, February 1, 6:30 pm – Deer Resistant Design, Online

    Deer Resistant Design author and garden expert Karen Chapman shares tips and tricks in this Morven Museum & Garden virtual program at 6:30 on February 1, with Q&A.

    Discover time-and taste-tested design strategies, tips, and tricks that will help you create a beautiful fence-free garden that thrives despite the deer.

    This informative and entertaining virtual lecture includes a powerpoint presentation highlighting information from Karen Chapman’s Deer Resistant Design book and is a great opportunity to share your garden’s deer challenges and find solutions during the live Q&A session.

    Email questions to dlampertrudman@morven.org in the week prior to the program. This program will *not* be recorded, so be sure to save the date, reserve your most comfy seat at home, and have a paper and pencil handy to jot down lots of great tips!

    Detailed handouts will be provided by email prior to the program. Zoom link will be sent to participants the day of the program – with reminder emails sent in the hours leading up to the program.

    From Karen Chapman:

    Born in England, I grew up with a trowel in my hand.

    After moving to the Pacific Northwest in 1996 I joined one of the leading garden nurseries as a garden plant specialist. Helping hundreds of customers create beautiful combinations of plants to enhance their outdoor living spaces was always a delight. Ten years later I established my business Le jardinet in order to provide a service that takes all the time, stress and guesswork out of the design process.

    In the recent past I have taught container gardening at a local Community College, and continue to teach both container and landscape design in occasional workshops and events as well offering a range of online learning opportunities .

    When I’m not teaching garden design or talking about it I am usually writing about it, and my articles and designs have been featured in many national gardening publications including Fine Gardening, Country Gardens, Sunset, and Garden Design. I have co-authored two books: the award winning Fine Foliage (St. Lynn’s Press, 2013) and highly acclaimed Gardening with Foliage First (Timber Press, 2017), while my latest book Deer-Resistant Design was released in 2019 (Timber Press).

    Specializing in creating artistic plant combinations with a four season foliage framework, functional outdoor living spaces and deer resistant, summer-dry designs, it would give me great pleasure to share my love of gardening with you.

    $10 for Morven members, $15 for nonmembers. Register through Eventbrite HERE.

  • Tuesday, March 16, 6:30 pm – Glebe House & Gertrude Jekyll’s Garden, Online

    The Glebe House, built about 1740, is celebrating its 96th year in operation in 2021 as an historic house museum and garden. It was the home of Rev. John Rutgers Marshall, his wife Sarah, nine children and three slaves from 1771 to 1786 and is furnished with period furniture including a wonderful collection of furniture made in Woodbury during the 18th century. By the 1920s the house had passed through several owners and fallen into great disrepair. The Glebe House was restored in 1923 under the direction of Henry Watson Kent, a pioneer of early American decorative arts and founder of the American Wing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. One of the early historic house museums in the country, The Glebe House opened its doors to the public in 1925.

    In 1926, the famed English horticultural designer and writer Gertrude Jekyll was commissioned by board member Annie Burr Jennings (Colonial Dame, heiress to the Standard Oil fortune, living in Fairfield, Connecticut, Connecticut Trustee at Mount Vernon) to create an “old fashioned” garden to enhance the newly created museum. Although a small garden, when compared with the some 400 more elaborate designs she completed in England and on the continent, the Gertrude Jekyll Garden includes a classic English style mixed border and foundation plantings, and a planted stone terrace. For reasons unknown today, the garden Miss Jekyll planned was never fully installed in the 1920s and its very existence was forgotten. After the rediscovery of the plans in the late 1970s the project began in earnest in the late 1980s and is now being completed according to the original plans.

    This online lecture sponsored by Morven Museum & Garden and underwritten by KellerWilliams Realty, takes place online on March 16 at 6:30, and the speaker is LoriAnn Witte, Director of Glebe House. $18 Friends of Morven, $25 general public. Register HERE

  • Tuesday, February 23, 6:30 pm – Lyndhurst Castle, Online

    Tuesday, February 23, 6:30 pm – Lyndhurst Castle, Online

    Howard Zar, Executive Director of Lyndhurst Castle, will speak online on February 23 at 6:30 pm as part of the Morven Museum & Garden’s 2021 Grand Homes & Gardens Distinguished Speakers Series. This year’s overall theme is The Women of the House. Friends of Morven, $18, general public $25. Register by clicking HERE.

    Overlooking the Hudson River in Tarrytown, New York, is Lyndhurst, one of America’s finest Gothic Revival mansions. Designed in 1838 by Alexander Jackson Davis, its architectural brilliance is complemented by the park-like landscape of the estate and a comprehensive collection of original decorative arts. Its noteworthy occupants included former New York City mayor William Paulding, merchant George Merritt, and railroad tycoon Jay Gould. The interesting thing about the women at Lyndhurst is that in many ways, they ruled the roost. The initial mansion was funded by Maria Rheinlander, William Paulding’s wife. In an unusual turn of roles, she provided the money and her husband and son did the design and furnishing work. The second owner we will meet died five years after moving in and his wife was left to manage the estate. The Jay Gould family owned it the longest, and daughter Helen Gould, who lived there the longest of any owner, was a noted philanthropist and NYU law school graduate who made some interesting changes to Lyndhurst.Harbor Hill & Beacon Towers: Long Island “Gold Coast” mansions and the women who created them.

    About Morven: A National Historic Landmark, Morven is situated on five pristine acres in the heart of Princeton, New Jersey. This former New Jersey Governor’s Mansion showcases the rich cultural heritage of the Garden State through regular exhibitions, educational programs and special events. Thanks to the newly enriched number of national online offerings, we are able to participate in this series of lectures.