The Garden Club of the Back Bay

Entomologist, photographer, and intrepid world-traveler Mark Moffett explores the parallel between ant colonies and human societies in his latest book, Adventures with the Ants. From his travels to the Amazon, the Congo, Borneo, Australia, California and elsewhere, Moffett provides fascinating details on how ants live and dominate their ecosystems through strikingly human behaviors: hunting, fighting, building, recycling, and even creating marketplaces.  Mark Moffett — “Dr. Bugs” — grew up in Beloit and graduated from Beloit College in 1979. His explorations of tropical forests and ecology have taken him around the world, from the top of the world’s tallest tree to deep in unexplored caves. He has discovered new plant and animal species while risking life and limb to find stories that make people fall in love with the unexpected in nature.

Moffett captivates audiences with first-hand stories of tropical ecology, treetop exploration, teamwork and goal accomplishment under extreme conditions, adventures under a rock (wonderful and weird stories of ants and spiders), and the love of nature and conservation. Television’s Stephen Colbert calls him “Ant-Man” and Conan O’Brien calls him a “frog-licker,” but Moffett calls himself a storyteller.

The lecture, followed by a book signing, will take place Tuesday, May 11, at 7 pm, at the Harvard Museum of Natural History, 26 Oxford Street in Cambridge. The lecture is free and open to the public. For more information you may call 617-495-3045, or email hmnhpr@oeb.harvard.edu.

Plan to attend a plant sale to benefit Children’s Miracle Network for Children’s Hospital, Boston.  The sale, to be held in the Costco parking lot, 120 Stockwell Drive, Avon, will run every Friday, Saturday and Sunday beginning Friday, April 30 through Sunday, May 30, from 10 – 5 each day.  The sale, run by the Costco employees, will include 45 types of perennials, plus herbs and veggies.  Volunteers are needed.  People who would like to spend a few hours sharing knowledge of plants will receive a shopping pass to Costco Avon, free parking, and a voucher for lunch at the food court.  Call Ed Pope, Assistant Manager, at 508-232-4001 if you wish to help.  You may also email crazyplantlady@aarontarver.org.  Free admission to the sale, naturally, and you’ll help the employees raise their target contribution of $10,000 for a very good cause.

Dr. Robert Bertin, Professor and Department Chair, Biology Department, College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, will address the May 7 meeting of the New England Botanical Club at Garden in the Woods in Framingham, Massachusetts, beginning at 6:30 pm. His lecture is entitled Seventy Years of Change in the Flora of One New England County. For specific directions log on to www.newfs.org.

The sponsor, 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.

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Celebrate May Day on Saturday, May 1 at the Virginia Thurston Healing Garden in Harvard, Massachusetts.  Activities will include dancing with the “Hip-Hop Mamas,” Japanese drumming, a special dedication honoring the Healing Gardeners, art and photography exhibits, an a capella choral performance, kite making, and more.  The afternoon is designed to be cultural, educational, meaningful, kid-friendly, fun, free and open to all.  For more information, contact Tucker Smith at tsmith@groton.org.  The Healing Garden is an educational non-profit dedicated to providing a community of support to facilitate the healing process for women experiencing breast cancer. The staff  offers mind-body medicine, education about choices that contribute to health, methods for managing stress and for improving quality of life, and ways to regain control, both during and after treatment.  For more information, log on to www.healinggarden.net.

A reminder: On Wednesday, April 28, beginning at 6:00 pm at the Harvard Museum of Natural History, 24 Oxford Street, Cambridge, Jane Wolff (Harvard Graduate School of Design ’92) will present a free lecture New Directions in EcoPlanning, open to the public.  Ms. Wolff is Director of the Landscape Architecture program at the University of Toronto.  Her research and design work aims to articulate terms for landscapes where the line between nature and artifice is hard to draw.

