The Garden Club of the Back Bay

Reservations are steadily coming in for this premier symposium scheduled for April 23 & 24, 2010 at The Equinox Resort (www.equinoxresort.com). For all of you who attended that 2008 symposium, you will be blown away by the resort’s new look. It has undergone a $20-million restoration including new luxury amenities, accommodations, dining options and lounges. This four-star resort, providing world class service, has a unique blend of New England charm and contemporary luxury. The 13,000 square foot Spa puts the property over the top!

Now insert the Seventh Annual Great Gardens and Landscaping Symposium into this setting and you’ve got one magnificent time. The programming kicks off on Friday evening, April 23 at 7:00 p.m. and runs through Saturday at 4:00 p.m. Overnight and day-only rates are available. Here is the extraordinary speaker line-up:

Julie Moir Messervy is an internationally known landscape designer, speaker, and writer. With over three decades of experience, five books, and numerous high-profile lectures, Julie has emerged as an innovative leader in landscape and garden design theory and practice. Her newest book, The Toronto Music Garden: Inspired by Bach was just released. It’s an in-depth guide to the conception and creation of Julie’s award-winning three-acre public garden, designed in collaboration with eminent cellist Yo-Yo Ma.  Home Outside: Creating the Landscape You Love was released in 2009. She has lectured at distinguished venues such as the Smithsonian Institution, the National Geographic Society and the Getty Museum. Her imaginative landscape design work has delighted clients including the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Marshall Field’s, Fidelity Investments, the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, and the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University. In 1999, Julie completed the award-winning Toronto Music Garden, a collaboration with renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma and the City of Toronto to create a three-acre public park based on the “First Suite for Unaccompanied Cello” by J.S. Bach. In 2005, the Toronto Music Garden received a Leonardo Da Vinci award for innovation and creativity(See picture below).  For more about Julie, visit her web site at http://www.juliemoirmesservy.com/. Julie will be presenting two talks at the Seventh Annual Great Gardens and Landscaping Symposium:

Home Outside: Creating the Landscape You Love. In this inspiring lecture, Julie demystifies the art and practice of landscape design for homeowners and professionals alike. Using beautiful images, together with helpful tips, case studies, befores and afters, diagrams, and plans, she walks you through the process of turning any property into the “home outside” you’ve always dreamed of. Julie highlights many of the ideas introduced in her book, Home Outside: Creating the Landscape You Love, illustrating that good landscape design does not have to be overwhelming or expensive.

Gardening for Your Soul. Contemplate the transcendent power of landscape as seen through Julie’s eyes, an award-winning landscape designer and author. Julie explores the deeply personal process of designing a beautiful landscape and reveals how spirituality can inform garden design and the landscapes we create on the earth.

Heather Poire from Proven Winners will speak on creating colorful spring containers and how to refresh tired looking containers for season long beauty. Heather has worked at Pleasant View Gardens (in New Hampshire), one of the founders of Proven Winners North America, for six years and currently works as a regional sales manager. Her expertise is broad, with a specialty in Proven Winners annuals and perennials. Heather graduated from the University of New Hampshire with a degree in Horticulture. She has been an avid gardener since 1997. Heather visits independent garden centers around the Northeast providing guidance, consulting, and garden inspiration.

Charlie Nardozzi from the National Gardening Association will share his expertise about kitchen and vegetable gardening in his charming, easy to understand style. His talk is titled Edible Landscaping. Charlie has gardened for over 20 years, written articles for many magazines, and has authored several books including Vegetable Gardening for Dummies to be released soon. He presently is the senior horticulturist and spokesperson for the National Gardening Association. In 2005 he was the host of PBS’s Garden Smart, reaching more than 60 million households. He has also been a gardening expert on many nationally syndicated television shows, such as HGTV’s Today at Home and Way to Grow, Discovery Channel’s Home Matters, and DIY’s Ask DIY. He currently co-hosts In The Garden on a local CBS-affiliate television station in Vermont, does a weekly call-in radio show on WJOY-1230AM, and is a commentator on Vermont Public Radio.

