The New York Botanical Garden has been a connective hub among people, plants, and the planet since 1891. Since inception, millions of visitors have made the Garden a part of their lives, exploring the joy, beauty, and respite of nature here in the heart of the Bronx. One of the Garden’s remarkable leaders, Todd Forrest, Arthur Ross Vice President for Horticulture and Living Collections, has dedicated himself to the development and reimagination of many well-loved areas within these 250-acres for over 20 years, including the Benenson Ornamental Conifers, the Native Plant Garden, the Azalea Garden, and the Thain Family Forest, as well as the annual Orchid Show and many interdisciplinary exhibitions.
On October 14, at 6:30 pm, hear from Forrest as he reveals the role landscape architecture plays in enticing visitors to return every season. He will share how his collaborations with distinguished landscape architects and designers—such as Laurie Olin, Signe Nielsen, Lynden Miller, Madison Cox, Susan Cohen, Piet Oudolf, Sarah Price, Shavaun Towers, just to name a few—have brought varied artistic visions to NYBG. This is the first lecture of the 27th Annual Landscape Design Portfolios Lecture Series. Register for the complete series HERE.
Dedicated to personal contemplation and reflection, Calder Gardens will spotlight the art and ideas of one of the twentieth century’s most influential artists, who happened to be a native Philadelphian. It will feature a building conceived by Pritzker Prize-winning design practice Herzog & de Meuron and gardens by internationally acclaimed Dutch landscape designer Piet Oudolf. Read more.
In January 2025, Calder Gardens announced the appointment of Juana Berrío as the Marsha Perelman Senior Director of Programs. Berrío is a curator, educator, and arts programmer, with extensive experience in the creative cultural field. In this new role, she will be responsible for curating public programs that foster engagement, enrichment, and community, including a robust and inclusive slate of performances, events, and wellness activities that resonate with Calder’s art in the galleries. Learn more.
Calder Gardens is scheduled to open in Philadelphia in September 2025. Stay up-to-date and be among the first to know when tickets go on sale.
Jacqueline van der Kloet will share bulb basics, color combinations, seasonal care for bulbs including naturalizing them to become independent, layering bulbs, growing bulbs on a larger scale, and integration for constant blooms in the garden for the Berkshire Botanical Garden Winter Lecture 2025 on Sunday, February 16, at 2 p.m. Join her on the journey through her favorite spring, summer, autumn, and winter flowering bulbs, and case studies of her naturalistic garden designs from around the world, including the Netherlands, Japan, Germany, the UK, and the Lurie Garden in the United States, where she collaborated with leading plantsman, Piet Oudolf.
Growing Bulbs in the Natural Garden is a four-season guide to combining bulbs with perennials and grasses in a loose, carefree style, from a leading figure in the New Perennial movement. From the earliest snowdrops to alpine violets, tulips, alliums, late autumn crocuses, and many more, bulbs add interest and color to the garden throughout the year. Renowned naturalistic garden designer, Jacqueline van der Kloet, has mastered a casual, magical technique where bulbs emerge playfully among other plants, as if dancing freely among the perennials and grasses. Both friendly and accessible, van der Kloet will explore the recently published book; introducing bulbs as essential to any garden at any scale, inviting in pollinators, providing wonderful pops of color and personality, and extending a garden’s bloom time in the shoulder seasons.
Growing Bulbs in the Natural Garden provides unique inspiration and expert insight gained from van der Kloet’s vast career, using nature as a model. Indeed, growing bulbs in van der Kloet‘s style makes the garden appear as if nature had planted the bulbs herself.
Jacqueline van der Kloet is an internationally acclaimed garden designer and one of Holland’s best-known gardening authorities. She is a plant specialist whose advice is sought by designers and landscape architects. Her designs are prized for their beauty, naturalized schemes, bold uses of color. Van der Kloet’s client list includes some of the most prestigious public gardens in the world. In North America, she teamed with Piet Oudolf for innovative plantings at New York’s Battery Park, New York Botanical Garden, and Chicago’s Lurie Garden. Her work across Europe and Asia ranges from Holland’s famous Keukenhof, to the palace Huis ten Bosch in Nagasaki, Japan to the Newport Bay Club at Disneyland, Paris. Her work includes many private gardens and she frequently contributes to international exhibitions.
