From neighborhood parks to campuses to entire communities, Olmsted’s work was always about shaping identity through landscape.
We can feel that in places like Central Park—where people don’t simply pass through, but use the space to form memories, gather, protest, celebrate, and see themselves as part of something larger. Over time, those experiences become part of how a community understands itself across generations.
For more than two decades, Party in the Park has been one of the Emerald Necklace Conservancy’s surest signs of spring—and one of Boston’s most anticipated social events. Since 2003, the event has generated more than $11.2 million in support of the Conservancy’s mission to care for, restore, and activate Boston’s historic park system.
In 2026, this beloved tradition evolves. Sparkle in the Park: An Enchanted Evening reimagines Party in the Park as an evening cocktail reception set against the natural beauty of Jamaica Pond. Designed to be festive, intimate, and immersive, Sparkle in the Park will feature cocktails, delicious fare, engaging activities, and entertainment—celebrating the Emerald Necklace in a new and memorable way.
This refreshed format honors the legacy of Party in the Park while offering supporters a new way to gather in celebration of Boston’s parks. Sparkle in the Park continues the Conservancy’s long-standing tradition of bringing together champions of the Emerald Necklace in support of this vital work.
Since its founding, Party in the Park—and now Sparkle in the Park—has made possible the care of more than 9,000 inventoried trees, as well as significant restoration and improvements throughout the historic 1,100-acre Emerald Necklace park system designed by Frederick Law Olmsted. The generosity of friends and supporters ensures these treasured landscapes remain vibrant, welcoming, and accessible for all.
This November 1 Massachusetts Horticultural Society class is for those new to botanical art as well as more experienced artists who desire a short refresher in plant morphology.
Bring your sketchbook and spend the day learning about the form, structure, and function of plants and their components through close observation and immersive drawing exercises intended to enhance your ability to draw plants accurately. The focus of this class is fall fruits, seeds and pods.
A selection of plant materials and specimens will be provided to draw during class. If you have a garden or indoor plant or a botanical specimen (such as a seed pod) you would like to draw, please feel free to bring it to class. Lauren Meier is a botanical artist and landscape architect. She received a BA in Botany from Pomona College and a Masters in Landscape Architecture from Harvard Graduate School of Design. She worked as a field botanist and plant ecologist before specializing in historic landscapes and has published many articles, contributed to several books, and frequently lectures on topics related to landscape preservation and restoration, treatment of plant material, and the work of the Olmsted Firm. Her publications and projects have received many national and local awards. Meier is currently completing a Certificate in Botanical Art and Illustration from Massachusetts Horticultural Society, formerly the Friends of Wellesley College Botanic Gardens, where she combines her specific interest in the interrelationships between science and art.
The class takes place at The Garden at Elm Bank, 900 Washington Street in Wellesley, from 10 – 4, and is $125 for Mass Hort members, $150 for nonmembers. Register at www.masshort.org
Join Emerald Necklace Conservancy President Karen Mauney-Brodek for the Annual Walk of the entire Olmsted-designed Emerald Necklace on June 7. Take in the sights, sounds and scale of these historic parks on a guided tour stretching from Franklin Park to Charlesgate. Rain Date June 8. Meet at Refectory Hill, Franklin Park, Boston 02115. Register at https://emeraldnecklace.org/. Do we need to say wear comfortable shoes?
Frederick Law Olmsted, considered the father of landscape architecture, designed some 500 public spaces in North America. The Arnold Arboretum, the only arboretum he designed, is a National Historic Landmark and a model for others around the world. Arboretum docent, Bill Beizer, will identify the elements of the Arnold Arboretum that best reflect Olmsted’s philosophy and approach to landscape design. The walk takes place December 21 at 11 am.
Accessibility: This program will take place entirely on paved roads. Meet at the Bussey Street Gate. Register HERE. Space is limited.
Inclement weather policy: Participants will be notified via email at least 24 hours in advance if a program needs to be cancelled due to inclement weather, and will be notified by phone if a program must be cancelled with less than 24 hours’ notice. Click here to view our full inclement weather policy. If you have questions about the status of a program, please email publicprograms@arnarb.harvard.edu or call the Visitor Center desk between 10:00am and 4:00pm at (617) 384-5209.
Join The Emerald Necklace Conservancy on August 25 at 10 am for a new tour in partnership withtheJamaica Plain Historical Society. Discover the wooded paths, babbling brooks and rolling hills of Olmsted Park and Pinebank, the forested midway point of Olmsted’s Emerald Necklace and source of the Muddy River.
This free tour will guide attendees through many of the natural and historic landmarks found in the heart of the Necklace: from glacial ponds to structures that once belonged to the Founding Fathers, and everything in-between!
