The Boston Gardeners Council and The Roxbury Community College Service Learning Garden Project sponsor, with Boston Natural Areas Network, The Boston Urban Gardening Book Group on Monday, December 19, from 10:30 – 12 at Roxbury Community College, Academic Building #3, Room 130, discussing Oran B. Hesterman’s Fair Food: Growing a Healthier Sustainable Food System for All.  A host of books and films in recent years have documented the dangers of our current food system, from chemical runoff to soaring rates of diet-related illness to inhumane treatment of workers and animals. But advice on what to do about it largely begins and ends with the admonition to “eat local or “eat organic.” Fair Food is an enlightening and inspiring guide to changing not only what we eat, but how food is grown, packaged, delivered, marketed, and sold. Oran B. Hesterman shows how our system’s dysfunctions are unintended consequences of our emphasis on efficiency, centralization, higher yields, profit, and convenience–and defines the new principles, as well as the concrete steps, necessary to restructuring it. Along the way, he introduces people and organizations across the country who are already doing this work in a number of creative ways, from bringing fresh food to inner cities to fighting for farm workers’ rights to putting cows back on the pastures where they belong. He provides a wealth of practical information for readers who want to get more involved. For more information contact Stephanie Bostic at sb2178@gmail.com, or Karen Chaffee at karen@bostonnatural.org.

Create a beautiful, long lasting fresh centerpiece for the holiday season with Betsy Williams of The Proper Season on Saturday, December 10, from 10 – 12:30 at Tower Hill Botanic Garden, 11 French Drive in Boylston.  Fill an attractive container with an arrangement of fresh boxwood, fragrant evergreens, California bay and rosemary, accented with sprays of berries, rose hips and pine cones.  Finish your container with a seasonal ribbon.  THBG members $60, non-members $65.  Email thbg@towerhillbg.org to sign up, or visit www.towerhillbg.org.

November 30 is the deadline for ordering fully decorated holiday wreaths from The Garden Club of the Back Bay.  You may be able to visit our workshop at The First Lutheran Church of Boston, 299 Berkeley Street, December 5 – 8, and purchase a plain wreath, or a wreath with one of our amazing bows, but we cannot accept orders for fully decorated wreaths once we are at the Church.  This opportunity only comes once a year, people, so don’t let it slip by!  An order form may be found at http://www.gardenclubbackbay.org/products-page/, and you may fax your order to 617-249-1762.  Payment can follow, or we will give you instructions for paying through PayPal.

The December meeting of the Cambridge Entomological Club will be held Tuesday, December 13, from 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm and will feature Tom Murray, author of a new field guide entitled Insects of New England and New York, who will speak on Amateur Entomologists and Digital Photography.  CEC meetings are held the second Tuesday of the month from October through May. The evening schedule typically includes an informal dinner (6:15 to 7:15 PM) followed by our formal meeting (7:30 – 9:00 PM) in MCZ 101, 26 Oxford Street, Harvard University. The latter begins with club business and is followed by a 50 minute entomology related presentation. Membership is open to amateur and professional entomologists.  For more information, email CEC President Jessica Walden-Gray at jessisoutside@gmail.com.

Eudora Welty’s Mississippi garden ran riot with the camellias, roses, and daylilies that she tended as zealously as her prose. The novelist, who won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973 for The Optimist’s Daughter, cultivated characters for her stories along with the flowers that she grew in her modest Jackson garden.

A fine new book by Susan Haltom and Jane Roy Brown looks at Welty’s enduring relationship with her garden, to which she turned as a respite from her travels and the pressures of making a living as a writer. The garden and house where Eudora Welty (1909-2001) lived and wrote is now a museum, and the garden has been restored to its heyday in the 1920s through the ’40s.

Welty’s letters, published for the first time in this book, reveal witty and telling observations about not only gardening, but also fellow gardeners. She wrote to a friend, “The delphiniums I planted in my ignorance have all bloomed like everything and are getting ready to bloom for the second time and Mother says the ladies of the garden club come over each day to worship and grit their teeth.”

