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Leaflet eNewsletter
August 2014 Edition
In This Issue
Letter from the President
Perennial Plant Symposium
Save the Date for 115th Honorary Medals Dinner
Garden to Table Announcements
Joe Supports Mass Hort!
Interns in the Spotlight
Book Review
Notes from the Vegetable Garden
Welcome to a New Employee
A Treasured Volunteer: Kathi Gariepy
August Hort Hints
Watch This Space
The Cactus & Succulent Society of Mass. Annual Show
A Centennial Year: Elm Bank Gardens Created
Upcoming Lectures and Events at the Hort

 

Garden Tours

Every Tuesday beginning April 29th through October
10:00 am
Members: free, 
Non-members: $10. 
Group meets at the Welcome Garden 
 
August Events


 

Fri Aug 08 @10:00AM - 11:00AM
The Joy of Gardening without the Agony of Defeat

 

Sat Aug 16 @10:00AM - 04:00PM
Meditations In Ink: Introduction to Asian Brush Painting

 

Sat Aug 16 @10:00AM - 12:00PM
Growing Your Own Arrangements

 

Thu Aug 21 @11:30AM - 01:00PM
Tea Blending Basics with Steph Zabel

 

Thu Aug 21 @ 7:00PM - 08:30PM
Architectural Plants

 

Tue Sep 09 @ 9:00AM - 12:00PM
Art in the Garden: September in the Gardens

 

Tue Sep 09 @ 6:30PM - 08:00PM
Fundamentals of Landscape Design

 

Wed Sep 10 @ 1:00PM - 03:30PM
Infusing Your Life with Herbs

 

Fri Sep 12 @ 8:00AM - 05:00PM
PPA Symposium: Exploring Design & Perennial Selection for the Landscape

 

Sun Sep 14 @ 4:00PM - 07:00PM
Get into the Spirit!

 

Wed Sep 17 @ 7:00AM - 10:00PM
A Day in Support of the Garden to Table Program

 

Tue Sep 23 @10:00AM - 04:00PM
Art in the Garden: Essence of Autumn

 

Sat Sep 27 @10:00AM - 12:00PM
Create Your Own Tropical Terrarium

 

Sat Sep 27 @10:00AM - 11:30AM
Talk and Taste (Cooking with Cranberries)

 

Wed Oct 01 @ 7:00PM - 08:30PM
Learn Floral Design for Flower Show Competitions

 

Tue Oct 14 @10:00AM - 04:00PM
Art in the Garden: Watercolor Landscapes

 

Sat Oct 25 @10:00AM - 12:00PM
Floral Design for Jewelry and Crafts




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 Letter from the President

 

 Dear Friends,


I hope you are enjoying the summer, and perhaps, have even made it out to The Gardens at Elm Bank.

 

This summer The Gardens at Elm Bank are vibrant with color and activity. Many plein air artists have joined us in the gardens to capture the beauty and color of the season, for which we give thanks to the hard work of our horticulturalists, summer interns, and volunteers. Visitors stop by for the Tuesday Garden Tours, our jazz evening in July, and to picnic in the Maple Grove. Weezie's Children's Garden has been jumping with activity from Caterpillar Club and Story Time, our drop in programs for our youngest gardeners.

 

This month I wanted to introduce you to some special people who have helped Massachusetts Horticultural Society in the gardens, in the classroom, and in the office.  This year's class of summer garden interns included Elana Cole in Weezie's Garden, Bryce Hawes in the Garden to Table Vegetable Garden, and Nate Giess, garden intern and Visitor Services Associate, "Nate at the Gate" as we fondly refer to him.  Kathi Gariepy has been our dedicated volunteer teacher in Caterpillar Club for many years, helping Mass Hort reach the youngest gardeners with "kids' hort" (crafts, stories, and hands-on-hort projects) to get them excited about plants and the natural world.  Suzanne Leon has joined Mass Hort as our new Controller. Her wealth of expertise and experience is vital to our operations.

 

We have a great line up of fall programs, so please check them out below. We are thrilled to honor Dr. Michael Dirr at the Honorary Medals Dinner on October 16th. I hope you will join us to honor him and other distinguished awardees.

 

I hope to see you in the gardens.

