The Garden Club of the Back Bay

The Museum of Fine Arts Boston will hold a Flower Arranging Member Event Wednesday, August 4, from 11 am – 12:30 pm in the Riley Seminar Room.  Flower arranging demonstrations will be ongoing – drop in anytime during this event.  Get fresh ideas on how to realize the fine art of floral arranging at home from members of the MFA’s acclaimed flower team.  Stop by for a few tips or stay the full 90 minutes for an abundance of creative ideas.  Free tickets are required and available in person, online (www.mfa.org) or by phone on the day of the event beginning at 10 am.  Ticket limit is based on general admission privileges of membership.  If you are not already a member, you may join on line ($75 individual membership) or in person.

Come watch painters at work on the grounds of Highfield Hall, Monday, August 9 and again Monday, August 16, from 9:30 am – 12:30 pm.  Participating artists include Ruth Leech, Bill and Jean Adelman, Sigrid Ecker, Shirley Hersey, and Gloria Warren, working in watercolor, oil and pastel media.  They love to have questions from onlookers, so you will have an interactive experience as you stroll the grounds, located at 56 Highfield Drive in Falmouth.  Then plan to come inside to see the art and photography exhibits.  $5 suggested donation.  For directions and more information, log on to www.highfieldhall.org.  Bill Adelman’s Bourne Farm Pond is pictured below.

Join the Boston Preservation Alliance members as they team up with Urban AdvenTours to ride the night away and explore Boston on two wheels.  The Bikes@Night tour will show you the city as the sun goes down and the lights come up, focusing on Boston’s beautiful and historic waterfront. Watch the sun set over Boston Harbor, hear about architecture and history, and enjoy a delightful summer night in Boston.  The ride will include:
• Long Wharf: once the busiest pier in the busiest port in America during early colonial times and now home to the New England Aquarium.
• The Rose Kennedy Greenway: the 1.5-mile-long long series of parks and public spaces that now exists where the elevated Central Artery once stood.
• Fan Pier: the historic location of railway lines that linked Boston to the rest of the country and where you can now take in the modern architecture of the Institute of Contemporary Art and the Moakley Court House.
• The North End: the city’s oldest residential community full of late 19th and early 20th century architecture (and arguably the best restaurants!)

Ride departs from Urban AdvenTours, 103 Atlantic Avenue and participants should arrive by 5:30 p.m. for a 6 p.m. departure.  Cost: This event is $30 for Alliance members/$37 for non-members and includes: bike, helmet, water bottle, and tour guide. You may purchase tickets securely via PayPal at www.bostonpreservation.org or make a check payable to: Boston Preservation Alliance, Old City Hall, 45 School Street, Boston, MA 02108.

RSVP: Space is limited and reservations are required by July 25th.  Contact Christine Piontek at cpiontek@bostonpreservation.org or call 617-367-2458 to RSVP or for more information.

Join guests Sally Fallon Morrell, of the Weston A. Price Foundation and Pete Kennedy, of the Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund, in a celebration of local raw dairy, at the Massachusetts Teat Party on Thursday, August 12, at Cook Farm, 1 Hadley Road, Hadley, Massachusetts.  The $50 ticket price includes local food, cheese tastings, and cash ice cream bar. Proceeds benefit the Northeast Organic Farming Association/Massachusetts’ Raw Milk Campaign. To RSVP: http://www.nofamass.org/programs/organicdairy/fundraiser.php . For more information, please contact Winton Pitcoff, NOFA/Mass Raw Milk Coordinator at winton@nofamass.org, or call the NOFA/Mass Office: (978) 355-2853.  Image below by John Lund – check out his delightful photos.

This New England Wild Flower Society course with Jessie Panek covers many of the best native North American herbaceous plants for New England landscapes and gardens, with an emphasis on species that bloom in the second half of the growing season. She will focus on identification, cultural requirements, and the relationship between native habitats and the requirements of designed and managed spaces. Lectures include firsthand looks at plant materials used at Garden in the Woods. The class will be given in two sessions, Thursday August 12 and Thursday, August 19, from 1 – 3:30, at Garden in the Woods in Framingham.  Fee: $65 for NEWFS members, $75 for nonmembers.  Register at www.newfs.org.

