At the New England Botanical Garden at Tower Hill’s annual orchid exhibition, immerse yourself in bright colors, bold designs, and vibrant patterns that celebrate the artistry of orchids. Patterns in Bloom showcases thousands of living orchids displayed in artful arrangements as well as the imaginative sculptural work of artist Molly Gambardella. Experience the creative wonder of this breathtaking orchid exhibition during daytime hours or through an exciting lineup of special events, including our Orchids After Dark series. This year’s Orchid Exhibition Guide is available to download HERE.
On the opening weekend, February 10 – 11 from 10 – 4, be among the first to experience these stunning orchid displays and imaginative works of art, in addition to live music and an artisan vendor market to kick off the opening of the exhibit. On Fridays, February 15 – March 15 from 6 – 8, experience the brilliance of the exhibition after-hours. Enjoy jazz, drinks, and light bites while curating the stunning orchid displays in a whole new light. Ticket price for Orchids After Dark includes one free beverage and a unique night out. $20 members, $30 nonmembers.
Take deep breaths, slow down and leave your “to do” list behind. Experience the therapeutic benefits of horticulture while planting bulbs which will bloom indoors with beautiful colors and fragrances during winter. Feel calm and refreshed with positive energy by focusing on being in the moment and engaging your senses one at a time – sight, touch, sound, and smell – while interacting with sensory rich plant materials.
Our New England Botanical Garden at Tower Hill class on January 28 at 1 pm will include an overview of the therapeutic benefits and power of horticulture to understand why and how it can be used personally, and for people of all ages and abilities. We will discuss the difference between therapeutic horticulture and horticultural therapy. You will learn about benefits including increased relaxation, decreased anxiety, stress relief, sensory stimulation, hope, improved cognitive abilities, engagement in life, connectedness, and physical exercise. It will be clear how plants and the natural world give you support when life gets overwhelmingly busy or stressful. We will spend approximately 40 minutes delving into this.
You will spend approximately 80 minutes exploring and discovering the amazing world of bulbs. We will learn together about what a bulb is, the richness of ones that flower and bulbs that provide us with food. Have you ever seen paperwhites or Amaryllis? Different varieties of these will be available for you to choose to plant. You will take them home to grow and watch the progress as the leaves and flowers appear. These flowering bulbs will look lovely on your kitchen or dining room table, in a family room, as a welcome by your front door or to give as a gift. Join Deborah Krause, Horticultural Therapist, in these relaxing sessions where you may leave with a smile, feeling of calm and peace, and pride in your creation.
$85 for NEBG members, $100 for nonmembers. Register at www.nebg.org
Learn to create your own art journal for creative inspiration using book binding techniques. In this New England Botanic Garden class on January 12 from 10:30 – 1, you will learn simple book binding methods of creating multiple signatures with a simple stitch binding, how to bind the signature together to make a thicker book, and a unique, simple way to make a hardcover. Your journal can be made with blank papers or bring along your own artworks and favorite decorative papers to incorporate into an original book.
Instructor Linda Snay was born in Connecticut and has always been drawn to the world of art. She discovered watercolors at a young age and was encouraged by art teachers. She studied art in college and went on to graduate from Eastern Connecticut State University with a BA, double major in Studio Art and Art History. After moving to Massachusetts, her career led to positions in education in museums and art centers, and she is currently a teaching artist leading engaging art classes for both children and adults. She works in various media, including watercolor, acrylic, oil, and pastel. She is a member of Arts Worcester and participates regularly in exhibitions in Central Massachusetts
$60 for NEBG members, $75 for nonmembers (includes admission to the Garden). Register at www.nebg.org
Join The New England Botanic Garden at Tower Hill for a special program on October 14 from 10:30 – 12:30 that will highlight the ceremonial aspects of cacao. During this program, you will participate in guided meditation and reflection, sample ceremonial cacao, and learn more about its spiritual and scientific properties.
Instructor: Rachel Goldberg
As a Certified Professional Coach (CPC) and Energy Leadership Index Master Practitioner (ELI-MP), Rachel integrates her devotion to energetic health with intuitive pattern recognition skills and iPEC coaching tools to facilitate attitudinal awareness for her clients. Creating a safe space for her clients to withdraw from external pressures and witness their patterns without judgment, Rachel’s coaching practice empowers her clients to radically accept what currently is, while making clear focused decisions for moving forward. Working as a team, Rachel supports her clients in designing and achieving goals born from their authentic spirits.
