Boston Flora

Tag: New England Botanic Garden

  • Tuesday, June 30, 6:00 pm – 9:00 pm – Garden Dining Series: Smokeshow

    New England Botanic Garden’s Garden Dining Series invites guests to savor the ever-evolving relationship between food and nature by celebrating the ingredients and techniques rooted in the natural world. Each event in this signature culinary experience features a thoughtfully curated, multi-course, family-style meal centered around a distinct theme that explores nature’s influence on global cuisines and culinary traditions. From seasonal harvests, the rustic beauty of wood-fired cooking, and the healing flavors of an apothecary-inspired feast, the Garden Dining Series gathers guests together at communal tables to enjoy an unforgettable evening that blends exceptional food, atmosphere, and storytelling. Must be 21+ to attend.

    Ticketing: Each ticket will include one complimentary beverage from a selection of alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages including beer, wine, signature drinks, and soft drinks. Additional beverages may be purchased throughout the evening. Deadline for Smokeshow registration is June 24. This barbecue inspired evening highlights the role plants play in smoking, seasoning, and transforming food, from aromatic woods and herbs to charred vegetables and smoked mains. For registration (NEBG members $115, nonmembers $125) visit HERE.

  • Wednesday, June 24, 6:00 pm – 8:30 pm – Blossoms & Bites

    What goes better together than chocolate and flowers?

    In this New England Botanic Garden event on June 24, a dual-maker workshop, you’ll step into the world of artisanal chocolate with Viviane of Vivilicious Chocolates, learning the craft behind chocolate tempering, making and designing two of your own floral-infused creation. Incorporate botanicals like rose, lavender, and chamomile and explore chocolate not as candy, but as an ingredient of depth and structure, where each botanical is expressed with clarity and balance.

    While your chocolate sets, Sam of Sam’s Stems will guide you through the art of creating a colorful summer garden arrangement. Using fresh seasonal blooms, you’ll compose something simple and beautiful and pick up the basics of caring for cut flowers at home, including whatever might already be growing in your garden.

    Leave with a chocolate treat you made yourself, a bouquet to brighten your space, and a handful of new skills to carry into the season.

    No experience needed. Just a love of beautiful things. And chocolate. Definitely chocolate. $125 NEBG members, $140 nonmembers. Pair pricing: $165 NEBG members, $180 nonmembers, but pair pricing includes only ONE set of materials to share. Register at www.nebg.org

  • Saturday, May 16 – Sunday, November 1 – Glass in Flight

    Step into a world of color and wonder at the New England Botanic Garden at Tower Hill on May 16 – November 1 with Glass in Flight. This unforgettable exhibition features 30 larger-than-life stained-glass and steel sculptures expertly crafted by artist Alex Heveri. Encounter giant hummingbirds, butterflies, dragonflies, beetles, and more as they shimmer in the sunlight, soar overhead, pose in midair, or hide among the blooms. Blending brilliant color, light, and scale, Glass in Flight celebrates these charismatic creatures and their environmental significance. Discover their hidden secrets like never before.

    Alex Heveri is a nationally recognized glass and steel sculptor and a full-time defense attorney based in Tucson, Arizona. For more than 30 years, she has transformed public and private spaces with bold, luminous sculptures crafted from steel and colorful glass.

    Her signature stained-glass technique, dalle de verre, is a method originating in France where thick slabs of colored glass are cut and shaped into bold designs and set into place with epoxy. This creates a textured, luminous surface that comes alive in natural light, shifting and glowing as the sun moves across the sky. Over the past five years, Alex has created more than 150 monumental steel-and-glass sculptures, some soaring over 14 feet tall. Each work is conceived, designed, cut, assembled, and welded entirely by Alex in her Tucson home studio.

    Her traveling exhibition Glass in Flight has been featured at major botanic gardens across the United States, including Tucson Botanical Gardens, Arizona-Sonoran Desert Museum, Reiman Gardens, Houston Botanic Garden, Atlanta Botanical Garden, and Flamingo Gardens. She is honored to present the exhibition at New England Botanic Garden at Tower Hill, marking her first exhibition in New England. For this special presentation, Alex has created several never-before-seen works, including a hummingbird archway, two praying mantids, a luna moth, a rosy maple moth, and a magical butterfly tree.

