Boston Flora

Tag: Tower Hill Botanic Garden

  • Thursday, July 23, 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm – Emily Dickenson’s Gardening Life Webinar

    On July 23 at 6:30 pm, enjoy a Berkshire Botanical Garden lecture and Q&A session with author Marta McDowell about her new book, Emily Dickinson’s Gardening Life. In addition to writing poetry, The Belle of Amherst was a gardener. She cultivated flowers on her father’s property and in the glass conservatory that he added to the Homestead. This lecture explores Dickinson’s gardens through excerpts from her letters and poems and historic and modern images of her garden. The book is available for purchase through the BBG online shop. Our Summer Author Series is presented in collaboration with Tower Hill Botanic Garden and Timber Press. $10 for sponsor members, $15 for nonmembers. Register at https://www.berkshirebotanical.org/events/summer-author-series-marta-mcdowell-emily-dickinsons-gardening-life-online

    Marta McDowell teaches landscape history and horticulture at the New York Botanical Garden and consults for private clients and public gardens. Her latest book is Emily Dickinson’s Gardening Life, published by Timber Press, who also published The World of Laura Ingalls Wilder, New York Times bestselling All the Presidents’ Gardens and Beatrix Potter’s Gardening Life, now in its seventh printing. Marta is working on a new book about The Secret Garden and its author, Frances Hodgson Burnett, due out from Timber Press in 2021. She is the 2019 recipient of the Garden Club of America’s Sarah Chapman Francis Medal for outstanding literary achievement.

  • Thursday, July 9, 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm – The New Gardener’s Handbook, Online

    On July 9 at 6:30 pm, enjoy an online Berkshire Botanical Garden lecture and Q&A session with author Daryl Beyers about his new book, The New Gardener’s Handbook, available for purchase through the BBG online shop. Novice or experienced, all gardeners learn something new every time they step into a garden to check on a plant, dig in the soil or harvest the fruits of their labor. Daryl Beyers, author of The New Gardener’s Handbook, shares the why-dos of the how-tos that help gardeners grow beautiful and bountiful gardens. Daryl will discuss the fundamentals of how plants grow, the importance of soil, how to sow seeds, watering and weeding. New gardeners will come away with a foundation to help their gardens flourish, and accomplished gardeners will learn expert insights and some new tips and tricks. Our Summer Author Series is presented in collaboration with Tower Hill Botanic Garden and Timber Press.    $10 for members of sponsoring organizations, $15 for nonmembers. Register at https://www.berkshirebotanical.org/events/summer-author-series-daryl-beyers-new-gardeners-handbook-online

    Daryl Beyers is author of The New Gardener’s Handbook: Everything You Need to Know to Grow a Beautiful and Bountiful Garden, available from Timber Press. As gardening certificate program coordinator at the New York Botanical Garden, Daryl helps guide the program’s curriculum and teaches the popular Fundamentals of Gardening course and courses on container gardening and garden design. He has more than 25 years of professional landscaping experience, specializing in residential garden design and development. As a staff writer, photographer and editor for Fine Gardening magazine, Daryl authored two special issues on garden design, and he served as contributing garden editor for Martha Stewart Living. His articles on gardening and garden design have also appeared in Horticulture and HGTV Magazine. 

  • Wednesday, July 1, 10:30 am – 1:00 pm – Hummingbird Garden in a Container

    Experience the magic of watching a tiny, whirring hummingbird feed on flowers blooming close by! Plant a 14” container for your patio or garden the hummingbirds, butterflies, bees and other pollinators will love. With proper care, your Hummingbird Garden will bloom all summer. All materials are supplied: plants, container, soil and a bamboo frame for climbing vines.

    This July 1 Tower Hill Botanic Garden class will begin at 10:30 am at the Garden in Boylston and will be held in our outdoor classroom.

    $80 M; $95 NM (FEE INCLUDES MATERIALS) Register at www.towerhillbg.org.

    Betsy Williams teaches, lectures and writes about living with herbs and flowers. A gardener and herb grower since 1972, Betsy trained as a florist in Boston and England. She combines her floral and gardening skills with an extensive knowledge of history, plant lore and seasonal celebrations. Betsy is the author of several books on the uses and stories of herbs and flowers. She has appeared on the Discovery Channel and greater Boston cable stations as well as local and national radio talk shows. Betsy lectures and teaches locally and nationally.

