Date: Saturday, May 16, 2015

Time: 9am- 3pm

**Special early members' hours: 8-9am

Parking: $5.00 per car, members free; free parking with Herb Society postcard 

Location: The Gardens at Elm Bank, 900 Washington Street, Wellesley, MA 02482

The Gardeners' Fair and Plant Sale at The Gardens at Elm Bank includes everything you need to plan, dig, plant, and enjoy your home garden space. 

We have combined with the New England Unit of the Herb Society of America to form a new partnership for this event. We have also partnered with Allandale Farm, Boston's oldest working farm on the Boston/Brookline line. Allandale Farm will feature "Tomatoes Galore" where you can choose sturdy tomato plants of more than 40 varieties, ranging from heirlooms to the ever-popular hybrid beefsteak and everything in between.

The Gardeners' Fair is your opportunity to find rare and unusual perennials, trees and shrubs; ready-to-plant herbs and vegetables; tomato varieties by the dozens; and unique garden tools and accessories. We will also have family garden programs, fun for kids, food, special lectures by the experts and garden tours. For more information, click here. 

The New England Unit of the Herb Society activities: Herb Garden tours at 9:00 A.M. and 12 noon; Family-oriented workshops - Fairy Houses at 10:00 A.M.; Herbal Seed Starting at 1:00 P.M

Now with the snow mostly melted, the extent of winter damage in our yards is becoming evident-and for many of us it's not a pretty picture! Here are some remedial suggestions for the various types of plant damage you're likely encountering in your yard.

Discolored foliage on rhododendron, holly, Kalmia and other broadleaf evergreens:

Although wind, sun and salt-damaged evergreen foliage looks unsightly now, new growth by mid-spring will likely restore their appearance, as damaged leaves drop-off or are hidden by new growth. Wait until June to assess recovery before removing branches that look dead now. Avoid fertilizing any winter-damaged plants; adding nutrients to recovering plants can force excessive soft growth, weakening the plant.

Branches crushed and torn on shrubs:

If they are not broken, flexible laid-down branches on many shrubs like boxwood, holly, azalea, yew and juniper may recover: gently pull them back up, holding them in position if needed with twine to coax them to grow back to their desired shape. Cut-off all torn and broken branches below the break. When seriously damaged, the entire shrub may need re-shaping, enabling latent buds to grow and fill-in gaps. Prune or shear to develop a wide "A" shape (not an "I" or "V" shape); this helps develop stronger lower branches, encouraging stiffer structure more resistant to next winter's snow and ice damage. Most damaged shrubs benefit from heavy cut-back, allowing new growth to restore their appearance, albeit smaller than before the injury.

Split branches on trees and large shrubs:

If they are only partially separated, important split branches on horizontally-branched plants like cut-leaf Japanese maple, dogwood and rhododendron may be repairable. Gently pull the split branch to the main trunk, hold temporarily with tape or twine, drill a small hole and insert a bolt, tightening the nut to secure the two sections together. Often it's better to cut-off the split branch and allow the main stem to heal, enabling undamaged branches fill-in the spaces.

Deer-browsed leaves and needles:

Deer-browsed broadleaf evergreens like rhododendron and holly will usually recover with new foliage by late spring. Unfortunately, stripped-off foliage on needled evergreens like arborvitae, yew and hemlock does regrow not as well. If you see no new growth by the end of June, it may 

Girdled trunk

be best to remove those now-bare branches back to the trunk; try under-planting with "face-down" deer-resistant shrubs like Leucothoe, boxwood and Andromeda (Pieris) that help hide the missing lower branches.

Stems and trunks girdled by rodents:

Fruit trees, maples, viburnum, cotoneaster and many other soft-bark trees and shrubs are susceptible to vole- and rabbit-browsing on their stems. Bark slightly gnawed or notched usually heals and recovers naturally without treatment. Any branch girdled more than 2/3's around should be cut off below the damage. Multi-stemmed shrubs that retain some undamaged stems will re-grow, but trees with all trunks girdled will probably not recover. Be aware that even fully-girdled plants may appear normal, blooming and leafing-out well, only showing their true health as their food reserves are exhausted.

In general: Losing plants to winter damage is disappointing and unfortunate. But now is the right time to consult with your local garden center experts for recommendations to protect susceptible plants from next winter's challenges. And lots of exciting new brands of trees and shrubs are now coming on the market this spring; those unexpected gaps in your garden offer a fine opportunity to make some welcome changes and add a new level of interest to your yard.

R. Wayne Mezitt is a 3^rd generation nurseryman and a Massachusetts Certified Horticulturist, now chairman of Weston Nurseries of Hopkinton and Chelmsford, MA, and owner of "Hort-Sense", a horticultural advisory business. Wayne currently serves as Trustee chairman for the Massachusetts Horticultural Society at Elm Bank in Wellesley MA.