Join local author Meg Muckenhoupt as she travels through the verdant world of her new book, Boston’s Gardens & Green Spaces. This exciting lecture at the Westborough Public Library, 55 West Main Street in Westborough on Thursday, July 29, beginning at 7 pm,  examines the role of public spaces throughout Greater Boston’s historic and contemporary landscape.  Rediscover Greater Boston’s most revered historic parks and explore the city’s ever-expanding  network of public spaces. How has the philosophy behind public spaces shifted over the years? How significant is the native flora and green space to the city’s overall health?  This is a fascinating journey through green Boston, past to present—and all nature lovers, gardening enthusiasts, and history buffs should be sure to come along for the ride.  For more information, log on to www.westboroughlib.org.

On July 28, former New England Hosta Society President Mary Arnberg will bring a long time of love for hostas (and a lot of samples) to Elm Bank to discuss what makes hostas such a terrific plant for the home gardener, as part of MassHort’s Wednesday Evenings at Elm Bank series. There are more than 4,000 named varieties of hosta and Mary will present examples of hosta lovers’ favorites, as well as other varieties to appeal to gardeners with either sun or shade conditions.

Sessions begin at 6:30 and go until 8 p.m. or until the last question has been answered. All sessions are held at Elm Bank, either in the Hunnewell carriage house or the Education Building. MassHort members pay $8 per session. The cost for non-members is $10. Refreshments are offered.  For more information log on to www.masshort.org.

On Thursday, August 4, beginning at 4 pm, come hear Stephen Stimson of Stephen Stimson Associates speak at Highfield Hall, 56 Highfield Drive in Falmouth on The Role of the Landscape Architect and Ten Landcapes. Since founding his firm in 1992, Stephen has won over 30 national and regional awards for design excellence.  He has a degree in Environmental Design from University of  Massachusetts, a Masters Degree from Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, and has been elected a Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects.  His work ranges from a 300 acre park in San Antonio, Texas and a park at the St. Louis Arch, to numerous private gardens in the northeast.  Stephen focuses on creation of culturally and environmentally responsive modern designs.  His book, Ten Landscapes, is a classic in his field.  $5 suggested donation.  For information, log on to www.highfieldhall.org.

On Thursday, August 5, from 6 – 8, Verrill Farm chefs will prepare a meal inspired by just picked crops.  The dinner will be served outside under tents, and the cost is $30 per person.  Registration and prepayment is required by calling 978-369-4494.

For the fourth consecutive year, The Cultural Landscape Foundation is planning a garden program on Friday, September 10 for a very limited number of attendees, in conjunction with the American Society of Landscape Architects’ Annual Meeting in Georgetown, Washington, DC.  In the past, these exclusive events have included last year’s private lunch at Mies van der Rohe’s masterwork Farnsworth House in Plano, IL; “Patterns,” the Governor and Elise duPont’s estate that includes Dan Kiley’s last significant garden commission; and the Donnell Garden, a modernist icon in Sonoma with its celebrated kidney-shaped pool.

This year, under the umbrella of “A Moveable Feast,” you will have a “curated” visit to three private gardens designed by James van Sweden (Oehme van Sweden + Associates). This progressive lunch and excursion will begin with a walk around one garden, the next garden will include light refreshments, while the third will include a buffet lunch. The on-foot garden excursion will be followed by a premiere of the James van Sweden Pioneers Oral History module and a seated conversation with Mr. van Sweden himself. Join Jim and TCLF Board members for this celebratory event. $700 – Garden Excursion; $75 – Moveable Feast Reception.  To register, and for more information, log on to www.tclf.org/event/moveable-feast.

Learn about the history of how the world got into your garden in this Horticulture in History program sponsored by The Berkshire Botanical Garden, 5 West Stockbridge Road, West Stockbridge, on Saturday, July 31 at 10 am. Consider the horticultural endeavors of plant explorers in the far reaches of the globe and how the plants that they brought back with them have impacted our everyday lives. This is a lively account of some of the characters and their intriguing explorations in India, China, Japan, and beyond.

Judith Taylor is an Oxford educated retired physician with a keen interest in horticulture and history. Dr Taylor has published three books on the history of horticulture, including The Global Migration of Ornamental Plants; How the World Got into Your Garden. The cost of this lecture, where books will be available for purchase and signing by the author, is $20, and you may register on line at www.berkshirebotanical.org, or by calling 413- 298-3926.

The Garden Conservancy has scheduled a full day of private garden openings on Sunday, July 25, from 10 – 4, in Washington, Connecticut.  Please note that two of the gardens will be open from noon to four only.  For complete details, log on to www.gardenconservancy.org.  Tickets are not necessary – there is a $5 entrance fee per garden.