Rachel’s greatest passion is cultivating intimate connections through ceremony. Connection between self and spirit, humanity, and nature, and most of all, unconditionally loving and accepting connection between people. She believes the art of ceremony is one of the most potent ways to create a sacred space in which each soul feels seen, heard, and witnessed. A space in which to surrender to vulnerability and expression. After having developed a ceremonial practice over the past five years with cacao as her guide, Rachel is honored to spread this heart-opening medicine to the western world. To foster and nurture intimacy among those called to take the journey. To hold space as we drop from the busy and guarded head space into the raw and open-heart space.
$45 Member Adult; $60 Adult (includes admission to the Garden)
No single view of a tree is a fixed snapshot in time that tells the complete story. Join Michael Wojtech at New England Botanic Garden at Tower Hill on September 9 from 9 – noon and discover how trees grow, reproduce, and interact with their environment across days, weeks, seasons, and years and over varying scales—from the intricate details of buds, flowers, leaves, and bark that we use for species identification to the collaborative roles of trees in ecosystems. Learn more about the function and experience the beauty of characteristics such as overwintering buds, lobed or toothed leaves, flowers by the thousands, and seeds that fly on the wind. The Garden Club of the Back Bay presented this program in Boston last year – this expanded version includes a nature walk. Please come dressed to walk around the gardens, potentially on the forest trails.
Michael Wojtech is the author of Bark: A Field Guide to Trees of the Northeast. As a naturalist and educator, Michael strives to share the science and wonder of trees in an accessible and compelling fashion. He writes, photographs, illustrates, and presents programs about the structure, growth processes, and ecology of trees-including their bark, buds, leaves, roots, and wood-for audiences at all levels of experience. He is especially interested in the process of discovery and engagement and draws his greatest inspiration from sharing the sense of wonder, awe, and the recognition of beauty that result from these investigations.
$40 NEBG Member Adult; $55 Adult (includes admission to the gardens)
Join The New England Botanical Garden at Tower Hill as they celebrate the LGBTQ+ community and the two weeks of Pride Worcester with an evening of lively entertainment and fun, family-friendly festivities. Enjoy gardens of beautiful blooms and a Beer Garden serving craft drinks and light bites. Show your support by shopping local from talented LGBTQ+ artisan vendors and connect with community organizations providing valuable resources. The celebration continues with a themed Decades Dance Party and a spectacular Drag Show. Dress as your favorite decade to match the theme and come ready to dance the night away. The event is free but admission tickets MUST be reserved online in advance HERE.
Take deep breaths, slow down and leave your “to do” list behind. Experience the therapeutic benefits of horticulture while enjoying and creating fragrant items with amazing herbs. You will make different fragrant items with fresh and dried herbs, while learning basic techniques. Information will be shared on herb plants you can easily grow. All of these provide rich input for our senses which positively affects our health and wellness. Feel calm and refreshed with positive energy by focusing on being in the moment and engaging each of your senses – sight, touch, sound, smell and taste – while interacting with sensory rich plant materials.
This August 17 New England Botanical Garden at Tower Hill class will include an overview of the therapeutic benefits and power of horticulture to understand why and how it can be used personally, and for people of all ages and abilities. We will discuss the difference between therapeutic horticulture and horticultural therapy. You will learn about benefits including increased relaxation, decreased anxiety, stress relief, sensory stimulation, hope, improved cognitive abilities, engagement in life, “connectedness,” and physical exercise. It will be clear how plants and the natural world give you support when life gets overwhelmingly busy or stressful. We will spend approximately 40 minutes delving into this.
You will spend approximately 80 minutes exploring herbs in the gardens, harvesting a variety of herb plants and learning how to dry herbs so they last. We will use the herbs, including lavender, to make sachets, potpourri and one of a kind greeting cards. Adding herbs to your life can bring beauty to your home, good health and can also make lovely gifts. Join Deborah Krause, Horticultural Therapist, in this relaxing session where you may leave with a smile, feeling of calm and peace, and pride in your creations.
Deborah Krause is a Registered Horticultural Therapist. She is passionate about wellness and the therapeutic benefits of horticulture for people of all ages and abilities. She has served in various capacities in the American Horticultural Therapy Association (AHTA) and the Northeast Horticultural Therapy Network (NEHTN), which she co-founded, and currently is on the Board of Directors. Deborah developed the horticultural therapy program at Perkins School for the Blind and was the horticultural therapist and coordinator of the horticulture center there for 40 years. She is currently a program coordinator at The Nature Connection whose mission is to improve the wellbeing of individuals and communities through the therapeutic use of nature. Deborah is the horticulture educator at the Memorial Spaulding School Garden where students grow produce to donate to food pantries. She is a horticulture instructor at Danny’s Place for youth. She presents webinars for AARP on adaptive gardening. Deborah consults with non-profit organizations to design and facilitate therapeutic and educational horticulture and nature programs. Deborah’s popular classes for adults creating sensory rich seasonal flower and plant arrangements have focused on relaxation, stress reduction and positive thinking and she is honored and happy to continue to bring this to New England Botanic Garden at Tower Hill.