On Wednesday, December 7, from 3 – 5, come hear Jane Roy Brown speak about Miss Welty’s garden and how its formation also offers a compelling look at the broader social trends of the time, including the flourishing of womens civic involvement through garden clubs and the development of streetcar suburbs. Brown serves as director of educational outreach at the Library of American Landscape History. Her writing has appeared in the Boston Globe as well as in national publications.

Admission to the book talk is free but an RSVP is requested to mhorn@masshort.org. The event is co-sponsored by COGdesign (www.cogdesign.org) and the Massachusetts Horticultural Society (www.masshort.org).  The event takes place at the Massachusetts Horticultural Society at Elm Bank, 900 Washington Street in Wellesley.

The Boothbay Region Garden Club’s 9th Annual Festival of Trees will take place at the Opera House at Boothbay Harbor, 86 Townsend Avenue, from December 1 – December 3, 10 am – 5 pm. “All That Glitters” with over sixty decorated trees and other donated items to be auctioned, raffles of two trees and a visit from Father Christmas.  Holiday Shops include: Trinkets and Treasures, Decor Galore, Artists Among Us, Sweets and Savories, The Stitchery, Wreath Emporium, Nature’s Gift Corner, and also Sunday Morning Refreshments.  Visit www.boothbayregiongardenclub.org for complete details.

Well, we’ve all heard of Slow Food – The Garden Club of the Back Bay may have originated the Slow Wreath movement.  It takes time to create our one of a kind custom designed fully decorated orders.  Each decorator interprets an order in his or her unique way.  An order may request a plaid bow with all natural accents, but no two wreaths with plaid bows and all natural accents could be mistaken for each other, unless, of course, they are a matched pair.  Not only do our artists want to stretch their talents each time, but they are bored creating and recreating the same “look,”  so as the week progresses, the designs become more and more intricate.  Intricacy takes time, and often we’ll hear our Assignment Desk personnel pleading with the decorators to speed things up.  There are, after all, a lot more wreaths to decorate before Thursday December 8.  The pleading does tend to fall on deaf ears – no one is hurrying his or her design and manufacture.  Each wreath is checked and rechecked for proper mechanics as well – we can’t have people complaining that the decorations fell out after the wreath was hung.  So, Slow is the operative word.  To order, click http://www.gardenclubbackbay.org/products-page/.

Enjoy a totally new experience in the combined arts of floral design and music.  Priscilla Styer, floral design instructor and winning designer at the Boston Flower & Garden Show will be accompanied on the piano by Linda Paulet as Priscilla demonstrates her floral designs, providing a treat to both the senses and the spirit.  The program is presented by the Andover Garden Club and will take place Tuesday, December 6 from 10 am – noon at South Church, 41 Central Street in Andover.  No charge for Andover Garden Club members, $5 for guests.  Refreshments will be served.  For more information call 978-470-2627, or email bettychapman@verizon.net.

You have many wreath buying options during the holidays, and may wonder why you should spend, say, $30 for a standard wreath with a bow when you can buy a wreath with a bow at the supermarket for less.  Our good friends Penny and Ed Cherubino, who among their many talents maintain www.BostonZest.com, created a video of our Wreath Co-Chair, Margaret Pokorny, who demonstrates how to make a bow.  We must point out a few important facts.  First, the fabric ribbon we use, a minimum of 2 1/2″ wide, is of the highest quality and is wired on the edges.  You really cannot create our bows with paper ribbon, and if the ribbon isn’t wired, you’ll have something very floppy in hand.  Second, while Margaret makes this look easy, a certain amount of hand strength is needed to twist the loops together tightly.  It may take Margaret five minutes to make a bow – it takes most of us a bit longer.  Ribbon costs vary widely, but we assure you, we’re not making a big profit from the sale of bows.  As you can see from our wonderful wreath pictures, however, the bows are a major design statement, and we won’t send out any wreath with a substandard bow.  That’s why you pay what you pay.  To order, click here.  To view the terrific video, click below to visit this YouTube address:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Od4RWBu6sw

The Gibson House, 137 Beacon Street, Boston, welcomes friends and neighbors through the doors of the Gibson House on December 11 from 1-4 pm. The museum will be decorated for the holidays for you to enjoy. There will also be a special exhibit of contemporary art work by three of Boston University’s most promising recent graduates. We may also have a visit from Charles Dickens to read from “A Christmas Carol”!