Red Mill Farm, Washington, Connecticut

Informal gardens set off an 1840s farmhouse and historic pre-Revolutionary War sawmill. Intimate spaces on changing levels around the house and conservatory, paved with local granite, feature tropical and half-hardy container plants and vines along with roses and perennials. A white garden with flagstone paving filled with plants is surrounded by trellises with roses and clematis. Sweeping lawns drop to the sawmill area, where native plants, wildflowers, and a wet garden border the millpond and waterways. Amble through a new woodland area with its rocky pool.

Ridge Field, 49 Painter Ridge Road, Washington, Connecticut

After gardening for more than twenty years around a modernist house in dark oak woods on a steep hillside, we migrated to a gambrel-roofed cottage adjacent a bright blue swimming pool surrounded by a ranch-style fence in the middle of a hayfield! Sun? Check. Flat? Check. Now what? JUST KEEP IT MANAGEABLE!! Twelve years later, a series of garden spaces and borders frame the toned-down pool. They are anchored by select trees and shrubs for year-round interest from nearby windows and are enclosed with a “birds lunch” hedgerow. A small, mixed orchard of berries and fruits and a vegetable patch (now rampant with foxgloves and hollyhocks) have pushed out into the hayfield. This garden has appeared in various magazines.

Hollister House Garden, 300 Nettleton Hollow Road, Washington, Connecticut

This is an old-fashioned, but unusual, rambling formal garden informally planted with an exuberant abundance of both common and exotic plants in subtle, and sometimes surprising, color combinations. High walls and hedges divide separate rooms and open to create interesting vistas out towards the landscape. Recent expansion of the garden has been completed with other areas being revised.  See picture below.

Directions:
From I-84, take Exit 15/Southbury. Take Route 6 north through Southbury and Woodbury. Turn left onto Route 47 North. Go 4 miles, past Woodbury Ski Area on left, and turn right onto Nettleton Hollow Road. Go 1.7 miles. Garden is on right. Please park along road.

Ron & Nancy Chute, 8 Kirby Road, Washington, Connecticut (Please Note: This garden is open from 12 – 4 only)

Our 1774 house faces Washington’s Green. Behind it, you will find a serene, private space with mature trees, a long lawn framed with boxwood, stone walls, and woodland plantings. This was created on L-shaped, sloping land after years of benign neglect. The owners, who maintain the property themselves,  leveled the lawn and planted the slopes with tapestries of shrubs and perennials. Tall, tightly pruned hollies screen the rear terrace, and the adjoining cow-shed foundation is now a parterre garden with cast-iron fountain. A cucumber magnolia and other large trees shelter shade-loving collectibles.

Directions:
The Chute and Thomson gardens are located near Washington Congregational Church, where Wykeham Road and Kirby Road join Route 47. Parking is available on Kirby Road and in parking lot of Gunn Library, off Wykeham.
From Route 47 north past intersection of Route 199, turn right onto Wykeham to park at Gunn Library. Or, continue on Route 47 behind church and turn left onto Kirby Road to park there.
From Nettleton Hollow, go north to Wykeham Road. Turn left and continue to library parking lot on left just before intersection with Route 47. Or, turn right on Route 47 and then left on Kirby Road just past church.
The address of Chute house is 8 Kirby Road, but the house faces Green. Park along Kirby Road and walk down sidewalk along Green to second house (Chute’s). Enter garden via a narrow passage between first and second house, marked by a red Japanese maple and an old well cover.
Please park along Green and in front of Congregational Church, but not in front of Parish House.

Orchard Terrace, 2 Old North Road, Washington, Connecticut (Please Note: this garden is open from 12 – 4 only)

Orchard Terrace, designed by Erick Rossiter in 1898, is situated on a former apple orchard and overlooks the playing fields of the Gunnery. The garden is a work in progress; much of it created over the last five years. The property is speckled with rock outcroppings amongst which perennial gardens are planted. A pool and greenhouse have been added to showcase tropical plants and orchids as well as native plants and grasses. An effort has been made to provide a natural habitat for butterflies, birds, and other wildlife.

Directions:
Please walk across Green from Nancy Chute’s garden. Or, park in lower part of Gunn Library at Wykeham Road. Walk down Wykeham Road to Old North Road (about 100 yards), which is on left. The garden is first driveway on right. Do not attempt to park at house; parking will only be allowed on Green or at library.

