Boston Flora

Tag: The Trustees

  • Saturday, March 20 – Monday, March 22 – 45th Annual Gardener’s Gathering, Online

    The Trustees of Reservations (The Trustees) announces the 45th Annual Gardener’s Gathering will take place March 20-22 online, focusing on how community gardens are not only food sources, but can become hubs of social activism and community support.  

    Hosted by the Trustees Boston Community Gardens and the City of Boston, the Gathering is free and has something for both beginners and skilled gardeners, as well as those curious to learn more about urban gardening. This year’s event will be headlined by Michael W. Twitty, award-winning chef and author of The Cooking Gene, who will deliver a special guest presentation on culinary justice, sharing knowledge around crops, and practicing integrated learning across intergenerational linguistic and ethnic spaces. 

    Continuing a long tradition of partnership with the City of Boston, the Mayor will kick off the Gathering on Saturday with a keynote address and present the Community Garden Awards to the “Most Valuable Gardener,” “Rookie Garden of the Year” and “Hall of Fame Garden.”

    Twitty will deliver his special presentation on Saturday at 11 am. A two-time James Beard award winning author, chef from Washington, D.C., and also a culinary historian, he draws on his African-American and Jewish cultural backgrounds to explore the ways that recipes, heirloom crops, and food shape and evolve with our identities and our history. He will speak about gardens as healing spaces and places to work through the issues of living in a multicultural democracy.

    Skill-building workshops are the backbone of the Gardeners’ Gathering. This year’s lineup will feature some garden basics for the many new gardeners who started last spring and summer: seed starting; composting; and how to save your own seeds. More advanced workshops will include no-till gardening, building your own self watering containers, and how to grow and use medicinal herbs. Young people from The Food Project will show participants how to build and plant raised bed gardens. For those looking to start a community garden, Shani Fletcher from the City of Boston’s Grassroots program will walk them through that process and share what resources the City has available. Building on the theme of Twitty’s talk, veteran community gardeners will share their tips on growing crops that are important to their culture and family history, including okra, callaloo, and sweet potatoes.

    Several sessions will focus on how gardens can be hubs for community organizing, activism, and mutual aid. Eastie Farm will highlight how they mobilize their site for meal distribution, community resources and advocacy efforts. Representatives from different community gardening organizations in New York will speak to how they’ve activated their gardens not just for growing food and building community among gardeners, but also channeling that into broader action on social and environmental justice. A discussion led by two experienced urban growers and educators from Boston will focus on how we can activate our city’s community gardens as hubs for social change.

    Free registration is available at www.thetrustees.org/gathering.

  • Saturday, March 20 – Tuesday, March 23 – Gardener’s Gathering, Online

    Kick off the gardening season with the Trustees’ annual Gardeners’ Gathering. The Gathering is free and open to all. This year’s virtual event will be spread out over several days and feature:

    • Workshops on gardening and urban homesteading skills for beginning and advanced gardeners
    • Interactive panel discussions on the role of gardens in community resilience and mutual aid
    • Keynote address and presentation of the Community Garden Awards.

    Program details will be linked here when available. Register and you’ll receive the program and Zoom links when available. If you’re able, please consider supporting this free event with an optional program fee when you register.

  • Saturday, March 20, 10:00 am – 11:30 am – Spring Bulbs Planter Workshop, Online

    The Stevens-Coolidge House & Gardens and The Trustees present an online Spring Bulbs Planter Workshop online on March 20 at 10 am. Don’t wait for April showers. Join the Trustees in a virtual spring bulb planter workshop.

    Each participant will be introduced to different spring plant varieties, learn how to care for and arrange a thoughtful garden-inspired bulb planter in a light and vibrant color palette using basic floral design fundamentals and unique ingredients. Perfect for gift-giving or bring spring into your home after the long winter.

    Space is limited. Pre-registration required and will close 5 days before workshop date.

    Call to arrange plant and supplies pick-up for the Friday before the workshop. Add-on $7 contactless delivery to Andover or North Andover address for Friday before the workshop between 10am and 5pm.

    These workshops will be on Zoom. Pre-registration required. Participants will receive Zoom link and login info the morning of the program.

    Due to the nature of this event all purchases are final and will not be eligible for refunds or transfers. Questions? Want to become a Trustees member and enjoy free or discounted programs? Contact kbibeau@thetrustees.org $60 for Members, $75 for nonmembers. Register at https://thetrustees.org/event/59398/ Image courtesy of the Royal Horticultural Society.