Joe Kunkel is the Executive Director of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society (http://www.masshort.org/) in Wellesley, Massachusetts. Joe served as the president of the Perennial Plant Association in 2005 and also owned his own nursery, Akin’ Back Farm in Lagrange, Kentucky for fifteen years. This successful nursery sold herbs and perennials and featured 18 display gardens. In 2000, he met Adrian Bloom, the head of Blooms of Bressingham. Already considered one of Great Britain’s best-known plantsmen, Bloom was becoming known in the U.S. for his stint as host of the PBS series Victory Garden, as well as being the author of numerous books on gardens and contributions to horticulture. Working with Bloom, Joe helped build five demonstration gardens around the U.S., including spectacular ones in Ohio, New York, Kentucky and California. Each garden had the common elements of promoting horticulture and utilizing donated plants and volunteer labor. The fifth Adrian Bloom project was the one that brought Joe back to his native Massachusetts. Mass Hort saw the potential for a ‘wow’ kind of garden as a counterpoint to the adjoining, formal Italianate Garden at Elm Bank. Then in March of 2008, Joe oversaw the nearly 5-acre Garden on the Greenway project in Boston. Joe helped turn a sea of mud and construction scrap into a world-class urban oasis of greenery and color. Joe’s brilliance, passion for helping others, and leadership are inspirational. Joe will speak on top performing perennials and annuals that in the New England Trial Garden located at Elm Bank’s 36-acre hands-on horticulture center. Breeding companies from all over the world contribute the newest and best varieties of annuals to the New England Trial Garden  for viewing by amateur and professional gardeners. This garden also tests new and unreleased varieties competing for All-America Selections awards, displays previous winners, and grows hundreds of cultivars submitted for evaluation by commercial plant breeders.

Kerry Ann Mendez’s talk, Make Me Beautiful…PLEASE is all about what your gardens are trying to tell you to make them more beautiful and lower maintenance. You would be surprised at the wisdom they want to share with you. Allow her to interpret for them. The lecture’s in-depth handout is filled with tips and tricks. You’ll be waving your garden hoe and magically turning your gardens into a wonderland.Kerry’s first garden book, The Ultimate Flower Gardener’s Top Ten Lists, will be released in March, 2010.

For more about the speakers, agenda and topics, visit www.pyours.com/Symposium2010.html.

The Equinox Resort was eager to have the symposium back and put together amazing packages. The one night package (Friday night) includes one night’s accommodation, the Friday evening lecture, full breakfast buffet, lunch, five lectures on Saturday, refreshment break, handouts, garden gift, and all taxes and gratuities. A single is $266.38 and a double is $384.26 ($192.13 per person). The two night package includes all of the above plus Saturday night’s accommodations, Sunday breakfast buffet, and all taxes and gratuities. A single two night package is $441.08 and a double is $585.15 ($292.58 per person).

The day only rate for all Saturday’s program includes five garden lectures, coffee at registration, refreshment break, lunch, handouts and a garden gift is only $98 per person. Day only participants may attend the Friday 7:00 pm lecture at no charge. For overnight packages, please call The Equinox Resort at (877) 854-7625 Monday through Friday between 8:30 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. Day only participants register through me, Perennially Yours by using the registration form at www.pyours.com/Symposiumregister.html or calling (518) 885-3471.

The 20th Annual Hebron Maple Festival will be held the second weekend in March throughout the town of Hebron, Connecticut.  People come from miles around to enjoy and experience the weekend of maple-related events.  The goal of this festival is to bring families together and provide noncommercial inexpensive enjoyment in a quiet time of the year.  There will be self tours, demonstrations, and a variety of maple products in the participating sugar houses.  Learn how maple syrup is produced, and how to use it.  Last year visitors enjoyed the “Shack Out Back” chainsaw carvers, the  Connecticut Valley Siberian Husky Club dog sled exhibition, an historical quilt exhibition and sale, plus blacksmiths crafting hand forged items, woodworking and wood turning demonstrations, and a Revolutionary War encampment.  For more information log on to www.hebronmaplefest.com.