 

Warm regards,

Kathy

 

 

P.S. Thank you again for your support. Please consider a gift before our year-end, September 30th. Your donation helps to pay for programs, staff, and the care and maintenance of our beautiful gardens and property at Elm Bank.  Please donate today!

 

Exploring Design & Perennial Selection for the Landscape

Northeast Region Perennial Plant Symposium


 

Friday, September 12, 2014

Registration 8-8:45 am

Massachusetts Horticultural Society

900 Washington Street, Wellesley, MA

  

 


 

9:00 am - 10:00 am

Gardening Simplified For Changing Lifestyles

Kerry Mendez - Perennially Yours


 

10:30 am - 11:30 am

Let's Have a Plant Orgy In An Earth Friendly Way

Brent Heath - Brent and Becky's Bulbs

 

11:30 am - 12:30 pm

A Look At The Shady Characters For The Garden

Dr. Steven Still - Perennial Plant Association

 

1:30 pm - 2:30 pm

Perennial Garden Care For Plant Geeks

C.L. Fornari - The Garden Lady

 

3:00 pm - 4:00 pm

Native Plants Enhance The Garden

Peter van Berkum - Van Berkum Nursery

 

4:00 pm - 5:00 pm

Container Gardening: Drama For Every Season

Paul Zammit - Toronto Botanical Garden

REGISTER HERE TODAY!


 

DOWNLOAD SYMPOSIUM PDF 


 

Registration Fee: $99/person before September 5th $109/person after September 5th. This price includes lunch.

Save the Date for Honorary Medals -Thursday, October 16, 2014                           
George Robert White Medal
Thomas Roland Medal

 

Plans are well underway for the 115th annual Honorary Medals Dinner, the occasion for the Massachusetts Horticultural Society to honor some of the best practitioners in the profession. The gala party will take place on Thursday evening, October 16, 2014 in the Hunnewell Building at the Gardens at Elm Bank.  Dr. Michael Dirr, the bestselling author of Dirr's Hardy Trees and Shrubs, is very pleased to accept the George Robert White Medal, the Society's highest honor. Dr. Dirr will give the keynote speech. 

 

Dr. Michael Dirr

 

Conversations with the other award recipients assure us that they are also excited about their recognition.  You will have the chance to meet Eliot Coleman of Four Season Farm in Harborside ME, New England Wild Flower Socety and Nasami Farm, the Thomas Roland Medal awardee. Other honorees are: David Dusenbury who works at the Walter Hunnewell Estate,  for Plant Conservation in St. Louis, MO, Laurence Magner, president of the Cactus & Succulent Society, Kerry Mendez, a distinguished gardener, teacher and author, and Barbara Millen, who heads the Boston Committee of the Garden Clubs of America.  We're delighted that the awardees represent a cross-section of leaders in the field of horticulture.

  

     

To register for the Honorary Medals Dinner, please click here

 

Garden to Table Announcements    


The Garden to Table committee is planning what promises to be an exciting afternoon celebrating the garden's supporters, friends and all of the volunteers who have made the program what it is today. 

 
Please join us on Sunday, September 14th from 4-7pm as we celebrate the Spirit & Bounty of the garden.

I'd like to thank these generous individuals and our sponsors:

Dole & Baily
Johnny's Selected Seed
Mathworks
Metrowest Medical Center
Not Your Average Joe's
Pitcairn Trust
Stop & Shop Supermarket
Victoria Gourmet
Wegmans Supermarket
Wellesley Garden Club
Whole Foods Markets
Wingate Assisted Living

Please join us!  Click here to register!

On Saturday, September 27th, the Talk and Taste series comes to Mass Hort as we learn about cooking with cranberries. Dr Diane McKay from the Antioxidant Lab of the Tufts University Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging will join Blue Ginger's pastry chef, Michele Fadden and our own Garden Curator, David Fiske. Our three part lecture will be focused on nutrition, science, horticulture and the culinary arts. The morning's event will include tasting, a Q & A session and a tour of the Vegetable Garden. Click here to register!

I'd also like to inform everyone that Whole Foods Market in Wellesley has generously awarded the Garden to Table Program their 5% community support day. On Wednesday, September 17th, 5% of all store purchases will be given to the program.

