Gardening became a popular pastime in nineteenth-century France when exotic plants began arriving in quantity and rapid advances were made in hybridizing.  At the same time, vast renovations to its boulevards and parks turned Paris into an urban garden. The Impressionist painters recognized and appreciated the new interest in horticulture and hastened to picture it, as this lecture at the Berkshire Botanical Garden in West Stockbridge will show, as a sign of their modernity.  Colta Ives is Curator Emeritus of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York where she has prepared exhibitions on Manet, Degas, Gauguin, Bonnard, and Van Gogh (see catalog cover below).  She has cultivated a woodland garden in Monterey, Massachusetts for more than thirty years and holds an M.S. in Landscape Design from Columbia University.  She is currently designing gardens in the Berkshires, Westchester County, and New York City. The date is Saturday, November 7, from 10 – noon, and the cost for BBG members is $16, non-members $21.  For more information, log on to www.berkshirebotanical.org.