Boston Flora

Tag: Thomas Woltz

  • Thursday, June 26, 4:00 pm – 6:00 pm – Garden Legacies: Uncovering and Preserving Their Histories with Thomas Woltz

    On June 26 at 4 pm, Historic New England will host a program at Hollister House Garden addressing Garden Legacies and Historic Preservation. The event will consist of a conversation between renowned landscape architect Thomas Woltz and Vin Cipolla, president and CEO of Historic New England. George Schoellkopf, creator of Hollister House Garden, will introduce the evening.

    Woltz and his firm, Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects, work on such sensitive and complex projects as Monticello’s Stewardship Master Plan, Olana Strategic Landscape Design, Aga Khan Garden, and Houston’s Memorial Park Master Plan. Drawing on their own significant bodies of work, Cipolla and Woltz will explore how the ecological and cultural histories of landscapes and gardens are uncovered and integrated into meaningful public experiences.

    Light refreshments will be served and following the program all attendees are invited to enjoy the garden.

    The Land is Full, a celebration of parks and public gardens by renowned landscape architecture firm Nelson Byrd Woltz will be available for sale.

    The program is free and open to the public. Advance reservation is requested. Reserve HERE. This conversation is part of a series sponsored by Historic New England Trustee Edward F.Gerber to address issues relevant to preservation on Connecticut. Historic New England’s 38 history museums, farms and landscapes include Roseland Cottage, the Codman Estate, Hamilton House and Beauport which continue to be meaningfully reinterpreted for the public..

  • Saturday, February 18, 5:00 pm – 6:00 pm Eastern – Berkshire Botanical Garden’s 26th Annual Winter Lecture with Midori Shintani, Online

    Berkshire Botanical Garden presents Midori Shintani, head gardener of Japan’s famous Tokachi Millennium Forest, in its online Winter Lecture, “Discovering Tokachi,” on February 18, 5 p.m. to 6 p.m.

    Midori will share how she and her team have nurtured the native forests and cultivated garden areas through the seasons. She will also explain how her gardening methods are rooted in the accumulated wisdom of the ancient Japanese belief of mother culture, and how she has built a solid partnership with garden designer Dan Pearson and her garden team.

    The Tokachi Millennium Forest is located at the foot of the Hidaka Mountains in Hokkaido, the northernmost island of Japan. The project was originally started in 1990 by a local newspaper company that acquired about 990 acres there to create a carbon-offsetting forest. Eventually this became a project to restore the natural forest ecosystems, to share with the public and be sustainable for the next 1,000 years. The garden project of the Tokachi Millennium Forest began in 1996. In 2008, the forest officially was opened to the public, and has continued to evolve. 

    Midori Shintani was born and raised in the Fukui Prefecture in central Japan, in the countryside surrounded by sea and mountains. Spending time with plants in this area rich with nature was an early influence. Midori trained in horticulture and landscape architecture at Minami Kyushu University, Japan. In 2002 she moved to Sweden and trained to become a gardener at Millesgården and Rosendals Trädgård. In 2004 she moved back to Japan and worked at a garden design and landscaping company and perennial nursery, gaining experience in both traditional and modern techniques to create her own gardening style. Since 2008 she has been the head gardener of Tokachi Millennium Forest, merging “new Japanese horticulture” into wild nature. She writes and lectures widely.

    Tickets for the Winter Lecture are $30 for members of Berkshire Botanical Garden and $35 for non-members and are available online at berkshirebotanical.org/events or by calling 413-320-4794. 

    Established in 1997, the Winter Lecture Series was initiated by the Berkshire Botanical Garden to bring inspiring and noted speakers to the region to talk about horticulture, landscape design and history, plants and plant exploration, and home gardening. Past speakers have included such luminaries as Tom Coward, Marco Polo Stufano, Dan Hinkley, Edwina von Gal, Penelope Hobhouse, Bill Cullina, Fergus Garrett, Debs Goodenough, Dr. Michael Dirr, Ken Druse, Anna Pavord, Thomas Woltz and Margaret Roach. Proceeds from ticket sales support the Garden’s education programs.

