Boston Flora

Tag: The Green Garden

  • Saturday, August 4, 10:00 am – 12:00 noon – Pollinator-Friendly Gardens and Landscapes

    Bees and other pollinators are all the buzz these days. Pollinator populations are crashing locally and worldwide, but these tiny forms of wildlife are vital to food production, pest management, and environmental stability. Even in a small backyard, you can help support pollinators through careful plant choices and a basic knowledge of the varied habitat needs of native bees and other beneficial insects. In this Tower Hill Botanic Garden class with Ellen Sousa on August 4 from 10 – noon, you’ll learn to identify some of the good – and bad – bugs flying around your gardens, and at the same time welcome a whole new dimension to your enjoyment of gardening and the natural world. We’ll also spend some time exploring the gardens looking for pollinators in their garden habitats.

    Ellen Sousa is a garden coach, designer and author from Turkey Hill Brook Farm in Spencer MA, a small native plant nursery and habitat farm. Since 2007, Ellen has worked with homeowners, landowners and non-profit organizations to design and manage landscapes that support local biodiversity. She is the author of the book The Green Garden: A New England Guide to Planning, Planting & Maintaining the Eco-friendly Habitat Garden. Tower Hill member price $20, non-members $30. Register at www.towerhillbg.org.

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  • Thursday, April 12, 10:00 am – The Green Garden: Earth-Friendly Gardening in New England

    Ellen Sousa, whose book, The Green Garden, offers a step-by-step way to make your garden more ecologically friendly, will speak at Elm Bank on Thursday, April 12, at 10:00 a.m. She will offer an illustrated talk on earth-friendly gardening in New England.

    Ellen enjoys a reputation as a renowned garden coach, working with homeowners who want to make their gardens more natural and welcoming to a variety of inhabitants. Many of those techniques are explained in her book, The Green Garden: a New England Guide to Planning, Planting and Maintaining the Eco-Friendly Habitat Garden, which was reviewed in the January Leaflet. Her ideas are put into practice at her central Massachusetts property, Turkey Hill Brook Farm, where she works with her husband, Robert.

    Ellen sets a high but reasonable threshold for her gardens; namely, that they must be sustainable for enjoyment by future generations. They should be beneficial in that they attract the animals and insects that were indigenous to our area before European settlement. Her goal is to gradually reverse the missteps made over a period of centuries. She acknowledges that doing so takes hard work, but that it can be done in small, manageable steps.

    But the results are both tangible and rewarding: Turkey Hill Brook Farm won the 2011 New England Wildflower Society’s Katherine T. Taylor Award for Private Gardens. The farm is also a certified Monarch Waystation.

    Everyone is welcome to attend the talk. There is no fee and light refreshments will be served. Copies of The Green Garden will be for sale. While no reservation is required, Librarian Maureen Horn says it would be helpful to have an idea of how many people to expect. You can call or email her at 617-933-4912 or MHorn@Masshort.org.