Professor Charles Waldheim, Chair of the Department of Landscape Architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design says of Jane Wolff: “Jane Wolff has emerged as among the strongest voices of her generation in the field of landscape architecture. Her work clearly articulates the complex and contradictory conditions for contested landscapes under pressure from rapid urbanization, deteriorating public infrastructures, increased demands for local agricultural production, and destination economies of recreation and leisure.”  The author of Delta Primer, a book and deck of cards designed to educate broad audiences about the contested landscapes of the California Delta (see image below), Ms. Wolff is currently involved in design, advocacy, and public information projects in San Francisco, New Orleans, and St. Louis.  The lecture is supported by a gift from Michael Dyett and Heidi Richardson.  For more information you may call 617-495-3045, or log on to www.hmnh.harvard.edu.  There will be a free  reception with the speaker in the galleries following the talk.

Celebrate the arrival of spring with a visit to the annual herb sale at the Lyman Estate Greenhouses in Waltham, from Thursday, April 29 – Sunday, May 2, and again on Saturday and Sunday, May 8 and 9, from 10 – 4.  Thousands of naturally grown culinary, medicinal, and ornamental herbs will be on sale.  Scented geraniums, herbal topiaries, pottery, and garden gifts are also available, and the horticultural staff will be on hand to offer expert advice.  Free admission.  Call 781-891-1985, or log on to www.historicnewengland.org for directions and more information.

You can have a beautiful garden or lawn without using harmful chemicals.  Certified horticulturist Jim McSweeney demonstrates some safe, pesticide-free methods, and explains which “bio-rational” products really work.  The demonstration will take place at Nasami Farm in Whately, Massachusetts, and is sponsored by The New England Wild Flower Society.  You may register at www.newfs.org ($22 NEWFS members, $26 nonmembers).

Whole Foods again will sponsor a movie screening as part of its Let’s Retake Our Plates film series, this time on Thursday, April 29, at 6:00 pm at the Showcase Cinema de Lux Legacy Place, 950 Providence Highway in Dedham.  The film, What’s On Your Plate?, sees our food supply through the eyes of two 11-year-old city kids on a mission to discover where their meals really come from.  The budding food activists explore New York City, from farmers’ markets to school lunchrooms, and provide a fresh look at how a younger generation can influence what and  how we eat.  $10.  For more information, log on to www.letsretakeourplates.com.

Dig in to a hands-on day of composting, weed eradication, and bug control on Saturday, May 8, from 10 – 2, with the Hancock Shaker Village Organic Gardening and Sustainable Farming Workshop.  Whether you’re starting fresh on a small Berkshire farm or maintaining an urban window box garden in Boston, you can reap the rewards of this workshop.  Tools and materials will be provided.  Every student will take away starter plants and ready to use compost.  Tuition of $68 for Hancock Shaker Village members or $75 for non-members includes a picnic lunch.  To register, call 413-443-1088, x 213, or log on to www.hancockshakervillage.org.  While your participation may sound a bit like Tom Sawyer’s friends whitewashing the fence, you’ll learn many sound techniques while helping a worthwhile organization ready its gardens for the season.

EarthWorks is pleased to announce they will be taking another chance with an orchard bike tour this spring! After being successfully rained out of the fall orchard tour, they are planning a Blossom Bike Tour to visit six urban orchards in several Boston neighborhoods! Be prepared for some urban biking with minimal hills and a great opportunity to preview where delicious fresh fruit will be ripe for the picking throughout the summer and fall. The EarthWorks staff will guide the tour and point out the variety of sumptuous fruit growing just outside your door! Please join then on Saturday May 1st (rain date Sunday May 2nd) at 10 am or 2 pm, leaving from the Stonybrook T Station during the Wake Up the Earth Festival! Come with your own bike and helmet, and they’ll provide the rest! Families are strongly encouraged to attend, but all minors must be accompanied by an adult. Contact Ruby with any questions or to register: ruby@earthworksboston.org.

