The beauty of leaves is all around us in the fall. Learn and practice drawing this fantastic foliage and using colored pencils to add their stunning fall colors. A few acorns or seed pods may find their way into your drawings, too! This October 10 Tower Hill Botanic Garden program will be held from 1 – 3 under our open sided outdoor canopy tent. Group size will not exceed current state restrictions (10).
Carol Schwartz graduated from the Kansas City Art Institute, attending her senior year at Rhode Island School of Design. She earned her MFA in Illustration from the University of Hartford, Connecticut in 2014. Her education equipped her to be diverse and adaptable, with work appearing in 60 picture books and countless magazines, newspapers and advertisements.
The urban heat island is a phenomenon where urban communities are many degrees hotter than their surrounding rural neighbors. This bubble of hot air can be over 10 degrees hotter, increasing these community’s vulnerability to extreme heat events (temperature above 90-degrees). In the summer of 2020, there have been over 21 days of extreme heat in Worcester with potentially severe health risks and increased energy use. The urban heat island is an environmental ill that is not equitably born; lower income neighborhoods, people of color and English as a second language speakers are disproportionately affected. The unequal distribution of heat in cities is one of many potential environmental injustices that are perpetuated by institutional racist policies like red lining. This Tower Hill Botanical Garden talk on October 7 from 6:30 – 7:30 will examine the causes of the urban heat island effect, examples of environmental injustice in Worcester and potential solutions to create a more environmentally just city. This program will be held virtually. Once you register you will receive a zoom link in the confirmation. This webinar will also be RECORDED and available for 2 months to all registrants.
Nicholas Geron is a PhD student at the Graduate School of Geography at Clark University. After growing up in Newburyport, MA, he taught high school environmental science in New York City for five years where he became interested in urban forestry. He primarily studied the role of urban forests in mitigating the urban heat island effect and addressing environmental injustice. Nick’s research has ranged from street trees in Elm Park, Downtown and Main South neighborhoods to the Greening the Gateway Cities Program, a statewide tree planting effort. He is interested in how trees are framed as infrastructure, habitat, and property by different stakeholders and how the framing of the urban forest affects its maintenance and growth. When Nick is not measuring trees, he enjoys fishing at Coes Reservoir, ultrarunning and playing very amateur hockey.
Enjoy a virtual talk and Q&A on October 8 at 6:30 pm by Tara Nolan about her book Raised Bed Revolution: Build It, Fill It, Plant It … Garden Anywhere! Raised bed gardening is the fastest-growing garden strategy today, and Raised Bed Revolution is the definitive guidebook to mastering this consistently proven and effective gardening method. Raised Bed Revolution provides you with information on size requirements for constructing raised beds, height suggestions, types of materials you can use, and creative tips for fitting the maximum garden capacity into small spaces–including vertical gardening. This program will be held virtually. Once you register you will receive a Zoom link in the confirmation. This Author Talk will only be available LIVE. The book is available in Tower Hill Botanic Garden’s Garden Shop.
Tara Nolan, author of Raised Bed Revolution, is a garden writer and editor with a diverse background in publishing. Her work has appeared in the Toronto Star, as well as in magazines, including Reader’s Digest and Canadian Living, and on websites, like Design*Sponge. Tara is a co-founder, with three other garden writers, of Savvy Gardening (savvygardening.com) and was the award-winning web editor of Canadian Gardening magazine’s website (CanadianGardening.com) for six years. Tara does work for the Toronto Botanical Garden and the Canadian Garden Council, and volunteers for the Royal Botanical Garden. She is also a member of GWA: The Association for Garden Communicators. Tara is from the Toronto, Canada area.
Learn simple bookbinding techniques to create a zig zag book with signatures. Fill your newly created book with vintage imagery of birds, eggs, and nests. This Tower Hill Botanic Garden September 25 program will be held beginning at 10:30 am under our open sided outdoor canopy tent. Group size will not exceed current state restrictions. Tower Hill members $46, nonmembers $60. All materials will be included. Register at www.towerhillbg.org
Suzanne Hauerstein is a professional teaching artist and the Coordinator of Volunteer & Intern Services at Tower Hill. She has over 25 years of experience designing and facilitating art-based programs for informal learning environments. Suzanne is committed to creating programs that are accessible, positive, and enjoyable learning experiences for students of all ages and abilities.