Please check Mass Hort's events and programs page  for other exciting classes this summer, including Tea Blending Basics with Steph Zabel on August 21st

I hope you can join us and see what our committee has been involved with.

Lisa Kamer

 

Welcome to a New Sponsor: Joe Supports Mass Hort                              

 

Dine with Not Your Average Joe's any Tuesday in August, present the Mass Horticultural Society certificate, and Not Your Average Joe's will donate 15% of your purchase to the  Massachusetts Horticultural Society's Garden to Table program benefiting area food banks. (By the way, the bed Not Your Average Joe's sponsored at Mass Hort's vegetable garden is thriving!)

 

Interns in the Spotlight                              

This summer the entire Mass Hort staff had the pleasure of working with an outstanding group of interns who joined us for the busy season.  They brought with them a variety of backgrounds and interests that have spurred them to work hard at learning new skills and sharing their ideas with us.

 


 

     This year, Elana Cole will be a junior at the University of Vermont, majoring in environmental studies, with a concentration on sustainability, especially in Europe.  To this end, she will join a study program in Denmark during the spring semester, which will help satisfy her yen for travel.  While working in Weezie's Garden, she enjoys being a resource to answer visitors' questions and engaging in conversations that show her love for nature. Helping with children's programs is a special joy. She is sure that her future career will take her outdoors.

 


Nate Giess's job as our Visitor Services Associate is not his first experience at Elm Bank.  His loyalty to the gardens grew during the past year as he volunteered in all the gardens to fulfill his community service requirement as a member of Wellesley High School's National Honor Society. He also worked as a garden intern this summer. To be the first greeter at the welcome gate, he learned our garden policies and the history of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society.  After that grounding, his biggest focus has been to raise awareness of our Membership program and to provide information about its benefits. What he most enjoys is hearing what visitors appreciated during their tour and learning that there are so many different answers. We hope that this customer service background will help him as he studies Business Administration at Emory University in Atlanta as a freshman this fall.    

 

 

Bryce Hawes has still a year more at Hudson High School, but he brings to his energetic work ethic much experience managing masonry projects.  No doubt he builds his endurance by engaging in football and hockey during the school year.  A recent family trip opened his eyes to the beauty of Colorado, so he envisions joining a sports program there. Ever ready to learn new skills, he's glad that he's been assigned to many of the gardens here at Elm Bank, but he enjoys the Vegetable Garden most.  Harvest days are his favorite because he knows that his work is doing good for people who need the vegetables, and he's trying to persuade some of his friends to volunteer.

 

     It has been satisfying for the Mass Hort staff to guide this group as they enter the job market, but we have also learned from their many insightful ideas and perspectives and how we can have an impact on the world of the future. It is gratifying to hear that all three will strongly consider coming back to Mass Hort next year.  The summer is drawing to a close, but it is not too late to introduce yourself to our cast of starring interns.

 

Book Review 
By Pamela Hartford

 

Restoring American Gardens:  

An Encyclopedia of Heirloom Ornamental Plants, 1640 - 1940

Denise Wiles Adams

Timber Press 2009 (paperback)

 

 

A passionate horticulturist (is there any other kind?), Denise Wiles Adams has pored through over 300 historic nursery catalogues and the literature of many well known garden writers to create an encyclopedia of the most enduring American garden plants.  Calling these 'heirloom' ornamental plants, Adams's reference work tells when each plant appeared in the nursery trade, whether native or introduced, and includes quotes and comments on how it was used, and why it was popular.

 

Hoping to inspire gardeners to connect to their garden's history, and possibly the gardens of their forbears, Adams's appendices include a detailed index of which catalogs listed a plant, by geographic region and by time frame, enabling those interested in planting their gardens with historic approximation to know what might have been used within a given time period.

 

Although the database of plants revealed through her methodology amounted to more than 25,000 different taxa, she discovered that over three centuries, there was a consistent offering, or demand for, only about 100 plants across the range of trees, vines, perennials, annuals, and in a category by themselves, roses.  Despite the fact that the breakdown of these plants is 40/60 native vs exotic, or introduced, Adams refers to the list as "All American Ornamental Plants."

 

While there were few surprises among the best-loved and most used trees and perennials, it is especially interesting to read about the tender bulbs and annuals that were 'regulars.'  The sheer variety and number reveals that for many years, the labor entailed in starting from seed or overwintering and planting out was not in the least a source of concern, rather, a source of pride and status.