No reservations are required, but if you’d like to bring a vintage or homemade ornament for the tree you’ll help us get into the Christmas spirit. If you have questions, please call 617-267-6338.

Let The Garden Club of the Back Bay solve your holiday gift giving dilemmas.  We will custom design to your specifications a gorgeous wreath, which can be delivered within the Back Bay, Beacon Hill, or the South End, or be picked up, with a lovely gift card attached, indicating you have been thoughtful, generous, and possibly the best gift giver ever (that’s our opinion, not the wording on the card, by the way.)  You can send a wreath with one of our magnificent bows for as little as $30 – perfect for the hairdresser, dentist, teacher, superintendent, babysitter, etc.  If you have close friends or relatives who simply have enough “stuff” – send a fully decorated wreath.  Some of our members do a lot of their holiday shopping at the Wreath Store, and it’s stress free.  Visit our wreath page – http://www.gardenclubbackbay.org/products-page/ – for the order form and click on the links to see past pictures of our wreaths and bows.  Naturally the ribbon selection changes each year, but all are beautiful.

Join the Rose Kennedy Greenway Conservancy and the North End community for the annual lighting of the great Elm Tree and the illumination of the pergola on Wednesday, December 7, from 6 – 7 pm.  Celebrate the winter season and enjoy bell ringing by the North End Music & Performing Arts Center.  This will all take place in the North End Parks, between Hanover & New Sudbury Streets.

Outside of the grasses and beans, few plant groups have contributed more to influence global cuisine and culture than the nightshade family (Solanaceae). Members like potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants have figured prominently not only in human nutrition, but also in the history of New England and the world. At the same time, poisonous relatives like tobacco, mandrake, henbane, and belladonna have contributed to its other, more sinister reputation. Join Gregory J. Anderson, Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Connecticut, at the Hunnewell Building at Arnold Arboretum on Wednesday, December 7, from 7 – 8:30 for a deeper look at both sides of the family line.  Free, but registration requested.   On line registration is available at www.arboretum.harvard.edu.

Join the American Horticultural Society, with host Evelyn Alemanni, on Wednesday, March 21 through Sunday, March 25 for a tour of exciting public landscapes and spectacular private gradens during one of the most colorful months in southern coastal California.  You will stay at the  historic Inn at Rancho Santa Fe in the foothills of Northern San Diego County, pictured below.  Trip highlights include a sneak preview of new plants being introduced to the horticultural trade at the California Spring Trials, a stop at the world-famous Flower Fields to view a stunning display of ranunculus, and a private tour of both the San Diego Zoo Safari Park and the San Diego Botanic Garden.  For more information, contact MacNair Travel by emailing ahs@macnairtravel.com, or call 866-627-6621.

Sometimes, when neighbors ask their condominium Trustees to purchase wreaths for the building, they are asked if these wreaths are the “best buy” or if ones can be procured at a cheaper price.  There are a couple of answers to that question.  The first, naturally, is that a cheaper wreath, both in cost and quality, may assuredly be found.  But why should a condominium purchase one of The Garden Club of the Back Bay wreaths?  Because all the net proceeds are spent pruning, planting, and inoculating the street trees in our own neighborhood.  Last year alone, The Garden Club of the Back Bay spent over $14,000 on street tree maintenance alone.  These are dollars the City of Boston cannot afford to spend, yet the difference in the quality of our natural experience is immense.  During Hurricane Irene, for instance, the Back Bay suffered minimal tree damage, because dead limbs had consistently been pruned over the past months.  Worries about the potential impact of our October snow storm were also lessened.  So what is the true cost of a wreath?  Is it the base purchase price (which, we contend, still compares favorably to wreaths from a good florist), or is it the value of a well tended neighborhood, with healthy and beautiful trees, increasing all our property values?  We know our answer, and hope it will be yours as well.  To order, visit http://www.gardenclubbackbay.org/products-page/.