Enjoy an online lecture and Q&A session with author, gardener and nurseryman Dan Hinkley, whose new book, Windcliff, is available for purchase through the BBG online shop. In this part memoir/part hands-on gardening book, Dan Hinkley takes the reader from his formative years as a young lad in northern Michigan through his first garden-making experience at Heronswood Nursery in Kingston, WA, to his current private garden, Windcliff, in Indianola, WA. Through observations of the evolution of his garden, he reflects on its failures as well as its successes, the design principles he has garnered during 50-plus years of cultivating plants and the people he has interacted with along the way. It is the story of a journey virtually all of us take as gardeners, seen through the lens of someone with a lifelong obsession with plants and an awe for the perfection and majesty of the natural world. Our Author Series is presented in collaboration with Tower Hill Botanic Garden and Timber Press. The virtual event will take place Thursday, September 24 at 6:30, and registration (BBG and Tower Hill members $10, nonmembers $15) may be accomplished at https://www.berkshirebotanical.org/events/author-series-dan-hinkley-windcliff
Dan Hinkley was born in the highlands of North Central Michigan. He received a BS in ornamental horticulture and horticulture education from Michigan State University and an MS in urban horticulture from the University of Washington. While teaching horticulture at Edmonds Community College, he and his partner, Robert L. Jones, began Heronswood Nursery, near Kingston, WA. Devoted to introducing rare and unusual plants to North American gardeners, this endeavor led Hinkley to spend years exploring the world’s wilds. He has written for a number of periodicals, is a contributing editor to Horticulture Magazine and has appeared often on Martha Stewart Living television as a gardening correspondent, as well as on PBS NOVA. He has authored several books, including The Explorers Garden: Rare and Unusual Perennials and The Explorers Garden: Shrubs and Vines from the Four Corners of the World, both of which received Book of the Year Awards from the American Horticultural Society. He has received numerous awards, most recently the Perennial Plant Association Award of Merit for contributions to the advancement of the perennials plant industry.
This Tower Hill Botanic Garden on Wednesday, September 16 at 6:30 pm program will be held virtually. Once you register you will receive a zoom link in the confirmation. This webinar will also be RECORDED and available for 2 months to all registrants.
Would you like to fill the edges and understory of your landscape with durable, attractive ground covers? Do you want to do less mowing? Let’s look at the advantages and challenges of covering ground with healthy plants and shrubs. Possibilities include low-growing flowering perennials, shrub beds, native ornamental grasses, sedum, ferns, moss, and low-mow grass mixes that replace conventional lawns. We’ll talk about the importance of thorough site preparation this fall and winter, realistic expectations, and the value of advance planning. Extensive resource handout and plant lists included.
Instructor Kathy Connolly is a landscape designer who specializes in naturalized designs, low-impact techniques, and native plants for homeowners, municipalities, and other organizations. Kathy has a master’s degree in landscape planning and design from the Conway School in Easthampton, MA. She completed the advanced master gardener program and is an Accredited Organic Land Care Professional through NOFA. She is an active member of the Connecticut Invasive Plant Working Group (CIPWG). She is a regular columnist for The Day community papers which circulate throughout southeastern Connecticut and has written about lawn alternatives for TheSpruce/About.com. She gives about 25 talks and workshops each year for conservation organizations, master gardeners, museums, libraries, land trusts, and garden clubs. Her website is www.SpeakingofLandscapes.com.
$10 for Mass Hort members, $15 for nonmembers. Register at www.towerhillbg.org
Tower Hill Botanic Garden has scheduled a workshop on August 27 from 10:30 – 12:30 with Suzanne Hauerstein. Use fresh botanicals and printmaking inks to create an embroidery hoop canvas, wall art piece. After printing we will add simple, free-form embroidery accents using needle and embroidery floss. Printmaking and stitching demonstrations will be shown. No experience necessary. Tower Hill member price $46, nonmembers $56. Register at www.towerhillbg.org. As with all live classes during the pandemic, please check with Tower Hill the week before the program to confirm.
Dr. Caitlin McDonough Mackenzie, David H. Smith conservation research postdoctoral fellow and Second Century Stewardship fellow at the University of Maine, will speak about her research on specifics of climate change’s current effects on local plants and ecosystems. Tower Hill Botanic Garden is sponsoring this webinar on August 12 at 6:30 pm, and you will receive a Zoom link following registration. $7 for Tower Hill members, $10 for nonmembers. Register at www.towerhillbg.org.
Join author Kathryn Aalto online on August 13 at 6:30 pm to discuss her new book Writing Wild. Who are the pioneering and imaginative women who dared … to take simple walks without the chaperone of men? To pick up a pen and write under their own names? To record their protests, poetry and prose? To change history? In Writing Wild, Kathryn Aalto lyrically profiles 25 women, both historical and current, whose influential nature writing has deepened our connection to and understanding of the natural world. This Summer Author Series presentation, co-sponsored by Tower Hill Botanic Garden, Timber Press, and Berkshire Botanical Garden , is $15 for members of sponsor organizations and $15 for nonmembers. Books are available to purchase online through the Tower Hill Garden Shop. To register visit www.towerhillbg.org.
Enjoy a lecture and Q&A session on July 30 from 6:30 – 7:30 with author Toni Gattone, who will discuss how gardeners of all abilities can grow their resilience in spite of physical limitations that might otherwise hold them back in the garden. She’ll also describe how gardens can be modified for increased comfort and safety and offer recommendations of ergonomically-designed and adapted garden tools. Her book, The Lifelong Gardener, Garden with Ease and Joy at Any Age, is available for purchase through the BBG online shop. Our Summer Authors Series is presented in collaboration with Tower Hill Botanic Garden and Timber Press.
Formerly the owner of a gift and garden sales company, Toni Gattone shares her passion for helping gardeners of all ages and abilities to garden for life in her talks at garden clubs, national flower and garden shows, Master Gardener symposiums, and women’s and seniors’ groups.