 

Nurseries,  then as now,  respond to demand.  Adams's hope is that her encyclopedia will inspire the type of plant lust that will ensure the endurance of heirloom species and varieties.  The websites appearing in Appendix C - Contemporary Sources for Heirloom Plants -  are very encouraging.

 

 

Pamela Hartford is a landscape historian and preservation consultant living in Salem, MA.

Notes from the Vegetable Garden          
By Susan Hammond

"Summertime, and the livin' is easy, Fish are jumpin' and the cotton is high."

 

We might not say the living is easy, and the only fish in our garden is the organic fish fertilizer that we use, but the crops are high!   Near the end of July, we had a harvest of well over 100 pounds, stacking the crates high as we took them in to be logged, prior to distribution to our area food pantries.

 

While we're not yet in the full swing of tomato harvest, the summer squash are doing well.   We grow several different kinds, not only the classic green zucchini and yellow crooknecks, but also specialty squash such as Costata Romanesco (a striped green Italian squash) and Patty pan squash that the younger visitors to the garden say look like spaceships!

 

We have been using Surround on some of our squash plants.  Surround is an organic product, a powdered kaolin clay, that is mixed with water and sprayed on the stems of the squash to make it harder for insects to damage the plants. While it's not 100% effective, it does greatly reduce the impact of insects like the squash vine borer. We had extra evidence of this when we noticed sudden drooping on two of our squash vines that had not been sprayed with Surround; checking the base revealed the telltale "orange sawdust" left behind by borer larvae. Once the borer is in the squash vine, there are limited options for trying to save the plant.  One of our plants was too damaged to try to save, but for another, we chose to make a small incision along the length of the vine, kill and remove the borer with a wire, and cover the damaged area of the vine with soil and mulch, which works about half of the time.

 

And odd as it sounds, we are already thinking about both the coming winter and next year's garden.  As beds are re-planted for the rest of this year, we have to stop and think about how many days we have left until frost, and pick crops that will mature in that timeframe. And we are also looking at what is working well, and what our visitors are interested in, so we can begin to plan the garden for 2015.

 

Come see how our garden is growing this year!

 

Welcome to a New Employee                               

 

We hope that Suzanne Leon has found her dream job because in the past four months, the Mass Hort staff has learned to appreciate the efficiency and friendliness of our new Controller.  After earning a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, with a concentration in accounting, from Northeastern University, she worked for several non-profits and, most recently, at an International Standards organization. She enjoys the challenges of non-profits and likes to assist committees with the best financial data, so they can make informed decisions.

 

She believes in Mass Hort's mission and values and loves coming every day to its changing landscape.  After much study, she has a solid understanding of the organization and knows how to ensure the accuracy of its financial reports.  She has already engaged a new payroll company that will provide much more information and for less cost.  She has assigned herself the task of streamlining the accounting department and how it interfaces with others.  Then, she will model out different configurations for the Functions business, so she can show the best way to run it.

    

Outside of work, Suzanne enjoys spending time with her family, walking her dog, movies, reading, and gardening.  We're glad to know that she believes that "once people come to see the gardens and hear about all the Mass Hort happenings, ...[they] want to become part of the adventure." 

 

A Treasured Volunteer: Kathi Gariepy 

It's hard to believe that Kathi has been the Caterpillar Club Teacher for eleven years because her programs seem to get fresher and more exciting each week.  They are never less than superbly organized, and the parents and children who arrive so promptly always have a look of anticipation on their faces.  Her 20 years as a pre-K and Kindergarten special education teacher have honed her skill of capturing an audience's interest.  Her love of gardening has landed her in just the right place for eliciting enthusiasm for nature. Kathi is a Lifetime Massachusetts Master Gardener, who has volunteered 5,000 hours and formerly helped organize the Master Gardener classes.  Mass Hort is not the only beneficiary of her expertise; she is the current Education Coordinator for Mass Audubon.