  • Thursday, June 25, 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm – Spirit of Place: The Making of a New England Garden

    Join author Bill Noble for this online presentation on June 25 at 6:30 pm as he talks about the making of his Vermont garden, including its evolution, sources of design inspiration, and the principles that guided its making. Noble draws connections between his own garden and the gardens that inspired it, including those of the Cornish Artists’ Colony, and the contemporary and historic gardens he encountered throughout his work with the Garden Conservancy. In this richly illustrated talk, Noble shows how he uses a variety of trees, shrubs and hardy perennials to create planting compositions of foliage and flowering interest that deepen the sense of being rooted in place. This program is presented by Tower Hill Botanic Garden in partnership with the Berkshire Botanical Garden.

    A Zoom link will be sent to participants in the confirmation e-mail that will be sent after registration. Sponsor members $10, nonmembers $15. Register at www.towerhillbg.org

  • How To Replace Your Lawn Webinar

    Tower Hill Botanic Garden horticulture director Mark Richardson offers ideas during an hour-long webinar on How to Kill Your Lawn and replace it with something better for wildlife, the environment, and the eye. You may view it, free, at your leisure at https://www.towerhillbg.org/2020/05/06/video-webinar-alternatives-turf-grass-lawns/

  • Native Plants for New England Gardens Online

    Tower Hill Botanic Garden horticulture director Mark Richardson offers an online, informative, in-depth hour long talk on the importance of native plants in supporting ecosystems and how to choose the right ones for your particular piece of paradise. This free video is available anytime at https://www.towerhillbg.org/2020/04/20/webinar-native-plants-new-england-gardens/

    Prior to joining the staff at Tower Hill, Mark wrote Native Plants for New England Gardens, a guide to over 100 native perennials, trees, shrubs, ferns, grasses and vines with co-author Dan Jaffe.

  • A Plant’s Eye View TED Talk

    Here is an interesting and humorous philosophical take on our relationships with plants. Author Michael Pollon hints that maybe it’s the plants that are controlling us! Watch at https://ed.ted.com/lessons/a-plant-s-eye-view-michael-pollan Again we thank Tower Hill Botanic Garden for the recommendation.

  • Wednesday, June 10, 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm – Foundation Gardens That Say “Welcome Home” to Native Plants Webinar

    The area around a building is the very place that says “Welcome” to the visitor or “Relax, you’re home” to the occupant. The foundation of a building also contributes to the elusive quality called curb appeal. Yet how often do we see stressed-out shrubs and struggling perennials in this most visible area?

    In this one-hour Tower Hill Botanic Garden online presentation on June 10 at 6:30 pm, we first consider the design problems posed by the foundation area around homes and other buildings. Then we look at native plants that fit into that highly visible setting. The foundation garden need not be a bastion of pachysandra and boxwood!

    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 The Spruce/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 http://www.SpeakingofLandscapes.com.

    A Zoom link will be sent to participants in the confirmation e-mail that will be sent after registration. $7 for Tower Hill members, $10 for nonmembers. Register at www.towerhillbg.org

  • The Secret Language of Trees TED Talk

    Ever since Tower Hill hosted the Growbots exhibition back in October 2019, Marketing and Communications Assistant Emma Witbeck has been thinking about how plants communicate. Well, Camille Defrenne and Suzanne Simard provide the answer for trees, animated into a wholesome video that shows how connected a forest really is. Watch at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4m9SefyRjg

  • How To Grow a Forest in Your Backyard

    The second in Tower Hill Botanic Garden’s recommendations for plant themed TED talks is How To Grow a Forest in Your Backyard. If you are looking for something beyond just a small, sporadic garden, why not grow an entire forest! Engineer and eco-entrepenuer Shubhendu Sharma has turned forest creation into a career and an art, but anyone can start their own wooded paradise with a little helping hand from Mother Nature. Forests don’t have to be far-flung nature reserves, isolated from human life. Instead, we can grow them right where we are — even in cities. Eco-entrepreneur and TED Fellow Shubhendu Sharma grows ultra-dense, biodiverse mini-forests of native species in urban areas by engineering soil, microbes and biomass to kickstart natural growth processes. Follow along as he describes how to grow a 100-year-old forest in just 10 years, and learn how you can get in on this tiny jungle party. Visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjUsobGWhs8