Boston Flora

Tag: Tower Hill Botanic Garden

  • Saturday, March 25, 1:30 pm – 2:30 pm – Plants, Pollinators, and How to Support Them

    On Saturday, March 25 at 1:30 pm at Tower Hill Botanic Garden, 11 French Drive in Boylston, Joseph Tychonievich explains the interesting ways plants have evolved to attract their preferred pollinators. Along with a tour of nature’s most creative (and sometimes disgusting) methods of connecting pollinators and plants, Joseph discusses ways to foster biodiversity in your own garden and shows examples of managing garden pests by letting other insects do the dirty work.

    A life long gardener and lover of plants, Joseph earned his BS in horticulture from Ohio State University, went on to work for Shibamichi Honten Nursery in Saitama, Japan, has been a repeated guest on public radio’s food show The Splendid Table, wrote a book, Plant Breeding for the Home Gardener,  Timber Press, 2013), spent two years working at the famed rare plants nursery Arrowhead Alpines and was named by Organic Gardening Magazine as one of “…six young horticulturists who are helping to shape how America gardens.” Joseph’s most recent book is Rock Gardening: Reimagining a Classic Style (Timber Press, 2016). Currently Joseph lives and gardens with his husband and an adorable black cat in SE Michigan. $15 for Tower Hill members, $25 for nonmembers. Register online at www.towerhillbg.org.

  • Tower Hill Botanic Garden Announces Appointment of Grace Elton as CEO

    Tower Hill Botanic Garden is pleased to announce that Grace Elton will become CEO of the Boylston-based nonprofit this spring.

    Elton has been the director of horticulture at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden in Richmond, Va., since 2011, where she has established herself as a forward-thinking leader of one of the nation’s premier gardens.  Among Elton’s achievements at Lewis Ginter are a new apiary with demonstration beehives, partnerships to grow hops for a local brewery and expansion of a vegetable garden which contributes produce for an area food bank, and the planting of Lewis Ginter’s first native plant garden.

    A Florida native, Elton was first turned on to the importance of plants as a child living in Everglades National Park, where her parents worked. She received a Bachelor of Science degree in Agricultural Interdisciplinary Studies with a specialization in public garden management from the University of Florida and a Masters in Public Horticulture from the Longwood Graduate Program of the University of Delaware. After experiences interning at London’s Royal Botanic Gardens Kew and Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania, Elton returned to the UK to work with five separate gardens as a recipient of the Garden Club of America’s prestigious Martin McLaren Horticulture Scholarship.

    Prior to joining Lewis Ginter, Elton served as adjunct professor and arboretum supervisor at the Ambler Arboretum of Temple University.  Currently, she serves on the Board of the American Public Gardens Association, the leading association for professionals in public horticulture.

    Elton will succeed interim CEO Suzanne Maas. Maas has led Tower Hill since the departure of Kathy Abbott, who in May 2016 returned to her roots in Boston to work on waterfront and harbor issues.

    Elton will join Tower Hill during a period of tremendous growth for the organization, which welcomed 137,000 visitors and celebrated its 30th year at its Boylston location in 2016. This year is the 175th anniversary of Tower Hill’s parent organization, the Worcester County Horticultural Society. Tower Hill is also offering more programs and welcoming more members than ever before. Elton will take the reins as the organization moves closer to implementing the first phases of its new Master Plan, which calls for more gardens and programs for visitors to enjoy.

    Tower Hill Botanic Garden is a nonprofit organization dedicated to connecting plants and people. Its mission is to inspire the use and appreciation of horticulture to improve lives, enrich communities and strengthen commitment to the natural world. The Tower Hill property includes 15 gardens, an historic apple orchard, a restaurant, gift shop, conservatories, library, and art galleries, as well as year-round programs for all ages.

  • Saturday, March 25, 11:00 am – 12:00 noon – Rock Gardening: Reimagining a Classic Style

    Joseph Tychonievich spent a year traveling all over the US and UK visiting gardens for his new book  Rock Gardening: Reimagining a Classic Style. In this Tower Hill Botanic Garden talk on Saturday, March 25 at 11 am, he shares images and ideas from some of his favorite, most unusual, and most exciting gardens to inspire the audience to take their gardens in new directions. A book signing will follow. THBG members $15, nonmembers $25. Register online at www.towerhillbg.org.