The Friends of Copley Square and Mayor Thomas M. Menino invite you and your family to attend the annual Copley Square Holiday Tree Lighting Festivities on Tuesday, November 29, from 3:00 – 6:00 pm, with WHDH’s Janet Wu.  At 3:00, there will be a Story Hour and Candy Cane Tea at the Boston Public Library, sponsored by the BPL and by Catered Affair (rsvp by November 25 at 617-859-2282), and be sure to bring your little ones for a Parade of Festively Decorated Carriages.  The actual tree lighting will take place at 5:00,with lights courtesy of Normandy RE Partners and Boston Properties,  and there will be a post lighting reception at the Fairmont Copley Plaza Hotel.  Bring a can and support Boston Can Share. For more information, visit www.friendsofcopleysquare.org, or email friends of copleysquare@gmail.com.

The Neighborhood Association of the Back Bay is again pleased to announce its Annual Christmas Tree Sale, this year on Saturday and Sunday, December 3 and 4 at the Clarendon Street Playground, from 8 am – 5 pm.  Fresh cut balsam fir trees from Maine will be available for sale, with proceeds benefiting the Neighborhood Association.  Local delivery is available.  For further details, please call 617-247-3961, or email info@nabbonline.com.  Thanks again to Chris Mitchell for his splendid work organizing this invaluable project.

CRAFTBOSTON Holiday is New England’s premiere exhibition and sale of contemporary craft. Craftboston showcases one-of-a-kind and limited-edition pieces in baskets, ceramics, decorative fiber, clothing, furniture, glass, jewelry, leather, metal, mixed media, paper and wood. CRAFTBOSTON Holiday includes 90 artists and is located at the Cyclorama at the Boston Center for the Arts in Boston’s historic South End, 539 Tremont Street.  CRAFTBOSTON is produced by The Society of Arts and Crafts. Incorporated in 1897, SAC has been at the forefront of the American craft movement fostering the development, sales, recognition and education of craft for over 100 years.
Hours are Friday and Saturday, 10 – 7, and Sunday, 11 – 5.  General Admission: $15, Seniors $13, SAC Members $12, children under 12 free.  Visit www.craftboston.org for complete information.  You may also be interested in attending the Preview Party on Thursday, December 8, from 6 – 9.  $50 ticket includes hors d’oeuvre and drinks, music, exclusive holiday shopping, and weekend admission to the show.  Call 617-266-1810.

The Master Urban Gardener (MUG) program covers all you need to know to grow food in one of Boston’s community gardens- from composting and seed starting to community organizing. The 2012 MUG classroom sessions will be offered on 6 consecutive Saturdays from January 14 – February 18.

The MUG program consists of 30 hours of classroom instruction, followed by 30 hours of volunteer service. The 2012 MUG classroom sessions will be offered on 6 consecutive Saturdays from January 14 – February 18. The classes will be hosted at the Boston Natural Areas Network office, at 62 Summer Street in Downtown Boston.

Each Saturday will feature topical lectures as well as participatory activities. Topics include:

• Vegetable garden planning for bigger harvests
• Botany and soil science for gardeners
• Managing weeds, pests & diseases without chemicals
• Composting in community gardens
• How to facilitate garden meetings and workshops

Rather than paying a fee, Master Urban Gardeners give 30 hours of volunteer service to Boston’s gardening community. The program is open to Boston resident who are community gardeners. Applications for the MUG course are available at www.bostonnatural.org/MUG.htm and are due December 1. Questions? Contact Erika Rumbley, Garden Educator at 617-542-7696 x15 or erika@bostonnatural.org.

Enjoy an indoor display of decked-out holiday trees at Queset House, 51 Main Street, North Easton, sponsored by the Easton Garden Club.  Hours are November 25, 6 – 9, November 26 and 27, noon – 9, and weekdays, November 28 – December 2, 4 – 9.  The final day, Saturday, December 3, the Festival will be open from 10 – 9.  There will also be a greens sale at the Railroad Station on Sullivan Avenue in the Village of North Easton.  All trees are donated by individuals, local businesses, organizations, and schools.  Many award-winning Easton Garden Club floral designers will participate, including Gloria Freitas-Steidinger, a past President and GCFMA accredited judge, who also holds the distinction of decorating for the White House.  Admission: $5 adults, kids free.  Tree raffle tickets will be available at the door (a sheet of 26 tickets is $8)  For more information visit www.eastongradenclub.org, or email info@eastongradenclub.org.