Boston Flora

Tag: Outstanding American Gardens

  • Thursday, October 22, 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm – Uprooted With Page Dickey, Online

    Enjoy a virtual lecture and Q&A session on October 22 at 6:30 with author Page Dickey about her new book, Uprooted: A Gardener Reflects on Beginning Again. Page Dickey knew the transitions she faced walking away from her celebrated garden at Duck Hill after thirty-four years. What surprised her were the happy opportunities that came with starting over. Uprooted follows Dickey’s evolution from old to new, cultivated to wild, and from one type of gardener to another. It is a story for anyone who has had to begin anew—in gardening or in life. This virtual Author Talk is presented by Tower Hill Botanic Garden in collaboration with Berkshire Botanical Garden and Timber Press, an imprint of Workman Publishing. All books available for purchase through Tower Hill’s online Garden Shop. A link to the Zoom webinar will be sent after registration in the confirmation email. Author Talks will only be available live. They will not be recorded. $10 for sponsor members, $15 for nonmembers. Register at www.towerhillbg.org or at www.berkshirebotanical.org

    Page Dickey has been gardening passionately since her early twenties and writing about gardening, as well as designing gardens for others, for three decades. She has written eight books and edited another, most of which concentrate on aspects of garden design such as creating gardens that reflect their settings. Page was the editor of Outstanding American Gardens, celebrating 25 years of the Garden Conservancy with photographs by Marion Brenner. Her new book, Uprooted: A Gardener Reflects on Beginning Again, describes leaving a beloved garden of thirty-four years, finding a home in the northwest corner of Connecticut and falling in love with its land. Page lectures around the country about plants and garden design and has written for House and Garden, House Beautiful, Architectural Digest, Horticulture, Elle Décor, Garden Design and The New York Times. She serves on the boards of the Garden Conservancy; Stonecrop Garden in Cold Spring, NY; Hollister House Garden in Washington, CT and The Little Guild in Cornwall, CT and is a member of the Friends of Horticulture at Wave Hill. Page was recently elected an Honorary Member of The Garden Club of America.

  • Saturday, September 9, 10:00 am – 4:00 pm – Garden to Table at Clock Barn

    Join the Garden Conservancy’s Open Days, a nationwide garden education program, for an adventure-filled day for gardeners and foodies of all ages in the extraordinary Gardens at the Clock Barn, home of Maureen and Mike Ruettgers in Carlisle, MA. From a stylish landscape full of choice plants to an inviting and inventive children’s garden with myriad hands-on activities, there are delights aplenty to discover from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, September 9, 2017.

    Gardens at the Clock Barn, 453 Bedford Road, Carlisle, is certainly a place of magic. It was featured in Outstanding American Gardens: A Celebration: 25 Years of the Garden Conservancy (Abrams, 2015) Surrounding a late 18th century house and drying barn, this utterly charming garden brims over with herbs, vegetables, and flowers for cutting, in addition to choice perennials, trees, and shrubs. It also includes an amazing garden for children, a veritable wonderland designed to ignite curiosity and elicit delight in young gardeners from toddlers on up. There are many gardens to explore, including the pizza garden, fairy garden, pumpkin patch, and tee pee – plus watering cans everywhere for anyone to use. Throughout the day, activities for families will abound, from three scavenger hunts (little kids, big kids, and a rare plant hunt for adults) to demonstrations on straw bale gardening and making lavender ice cream. The Ruettgers’s beekeeper will be on site and guests will be able to create their own bee hotels for native pollinators. Farm and Fable (www.farmandfable.com), an online shop focused on beautifully made goods for the kitchen and home launched by Ruettgers daughter Abigail Flanagan, will host a pop-up shop offering carefully curated goods for gardeners and cooks.