$80 NEBG members, $95 nonmembers. To register, visit www.nebg.org
Come join local herbalist and arborist Alex Klein for a walk around the New England Botanic Garden at Tower Hill grounds on August 12 from 1- 3 to get to know our local trees in all their summertime glory. Compared to our other Tree ID walks, we’ll focus a little more on leaf structure this time around. We will also assess how trees are responding to their environmental conditions and how this affects the way they appear and other irregularities in form. As always, we will talk about natural history, ecology and cultural uses of our astounding local tree species. Come with lots of questions and ideas about what you’ve been seeing in the canopy over the summer.
Alex Klein is an herbalist in Boston, where he runs a humble practice offering sliding-scale consultations to help his neighbors feel better using plant medicine. He works with people on all sorts of health concerns, though given the impetus of our modern world, most often finds himself helping clients with mental health and sleep struggles, chronic illnesses and pain, and menstrual and digestive issues. He trained under 7Song at the Northeast School of Botanical Medicine and the Ithaca Free Clinic, and on occasion staffs herbal First Aid tents at primitive skill gatherings. He has also climbed trees up and down the East Coast as an arborist, getting to know well the goings on of the upper canopies, as well as the understory of the forest through his botanical expeditions as a wild-crafting herbalist. Alex sees himself as an intermediary between people and plants, helping connect clients and students to nature in a way that can bring enjoyment and ease to their lives.
$35 Member Adult; $50 Adult (includes admission to the Garden) Register at www.nebg.org
Experience CHIAOZZA, an exhibit of imaginative, colorful sculptures and wall works displayed across New England Botanic Garden through October 15, 2023. Discover the surprising creative parallels between growing plants and making art in a show inspired by the wonders of the plant world.
In this lively and playful exhibition, Brooklyn-based artists Adam Frezza and Terri Chiao explore the curious forms found in grafted trees and plants. Strolling through the gardens, visitors will encounter a series of 10 large sculptures called “Gemels” ranging in height from five to ten feet each. The works themselves, painted paper pulp forms set on white pedestals, emerge along walking paths, nestled among plantings, in flower beds, under trees, and even in a fountain. As part of the exhibition, additional sculptures, wall works, and a short film created by the artists are on view inside the Milton Gallery.
CHIAOZZA (rhymes with “wowza” or “yowza”) is inspired by Leo Lionni, best known for his numerous acclaimed children’s books, such as Inch by Inchand Frederick, wrote the book Parallel Botany, in which he explored the world of “parallel”—or imagined—plants. He presented very convincing folklore, scientific studies, histories, and illustrations of extraordinary and peculiar plants that exist in parallel with those of the visible world, all of which were invented by him. For more information, visit https://nebg.org/chiaozza/
In this online New England Botanical Garden workshop on July 18, discover beautiful, delectable, and stress-free foods to create for outdoor eating. We will be preparing a mix of vegetarian, fish, and dairy dishes that are heavy on vegetables, fruits, and herbs that enhance flavors and help us to eat more healthfully.
During this 90-minute class we will make four dishes:
Tofu or tuna/caper roll-ups. These are brightly flavored and layered with greens, shredded vegetables, and homemade boursin, and rolled up for easy eating.
Cole Slaw: cabbage, carrot, pickled ginger, red onion.
Deviled Eggs: a new look at fillings for a timeless picnic favorite
Marinated olive, pepper and mozzarella salad with herb and garlic dressing
An ingredients list and recipes will be provided beforehand so you can cook along with the rest of the class.
Instructor: Laura Ziman
Laura Ziman is a greatly experienced cooking instructor who hails from New York City, where she grew up eating the plethora of foods available. After graduating from college, she attended cooking school in Paris. On her return to New York, she started her life as a professional cook, which includes years of teaching, catering, owning a restaurant, and food styling for television. More recently she has added teaching and lecturing on topics of food history. Even without a restaurant, she cooks every day.
$20 Member Adult; $30 Adult (Online Workshop)
The webinar will be recorded, and a link to the video will be available until September 18, 2023. Register at www.nebg.org