The Friends of Hayes Park invite you to A Picnic in the Park on Wednesday, July 28 (rain date Thursday, July 29), from 6:00 – 9:00 pm, at 166 West Canton Street on the corner of West Canton Street and Warren Avenue in the South End.  The picnic itself will run from 6 – 7:30, with hot dogs and hamburgers provided.  Please bring dishes to share.  Then, enjoy live entertainment with Wayne Potash and his Music Fun Band.  For more information log on to www.hayespark.org.  Feel free to bring a blanket or an elegant setting, like the one pictured below.

We just couldn’t resist reporting on this New England Wild Flower Society field trip in Tiverton, Rhode Island on Sunday, August 8, from 9 – noon.  The loveliness of this meandering brook belies its lurid name, given to it in colonial times following a bloody encounter between resident Pocasset Indians and a Quaker preacher in transit to Newport, RI. The stream flows through a beautiful eighty-acre maritime hardwood forest, Fort Barton Woods, a site reeking with history and plant diversity. Streamside wetlands, vernal pools, and glacial upland soils provide an opportunity to see an impressive array of wild flowers and ferns. The terrain is rugged so the walk will require good stamina, and participants should dress for muggy, August forest conditions.  Garry Plunkett will lead, and the fee is $24 for NEWFS  members and $27 for nonmembers.  Directions and registration will be found at www.newfs.org.

Stockbridge, Massachusetts is the site of a three garden tour on Sunday, July 25  sponsored by The Garden Conservancy’s Open Days program.  Admission to each garden is $5, and tickets are not needed.  For complete information log on to www.gardenconservancy.org.

Garden of 1826 Pease-Lincoln House, 82 East Main Street (Route 102)
Stockbridge, Massachusetts

A 1929 plan by sculptor Daniel Chester French divided these three acres into several sections. The west terrace features a fountain by French and a latticed folly mirroring artist Richard Haas’ trompe l’oeil in the summer porch. An homage to Marcel Duchamp may also be noted. Steps through the border gardens lead to a curving path of marble squares edging the central lawn which lead the visitor to the grape arbor and goldfish pond with pineapple fountain. A grass path beyond, lined with Thalictrum and heritage roses, leads to a hedge-flanked gate. To the left are a kitchen garden, raspberries, and a cutting garden; to the right, a small lily pond draining to the Housatonic River. A woodland path, starting at the screened tea house, returns to the central lawn and completes the circuit.

Directions:
From Massachusetts Turnpike, take Lee Exit and go south on Route 102, 6 miles to site. From in town and Red Lion Inn, drive north on Main Street, bear right at Route 102 and look for a blue picket fence 300 feet long on right.
From Lenox, go south on Route 7 and turn sharp left at junction with Route 102. Park at Berkshire Theatre Festival (Berkshire Playhouse). After parking, cross East Main Street carefully and enter property. Note White Whale (Moby Dick) atop barn; paint scheme by Andrew Jackson Davis.

Brown Garden, 17 Prospect Hill Road, Stockbridge, Massachusetts

The house, built in 1823, has a plant-filled porch overlooking the gardens and is framed by a copper beech tree estimated to be 150 years old. The property consists of twenty-five acres, and the gardens, in development since 1980, are divided into three areas. The walled garden is designed not to reveal open spaces and is dominated by perennials planted around a fountain. A hosta arboretum is featured in the north section of the gardens. Evergreens and other trees frame the pool while summer annuals abound.

Directions:
At intersection of Routes 7 and 102, go north from The Red Lion Inn. Go past town tennis courts and proceed 1.5 miles. Parking is provided before Prospect Hill Road and continues over turnpike on left.

Fitzpatrick’s Hillhome, Stockbridge, Massachusetts (Please Note: This garden is open from 11:00 am – 3:00 pm only)

Hillhome, a historic and distinguished Stockbridge estate, was designed in 1918 by a protégé of Charles F. McKim who was known for the design of private country houses and U.S. diplomatic offices abroad. Its gardens, created from 1933 to 1935 by the well-known landscape architect, Prentiss French, nephew of the sculptor Daniel Chester French, set off an impressive view of the Berkshire Hills. Leading to a long stone-paved and grass terrace is a heavy wooden garden door. At the northern end of the terrace stands a three-sided stone architectural structure resembling an arched ruin and created by moving an old mill, stone by stone, from West Stockbridge. This folly continues to provide a quiet and secluded space from which to enjoy the expansive views beyond. French made extensive use of massive stone retaining walls, thereby creating dramatic terraces in the steep hillside. Today, the walls contain charming alpine plants. Not to compete however with the view, the genius loci of the property, are the generally more restrained plantings and perennial borders. Be sure to visit the twenty-foot waterfall which splashes through serpentine paths leading down to an iris-bordered lily pond (below). You will reach it through a small secret garden at the southern end of the main terrace. In 1949, Hillhome was awarded the prestigious Gold Medal by the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. Today, French’s original design remains largely intact.