Also, please join us for a coffee and cookie reception after the lecture, to be held at the Lenox Middle High School in Lenox, Massachusetts. BBG members $40, nonmembers $55. Register at www.berkshirebotanical.org
In this Berkshire Botanical Garden online class, learn about garden makeovers from Deborah Chud’s portfolio on January 27 from 10 to 11:30 a.m online. Following a brief discussion of the features of wild landscapes fundamental to naturalistic landscape design, she takes you inside her solutions to garden dilemmas. The specific dilemmas addressed in this class involve: replacement of traditional shrubs, integration of a valued backdrop and existing trees, and whether there can be too much of a good thing in a garden. $15 for BBG members, $20 for nonmembers. Register at https://www.berkshirebotanical.org/events/reimagined-garden-online
Deborah Chud is a retired Massachusetts physician turned garden maker, consultant and educator. Her six years of research on New Perennial gardens, including those at New York City’s High Line, Chicago’s Lurie Garden, the Oudolf Meadow at Delaware Botanic Gardens, and Oudolf Garden Detroit, generated a comprehensive existing database of New Perennial plant combinations and led to the creation of her own highly unusual New Perennial garden. In the fall of 2020, she presented her work as part of “Piet Oudolf: How Does He Do It?”– an international event organized by Piet Oudolf’s co-author, Noel Kingsbury, under the aegis of Garden Masterclass (gardenmasterclass.org).
The American Horticultural Society invites you to hear a virtual presentation on January 19 at 2 pm Eastern with Noel Kingsbury, PhD, author and garden designer, on New Nature for a Climate Change Future.
In a world of dramatically changing climate, garden and landscape design must conserve biodiversity as well as provide habitat for humans. Renowned author and garden designer Noel Kingsbury will guide participants in discovering models and approaches to accomplish these gardening goals. We will look at the range of nature-inspired planting created in recent years, captured in powerful images by leading photographer Claire Takacs, while examining how and why these designs and plant choices support nature.
Noel Kingsbury is an internationally known innovator, writer, and teacher in the fields of gardening and planting design. His doctoral scholarship analyzes the long-term performance of perennials, which he continues to research and disseminate in practitioner workshops. Kingsbury has published 25 books, including New Perennial Design that launched a movement in naturalistic planting design, and four publications with Dutch designer Piet Oudolf.
In Not Your Mother’s Garden, Deborah Chud takes her audience on a photo tour of her dramatic Piet-Oudolf-style New Perennial Garden and describes the design principles underlying it. Many of the plants are unfamiliar – even to experienced and knowledgeable gardeners. These “New Perennials” constitute a special canon of plants that exhibit qualities valued by members of the New Perennial Movement – pioneers in the shift toward naturalist landscape design. What’s new about New Perennials and what can they do for you? Walk through her garden with her to find out. This online presentation sponsored by New England Botanic Garden at Tower Hill takes place Thursday, January 25 at 7 pm Eastern, and is $10 for NEBG members, $15 for nonmembers. Register at www.nebg.org.
Deborah Chud is a retired Massachusetts physician turned garden maker, consultant, and educator, who specializes in coaching home gardeners (in-person and virtually). Her years of research on the world’s most famous New Perennial gardens (including New York’s High Line, Chicago’s Lurie Garden, the Oudolf Meadow at Delaware Botanic Garden, and Oudolf Garden Detroit) have generated a unique database of New Perennial plant combinations and fostered the creation of her own highly unusual New Perennial garden.
The Berkshire Botanical Garden presents a personal introduction to the design principles of Piet Oudolf — one of the world’s leading naturalistic landscape designers. His work includes New York’s High Line, Chicago’s Lurie Garden, the Oudolf Meadow at Delaware Botanic Gardens, and Oudolf Garden Detroit. Deborah Chud’s five years of research on Oudolf’s gardens led to her own Oudolfian garden and the only known database of his plant combinations. Part 1 of this class traces her discovery of Oudolf’s work, her research on his plant combinations and her use of that research to create a garden in his style. Part 2 explores the historical context in which he emerged as a landscape designer. Part 3 provides an introduction to his design principles, particularly his concept of structure and the special balance he creates between coherence and contrast. At the end of the talk, participants will enjoy some practical Oudolfian “do’s and don’ts” for solving the problem of excessive contrast. Co-hosted with New England Botanic Garden. $12 for BBG and NEBG members, $15 for nonmembers. Register at https://www.berkshirebotanical.org/events/birth-new-perennial-garden
Deborah Chud is a retired Massachusetts physician turned garden maker, consultant and educator. Her five years of research on Piet Oudolf have generated the most comprehensive database of his plant combinations. In the fall of 2020, she presented her work at an international event organized by Oudolf’s co-author, Noel Kingsbury, under the aegis of gardenmasterclass.org. Deborah has also presented to members of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, Harvard’s Arnold Arboretum, the United States Botanical Garden in Washington, D.C., the Ecological Landscape Alliance, the Northwest Perennial Alliance, Toronto Botanical Garden, and Delaware Botanic Gardens. The latter two public gardens contain Oudolf-designed sections.