  • Thursday, March 18, 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm – Small Plants, Big Bang, Online

    Spring is an ideal time to be transplanting woody plants, and this Massachusetts Horticultural Society online lecture on March 18 at 7 pm will introduce you to new and old favorites that make the most of small spaces.  In the excitement to create a beautiful outdoor living space, many gardeners overplant (in number or size). Learn about the long-term consequences of overplanting, and how to avoid it by introducing the smaller gems of the plant world into your garden. Design your next garden bed with some unique native groundcovers, dwarf conifers, and more!

    Jen Kettel is an arborist and horticulturist serving the New England area. She is a recent graduate of the American Society for Consulting Arborists (ASCA) Academy, an advanced professional training for experienced arborists. As the owner of Radiant Leaf Consulting, she shares her passion for horticulture through the training she provides to both homeowners and green industry professionals.

    Currently, she is a consultant for The Trustees’ public gardens, and a guest lecturer and trainer at the University of Massachusetts, the Arnold Arboretum, and the International Society of Arboriculture (ISA). In addition, she collaborates with other professionals through volunteer appointments on the Landscape Advisory Committee for the Wakefield Estate and Arboretum and the Board of Directors at Stearns Organic Farm.

    Prior to starting Radiant Leaf Consulting in 2013, she worked as a staff horticulturist at Harvard University’s Arnold Arboretum for more than ten years, and served on the board of directors for the International Society of Arboriculture’s local chapter for five years.

    $26 for Mass Hort members, $32 general admission. Register online at www.masshort.org.

  • Thursday, March 4, 6:00 pm – 7:30 pm – Vegetable Garden Planning, Online

    Want to grow a productive, healthy garden this year, while taking care of your soil and ecosystem? Join The Trustees and Boston Community Gardens online on March 4 at 6 pm to learn techniques for growing more food in the space you have and leave with a garden map and planting plan for the season! $9 Trustees members, $15 nonmembers. Register at https://thetrustees.org/event/59448/

    If the fee is a barrier to your participation, please reach out to mdelima@thetrustees.org.

  • Thursday, February 25, 6:30 pm – Virtual Rappaport Prize Lecture: Sonya Clark

    On February 25, beginning at 6:30 Eastern time, the DeCordova Museum presents a free virtual talk by acclaimed artist Sonya Clark, recipient of the 2020 Rappaport Prize. Clark (b. 1967, Washington, D.C.) is Professor of Art at Amherst College and best known as a fiber artist whose powerful work addresses issues of race, history, and culture. In her artwork, Clark turns everyday items such as hair combs and flags into aesthetic objects. Across all mediums, Clark challenges viewers to make connections between past and present, probing the roots of racial and national identities, and highlighting links between the founding of the United States, the institution of slavery, and contemporary practices of policing and incarceration.

    Created in 2000 and endowed in 2010, the Rappaport Prize is an annual art award presented by deCordova through the generosity of the Phyllis and Jerome Lyle Rappaport Foundation. To register visit https://thetrustees.org/event/59354/

  • Remembering Barbara Erickson

    The Board of Directors and the Executives of The Trustees have notified us of the passing of Barbara Erickson, President and CEO, on the afternoon of January 15, 2021. After a valiant struggle with cancer, Barbara, only 42 years old, passed peacefully surrounded by family at her home. Her obituary may be viewed HERE.

    Jocelyn Forbush, Executive Vice President, has been serving as Acting President and CEO while Barbara has been on medical leave. She will continue in that post while the Board of Directors determines the next steps. She and the full Executive Team, as well as the Board of Directors are committed to maintaining a strong foundation of stability and continuity for the organization.

    Barbara has served as President and CEO since 2012 and under her leadership, the organization achieved many important milestones. Her tenure will be defined by growth, mission-focus, new leadership, expanded audiences, and renewed philanthropy. In her first five years, she led the organization through a strategic plan, The Path Forward, achieving all parts of the five-year strategy and exceeding most of the key goals. Barbara led the organization through the $26.2 million Cultural Resources Campaign which helped to revitalize many of the organization’s cultural sites. The operating budget for the organization has nearly doubled. The membership base has grown from 42,000 households to 75,000 and 100% in revenue. Barbara led several key integrations and partnerships including the Boston Public Market Kitchen, The FARM Institute, Fruitlands Museum, and deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum. Additionally, several new acquisitions were opened under her tenure including Allen Haskell Public Gardens, Governor Oliver Ames Estate, and more recently Gerry Island, Jewell Hill, and Mary Cummings Park. Initiatives such as Art and the Landscape were conceived, funded, and launched under her leadership. She hired and recruited key staff in development, finance, marketing, and recently technology, community, and volunteerism building out the leadership of the organization.

