Boston Flora

Tag: Tower Hill

  • Thursday, August 27, 10:30 am – 12:30 pm – Print and Stitch

    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.

  • Thursday, August 13, 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm – Writing Wild with Kathryn Aalto Online

    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.

  • 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/

  • 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

  • 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

  • Saturday, April 11, 11:30 am – 2:00 pm – Dahlia Tuber Sale and Q & A – CANCELLED

    The New England Dahlia Society’s expert growers return to Tower Hill Botanic Garden, 11 French Drive in Boylston, on Saturday, April 11 from 11:30 – 2 to sell tubers and answer all of your dahlia questions. Learn how to plant dahlias, watch them grow over the summer, and bring your blooms back to Tower Hill for the annual Dahlia Show, September 26-27. Free with admission to the Garden. For more information visit http://towerhillbg.org.

    Image result for dahlia flower

  • Thursday, April 2, 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm – Mastering the Art of Flower Gardening – Postponed

    A comprehensive and highly practical study of growing flowers, Mastering the Art of Flower Gardening presents expert advice and guidelines on growing many of today’s favorite flowers. Author Matt Mattus has curated a selection that ranges from the most common of flowers, like zinnias and dahlias, to uncommon or challenging flowers like primroses and sweet peas. Learn about old-fashioned biennials and the finest perennials as well as beloved flowers that grow as shrubs, bulbs, or vines. Organized seasonally, there is even a winter chapter featuring flowers for cool, indoor windowsills or a backyard greenhouse. Mattus shares what he’s learned over decades of first-hand experience as a horticulturist, testing techniques in his own garden and greenhouse. Whether you’re interested in raising a small cut-flower garden, enhancing your flower border or containers, or figuring out how to grow the best Bread Seed Poppies next year, Mattus has it covered.

    Active in many horticultural leadership roles, Matt’s day job is quite different. Professionally Matt works as a Principal Designer at toy and entertainment giant Hasbro, Inc. (Pawtucket, RI), but that doesn’t preclude his deep involvement in many plant societies and botanic gardens. Matt has been involved with horticulture throughout his career. By age 10 he was exhibiting as a ‘junior exhibitor’ in the many plant society shows held at Worcester County Horticultural Society’s Horticultural Hall in Worcester, MA throughout the 1970’s. He is the author of the award-winning gardening blog Growing With Plants. His greenhouse and gardens have also been included in many popular magazines, blogs and books including Martha Stewart Living (Nov. 2016 – Chrysanthemums), House & Garden (Nov 2016, South African Bulbs), and Better Homes & Gardens, to name a few.

    This Tower Hill Botanic Garden talk and book signing will take place April 2 from 6:30 – 8:30, and is $15 for Tower Hill members, $20 for nonmembers. Register at www.towerhillbg.org.

  • Wednesday, April 1, 11:00 am – 1:00 pm – Early Spring Container Garden – Postponed

    Plant a spring garden that can be grown indoors or enjoyed outside your door on nice days. Fill an attractive container with colorful spring-flowering plants: cyclamen, tulips, primroses, daffodils, violas or pansies accented with lacy ferns, trailing ivies and green moss. Your portable spring garden will look equally charming on a table, windowsill or doorstep. When summer arrives, plant the bulbs in your garden and move the violas, ferns and ivies to a dampish, shady spot to enjoy all summer. This Tower Hill Botanic Garden workshop will take place April 1 from 11 – 1, and is $80 for Tower Hill members, $85 for nonmembers. 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.

  • Saturday, March 28, 2:00 pm – 3:30 pm – Making a Garden for the Birds – Postponed

    “I always say the birds taught me to garden. And I thank them.” – Margaret Roach
    What started out decades ago as merely a semi-conscious wish to see more birds as she started a garden on a former blank canvas, ended up bringing about 68 avian species into Margaret’s garden each year, each in its own time, with a smaller but substantial number nesting in it or at its periphery. Margaret will share all her “if I knew then what I know now” aha’s about setting realistic aims (no, not every site is going to attract bluebirds, no matter how many boxes you buy!) and accomplishing them-all within the context of a visually pleasing home landscape. She’ll cover her top tips for making a garden that makes birds right at home, must-have resources, and much more.

    Margaret will be signing copies of her all-new version of A Way to Garden after the talk, which takes place at Tower Hill Botanic Garden on March 28 from 2 – 3:30. The book is available in Tower Hill’s Garden Shop. Margaret Roach, after 15 years at Martha Stewart Living and a decade each at Newsday and The New York Times, now writes the nationally acclaimed blog “A Way to Garden” and is author of the 2011 corporate-dropout memoir, And I Shall Have Some Peace There, about walking away from “success” for a quieter life lived closer to nature. The Backyard Parables (2013) blends garden memoir and how-to advice. An all-new version of her first award-winning book A Way to Garden was published in spring 2019, on its 21st anniversary. She has worked for more than 25 years to make her garden in the Hudson Valley-Berkshires area a visual treat every day of the year. It has been open for Garden Conservancy Open Days for more than 20 years.

    The lecture is $15 for Tower Hill Members, $18 for nonmembers. Register at www.towerhillbg.org.

  • Sunday, March 29, 10:15 am – 3:15 pm – Macro Photography Workshop – Postponed

    The close-up world is a magical place full of pattern, color, and abstract imagery. This Tower Hill Botanic Garden course on Sunday, March 29, from 120:15 – 3:15 will show you ways to use your existing camera gear to make spectacular macro photographs. During this workshop you will learn to sharpen your awareness of light on the landscape. If you are an intermediate to advanced photographer looking to fine tune your skills and expand your knowledge of photography then this course is for you. This course is ideal for the photographer with some knowledge of manual camera settings that want to take their abilities to the next level.

    Instructor Steve McGrath is a professional freelance photographer and photography teacher who has been creating images for 20 years. Steve first began by shooting sports photography for local high schools, then weddings, and stock agencies. Then his love of the outdoors led him to focusing more on his true passion, “nature photography”. Steve was an active member of the Gateway Camera Club for many years, and has won many ribbons and awards at fairs and competitions through the group and on his own. Several of his images have been published in school text books. His favorite places to shoot are Acadia National Park in Maine, the Green Mountains of Vermont, and the Cape Cod National Seashore. THBG members $60, nonmembers $75. Register at www.towerhillbg.org.