The Boston Committee of The Garden Club of America will hold its Spring Meeting, Lecture and Luncheon on May 23 at The Country Club in Brookline. The Guest Speaker will be Ethan Carr, author of Boston’s Franklin Park: Olmsted, Recreation, and the Modern City. Members of member clubs of The Boston Committee will receive an invitation. $30 lecture, $35 luncheon. If you are not a member, you may consider joining The Garden Club of the Back Bay, which is one of the affiliate clubs.
Join The Emerald Necklace Conservancy on Wednesday, November 8 at 6:00 pm EST with Dr. Ethan Carr for a talk on his new book, Boston’s Franklin Park: Olmsted, Recreation, and the Modern City (LALH 2023), which details the history of Franklin Park from the time of peak popularity to the current era of park revival.
This talk will be held in person in Rabb Hall at the Central Library in Copley Square. Following the talk, there will be time for audience Q&A, and the program will conclude at 7:00 pm with a book signing.
Dr. Carr’s forthcoming book, Boston’s Franklin Park: Olmsted, Recreation, and the Modern City (LALH 2023), documents the design and history of Frederick Law Olmsted’s most mature expression of urban park design. In this comprehensive study, Carr affirms Franklin Park as one of great works of nineteenth-century American art. Since the 1980s, historians have described Franklin Park as unfinished, obsolete, or a casualty of changing trends in public recreation. Carr disagrees, offering a persuasive argument that the park’s decline was not a consequence of its design but of a lack of stewardship on the part of the city, an example of institutionalized racism.
Ethan Carr, FASLA, is professor of landscape architecture at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. An international authority on America’s public landscapes and the author of many books, he is lead editor of The Papers of Frederick Law Olmsted: The Early Boston Years and coauthor of Olmsted and Yosemite: Civil War, Abolition, and the National Park Idea (LALH 2022).
Nola Anderson’s book Immersion: Living and Learning in an Olmsted Garden is a magnificent celebration of a great American garden, restored to its Italianate glory and lovingly documented in new photographs.
When Nola Anderson and her husband purchased The Chimneys in 1991, the estate’s Olmsted gardens had been neglected for more than 40 years―and she had never gardened a day in her life. The restoration and renewal of these historic seaside gardens became Anderson’s three-decade, hands-on personal passion. In Immersion she recounts her inspirational journey from a naive amateur and garden owner to a Botanical Latin–slinging garden creator. Her personal story is filled with loving anecdotes, instructional experiences and serendipitous tips, all sumptuously illustrated with images by celebrated photographer Clint Clemens.
Between 1902 and 1914 Boston financier Gardiner Martin Lane and his wife, Emma, collaborated with Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. to create an Italianate garden. From the ocean bluff a series of garden terraces flow sequentially in an architectural response to the sloping topography. The topmost Water Terrace includes a rose-covered pergola, a beach-view shelter and a stunning water feature inspired by Italy’s famed 16th-century Villa Lante. From this elevation, a succession of granite steps descends through the shady Overlook Terrace, the Lavender Terrace, the all-white Tea Terrace, the Vegetable Garden, the Crabapple Allee and, finally, the luxuriant Rose Garden.
In the early 20th century, The Chimneys gardens were acclaimed in numerous books and magazines. Today, they are once again the centerpiece of the estate and a vibrant example of horticultural elegance.
Ms. Anderson will speak at the Boston Athenaeum on September 20 at 6 pm. Free for Athenaeum members, $5 for nonmembers. Register for the live program HERE. Register for the virtual program HERE.
What’s Out There® Weekend (WOTW) Cleveland will bring to light the local character of the city as reflected by its publicly accessible parks, gardens, plazas, cemeteries, memorials, and neighborhoods. The region boasts more than 24,000 acres of publicly accessible green space, including a National Park, several scenic reservations, seminal landscapes designed by the Olmsted firm, A.D. Taylor, Ernest Bowditch, and others, and exciting contemporary projects enlivening the city’s center. In addition to significant works of landscape architecture, the area possesses a rich diversity of cultural landscapes, including several sites included in the National Park Service’s Underground Railroad Network to Freedom, such as Lake View and Erie Street Cemeteries.
Working in collaboration with myriad local partners, The Cultural Landscape Foundation will make visible and instill value in the places that make the region unique, and engage the public to promote their sustained stewardship. WOTW Cleveland will engage a large and diverse audience (typically 1,000+), offering two days of free, expert-led tours of up to 30 sites, encouraging participants to discover the little-known design history of places they may pass every day. For more information, and registration, visit https://www.tclf.org/whats-out-there-weekend-cleveland