  • 2017 Master Gardener Training Course

    The Massachusetts Master Gardener Association is comprised of amateur and professional horticulturists with a mission to promote horticultural knowledge to the public through volunteerism. MMGA Master Gardeners become trained and certified through an intensive training program. The Master Gardener Training course (MGT) consists of fourteen classroom and lab modules, including soil science, botany, entomology, plant pathology, pruning and propagation. Courses are conducted by both academic and industry professionals. Starting in 2017 the MGT course will be offered at the Massachusetts Horticultural Society’s Education Building, at Elm Bank, in Wellesley, MA and at the Worcester Horticultural Society‘s Tower Hill Botanic Garden in Boylston, MA. Students can choose the location that better suits their needs when registering.

    The 2017 MGT course will be begin in April 2017 and run through October 2017. Classroom training will be held in the Spring and Fall, while hands-on training will be required throughout the growing season (with the bulk of hands-on work to be completed during the summer). In Wellesley, Spring class sessions will be held over seven Thursdays, beginning April 6th thru May 18th, from 9am-3pm. The second session will be held over seven Thursdays, from 9-3pm, beginning on September 14th thru October 26th. In Boylston the sessions will be held on Tuesdays from 9-3 starting April 11 thru May 23rd and in the Fall September 12th thru October 24th. Both Spring and Fall sessions are required for all students.

    In addition to attending classes, completing reading and homework assignments, and successfully completing take home exams, students are expected to complete a 60-hour volunteer apprenticeship (which serves as the hands-on learning segment of the course). Apprenticeship work may begin as of the start of class, and must be completed by one week prior to graduation (See Guidelines for Master Gardener Student Volunteering). Homework and handouts will be distributed electronically. Students are expected to have access to and be familiar with email, Internet, Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Adobe Acrobat (.pdf files), and to receive and send pictures in jpeg format.

    To apply for the 2017 MGT course, please submit your application and a $50 non-refundable application fee to the MMGA Class Registrar (address included on application if you are mailing a check instead of paying online).

    Full tuition and materials fee ($525; $150) are due upon acceptance. For questions or further information, please email one of the Training Course Coordinators, Steve Shaw, at sgshaw@aol.com or Cheryl Monroe at cmmyemail@gmail.com. To download forms for mailing, visit http://massmastergardeners.org/2017-master-gardener-training-course-2/

  • Thursday and Friday, April 6 & 7 – Gardening Study School Course IV, Series 10

    The Garden Club Federation of Massachusetts will conduct a Gardening Study School, Course IV, Series 10 on April 6 & 7 at Tower Hill Botanic Garden, 11 French Drive in Boylston.  Subjects covered will include Specialized Styles of Gardening with landscape designer Laura Eisner, Techniques for Growing Woody Ornamentals and Home Irrigation Techniques with Paul Rogers, Techniques for Growing Fruit with Joann Viera, Outdoor Identification of Plants with Dr. Judith Sumner, How to Exhibit Horticultural Specimens in a Flower Show with Sandy Joyce, and a test for those becoming consultants.  Suggested reading is Botany for Gardeners by Brian Capon.

    Fees are $100 for GCFM members (exam fee included), $100 for nonmembers, $100 for a refresher, and $70 for a one day registration.  Box lunches are available on advance order ($18/day).  Send a check made out to GCFM, Inc to Linda Jean Smith, Registrar, 23 Bentley Lane in Chelmsford, MA 01824-2021, and include your name, address, telephone and email, and Garden Club affiliation.  For more information email lindajean.smith@comcast.net.  Registration deadline is March 16, and there are no refunds. Image from www.newportmansions.org.