Join journalist Susan Dworkin on Saturday, March 20,  from 2 – 3:30 pm at the Berkshire Botanical Garden for an exploration of the world’s delicate supply of wheat, international agribusiness, scientific intrigue, and the Svalbard “Doomsday Vault.”  Learn about the extraordinary work of Bent Skovmand, one of the greatest plant scientists and pioneering seed bankers.  Follow his quest for “agriculture’s public library” as he spearheads an international effort to collect and preserve crop seeds to ensure that we won’t starve.  Dworkin will share tales of daring agricultural rescues and discuss the politics and perils of monoculture and patenting of plant genetic resources by corporations. She also will examine how the citizenry must overcome the urban-rural divide in order to protect the world’s harvest.  Enjoy a reception and book signing with the author following the lecture.  All proceeds benefit the Berkshire Botanical Garden Education Department.  Members of BBG $16, non-members $21.

Susan Dworkin lives in the Berkshires.  She has written several biographies and social histories, including the bestseller The Nazi Officer’s Wife.  Her articles have appeared in Ms., Ladies Home Journal, The New York Times, and  other periodicals.  Her fascination with agriculture dates from early stints at the US Department of Agriculture and as a journalist covering agricultural aid programs in the Middle East.  For tickets and more information, log on to www.berkshirebotanical.org.

Oh, boy, you’ve been waiting for this!  Join woody plant guru and plant geek Adam Wheeler of Broken Arrow Nursery for a fun and informative look into the world of competitive pumpkin growing.  Learn how to grow plants in the cucurbita family into the biggest and best fruits possible.  Ones you will never be able to lift yourself.  Although the lecture will focus on how to grow extra large pumpkins, it will also inform gardeners about improving growing conditions for other pumpkin relatives, including melons, squash, and cucumbers.  Adam will share his special pumpkin seeds for the upcoming growing season (he’s that confident!).  The lecture will take place at Berkshire Botanical Gardens, and costs $18 for BBG members, $24 for non members.  Log on to www.berkshirebotanical.org for more information and directions.

Carlin Wing, Fall 2009 Visiting Lecturer in the Harvard Department of Visual and Environmental Studies, will be Artist in Residence at the Harvard Museum of Natural History, 26 Oxford Street, Cambridge,  for a week in March.  Carlin has organized an exhibit where contemporary artists respond to the collections on display in the Museum with works in varied media, including music, video, and performances.  Artists and participants will include current VES students and recent graduates.  Admission fee is $6.00, or, if you have a Harvard ID, admission is free, and you may bring one guest.  For more information call 617-495-3045, or log on to www.hmnh.harvard.edu.

Dr. Anne Pringle, Assistant Professor, Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University, will speak on Friday, March 5 at the New England Botanical Club’s monthly meeting in the Lecture Hall, Room 102, of the Fairchild Biochemistry Building, 7 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge, beginning at 6:30 pm. Her topic is “Summoning the Wind & Invading New Territories: The Strategies of Stationary Organisms.”  The Fairchild Biochemistry Building is part of the main campus near Harvard Square and is between Busch Hall and the Peabody Museum.  For specific directions log on to www.rhodora.org/Meetings.html.  The New England Botanical Club, which originated in 1895, is a non-profit organization that promotes the study of plants of North America, especially the flora of New England and adjacent areas.  The Club publishes the journal Rhodora, holds monthly meetings during the academic year, maintains an herbarium of more than 253,000 sheets, has a small library, and annually grants a graduate student research award.  An office for the Club is maintained at the Harvard University Herbaria, 22 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138, and you may reach the office at 617-308-3656 for membership information, or log on to www.rhodora.org.  Regular member dues are $50 annually, and a family rate, including a copy of Rhodora, is $60.  Student membership costs $25.