Celebrate Arbor Day at Tower Hill Botanic Garden in Boylston, Massachusetts.  The first twenty five first time visitors will receive a free tree sapling.  Tree plantings and tours will occur each day at 2 pm.  The Gift Shop will be having a 20% off sale on everything they carry.  On Friday and Sunday at noon, arborist Joe Biagioni will give a one hour pruning demonstration – meet at the Entry Garden and dress for weather.  Also there will be a variety of childrens’ activities, including a scavenger hunt.  For more information and directions, log on to www.towerhillbg.org.

Put on your walking shoes Saturday, May 1, from 10 am – 12 noon, and join The Esplanade Association’s spring walk, guided by Karl Haglund, noted historian and author of Inventing the Charles River.  Mr. Haglund, who also serves as the Department of Conservation and Recreation’s Project Manager for the New Charles River Basin, will delight you with fun facts about the Esplanade as you take in the sights and sounds of the park.  Meet in front of the Hatch Shell, rain or shine.  You may contact Justin Burke at 617-227-0365 for more information, or log on to www.esplanadeassociation.org.

Whole Foods sponsors “Let’s Retake Our Plates” film series at the Boston Public Library, Tuesday, April 27, from 7 – 9 pm. When bulldozers threaten a 14 acre community garden in South Central Los Angeles, concerned citizens unite and fight for the country’s largest urban farm.  This 2008 film takes an unflinching look at the struggle between urban farmers and the city, and powerful developers.

The Garden centers around a community’s struggle to hold onto a fourteen-acre garden in South Central Los Angeles. The community’s struggle received widespread attention in 2004-2006, when the farmers were fighting the city of Los Angeles and developer Ralph Horowitz to maintain control of the garden, ultimately working to raise funds to buy the land. The community garden was established on government property following the 1992 riots and was the largest of its kind in the U.S.

The details of the story provide great footage: a wealthy developer engages in a shady real-estate deal with the city of Los Angeles to acquire the property, a city council member helps push through the secret deal, tensions between the Black and Latino communities complicate matters, while the impoverished Latino farmers at the heart of the story struggle not just for land but their livelihoods.

The fourteen-acre garden was originally owned by developer Horowitz but the city acquired it under eminent domain, paying him $5 million. He sued the city unsuccessfully but ultimately struck a back-room deal to buy it back for $5 million, despite property values having skyrocketed in the intervening years. When the farmers are forced to consider buying the garden, Horowitz raises the price tag to $16.2 million.

The film is moving and expertly captures the intricacies of the farmers’ struggle. Where another documentary filmmaker might have shied away from some of the nuance such as divisions between communities of color, filmmaker Scott Hamilton Kennedy delves into the tough subjects, highlighting complex racial and political dynamics. Free admission.

The Arnold Arboretum proves the perfect classroom for renegade botanist Diana Beresford-Kroeger. She will lead you among trees from around the globe, describing their subtle and not so subtle qualities that contribute to the environment. Mixing lore and chemistry, fact and theory, Diana will broaden your understanding of the inherent importance of trees to the lives of all on this planet. The walk will take place Thursday, May 20, from 2 – 4, and you should meet at the Hunnewell Building at the Arnold Arboretum in Jamaica Plain. The program is co-sponsored by the Wellesley College Friends of Horticulture and the fee is $25 for Arboretum members and Wellesley College Friends of Horticulture, $30 for the general public. Sign up at www.arboretum.harvard.edu.

Though schooled in classical botany, medical biochemistry, organic and radio-nuclear chemistry, as well as experimental surgery, Diana Beresford-Kroeger’s thoughts about trees are anything but classical. She has a collection of ideas, some radical, for how trees can be used to affect climate change as well as human health. According to Beresford-Kroeger, we have yet to fully understand the function and contribution of trees. In this lecture Diana will espouse the intrinsic values of particular trees, explain her hopes for reforesting the planet, and share some of the lore that fuels her passion to continue her research on trees. This lecture, taking place Thursday, May 20, from 7 – 8:30 pm in the Hunnewell Building of the Arnold Arboretum in Jamaica Plain, is co-sponsored with The Wellesley College Friends of Horticulture, and costs $15 for members of the sponsoring institutions, $20 for non-members. You may register at www.arboretum.harvard.edu.