  • Wednesday, March 9, 1:00 pm – 2:30 pm – Craft, Conservation, & Cattle

    Frequently, the side tangents that presenters don’t have time to explore are as enlightening as their core material. In this New Directions in the American Landscape online session, landscape designer Larry Weaner will conduct an informal interview, conversation, and “note comparing” session with landscape architect Thomas Woltz (pictured below). Given his education in the fields of architecture, landscape architecture, fine arts, and architectural history, it is not surprising that Thomas takes a broad approach to designing landscapes. Throw in a love of “working lands’’ and “wild places” derived from growing up on a North Carolina farm and you have an individual who defines landscape architecture much more expansively than most. In this March 9 session we will explore the many paths that intersect at Nelson Byrd Woltz, a firm that received 11 ASLA awards in 2020 alone. Cosponsored by Wild Ones – Native Plants, Natural Landscapes, the American Horticultural Society, and the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. $45. Register at www.ndal.org.

  • Thursday, November 18 – A Carefully Curated Daylong Excursion to Nashville’s Great Cultural Landscapes

    The Cultural Landscape Foundation’s (TCLF) annual excursion in Nashville will be memorable for its sweeping historic narrative of the city’s most significant cultural landscapes and the depth of knowledge that visitors will be afforded by guides Tara Armistead, Doug Reed, FASLA, Susan Turner, FASLA, and Thomas Woltz, FASLA. Complementing the excellent destinations will be exquisite food and refreshments including mid-morning hors d’oeuvres followed by a lunch prepared by celebrated Chef Jason LaIacona from Miel Restaurant, and an optional capstone reception. Transportation is provided.

    The day begins at Fort Negley, located just over one mile south of Nashville’s downtown built on land seized by the Union Army in 1862. Constructed of local limestone by African American laborers on the crest of Saint Cloud Hill, Fort Negley was the crown jewel of the federal fortifications and entrenchments that ringed the city.

    Antebellum Glen Leven Farm was part of a 640-acre Revolutionary War land grant. The Federal-style mansion (1857) is fronted by the remnants of a formal garden and carriage drive. The surrounding landscape is crisscrossed by hedgerows, stone fences and is drained by Brown’s Creek. The property is dotted with magnolias, ash, gingko, black walnut, laurel oak, and pecans, the rolling upland terrain also includes a dogwood planted ca.1883 and an English hedge maple reportedly brought from Kew Gardens in the 1880s. The farm is also the home of the Tennessee Land Trust.

    Centennial Park’s origins date to the late 1700s. It was the state fairgrounds (1884-1895) and the site of the 1897 Tennessee Centennial Exposition, which featured neoclassical buildings including a full-scale plaster replica of the Parthenon, rebuilt in concrete ca.1920. Over the past decade significant project work has been undertaken and the second phase of the master plan, now underway, involves the addition of an entry plaza with a multispecies allée, a formal events lawn, and new gardens near the Parthenon.

    The excursion will conclude at Cheekwood Museum and Botanical Garden, which was originally the estate of coffee investors Leslie and Mabel Cheek who purchased the property in the late 1920s. They hired architect/landscape architect Bryant Fleming to design what is now one of the great surviving Country Place Era estates. Fleming designed a Georgian-style mansion and series of terraced formal gardens inspired by eighteenth-century English estates. In the 1950s Huldah Cheek and Walter Sharp gifted the estate to a group of civic organizations; it opened in 1960. Today, much of Fleming’s original gardens remain, alongside more recent garden additions.

    Following the excursion there will be a reception at Cheekwood (a separately ticketed event). The event will include exclusive access to the Holiday lights display before it opens to the public, and a catered reception that will also showcase a presentation of TCLF’s Annual Stewardship Excellence Awards.

    Space is strictly limited, and this event will sell out. Excursion tickets are fully tax-deductible thanks to the generosity of our sponsors.

    To learn more about the Reception click here.

  • #Garden Preservation: Preserving, Sharing, and Celebrating America’s Cultural Legacy

    For more than 30 years, the Garden Conservancy has been championing gardens and broadening the preservation narrative. This strategic, multidisciplinary approach to preserving gardens weaves together the practical and the intangible. The Conservancy facilitates on-the-ground restoration of historic gardens and also documents gardens, capturing their history and spirit through film, photography, interviews, and archives filled with plans and maps. It holds conservation easements that permanently protect “conservation values”—the most significant features of gardens, such as their plant collections, design, hardscape, and/or vistas. It advocates for gardens at risk, taking a public stand to raise awareness and encourage action. And, as preservation is not possible without education, it engages the community and provides professional development to garden leaders, board members, and staff, and provide mentorship and resources as well.