    Don’t miss Glass in Flight at golden hour this summer with extended Garden hours on Wednesday and Thursday evenings! This exhibit is included with general admission.

  • Saturday, May 2 & Sunday, May 3, 10:00 am – 8:00 pm – Botanical Tattoo Weekend

    Join The New England Botanic Garden at Tower Hill on May 2 and 3 for a weekend-long celebration of botanically inspired art and ink in partnership with North Moon Tattoo. Get inked among the blooms and choose from available flash designs or pre-book a session in advance. Take in the atmosphere as you watch tattoo artistry unfold, browse a curated artisan market, and gain exclusive insight from celebrity artist talks on the craft and culture of tattooing.

    For this special event, we’re open late. As the sun and the ink sets, enjoy live music performances, wander the gardens at golden hour, and unwind with refreshing craft beers and cocktails from our beer garden. Whether you’re adding to your collection or simply soaking in the sights, this vibrant fusion of nature and ink is an experience you won’t want to miss. Stay tuned for a sneak peek of the flash designs!

    Don’t miss our exciting Botanical Tattoo exhibit! On display from April 4 through July 12. Complete information at https://nebg.org/botanical-tattoo-weekend/

  • Thursday, February 12, 7:00 pm – 8:00 pm Eastern – Botany Basics: Discover the Science of Plants, Online

    Take the mystery out of plant science with this fun, beginner-friendly New England Botanic Garden online class on February 12. Explore how plants are built, why names matter, and what’s really happening inside leaves, roots, and flowers—so you can talk about your houseplants and garden like a pro. $10 NEBG members, $12 nonmembers. Register at www.nebg.org

    Instructor Alyson Prokop is a horticulturist and the Manager of Adult Education at New England Botanic Garden, bringing a strong foundation in plant research, collections management, and hands-on garden work to her role. With more than a decade of experience across botanical institutions, she specializes in developing inclusive programs that deepen public engagement with plant sciences, ecology, and biodiversity.

    Before joining NEBG, Alyson worked at Royal Botanical Gardens Canada, where she supported living collections, led community programming, and coordinated workshops and tours with a focus on food security and botanical literacy. She holds a BSc in Plant Biology and pursued graduate studies in Plant Pathology at the University of Guelph.

    Originally from Toronto, Canada, Alyson is also a botanical artist and printmaker whose work blends retro futurism with her lifelong love of plants

  • Sunday, February 8, 10:30 am – 12:30 pm – Honey Medicine: Make Herb Infused Honeys and More

    Discover the healing synergy of honey and herbs in this hands-on workshop with herbalist Jade Alicandro. The workshop will take place on February 8 at 10:30 am at the New England Botanic Garden at Tower Hill in Boylston, and is $40 for NEBG members, $63 for nonmembers. Register at www.nebg.org

    Learn the medicinal properties of honey, create a Winter Immune Honey, and explore traditional folk medicine-making techniques. Instructor Jade Alicandro weaves a love of bio-regionally abundant herbs and kitchen medicine into her work as a community and clinical herbalist. When she’s is not teaching bioregional herbalism to students and apprentices, you can find her roaming the hedges with her harvest basket in hand or at home in the kitchen brewing-up some potent food as medicine.

    From 2012-2019 she ran the Greenfield Community Herbal Clinic, a clinic dedicated to affordable herbal care, and currently maintains a long-distance clinical practice. She offers in-person, seasonally based, bioregional herbalism classes, teaches monthly online classes through her Patreon community, and offers a 6-week kitchen as medicine online course each winter.

  • Saturday, February 7 – Sunday, March 22 – Elevated: An Orchid Exhibition

    Elevated celebrates the beauty and wonder of orchids in combination with captivating aerial sculptures by artist Cicely Carew (@cicelycarew). Featuring a stunning display of more than 2,500 orchids, this year’s orchid exhibition transforms the New England Botanic Garden at Tower Hill’s subtropical conservatories into an immersive world of color, movement, and botanical brilliance. Inspired by the forms and rhythms of nature, Carew’s “flying paintings” soar overhead—a joyful expression of the connection between art and nature.