    Open Days and the Ruettgers will also welcome a special guest, Chef Ben Elliott. Using fresh ingredients from his nearby Saltbox Farm, Ben will demonstrate preparation of one of his signature seasonal dishes during interactive demonstrations at 11 a.m. and 1 p.m., giving families and foodies alike ample opportunity to exchange ideas with him—and with each other. Through the Garden Conservancy, farm-to-table box lunches from Ben’s acclaimed local café and brewery, Saltbox Kitchen, will be available to Open Days guests via pre-order.

    Chef Ben Elliott has more than twenty years’ experience working with some of the country’s most renowned chefs, including Barbara Lynch in Boston, named one of Time’s 100 Most Influential People this year, and Laurant Gras in San Francisco. Ben and his young family live and work at the 10-acre Saltbox Farm started by his grandparents in Concord in the 1940s. As a child, Ben spent summers in the fields at Saltbox Farm with his grandfather and learned to cook alongside his grandmother, so he knows the joy and importance of growing and preparing food with loved ones. This is a practice shared by generations of the Ruettgers family, and one they hope to encourage during this special celebration in their private garden. Ben brings the farm-to-table ethos to life at Saltbox Farm, which offers an annual CSA program, acts as a venue for weddings and other catered events, and offers regular cooking classes (www.saltboxfarmconcord.com). Saltbox Farm also provides much of the fresh produce for Saltbox Kitchen, Ben’s café, brewery, and catering company, in West Concord (www.saltboxkitchen.com).

    Admission to this Open Day is $7 per person; children 12 and under are free. There will be no additional charge to participate in any of the activities, although there will be a charge of $15 for Saltbox Kitchen’s box lunches, which must be ordered in advance. To order lunches or for any additional information, please contact the Garden Conservancy’s Open Days either by phone at 888.842.2442 or by email at opendays@gardenconservancy.org, or visit www.gardenconservancy.org.

  • Friday, August 19, 7:00 pm – Outstanding American Gardens with Page Dickey

    In this August 19 talk sponsored by the Garden Conservancy, Page Dickey shows and describes a variety of private gardens in the U.S. and in Europe that especially appeal to her because of their strong sense of design, atmosphere, or spirit of originality. She will feature gardens that she has visited through Open Days (a program she co-founded in 1995) and that she has written about in numerous books, most recently Outstanding American Gardens, which she edited to celebrate the Garden Conservancy’s 25th Anniversary. She ends with some pictures of her own garden which is a favorite simply because it is hers. The lecture will take place beginning at 7 pm in Bass Hall at the Monadnock Center for History & Culture, 19 Grove Street in Peterborough, New Hampshire. $10 for members of the Garden Conservancy, $15 for nonmembers. Register at www.gardenconservancy.org.

  • Sunday, February 21, 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm – Outstanding American Gardens: A Celebration

    Tower Hill Botanic Garden welcomes Page Dickey, editor of Outstanding American Gardens, on Sunday, February 21 from 1 – 2. This beautiful book showcases fifty stunning public and private gardens from coast to coast featured by the Garden Conservancy since 1989. Historic, modernist, traditional, cottage seaside, exotic, tropical, classic Southern, farmhouse, prison, organic and xeric – all are among the many types of gardens exquisitely photographed and described.

    Page Dickey has been gardening passionately since her early twenties. She writes about gardening, garden design, and America’s gardens for House and Garden, House Beautiful, Horticulture, Elle Décor, Fine Gardening, Garden Design, and other publications. She is the author of several books, including Gardens in the Spirit of Place, Breaking Ground, and Inside Out. Her first book, Duck Hill Journal, and her most recent, Embroidered Ground, are about Duck Hill in New York, where she lived and gardened for thirty years. Page cofounded the Open Days program in 1995 and has served on the board of directors of the Garden Conservancy since 2004. She also serves on the boards of Stonecrop, Frank Cabot’s garden in Cold Spring, NY, and Hollister House Garden in Washington, CT.

    To register for this event, please call Gayle Holland (508) 869-6111 x124 or email gholland@towerhillbg.org. THBG members $15, nonmembers $25.