Bring the family to the Rotch-Jones-Duff Museum and Gardens, 396 County Street in New Bedford, on July 11 at 5 pm for an evening of festivities including lawn games, make-and-take crafts and refreshment. Learn more about bee keeping from the Bristol County Beekeepers Association. This event is free as part of AHA Night. For more information visit https://rjdmuseum.org/calendar/
To herald the holiday season, residents of New Bedford’s historic neighborhoods will once again be opening their beautifully restored homes for the New Bedford Preservation Society’s signature fundraising event – the 21st Annual Holiday House Tour. The elegant parlors of the magnificent Rotch-Jones-Duff House will be featured along with several historic residences that have never before been open for the tour, all beautifully decorated for the holidays. An unlimited array of design ideas abound in the varied architecture and interiors which are as diverse as the owners. Advance tickets: $19; $17 Society Members. At the door, ALL tickets: $23
• Start at the Wamsutta Club, 427 County Street, New Bedford
• Pre-tour brunch ($17) on Sunday from 11am-1pm (reservations recommended but not required, call 508.997.7431)
• Holiday Raffle will be held at the club during tour hours
• Spot the Peppermint Pig Scavenger Hunt
SEMAP, in collaboration with The Rotch-Jones-Duff House and local organic landscaper and gardener, Jessica Duphily Cook, to offer a ‘New Beginnings’ talk on how to design and prepare your garden for springtime planting. Learn more about the positive benefits of growing and enjoying your own vegetables, fruit and herbs. Program content will provide an overview of organic gardening techniques and tried-and-true methods to guide you in creating a healthy landscape and beautiful garden environment. Don’t miss this opportunity to begin your garden planning and kick-start the growing season! Cost: RJD members, $8.00; non-members, $10.00, at door. Please visit www.rjdmuseum.org for more information.The lecture will take place Tuesday, March 29, beginning at 7:30 pm at the Rotch-Jones-Duff House, 396 County Street in New Bedford.
Attend a one day symposium sponsored by the Rotch Jones Duff House in New Bedford, Massachusetts, on Saturday, March 20, beginning at 8:30 am and concluding at 3:30 pm. In celebration of the RJD landscape, this symposium, the first of a three year landscape series exploring changing tastes in gardening in the 19th and 20th centuries, will focus on flower gardens.
Landscape designer and worldwide garden traveler Nan Sinton explores two centuries of the influences on American flower gardening as she shows how attitudes regarding spaces have evolved in her talk entitled “What Were They Thinking?” Gardener, author, lecturer and long time instructor at New York Botanical Garden, Keynote Speaker Page Dickey, author of Dogs in Their Gardens, invites gardeners to discover how the floral bounty of meadows and natural places can be brought home to even the tiniest space in her illustrated lecture, “Bringing Wildness into the Garden”, followed by a book signing. Later, Joann Vieira, Director of Horticulture at Tower Hill Botanic Garden in Boylston, who leads the planning and planting of the extensive gardens and dynamic indoor and outdoor container displays there, will reveal which flowers she chooses for an extended season of bloom in “Tradition Meets Experiment: The Best Plants for a Flourishing Flower Garden.” Following these presentations, there will be time for informal questions with the speakers. Registration at The Rotch-Jones-Duff House and Garden Museum, 396 County Road, New Bedford, Massachusetts, begins at 8:30 am, and the program cost of $65 per person (members of the sponsor Rotch Jones Duff House) or $75 (nonmembers) includes lunch. For more information, or to purchase tickets, call 508-997-1401, or log on to www.rjdmuseum.org.