    Cicely Carew (b. 1982, Los Angeles, CA) is a Boston-based artist, educator, and wellness facilitator whose work brings together color, movement, and emotion in joyful and unexpected ways. Her multimedia practice blurs the boundaries between artistic disciplines—mixing painting, collage, sculpture, printmaking, sound, and video—to create vibrant, immersive experiences that invite viewers to pause, breathe, and reconnect.

    Carew works from a place of improvisation and intuition, using layers of color and texture to explore ideas of freedom, transformation, and play. Her art celebrates the unknown and reminds us that healing and discovery often come through curiosity and openness. Each piece feels alive, full of energy and possibility, offering space for viewers to find their own meaning and sense of balance.

    Carew earned her MFA from Lesley University’s College of Art and Design in Cambridge, MA, and her BFA from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston, MA. Carew’s work has been featured at institutions across Massachusetts, including the Institute of Contemporary Art, the Fuller Craft Museum, the Fitchburg Art Museum, The Commons in Provincetown, and Simmons and Northeastern Universities. Her work is also part of several permanent collections, such as the Harvard Art Museums, the Boston Public Library, the Fitchburg Art Museum, the U.S. Consulate in Chiang Mai, Thailand, the U.S. Department of State’s Art in Embassies program, Google, and Fidelity Investments.

    For complete details visit www.nebg.org

  • Saturdays, January 24 – February 14, 10:30 am – 12:30 pm – Drawing Basics: Fantastic Flowers in Pen & Ink

    In this New England Botanical Garden class you will begin by doing tracing from photos onto inking film, explore several inking techniques, including hatching, crosshatching and stippling. Being able to see your photo through the Dura-lar, a polyester film with a matte finish, there is no need to worry about getting the drawing correct.


    This online workshop is 4 weeks long, January 24 – February 14. You will meet every Saturday morning for instruction with the teacher. After the morning session you will be given time to continue working on your artwork. In the afternoon each person will schedule a 15 minute one-on-one time with the instructor to talk about your artwork and get personal input.
    The material is not provided for the course. A material list is available on the registration page, HERE.

  • Saturday, December 13, 10:30 am – 12:30 pm – Winter Holiday Floral Arrangement

    Design an elegant seasonal showstopper with poinsettias, roses, evergreens, and berries. Learn expert floral design skills and techniques. This New England Botanic Garden class on December 13 from 10:30 – 12:30 is $115 for members, $140 for nonmembers. Register at www.nebg.org

    Deck the halls with dazzling winter florals. Join us for a festive floral design workshop where you’ll create beautiful holiday décor for your home. Great for gifting or brightening your own home.

    All ability levels are welcome and all supplies will be provided along with a light coffee & tea service. Instructor Mary Beth Hayes is an avid gardener and floral designer who began studying floral design so she could bring the beauty of the garden into her home. She’s taken classes with the Mass Horticultural Society and Cass school of Floral Design in Watertown, Massachusetts. She has studied with noted floral designers Francoise Weeks, Holly Chapple, and Hitomi Galliam. Mary Beth loves to share the techniques she has learned with others so we can all “play with flowers” and create beautiful, natural flower arrangements and more.

  • Sunday, October 26, 6:00 pm – 9:00 pm – Botanica Nocturne

    As autumn deepens and the New England Botanic Garden at Tower Hill slips into its golden hush, guests are invited to explore its more mysterious side in an evening where every herb tells a story, and every dish stirs something ancient. Candlelit tables adorned with vintage apothecary bottles and dried botanicals set the stage for a celebration of folklore, flavor, and enchantment. Seasonal ingredients are transformed into dishes infused with warmth and herbaceous notes that weave through each course. The menu has a touch of magic in each bite as an ode to nature’s healing and indulgent powers. Sip botanical cocktails, herbal tonics, and craft mocktails—elixirs echoing the garden’s flavors. As the night unfolds, the glow of candlelight and warmth of good company create an atmosphere of wonder, connection, and mystery. The October 26 event ($115 NEBG members, $125 nonmembers) is for 21+ age group. For full details, visit https://nebg.org/garden-dining-series/