    #GardenPreservation: Preserving, Sharing, and Celebrating America’s Cultural Legacy, published in June 2021, is an oversize, 64-page volume containing essays by experts in the field as well as short summaries of more than 100 preservation projects of the Garden Conservancy since 1989. Illustrated by Dana Scott Westring. Click here to view an animated PDF of the whole book. 

    Seven essays from leading voices in preservation, landscape architecture, garden history, conservation, and documentation—and one interview—present a range of perspectives on garden preservation:

    A User’s Guide to Preservation: One Contemporary Designer’s Perspective on History, by Thomas Woltz

    Preserving Traces and Remnants of a Gardening Past, by Brent Leggs and Lawana Holland-Moore

    I am here. by Shaun Spencer-Hester

    Interview with the Stewards of Rocky Hills, Barbara and Rick Romeo

    The Importance of Preserving Gardens, by Walter Hood

    An Accidental Preservationist, by Judith B. Tankard

    Preserving Gardens that Spring from the Soul, by Lucinda Brockway

    Landscape and Memory at Sylvester Manor, by Donnamarie Barnes

    The essays are followed by short profiles of more than 100 of the Garden Conservancy’s preservation projects and partners since 1989.

    Both the essays and profiles reveal the garden as a cultural bridge, a site for scientific study and ecological conservation, a path to equity and social justice, a catalyst for design innovation, and a stimulus for spiritual expansion.

    Order a copy of #GardenPreservation here.

  • Saturday, February 20, 2:00 pm – Berkshire Botanical Garden Winter Lecture, Online

    Berkshire Botanical Garden’s 24th annual Winter Lecture, Make Visible, Instill Value and Engage the Public in Our Shared Landscape Heritage will be held online on Saturday, February 20, 2021 featuring Charles Birnbaum, FASLA, FAAR, President and CEO of The Cultural Landscape Foundation, Washington, D.C.

    Drawing heavily on both the work of The Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF) and many of their collaborators, this lecture will highlight a diversity of resource types throughout the U.S., emphasizing stewardship strategies and opportunities for public engagement in the Berkshires region. What is the foundational knowledge that informs stewardship/interpretation of our shared landscape legacy? How do we assign value and assess significance for our cultural landscape legacy? How can we work (and communicate) holistically across multiple disciplines? How do we make a landscape’s layers of history, (a.k.a. “palimpsest”), at a cultural landscape like Naumkeag, The Mount or Elm Court understood? Then, armed with this foundational knowledge, how can we tell these stories to the broadest possible public?

    Finally, the interface between history/historic preservation and natural systems/ecology in weighing decisions will provide an armature for new ideas and strategies.

    The Winter Lecture Series began in 1997 to bring inspiring and noted speakers to the region to talk about horticulture, landscape design and history, plants and plant exploration, and home gardening. Past speakers have included such luminaries as Marco Polo Stufano, Dan Hinkley, Penelope Hobhouse, Bill Cullina, Fergus Garrett, Debs Goodenough, Dr. Michael Dirr, Ken Druse, Anna Pavord, Thomas Woltz and Margaret Roach. Proceeds from ticket sales support the Garden’s educational efforts. Sponsored by The Red Lion Inn, Stockbridge, MA.

    Online registration for this program is temporarily unavailable. Please call 413 354-8410 to register. 

  • Thursday, November 8, 6:30 pm – 8:00 pm – Thomas Woltz: Restoration Ecology

    Over the past two decades of practice, landscape architect Thomas Woltz has forged a body of work that integrates the beauty and function of built forms with an understanding of complex biological systems and restoration ecology. As principal of Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects (NBW), a 45-person firm based in Charlottesville, Virginia and New York City, Woltz has infused narratives of the land into the places where people live, work and play, deepening the public’s enjoyment of the natural world and inspiring environmental stewardship. NBW projects create models of biodiversity and sustainable agriculture within areas of damaged ecological infrastructure and working farmland, yielding hundreds of acres of reconstructed wetlands, reforested land, and flourishing wildlife habitat.

    Presently, Thomas and NBW are entrusted with the design of major public parks across the United States, Canada and New Zealand, they include Memorial Park in Houston, Hudson Yards in New York City, NoMA Green in Washington DC, Cornwall Park in Auckland, the Aga Khan Garden in Alberta, Canada, and three parks in Nashville, including Centennial Park.