Highfield Hall, 56 Highfield Drive in Falmouth, has invited Alison Arrouet, gardener and orchid grower, to speak on Wednesday, July 28, beginning at 4 pm, on Selecting and Caring for Orchids.  Alison is a passionate, informed gardener and a member of the Cape and Islands Orchid Society.  She is a self-confessed addictive collector of orchids who now owns over 80 plants (get a grip, girl!)  Alison has presented to numerous gardening groups on growing orchids, and wants novice orchid growers to know that many varieties of orchids will thrive in your home with much less care than you fear right now.  Her presentation with live orchids will explain several varieties and she will provide practical advice on orchid selection and care, so you’ll have the confidence to buy your first, or second, or third orchid, or expand on you own budding collection.  $5 suggested donation. For information, log on to www.highfieldhall.org.

Columbia County, New York is just over the Massachusetts border in the Berkshires, and those of you in the area may wish to avail yourselves of another Garden Conservancy Open Day opportunity.  Admission to each private garden is $5, tickets are not required in advance, and full details may be found at www.gardenconservancy.org.

Adams-Westlake, Ancram, New York

Two writers, garden writer Abby Adams (see The Gardener’s Gripe Book, below) and her late husband, crime novelist Donald Westlake (who wrote under the name Richard Stark), authored the various plantings on this former farm, in a pastoral Columbia County valley. The gardens have evolved over twenty years, reflecting the owners’ deepening involvement with the larger landscape. Ornamental gardens, perennial borders, a walled swimming pool enclosure, an ornamental frog pond, and a courtyard herb garden frame the 1835 farmhouse. A small orchard and a cutting garden/vegetable plot continue the farming tradition. Behind the house, strategically placed paths and sitting areas guide the visitor through the landscape to a deep natural ravine where a spring-fed pond faces a field of wildflowers. A winding creek has recently been liberated from its tangle of thorny multiflora rose, to be replaced by wild and native plant species. Above the ravine, high meadows offer sweeping views.

Grant & Alice Platt, 46 Tibbet Lane, East Taghkanic, New York

This garden, which won a Golden Trowel Award from Garden Design magazine in 2005, is nestled in the woods at the end of a country lane. It takes advantage of a widely varied landscape to create a series of informal gardens that attempt to exploit the beauty of the natural setting. The site contains woodland paths, which wander over bridges across a creek and past the remains of old stone walls and natural rock formations. Included in the gardens are sunny herbaceous borders, a rock garden, shade garden, and a park-like hillside garden. Out of sight but just over a rise is a path that leads to a swimming pond.

Directions:
From Taconic State Parkway north, pass Route 82/Ancram/Hudson exit and go 1.6 miles. Turn right onto Post Hill Road (from north, turn left). Go 0.8 mile to a silo at Nostrand Road. Turn left and go 0.3 mile to Route 27 (no sign). Turn left and go 1 mile to Taconic Parkway underpass. Go 0.5 mile to Tibbet Lane. Turn left. Proceed to parking area.

Helen Bodian, Ancramdale, New York  (Please note this garden is open from 1:00 pm to 5:00 pm only)

The setting is old farmland at a relatively high elevation, cradled in a cirque of hayfields, deciduous forest and meadow, and intersected by a dirt road. Over time, thanks to a desire to experiment with mood and style and unusual plants, the owners  developed four separate gardens, each with its own character and season. In the process, they’ve tried to follow a rule that would unite all four: while displaying a love for botanical diversity and without confiding ourselves to natives, the plantings must nevertheless fit our landscape or play off the surrounding native flora. Starting next to the house is a naturalistic rock garden, scaled both to a shale hill suspended above it and to an elongated modern addition to the house. Across the road is a romantic garden in the form of an open square, and adjacent to that is the greenhouse and its walled garden. For those of you who have visited in the past, the all too labor-intensive, wildly colorful walled garden has been replaced with quite its opposite – a quiet, contemplative, modernist design containing a small pool. Finally, down a longish path, is a productive vegetable and cutting garden where we grow odd and unusual edible plants. The paths, which make patterns through the meadows and connect the gardens to one another, also connect to the outer landscape, leading from the gardens to pond and woods and up the hills to miles of forest trails.