  • Sunday, February 26, 1:00 pm – 2:30 pm – The Life and Gardens of Beatrix Farrand

    Documentary filmmaker Karyl Evans has combined her two greatest professional interests – landscape architecture and filmmaking – to create The Life and Gardens of Beatrix Farrand. Long time Garden Club of New Haven member Evans, who earned her undergraduate degree in horticulture with an emphasis in landscape architecture and a masters degree in filmmaking, has produced a documentary about the historically significant gardens of Beatrix Farrand. For the past three years, Evans has focused her attention on researching Farrand’s life and work as many Farrand gardens were being rediscovered, visiting over 40 Farrand gardens and related sites from Maine to California and Washington D.C. to photograph and videotape the gardens and to talk with curators, scholars, and volunteers who were connected to the Farrand sites. In addition, Karyl conducted research at the Beatrix Farrand Archives at UC Berkeley where she discovered never-before-published materials now included in her film. The resulting 35 minute documentary is a breathtaking film about Beatrix Farrand’s life and gardens chronicling her impressive 50 year career as a landscape architect during the first half of the 20th century. Some of the gardens Evans photographed  for the film include: the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Garden in Seal Harbor, Maine, Dumbarton Oaks in Washington D.C., the East Garden at the White House, the Rose Garden at the New York Botanical Garden, her campus work at Yale and Princeton Universities, as well as three significant gardens in Connecticut. The film about Beatrix Farrand, who was the niece of Edith Wharton, also includes over 500 garden photographs, rare archival images, and interviews with Farrand scholars Diana Balmori, landscape historian and Garden Club of the Back Bay member Judith Tankard, as well as landscape architect Shavaun Towers. The documentary is a splendid overview of Farrand’s stunning gardens, her pioneering innovations on college campuses, and her ingenious design philosophy which has stood the test of time.

    Karyl Evans is a six-time Emmy Award winning director/producer/editor/writer of documentary films. In 2016 Ms. Evans won the National Academy of Television Arts and Science’s Best Director Emmy Award for her one hour documentary: Letter from Italy, 1944: A New American Oratorio narrated by Meryl Streep.

    Ms. Evans, owner of Karyl Evans Productions in North Haven, CT, has produced many historical documentaries over the past 25 years including The New Haven Green: Heart of a City, narrated by Paul Giamatti as well as a series of documentaries for public television including the History of African-Americans in Connecticut and the History of Connecticut’s Cities.  Ms. Evans was a full-time Professor at Southern Connecticut State University for two years, teaching film production and theory. Karyl is a Fellow at Yale University and is one of the organizers of the New Haven Documentary Film Festival at Yale.
    For more information about Karyl Evans visit her website at: http://karylevansproductions.com

    The movie will be screened at Tower Hill Botanic Garden on Sunday, February 26, from 1 – 2:30 pm, and THBG members pay $5, nonmembers $20.  Register online at www.towerhillbg.org.

  • Sunday, February 19, 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm – Stems and Stones: A Love Story

    Do you love the look of natural stones but you’re not sure how to use them in your landscape?  Do your planted beds seem to be lacking something but you just can’t put your finger on it? Then maybe you need a dose of good, old-fashioned inspiration! Join the husband and wife design/build team of Samantha and Neil Best from Magma Design Group for a lively discussion about the mysteries of working with stone and how plants are the finishing detail to every hardscape. On Sunday, February 19 at 1 pm at Tower Hill Botanic Garden, Neil and Samantha will share humorous stories of working together as husband and wife while showing samples of their award winning work. Neil’s discussion about the history of stone, understanding quality craftsmanship, and ways to think outside the box will leave you ready to stack any stone you can get your hands on. Samantha’s enthusiastic knowledge of plants and her determination to put them next to all of Neil’s stone creations will illustrate the beautiful combinations that can be created when these materials come together to tell their own love story!

    Samantha and Neil Best are the co-founders of Magma Design Group Inc., an award-winning landscape architecture and construction company based in Massachusetts. With over 33 years of combined experience in the landscape industry, Samantha and Neil bring an intense passion and knowledge to the world of landscape design and construction. Their work is known for its site-sensitive design, incredibly crafted stonework, unique use of plants, and creative design elements. Together they are committed to creating designs that transform properties into beautiful outdoor retreats. Their work has been published in magazines such as Design New England, This Old House, and South County Living Magazine. Samantha is a Certified Horticulturalist, a Certified Invasive Plants Manager, and a public speaker. Neil is a Registered Landscape Architect, stonemason, and public speaker. The program is free with admission, but pre-registration is requested at www.towerhillbg.org.