    In 2016, Barbara led the development of the current Strategic Plan, Momentum, which outlines ambitions for five areas of work and 43 metric goals. These include the development of a waterfront park in Boston, coastal work which addressed climate impacts, expanded public gardens, a flagship farm property, and attraction of audiences through an initiative to get the next generation outdoors. In the first three years, the plan is on track to achieve new heights for the organization.

    Ambition, tenacity, and audacious thinking defined Barbara’s presidency. She will be remembered for her strong vision and aspirations for the organization. Personally, she championed leadership by women in the workplace and especially mothers. She also avidly loved the outdoors and travel. She contemplated the “forever” part of our work deeply and never stopped thinking about how to make the organization better, more sustainable, and secure for a far-off future that she would not see. Indeed, that future has arrived too quickly and now we live with her legacy, and long for her vision. We will not forget our audacious leader Barbara Erickson. Thank you, Barbara for all that you gave to The Trustees and to each of us.

  • Wednesday, November 18, 7:00 pm – 8:15 pm – About Art, Nature, and Spiritual Life: Polly Thayer Starr and the Religious Society of Friends, Online

    Polly Thayer Starr was an artist who lived beyond tidy definitions. Classically trained and well-spoken, she bounded onto the 1930s art scene, gaining fame for her formal portraits of Boston’s elite. With eyes and hands in constant motion, she recorded what she saw in sketches, collected and annotated poems torn from magazines, and wrote prolific letters and lectures. “I want to see with my whole being,” she declared, and “I seek what the form will reveal of essence, what the visible will tell me of the invisible.”

    The act of meditative discovery was at the heart of Starr’s approach to life and art. Over time, she came to see deep observation of nature and people around her as an act of prayer, and her art as a spiritual discipline. Not particularly religious in her early years, Starr became a Quaker in her 30s,as her artistic career was taking shape. For more than 60 years, this relationship unified her aesthetic and spiritual experience and shaped the pictures she shared with the public while in turn she contributed to a new wave of interest in art among Friends.

    Join Annie Storr for a virtual talk exploring these connections of Art, Nature, and Spiritual Life of Polly Thayer Starr.

    Please pre-register online for virtual access to this Zoom program. This program is presented in conjunction with the exhibition “Polly Thayer Starr: Nearer the Essence” which will open at Fruitlands Museum in September 2020 with generous support of the Polly Thayer Starr Charitable Trust. Program is free to Trustees members, $5 for nonmembers. Register at https://thetrustees.org/event/58421/

  • Friday, October 23, 5:00 pm – Saturday, October 24, 9:00 am – Camping on the Grand Allee

    Camp on the Grand Allee, the central landscape feature at Castle Hill on the Crane Estate in Ipswich, a National Historic Landmark, for a once-in-a-lifetime experience! Enjoy s’mores-making around a campfire at base camp (a/k/a the Casino Complex), a night sleeping under the stars, and waking to magnificent estate and ocean views.

    Bathroom facilities at the Casino Complex will be available. Space is limited to 8 families. Participants must provide their own tent, bedrolls, and cold supper. Cooking on-site is not permitted. An overnight manager will greet guests, prepare a self-contained campfire and s’mores kits for each group, serve morning coffee, and sanitize restrooms between scheduled family visits.

    Pre-registration is required. Trustees members $88 per family, nonmembers $118. Register at https://thetrustees.org/event/57353/

  • Through June 1, 2021 – PLATFORM 26 – Tree …#2

    For PLATFORM 26, South Korean photographer Myoung Ho Lee adapts one of his singular Tree photographs for a large-scale billboard set in deCordova’s verdant Sculpture Park. Traveling across South Korea and Mongolia, Lee searches for stunning, solitary trees to photograph. Once he finds the perfect subject, a production crew hoists a blank canvas behind the tree as Lee captures it with his large format camera. He later digitally erases the cranes, ropes, and assistants, leaving only traces of their existence in the final composition. Tree…#2 distills the natural beauty of Lee’s travels, while also revealing the performative nature of photography that is often concealed.

    PLATFORM is a series of one-person commissioned projects by early-and mid-career artists from New England, national, and international art communities that engage with deCordova’s unique landscape. The PLATFORM series lets artists expand their practice and visitors experience new approaches to contemporary sculpture. Free with admission to the park, located at 51 Sandy Pond Road in Lincoln. For more information visit https://thetrustees.org/exhibit/platform-26-myoung-ho-lee-tree-2/