The Garden Conservancy will sponsor a two day garden tour of six gardens in York County, Maine on Saturday, July 24 and Sunday, July 25 from 10 – 4.  Entry to each garden is $5, and advance tickets are not required.  For complete information, log on to www.gardenconservancy.org.

Howells-Metz Gardens, 9 Lawrence Lane, Kittery Point, Maine

The property overlooks the Piscataqua River and Pepperell Cove. The landscaping joins four houses and outbuildings with lawns and gardens that flow into each other. An English conservatory is used for starting seeds for vegetables and annuals.There are rhododendrons and azaleas and shrubs along the houses. Other gardens include a rock garden, a rose garden, borders along a rocky ledge, a vegetable garden with flower borders on two sides for cutting, and an herb garden. In most places daffodils appear in the spring, giving way to day lilies in the summer and annuals (zinnias, asters, dahlias) in the fall. A swimming pool near the beach is filled with salt water from the sea. The family has lived here for some ninety years and currently the houses are occupied by four generations.

Seapoint, 6 Seapoint Road, Cutts Island, Kittery Point, Maine

Seapoint is a gardener’s garden overlooking a creek, salt marsh, and the ocean beyond. The property was once part of one of the original saltwater farms on Cutts Island and is nestled alongside of one of the region’s most beautiful wildlife refuges. The garden features an extensive variety of flowering specimen trees, shrubs framed by meandering paths, and intricate stonework.

Directions:
About 5 miles from I-95 in Maine, take Exit 2 to Kittery Point. In 0.25 mile enter rotary and exit on Route 236/Kittery Point. Route 236 becomes Route 103. Continue straight across bridge and pass CITGO gas station. In 0.25 mile take fork to right (there are signs for Seapoint). Go straight as road winds around. Pass sign for Rachel Carson Wildlife Refuge. Once past sign, garden is at second house on right, #6.

Braveboat Harbor Farm, 110 Raynes Neck Road, York, Maine (below)

This garden has been evolving over the last fifty years. It surrounds and complements a Georgian-style stone house. There are formal and informal borders, a vegetable garden, orchards, and collections of various flowering trees and shrubs. Apples and pears are espaliered on the house and along the walls of the formal front garden. Water features include a goldfish pond in an old septic tank, a farm pond with rustic bridge, and the Atlantic Ocean. This treasure is protected by a sculpted arborvitae hedge on the northwest, a mature stand of hickory on the northeast, and an extensive screen of old lilacs on the south. New projects include expanding the collection of magnolias and rhododendrons, introducing hydrangeas, an espaliered pear fence, a woodland walk, a new pond at the north end of the woodland garden, and a summerhouse with views to the pond and the sea.

Directions:
Located off Route 103 South and Braveboat Harbor Road to end of Raynes Neck Road. Please park in field below house.

What is woody, short and multi-stemmed? …When it comes to knowledge, it’s use it or lose it. Here is a chance to review 20-25 of the shrubs covered in New England Wild Flower Society’s core course “Native New England Shrubs” during a different season of the year. You will also learn several shrubs not covered in the core course. Instructor Roland “Boot” Boutwell might even add in a few summer wildflowers. And, if you haven’t taken the shrubs core course, this class will provide a good introduction to our New England shrubs. Our field site, the Horn Pond Conservation Land in Woburn, Massachusetts, is an area both rich and diverse and is one of NEWFS research botanist Arthur Haines’ favorite field sites. As you stroll throughout the property, you will focus on a few of the key ID characteristics and learn a bit about the natural history of each shrub. Bring a hand lens and your shrub cards, if you have them, as well as a bag lunch. $44 for NEWFS members, $52 for nonmembers.  Register at www.newfs.org.

On Monday, July 26, from 11 – 4, seven private gardens on the western side of Mount Desert Island will be open to benefit the Southwest Harbor Public Library.  Call 207-244-7065 for more information.  We have tried to verify the date of the tour, because Monday seems to be an unusual day to hold a tour, but all sources at this point indicate this is correct.  The web site for the Southwest Harbor Public Library unfortunately does not describe the event.