  • Sunday, February 11, 1:00 pm – 2:40 pm – Portrait of a Garden: A Film Screening

    Tower Hill Botanic Garden will host a screening of a documentary film Portrait of a Garden on Sunday, February 11, from 1 – 2:40 pm. In a picturesque garden on a grand country estate, two long-time friends, an 85-year-old pruning master and the gardener, tend to the espaliers. Surrounded by vegetable patches, citrus trees, the orchard and lush grapevines, they talk about food, the weather, their craft (which is quickly disappearing) and the changing world around them. For fifteen years, they’ve been working on the pear arbor. But will it finally come together this year? And what about the harvest? Will it be ready for the end-of-season banquet? Capturing one year in the life of this historic garden, the magnificent documentary Portrait of a Garden is a beautiful, transcendent viewing experience. In Dutch, with English subtitles. Member price $5, non-member price $20. Register online at www.towerhillbg.org.

  • Saturday, February 4 – Sunday, March 5 – Winter in Bloom

    In honor of Worcester County Horticultural Society’s 175th Anniversary this year, Tower Hill Botanic Garden’s floral design series invites professional and amateur designers alike to create arrangements capturing the essence of Tower Hill’s eighteen distinctive gardens.

    As New England braces for some of the coldest days of the winter, Tower Hill will be hosting Winter In Bloom: A Month of Flowers. Last winter, more visitors than ever discovered there is no better place in February to escape the cold weather and to be inspired than Tower Hill. Throughout the month – with activities planned each Friday, Saturday, and Sunday of February – there will be expert guest speakers, hands-on workshops, live music, flower shows, displays by leading floral designers, and activities geared to all ages. The rich colors and fragrances offer stimulation for the senses not only for flower lovers, but for all those seeking a break from chilly temperatures and a reminder that spring’s beauty will return once again.

    Plant and flower inspired, kid-friendly activities take center stage during February’s school vacation week offering an educational and fun day-trip that multiple generations can enjoy together. Daily vacation activities will include story walks, scavenger hunts, crafts, library programs, story time, and more.

    FEBRUARY 4–5
    Professional Designers Weekend
    Our first Winter in Bloom weekend features floral arrangements by professional designers. Experience the latest trends and witness the creativity of the area’s top floral designers.

    FEBRUARY 11–12
    Individuals and Garden Clubs
    Our second weekend features floral arrangements by individuals and Garden Clubs.

    FEBRUARY 18–19
    Artists & Makers
    Enjoy art by local artists and accompanying floral designs inspired by their work.

    FEBRUARY 25–26
    Family Weekend
    You and your kids are invited to enter a floral design of your own – either inspired by one of the gardens or created during one of our flower-arranging classes the week prior.

    MARCH 4–5
    188th Annual Camellia Show
    Don’t miss the Massachusetts Camellia Society’s 188th Annual Show of amazing blooms.

    For complete details visit www.towerhillbg.org.  Image from www.patch.com.

  • Saturday, February 4, 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm – In Bloom: Creating and Living with Flowers

    Inspiring new ways to connect with the beauty of flowers in everyday life. Like the author’s exquisite first book, Bringing Nature Home, this much-awaited follow-up title, In Bloom, presents stunning arrangements and ideas for interiors inspired by the beauty of flowers. Ngoc Minh Ngo has recorded the work of artists, designers, and tastemakers who demonstrate the many ways that flowers can enhance our homes and work spaces. Each chapter focuses on a unique way to incorporate floral designs into interiors, from flower arrangements made from foraged greenery to wall painting evoking Monet’s water lilies to paper flowers that never lose their vibrancy. Renowned photographer Oberto Gili fills his house in Italy with treasures from his bountiful garden that inspire his work, and landscape designer Miranda Brooks puts to use her passion for all things botanical in the decoration of her beautiful Brooklyn home. With exceptional photography that captures the beauty of these flower-inspired homes and text that shares how these imaginative artists and designers achieved their botanical creations, this is an irresistible book for flower lovers, decorators, and homeowners.

    Ngoc Minh Ngo, the author and photographer of Bringing Nature Home, is a self-taught photographer whose work explores the intrinsic beauty of plants and nature. Her images have been published in international publications such as T Magazine, House & Garden UK, Martha Stewart Living, and Garden Design. The talk and book signing is free with admission but pre-registration is requested at www.towerhillbg.org.