The Spring Bulb Show at Smith College (March 6 – March 21, 10 – 4 daily) kicks off on Friday, March 5 at 7:30 pm in the Campus Center Carroll Room with a lecture by Lynden Miller entitled Parks, Plants and People, followed by a reception and booksigning at the Lyman Conservatory, with the Bulb Show illuminated.  Lynden Miller is an outstanding Public Garden Designer of international renown. She is Director of the Conservatory Garden in Central Park, which she rescued and rejuvenated in 1982.  Trained as a painter, Miller brings the artist’s sensibility to her work.  She received a Master’s in Studio Art at the University of Maryland and a BA in the History of Art at Smith College, and studied Horticulture at the New York Botanical Garden.  For 25 years, Lynden Miller has focused on the improvement of parks and gardens throughout New York City.  Believing that beautiful and well maintained public open green space can change city life, she has taken a new approach to public horticulture, creating rich plantings that provide interest year-round.  After 9/11, she secured a gift of a million daffodils, to serve as a living memorial to those who died.  In the spring of 2002 they bloomed to raise the spirits of New Yorkers and beautify parks everywhere.  The Daffodil Project continues with over 3 million daffodils planted.

Visit the Smith College Lyman Conservatory beginning Saturday, March 6 through Sunday, March 21 from 10 am – 4 pm daily to view a gorgeous display of Spring Bulbs, guaranteed to raise your spirits after a cold, dark winter.  There also will be special evening hours on Friday, March 12 and Friday, March 19 from 6 – 8 pm, and as detailed below, an Opening Lecture entitled Parks, Places and Plants by Lynden Miller on Monday, March 5, beginning at 7:30 pm in the Campus Center Carroll Room.  A $2 donation is requested.  If you are a member of the Smith College Botanical Garden, there will be members only hours each day from 9 – 10 am – please bring your membership card.  Then, on Saturday and Sunday, March 27 and 28, bring your wallet for the After the Show Bulb Sale.  Members hours Saturday, March 27 9:00 am – noon, general public noon – 3 pm Saturday, and 9 am – 3 pm Sunday.  For directions, log on to www.smith.edu.

Founded in 1982, The Longwood Symphony Orchestra is recognized as a unique model of community engagement.  The group uses its performances to raise both funds and awareness through its healing Art of Music ™ program.  On Saturday, March 13, at the New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall, the Longwood Symphony Orchestra will hold a concert benefiting The Food Project.  Tickets will be available for $40 per individual.  $100 will buy a ticket to the concert and a pre-concert reception.  $250 will purchase a ticket to the concert and reception, as well as two tickets for Food Project youth and/or members of their families.  For more information, or to reserve tickets, email events@thefoodproject.org.

Slow Foods 3rd Annual Film Series continues with a screening of Pea Holmquist and Suzanne Khardalian’s documentary Bullshit, at the Tufts University Friedman School, 150 Harrison Avenue, on Sunday, March 14 beginning at 3:30 pm.

Time magazine calls Vandana Shiva a hero of our times, an icon for youngsters all over the world.  This film is about the Indian environmental activist and nuclear physicist, who was awarded the Right Livelihood Award in 1993.  It’s a film on globalization and patenting, on genetic engineering, bio-piracy, indigenous knowledge.  In it, the film makers follow Shiva over a two year period, from her organic farm at the foot of the Himalayas to institutions of power all over the world.  She does battle with one of her toughest opponents, Monsanto, a huge American biotech company, when they try to patent an ancient Indian strain of wheat.  Together with Dalits she tries to close down a Coca-Cola plant in Kerala, in a conflict involving groundwater pollution.  In this film Shiva also tackles the question of farmers’ suicide, a backlash of the globalization.  The film makers describe Monsanto from the inside and arrange what proves a shaking meeting between Shiva and Barun Mitra, liberal think-tank lobbyist and fierce critic of Vandana Shiva.  A speakers panel will follow immediately after the screening.  Cost is $5.  Log on to www.slowfoodboston.com to reserve your spaces.

During this hands on demonstration at Long Hill in Beverly, Massachusetts on Tuesday, March 9 beginning at 6 pm, organic landscaper Javier Gil will teach the fundamentals of compost, soil microbiology, and why compost tea is the hottest new trend in gardening.  Compost tea is used to promote beneficial bacteria, add nutrients to the soil, suppress disease and fungi, and increase overall health in plants. Javier will demonstrate how to make your own compost tea at home with a few simple supplies.  Sponsored by the Trustees of Reservations, the fee is $8 for TTOR members, $10 for non members.  Call 978-921-1944, x 4018 to register, or email bzschau@ttor.org.  Driving directions may be found at www.ttor.org.