Planting design today is undergoing a revolution. With an increased focus on sustainability, private gardens and public spaces alike have embraced naturalistic planting, a movement that is rooted in environmental reality and prioritizes ethical concerns over geometric precision. Using breathtaking images from their new book, Wild: The Naturalistic Garden, renowned garden designer Noel Kingsbury and award-winning photographer Claire Takacs will explore a range of forward-thinking green spaces that are wild by nature, including iconic, high-profile public projects by Piet Oudolf and Bernard Trainor, privately owned gardens, and NYBG’s Native Plant Garden. The lecture is $25 for New York Botanical Garden members, $29 for nonmembers.
Purchase a copy of Wild: The Naturalistic Garden along with your ticket for 10% off the retail price + free shipping. If you would like to receive the book in time for the event on June 8, please purchase your ticket/book by Monday, May 23. All copies ordered after May 23 will arrive within two weeks following the event.
Join the Ecological Landscape Alliance and Horticulturist Gregg Tepper online on November 17 at noon to learn about and understand the history and challenges of a SITES Gold landscape and real-world solutions to achieve the desired results. From the site’s creation in 2008 and original design intent, to 2020 and its evolved management plan, Tepper will share the difficulties faced and detailed, pragmatic solutions needed to overcome them. The topics include invasive species and stormwater mitigation, native plant choices, and maintenance strategies effectively utilized for this managed-succession site. From its current existence as a meadow through its future progression to a late-succession woodland, you’ll learn what Tepper has planned, and you’ll find the revealed surprise of this truly unique site. Free for ELA members, $10 for nonmembers. Register at www.ecolandscaping.org
Gregg Tepper is a professional horticulturist, lecturer, consultant, and lifelong native plant enthusiast. After studying Ornamental Horticulture at the University of Delaware and several years creating his own ornamental and native plant gardens, Mr. Tepper started a horticultural maintenance business designing and managing private gardens in southeast Pennsylvania and northern Delaware. He went on to work at Mt. Cuba Center in Hockessin, DE where he held the positions of Horticulturist, Woods Path Horticulturist, and Director of Horticulture. Subsequently he was Director of Horticulture and board member of Delaware Botanic Gardens in Dagsboro, DE. He was instrumental in developing the initial horticultural mission, leading the garden steward volunteers, and implementing a two-acre meadow designed by world-renown garden designer Piet Oudolf. Mr. Tepper is now the Horticulturist at the Arboretum at Laurel Hill and West Laurel Hill Cemeteries in Philadelphia, PA where he manages various display gardens including Nature’s Sanctuary, a SITES Gold credited landscape. Gregg has lectured extensively in the United States and Great Britain. Also, he is co-author of the book Deer-resistant Native Plants for the Northeast.
After completing a feature documentary on New York’s High Line, award-winning filmmaker Thomas Piper met the inspirational designer and plantsman, Piet Oudolf, and the idea for a new project was born. Five Seasons: The Gardens of Piet Oudolf immerses viewers in Oudolf’s work and takes us inside his creative process, from his beautifully abstract sketches, to theories on beauty, to the ecological implications of his ideas. Intimate discussions take place through all four seasons in Piet’s own gardens at Hummelo, and on visits to his signature public works in New York, Chicago, and the Netherlands, as well as to the far-flung locations that inspire his genius, including desert wildflowers in West Texas and post-industrial forests in Pennsylvania. As a narrative thread, the film also follows Oudolf as he designs and installs a major new garden at Hauser & Wirth Somerset, a gallery and arts center in Southwest England, a garden he considers his best work yet. Piet Oudolf has radically redefined what gardens can be. As Rick Darke, the famous botanist, says to Piet in the film, “your work teaches us to see what what we have been unable to see.” Through poetic cinematography and unique access, Five Seasons reveals all that Piet sees, and celebrate all that we as viewers have been unable to see.
“For me, garden design isn’t just about plants, it is about emotion, atmosphere, a sense of contemplation. You try to move people with what you do. You look at this, and it goes deeper than what you see. It reminds you of something in the genes – nature, or the longing for nature.” – Piet Oudolf
A free screening on Wednesday, February 12 will take place at The Umbrella, 40 Stow Street in Concord, and is sponsored by The Garden Club of Concord. A brief business meeting for the GCC will begin at 6 pm at the theater. The doors open to the public at 6:30.