 

After many years of dedication to adult projects, at Mass Hort, she is now sharing her knowledge mostly with children.  As the leader of the Caterpillar Club, an enrichment program for the smallest gardeners, the topics range from Seeds & Flowers, where the participants dissect seeds and look at parts of the flower, to Animals in Your Backyard, where they look at animal puppets of common backyard animals. There are stories and walkabouts in the gardens of Elm Bank. When asked about her favorite part of the job, Kathi said, "I love to see the look on children's faces when they understand a concept or suddenly figure out how or why plants, insects or animals work. It's priceless!"


 
Outside of her teaching she loves travel, history and baking.  (Mass Hort staff for several years can attest that she's the best.)  When the summer is over, look for Kathi Gariepy playing Mrs. Claus at the Pajama Story Hour during the Festival of Trees. And she's a faithful recruiter of volunteers to other Mass Hort projects.  She asks,"Where else can one be surrounded by all of this beauty, history and great people?"  

 

August Horticultural Hints                    

 

by Betty Sanders

www.BettyOnGardening.com 

 

 

First the good news.  It's all about the weather.  Despite a few days in the 90's, the temperatures have generally stayed in the 80's and even the 70's which made the gardens happier, particularly for those who were not receiving rain on a regular basis.  The rain, even at my garden where storms too frequently seem to dry up or change direction just before reaching the property line, has been regular enough to keep the flowers blooming and the vegetables coming.

 

Yards and gardens are full of color.  The oxydendron (sourwood) trees are in full bloom as are Rose of Sharon (the hardy hibiscus) and many hydrangeas.  Roses are showing off now along with clematis and trumpet vines.  Summer annuals and perennials are reaching a peak.   Looking closely in many yards, you will see the call to help pollinators such as bees and butterflies has led many gardeners to tolerate patches of butterfly weed, milkweed, Queen Anne's lace and other host plants.  More and more people are recognizing that some of the plants we bought are not good for the environment while the ones we once labeled weeds are vital.

 

The bad news.  Despite a nasty winter that many of us have

Asian Longhorned Beetle

tried to forget, the populations of destructive (and dangerous) insects seem to have not been affected.  Biting flies, hornets, wasps, mosquitoes and ticks are making every trip out into the yard miserable for humans and some of our pets.  Our gardens are fighting off slugs, snails, lily leaf beetles, Japanese beetles and aphids of every color.  In the vegetable garden there are Colorado potato beetles, Mexican bean beetles, corn borers, squash borers, cucumber beetles and cabbage worms, most of whose appetites stray far beyond the plant whose name they share. Mildew is showing up on phlox and squash, black spot is on the roses, and early and late blight on the tomatoes.  August is the time for Asian longhorned beetles to come crawling out of the trees. Check maples, birches, elms, and willows for exit holes (see photo). In the Berkshires, the emerald ash borer has made its appearance. 

 

Swallowwort

The other problems that made it through the winter include the invasive plants that we need to keep in check.  Everyone should know on sight both pale ( whitish flowers) and black (deep purple flowers) swallowwort (see photo), oriental bittersweet and burning bush -if you can't uproot it completely, prune it back to remove the flowers or seed heads and slow its spread.

 

In the vegetable garden.  By now you should have planted autumn crops of spinach, lettuce, beets, quick carrots, green beans, turnips and swiss chard.  Check zucchini every day because they quickly become too large and tough skinned.  Green peppers left on the plant will become red peppers but cucumber and green beans become too large and inedible.  Harvest tomatoes and corn as they ripen (does anything say summer better than fresh tomatoes and sweet corn?)  Watch for all those nasty bugs and diseases, treat them organically (you'll be eating those plants!).

 

Early blight on tomatoes

If you spot early or late blight on your tomatoes, leaves turning yellow with black spots, trim them off with pruners that you wipe frequently with sanitizing hand wipes or dip into a solution of alcohol in order not to spread it.  Place all clippings in trash bags and send them to the dump.  Diseased plant material should never be composted or left in the garden where it will winter over to attack your plants next year.

 

In the ornamental garden.  Watch for insect and disease on annuals and perennials.  In my yard the deer have decided they prefer certain garden plants to what they can find in the woods and fields.  I spray monthly with a garlic and putrefied-egg-based deer repellent that discourages them from further forays.

 

Continue to deadhead annuals and perennials in order to keep the flowers coming into August and September.  Prune roses after blooming to encourage more flowers. And keep weeding so you will have fewer weed seeds to bedevil you next year. 