Since you already are up in Maine for the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller garden tour with Bonnie Drexler (see post below), stay a day and visit Northeast Harbor with Bonnie and The New England Wild Flower Society.  This tour, described below, is limited to 20 participants, and costs $30 for NEWFS members and $36 for nonmembers.  Register at www.newfs.org.

The Asticou Azalea Garden and the Thuya Garden are linked by location as well as history. These complementary gardens were created by Charles Savage, a local innkeeper and self-taught landscape designer, who rescued plants from designer Beatrix Farrands’ abandoned estate in Bar Harbor to create the gardens along the north edge of Northeast Harbor. At the Asticou Azalea Garden, rhododendrons, mountain laurels, heathers and azaleas were planted to transform a swamp into a stroll garden with an Asian flavor. The water gardens of the Katsura Imperial Villa in Kyoto, Japan supplied the inspiration for Savages’s flowing Asian design.

Farrand’s plants were also used to create Thuya Garden, where an overgrown apple orchard stood before. We climb a trail winding up the slopes of Eliot Mountain under towering spruce and cedar trees. Rustic cedar shelters provide rest stops with views of Northeast Harbor below. At the top, we enter the formal garden through a pair of carved wooden gates (below) featuring fiddlehead ferns, lady’s slipper orchids, frogs, iris, and owls among others. The two main formal borders are planted with drifts of perennials that range from warm to cool hues as you stroll by. A shallow reflecting pool, a hidden summer house, and giant garden urns punctuate the garden’s floral displays.

Advance notice: a spectacular day field trip has been planned by The New England Wild Flower Society in Seal Harbor and Bar Harbor, Maine on Thursday, August 19, from 9 – 2:30, led by Bonnie Drexler.  Participation is limited to twenty, so register quickly at www.newfs.org.  The cost  is $60 for NEWFS members and $72 for nonmembers, and this event is sure to sell out.

Two of Mt. Desert Island’s most evocative gardens open their gates  this day.

Noted garden designer Beatrix Farrand designed a stunning garden for David and Abby Alrich Rockefeller in the late 1920’s. Today, this garden (pictured below) continues to weave an enchanting spell over its visitors, combining Asian art and architecture with vibrant displays of annuals and perennials. Enter another world as you pass through the circular Moon Gate to come upon a sunken lawn, surrounded by lavish English border gardens at their peak of summer color. Stroll the woodland “Spirit Path,” flanked by Korean tombstone figures, all the while enclosed by a rose-colored serpentine wall, capped with yellow tiles from China’s Forbidden City. Native shrubs, groundcovers, mosses and ferns shine alongside the ancient stone sculptures, some from the 14^th century. Meet with the horticulture staff for a behind the scenes understanding of the Garden.

Following lunch (on your own at the nearby Jordan Pond House),  you will tour the Wild Gardens of Acadia, where we explore a microcosm of Mount Desert Island’s natural habitats. Only plants indigenous to Mt. Desert Island find a home here on this small, but intensely planted site. Over 300 native plant species are arranged by habitat setting. The plant communities include mixed woods, roadside, meadow, mountain, heath, seaside, brookside, bird thicket, coniferous woods, bog, marsh, and pond with corresponding native plants and birdlife. Maintained by the Bar Harbor Garden Club, this jewel of a native plant garden won the Homer Lucas Landscape Award from New England Wild Flower Society in 1998.

Lynette Tsiang, a landscape designer who uses Asian design principles and plants to create New England gardens with echoes of the Far East, will present a slideshow presentation on Tuesday, March 2, beginning at 10 am at South Church, 41 Central Street in Andover, MA, featuring six unique garden areas of China. Attendees will vicariously visit the vernacular landscape of Jingxi (1130), considered a Chinese Venice, and will also examine six classical scholar gardens located in Suzhou. Design techniques unique to Chinese gardens will be discussed.

A graduate of the Landscape Institute of the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University, Lynette Tsiang is a residential landscape designer who operates Lynette Tsiang Landscape Design in Lexington. She specializes in designing Asian-style, shade, and water gardens, and also designs public and memorial gardens.  She is a member of The New England Landscape Design & the Community Outreach Group for Landscape Design (COGdesign).