    In 2013 was named Design Innovator of the Year by the Wall Street Journal magazine and in 2017 Fast Company named Woltz one of the most creative people in business. Thomas will speak at the Harvard Graduate School of Design’s Piper Auditorium on Quincy Street in Cambridge on Thursday, November 8 at 6:30 pm. Free and open to the public. For more information visit http://www.gsd.harvard.edu/event/thomas-woltz/

    Image result for thomas woltz restoration ecology

  • Saturday, January 13, 2:00 pm – The New Shade Garden: Creating a Lush Oasis in the Age of Climate Change

    Berkshire Botanical Garden’s 2018 Annual Winter Lecture will take place Saturday, January 13 at 2 pm at Lenox Memorial High School in Lenox.

    Ken Druse plumbs the depths of shade once again – 20 years after the publication of his best seller, The Natural Shade Garden. This time, it’s to tackle the challenges that have arisen due to our changing climate. The low-stress environment of shade (lower temperatures, fewer water demands, carbon sequestration) is extremely beneficial for our plants, our planet, and us. Ken details new ways of looking at all aspects of the gardening process, in topics such as designing your garden, choosing and planting trees, preparing soil, solving the deer problem, and the vast array of flowers and foliage – all within the challenges of a changing climate, shrinking resources, and new weather patterns. Ken knows that the best defense is to create a cool, verdant retreat – he says, “The garden of the future will be in the shade.”

    Ken Druse is a celebrated lecturer, an award-winning photographer, and an author, who has been called “the guru of natural gardening” by the New York Times. He is best known for his twenty gar­den books published over the last twenty-five years. The American Horticultural Society listed his first large-format work, The Natural Garden (Clarkson Potter, 1988), among the best books of all time. His book, Making More Plants (Stewart Tabori & Chang, 2012) won the award of the year from the prestigious Garden Writers Association. That group gave Ken the 2013 gold medal for photography and the silver for writing. Also in 2013, the Smithsonian Institute announced the acquisition of the Ken Druse Collection of Garden Photography comprising 100,000 images of American gardens and plants.

    The Garden Club of America presented Ken with the Sarah Chapman Francis medal for lifetime achievement in garden communication.

    KenDruse.com is a blog with ten years of archived podcast interviews. He also appears monthly on Margaret Roach’s radio show, A Way to Garden.

    The Winter Lecture Series was begun by the Berkshire Botanical Garden in 1997 and was established to bring inspiring speakers to the region to talk about horticulture, landscape design and history, plants and plant exploration, and home gardening.

    Over the years, the Garden has invited such luminaries as Marco Polo Stufano, Anna Pavord, Joe Eck, Tovah Martin, Dan Hinkley, W. Gary Smith, Penelope Hobhouse, Ken Druse, Gordon Hayward, Lauren Springer and Scott Ogden, Bill Cullina, Fergus Garrett, Debs Goodenough, Margaret Roach, Michael Dirr, Glyn Jones, Louis Benech, Alan Power and Thomas Woltz to share their knowledge of plants, gardening, design and history with an interested audience of gardeners and horticulturists from the region. The series has proven to be a popular event in the region and is held annually in mid-winter. Proceeds from ticket sales are used to further the Garden’s education and horticulture efforts.

    Advance registration is highly recommended, but walk-ins are always welcome, space permitting.  Many thanks to the Winter Lecture sponsor: The Red Lion Inn. Register online at https://berkshirebotanical.org/see-and-do/winter-lecture-series/

  • Saturday, February 11, 2:00 pm – 4:00 pm – Design Philosophy, Plantsmanship, and More

    On Saturday, February 11 from 2 – 4, Thomas Woltz shares his design philosophy, his superb sense of plantsmanship focused on selecting species and varieties that have a connection to the local flora and fauna, and his use of indigenous materials. He will focus on landscapes he has created in the region, private gardens, Hudson’s Olana and Coastal Maine Botanical Garden.

    Woltz is a principal at the landscape architecture firm Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects, where he helped establish the firm’s Conservation Agriculture Studio.  This Berkshire Botanical Garden Winter Lecture will be held at the Monument Mountain Regional High School Auditorium, 600 Stockbridge Road in Great Barrington. BBG members $35, nonmembers $45. To register visit http://www.berkshirebotanical.org/