 

Watch this Space

By Neil Sanders
Leaflet Contributor

 

 

In our 600-square-foot vegetable garden this year we are growing corn, okra, lettuce, chard, dill, carrots, summer squash, eight kinds of tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, basil, leeks, beets, spinach, amaranth.... and green beans.

 

I have no argument with the first fifteen items on the list. There is nothing as flavorful as sweet corn eaten minutes after it was picked or a salad topped with tomatoes still warm from the vine. These are the reasons we garden. Even when there is excess (think zucchini), there are neighbors with whom to share the bounty or, if your friends begin avoiding you because they know you come bearing suitcases full of the stuff, you can foist the surplus on people who unsuspectingly leave their car windows rolled down in parking lots. We have disposed of zucchini in exactly that fashion on more than one occasion.

 

But zucchini is a vegetable that must be eaten fresh. No one would ever think of canning or freezing summer squash because they'd find nothing but mush when they sampled it in January. Not so green beans. Green beans have pretty much the same taste and texture whether they're eaten fresh or frozen.

 

For reasons I cannot fathom, this year Betty planted two 'wide rows' and one 'standard' row of green beans, with the idea that we'd freeze what we didn't immediately eat. She apparently used varieties with names like 'Maxi-Yield' and 'Garden-Glut' because we began getting green beans at the beginning of July and are now picking - and I promise I am not making this up -five pounds or more of beans from of the garden every other day.

 

The first week was wonderful. The yield was maybe 20 or 30 long, luscious beans a day, perhaps ten minutes worth of picking in the cool late afternoon. Once home, we pinched off the ends, threw them in a dish, steamed them for three minutes and we had fresh, delicious green beans; high in vitamins and good for us to boot.

Last year's bean crop

 

Then the yield bounced up to about 60 green beans a day. Fifteen minutes of picking and ten minutes of snipping ends. OK, we cooked half and froze half (two minutes in boiling water, then rinse under cold water to stop the cooking, arrange the beans on a tray, stick them in the freezer for an hour, then bag them and return them to the freezer until needed). I could cope with that.  One reason is that last year our green bean season lasted just two weeks.  Then, Mexican bean beetles discovered the garden and began chomping on everything in sight.  Seemingly overnight, the leaves were reduced to skeletons and the beans were half-eaten by voracious beetles.  But not this year:  Betty covered the beans with floating row covers in early June and the bean beetles have been effectively thwarted.  The beans, which are self-pollinating, thrive under the row covers.  Worse, the second double row is within a week of going into production.

 

 

This is one day's bean crop from our garden

Soon we will be spending half an hour stooped over picking under a blazing sun with suffocating August humidity, pinching ends for another 45 minutes, and then lining up green beans on trays for half an hour. First, it was one double-decked tray of beans to blanch and freeze and then two double-decked trays. Did I mention we are running out of space in our freezer?

 

Dealing with the excess will require ingenuity. Fortunately, our new neighbors on one side are vegetarians, and one of them is a growing teenage boy.  Unfortunately, the paterfamilias of our now-year-old neighbors on the other side is a man whose disdain for vegetables in general (the exception is zucchini) is well known.  I will slip our surplus green beans to his wife and their two adorable children via some Vegan version of the Underground Railroad.

 

The last row of green beans, a standard-width one, was planted late, intended for September production, and had poor germination. It is currently surrounded by squares of corn and I intend to leave up that corn until the last ear is plucked.  With luck, by the time the green bean plants should be flowering, they'll instead be shivering under cooling September nights. They will not be missed.

 

There is joy in seeing plants first emerging from the ground in May and early June. Alas, the mind does not contemplate the work that will be involved when, as in the 'Sorcerer's Apprentice', the green beans keep maturing by the hundreds every day, demanding to be picked. The great gardening guru Roger Swain calls one of the joys of summer the 'wretched excess' from the garden. This July and August, being a grower of green beans makes it easy to understand the 'wretched' part of that statement.

 

Neal Sanders is the author of eight mysteries.  His latest, "A Murder at the Flower Show" is available in book stores and at Amazon.com.  He is currently at work on his next book, "Murder in Negative Space".  