Tickets for the Friends of the Reading Public Library’s 17th Annual House Tour on Sunday, May 2, from 1 – 5 pm, are now on sale ($20 for Friends of the Reading Public Library members, $25 for general public. ) Proceeds help fund library programs and functions such as the Childrens’  Summer Reading Program, the Classical Music Series, and a variety of discounted museum passes.  This year, sponsors include Advancian Realty and the VNA of Middlesex East Visiting Nurse Hospice/ Sawtelle Family Hospice House.  Go to www.readingpl.org for more information, including ticket sales locations.

Another interesting trip is planned May 6 – May 8 by The Cultural Landscape Foundation (www.tclf.org), this time with a focus on the unique Post War legacy of public and private landscapes in Texas, during what is now thought to be an optimistic time of innovation and experimentation.  Nationally recognized speakers from the public and private sectors and the academic community, including Charles Birnbaum, W. Mark Gunderson, and Ben Koush,  will provide rare insight and analysis of this unprecedented era of design.  The conference , to be held at the Dallas Museum of Art, will look both back and ahead, as the symposium culminates in a panel discussion which explores what this design legacy and Modern design means in the 21st century.  Fees (not including transportation and lodging) $125 for members of the TCLF, $150 for nonmembers, $75 students.  Co-sponsored by Historic Fort Worth, Inc. For more information, log on to the TCLF web site or email andrea@tclf.org.  Heritage Park, Fort Worth,  designed by Lawrence Halprin, is pictured below.

HGTV has built its third annual “green” home in The Pinehills, an innovative master-planned community located at 33 Summerhouse Drive in Plymouth, Massachusetts. The 2010 HGTV Green Home, just eight miles north of Cape Cod, will be a custom-built, shingle-style cottage with approximately 2,100 square feet of living space. It will feature construction and design elements that are known to contribute to an energy efficient, cleaner and healthier living environment. Scheduled 60 minute tours of the HGTV Green Home at The Pinehills are available from April 21 – July 2. All proceeds benefit The Pinehills Affordable Housing Charitable Trust, a 501c (3) not for profit organization, established to assist the affordable housing efforts in the town of Plymouth. Viewers can also enter for a chance to win the HGTV Green Home Giveaway grand prize package during the entry period from April 16 – June 4, 2010. Visit  www.hgtv.com for information on how to enter to win.  For more information, log on to www.pinehills.com, or call 508-209-2000.

As New England’s landscape becomes increasingly developed, backyards are becoming a “final frontier” in providing essential habitat for at-risk pollinator species that play an integral role in the health of our environment.  Garden coach and habitat naturalist Ellen Sousa explains how to help sustain and restore pollinator populations in your own backyard, regardless of its size or location.  Learn to choose the best plants to help feed and shelter pollinators, and some best practices for encouraging biodiversity in your backyard.  A tour of appropriate plants at The Garden in the Woods follows the morning’s lecture.  The date for this event is Wednesday, May 19,  from 10 am – 1 pm, and the fee for NEWFS members is $33, $49 for nonmembers.  To register, or for more information, log on to www.newfs.org.

Over three hundred varieties of herbs will be featured in a sale at Elm Bank, 900 Washington Street in Wellesley, on Saturday, May 8, from 9 am – 1 pm.  Culinary herbs, fragrance herbs, tea herbs, herbal remedies, heirloom specialties and heirloom vegetables will be available, plus many native plants from the gardens of members of the sponsor, the New England Unit of the Herb Society.  Free admission and  parking.  For more information, email cindyherrick@earthlink.net, and log on to www.neuhsa.org.