This program is sponsored by the Andover Garden Club, and is free to Andover Garden Club members, and $5 for public admission.  For more information, you may call 978-470-2627, or email bettychapman@verizon.net.  Directions to South Church may be found at www.southchurch.com.

In this multi-session course appropriate for beginners, learn different aspects of the landscape design process with special emphasis on native plants in the residential landscape. Workshop sessions focus on design methods using site analysis techniques and schematic design tools. With consultation of the instructor, work on a project of your own choosing. Interspersed with design work, lectures focus on plants and habitats, including information on plant choice and placement in the landscape. A list of required materials supplied at the first class.  The class is co-sponsored by, and will take place at, the Cambridge Center for Adult Education, and will cost $175 for NEWFS members, and $210 for nonmembers.  Dates are March 30, April 6, 13, 20, 27, May 4, and May 11.  The instructor is Karen Sebastian, and you may register at www.newfs.org.

Experience the process of turning grapes into wine.  Kip Kumler, owner and winemaker of Turtle Creek Winery, leads this Boston University seminar series at his vineyard in Lincoln, Massachusetts.  The four classes will follow the winemaker’s cycle throughout the year, from vine to bottle.  Four Saturdays, from 10 – noon, will cost $150.  You may register on-line at www.bu.edu/foodandwine.  The dates are May 8 (The Season Begins: Bud-Burst), June 19 (Growth: Flowering and Fruit Set), August 21 (Canopy Maturation: Approaching Veraison) and September 11 (Approaching Harvest and Winter Dormancy).

The Powisset Garden Club presents this program, open to the public, on Wednesday, March 3, beginning at 9 am at the Dover Town House, 5 Springdale Avenue in Dover, MA.  Katherine Tracey is co-owner of Avant Gardens, a small specialty nursery in Dartmouth, MA.  They grow a wide variety of uncommon plants, with an emphasis on tender perennials.   Kathy has been selecting uncommon plants for the container displays at Avant Gardens for over a decade.  Her years of experience have allowed her to refine the list to the best and easiest choices for easy care for plant combinations.  This slide presentation will introduce you to many new cultivars and start our creative juices flowing.  For additional information log on to http://maclubs.esiteasp.com/powissetgardenclubofdover.

On Thursday, March 11, from 7 – 8:30 pm in the Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford Street, Cambridge, Dr. Marc Kirschner, Professor of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School will discuss his evolutionary theory of how rare and random mutation in organisms can lead to exquisite changes of form and function.  The event is free and open to the public.  For more information, log on to www.hmnh.harvard.edu.

Planning is a critical component of getting a good yield from your garden.  Which varieties should you choose?  Which seeds do you start indoors and which do you sow directly?  What is organic seed?  What is open pollination?  Join the folks at Allandale Farm, 259 Allandale Road, Brookline, on Saturday, February 27 from 10:30 – 11:30 am for coffee and an in-depth discussion of seeding for your home garden.  You’ll hear about what to start when, successive planting strategies, good container vegetable varieties (especially important for city dwellers), and more.  The experts will share some of their favorite resources for seeds and talk about equipment, from bare bones to more involved set-ups.  Bring your questions and comments, and get started on your 2010 garden!  Free.  Email allandale@allandalefarm.com to sign up.  Thank you to www.bostonzest.com for the tip on the Allandale Farm website, www.allandalefarm.com.  Photo of John Lee  below courtesy of Boston.com.

Learn how to start raising bees in your own backyard with Nancy Bentley Mangion. Nancy, who is a well known bee consultant and owner of the Beekeepers’ Warehouse in Woburn, has trained hundreds of New Englanders about how to keep bees.  Nancy will bring an active bee hive for demonstration (!) and offer tastings of more than 30 different honeys from around the world. She will also demonstrate how to make beeswax candles.  The program, taking place Thursday, March 4, beginning at 7:00 pm at the Medford Public Library, 111 High Street in Medford, is sponsored by the Medford Garden Club, and is free and open to the public.  For more information, email sbcummer@msn.com.