The Cactus and Succulent Society of Mass. has moved its annual show to the Boston area!           
Melocactus matanzanus

The 8th annual Cactus & Succulent Show and Sale will be held Sat. Sept. 13 and Sun. Sept. 14 at the Americal Civic Center, 467 Main St., Wakefield MA.

 

Previously held at Tower Hill Botanic Garden, the show has moved to much roomier quarters in The Americal Civic Center in downtown Wakefield, just off Rte. 129.  The Civic Center is conveniently located about 1 mile from Rte. 128/ I-95, either exits 39 and 40, and is also accessible via frequent T bus service from Orange Line Oak Grove T Station on bus lines 136 and 137.

Sedum indicum crest

 

The largest fall cactus and succulent show in the northeast will feature hundreds of spectacular rare and unusual plants grown by New England's foremost hobbyists.

 

There are thousands of cacti and succulents: many of the most unusual, rarest and often bizarre specimens of these fascinating plants will be vying for prizes from certified judges from all over the Northeast.

 

The judged show has over 100 different categories

Trichosereus bridgesii montrose

(classes) to entice avid local growers to show their spectacular plants.

 

There will also be 15 vendors with an amazing array of plants, pottery, books, note cards and much more.

 

Hours: 

Sat. 9/13: Show area from 11 AM - 5 PM; Vendor area from 9 AM - 5 PM

Sun. 9/14: Show and Vendor areas open from 9 AM - 5 PM.

 

Admission:  $4 adults, $2 children 2 to 10; toddlers free

Info:  www.cssma.org or 781-944-5959

 

A Centennial Year: Elm Bank Gardens Created                               
By Maureen Horn, Mass Hort Librarian


As the world observes the centennial of World War I, which commenced on August 4, 1914, Mass Hort notes that the event was connected with the beginning of the Olmsted gardens at Elm Bank.  The owners of the property, Alice Cheney Baltzell and her husband, Dr. William Hewson Baltzell, had been married seven years, and they spent much of their time traveling abroad. They did attract the attention of the local community, though.  The Wellesley Townsman wrote in early 1907, "It is rumored that some members of the Cheney family are to erect a two million dollar residence on the site of the present house." (The house had been built by Mrs. Baltzell's parents in 1875.)  The rumors had some merit, and in August 1907, ground was broken for the house designed by Carrere and Hastings. The engineer Henry Opdyke submitted a drainage plan which shows a fountain and two large tennis courts dominating the landscape.

 

Installing Manor House Gardens

 

That wasn't enough to keep them at home, though, and on August 1, 1913, it was reported that "Dr. and Mrs. Baltzell were recently the guests of his sister, Mme de Weerth in Paris, whom they will shortly accompany to Dinard . . . Later they will go to England and return home in October."  War was brewing, and on both sides of the Atlantic even habitual wanderers stayed home to tend their home fires and gardens. The Baltzells wanted to savor the memories of their travels, so they planned a landscape that would incorporate the treasures they had found in Europe. To that end, they invited the Olmsted Associates to submit a grading plan for the Temple Garden in 1914. The firm established a file of correspondence concerning Job #6058 (Elm Bank) that has a first date of June 10, 1914. The file contains letters among the employees, who inform each other about the Baltzells' detailed requirements. First, there is some description: "Dr. B. is a Baltimorean graduate of Johns Hopkins and a collector of art. . . . They now wish to extend and complete the garden scheme having brought home certain Italian garden features, among them a stone temple like structure. . . It is proposed (to place) the Italian temple on what was the floor of the stable, the cellar of which is to be made into a storage cellar for the bay trees and the like."  After several more letters, the record shows that Dr. Baltzell's priority, even before the Temple Garden, was the storage cellar to protect and grow flowers during the winter.

 

                      

 

The correspondence reflects Dr. Baltzell's attention to construction details and his leadership in selecting materials and plantings because the file was closed in 1928, the year he died. His engineering mind seems to have given way to his wife's artistic vision because the estate received more attention and honor during the thirties.  She honored her husband as an art collector and in his memory donated a fine 18th century portrait of a woman to the Museum of Fine Arts. 

 

 Our debt is also to Dr. Baltzell because his foundational arrangements portended nonstop activity for fourteen years, and they will give us future opportunities to commemorate the development of the gardens and incentive to restore them.

 

Storage cellar today