The Competitions

Floral Design Division I: Marisa McCoy, President Garden Club Federation of MA

Chair, Floral Design Division I, Joan Butler

Chair, Floral Design Division II, Jill Malcolm

 Amateur Horticulture Competition Chair: Michael Arnum

 Miniature Gardens Competition Chairs: Debi Hogan and Warren Leach

 Photography Competition Chairs: Christine Paxhia and Chris Wood

 Ikebana Display Chair: Joanne Caccavale

 Special Thanks to Volunteers and Mass Hort Staff Members

John Forti, Director of Education and Horticulture for his guidance with the exhibit

Amy Rodrigues, Manager of Membership and Visitor Services

Katie Folts, Education Coordinator for the Discovery Guide and Youth experience at the show

Penni Jenkins, Overseer and volunteer, for her help with Am Hort and the membership desk

David Fiske- for forcing plants

Clark Bryan- for handling show logistics in and out

Elvera Howard- for hospitality at the show

Morgan Springer- volunteers

Check out the 2015 Award Winners!

The Mass Hort staff has recently welcomed our new Director of Development, Elaine Lawrence, who has brought her love of gardens to Elm Bank.  She is sure that, surrounded by so much expertise, she has come to the right place to improve her own gardening skills.

Elaine is looking forward to helping Mass Hort find new opportunities to carry out its mission and believes that the first challenge is to strengthen its infrastructure; that is, to provide the Mass Hort staff with the tools they need to do the best job possible.

Elaine brings 20 years of development experience to Mass Hort - she's eager to learn more about the Society and looks forward to meeting new people with whom to share ideas.  Her enthusiasm is contagious, so don't hesitate to contact her at 617-933-4945 or elawrence@Masshort.org.

Besides sharing generously his time and experience, Wayne Mezitt, the Chairman of our Board of Trustees, has enhanced the ability of the Mass Hort Library to inform the public on the science of horticulture.  To do this, he donated an almost comprehensive collection of the Proceedings of theInternational Plant Propagators' Society. His collection starts with Volume 2, dated 1952, and ends with the 2013 issue. Because the online version of the Proceedings are exclusively accessible only to current members, and the bound version is not prevalent in many libraries, Wayne hopes that his gift will be welcomed by people who are interested in learning more about specific areas of plant propagation.  The volumes contain all the abstracts and papers presented at the conferences held annually in each of the IPPS regions around the world.  They represent insights from some of the most qualified horticulturists of the day. 

Mr. Mezitt's interest in studying the science of propagation emanates from years of attending the annual eastern meetings with his father Edward V. Mezitt, the longtime director of Weston Nurseries.   Because it was impossible for them to go to all the lectures, the Proceedings became an important resource for them. Additionally, knowing the names and contact information about each presenter enabled them to get in touch directly with other members of the professional organization.  After his father's death in 1986, Wayne filled in many of the gaps left vacant in Edward's collection.   Still missing are #1, 1951; #3, 1953; #4, 1954; #8, 1958; #10, 1960; #12, 1962; #13, 1963; #14, 1964; #42, 1992.  He continues to attend IPPS meetings, gathering important information and nurturing relationships. IPPS is a worldwide membership organization of almost 2,000 individuals from academia and business who are professionally associated with the plant production industry, locally, nationally and internationally.

The Library of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society is proud to offer this treasury of knowledge to the community, and it is hoped that someday one of our visitors will appear with a stray volume to make the collection more complete.

In & Out of Paris: Gardens of Secret Delights

Zahid Sardar/Photographs by Marion Brenner

Gibbs Smith: Layton, UT, 2004

Reviewed by Patrice Todisco

A collaboration between the design editor of the San Francisco Chronicle and a Berkeley-based photographer,In & Out of Paris: Gardens of Secret Delights provides a rare treat:

Pierre Berge's Artful Hideout

Comprised of forty-one garden "stories" loosely categorized as garden estates, public parks, and privately owned spaces, In & Out of Paris: Gardens of Secret Delights traces the evolution and adaptation of Paris as a garden city, where contemporary design is infused with historic meaning. The large estates and public parks of the city provide context for its private, intimate spaces, which include courtyards, rooftops, those hidden behind hôtel particulier walls and within suburban locations.    

Beginning with AndréLe Nôtre's 100-acre masterpiece Vaux-le-Vicomte and concluding with the interior courtyard and salon de thédesigned by landscape architect Christian Fournet for the hotel Novotel Les Halles, the gardens portrayed within In & Out of Paris: Gardens of Secret Delights inspire inquiry.  They are presented from a distinct point of view that is not afraid to frame questions about design, management and maintenance, permanence and impermanence and the relationship between landscapes and gardens.

Versailles

An introduction provides a concise overview of the history of the greening of Paris beginning with Catherine de Medici's Renaissance influenced Tuileries Palace and Gardens, sited just beyond the walls of the medieval city.  The transformation of the city by Baron Haussmann in 1853 into twenty arrondissements where boulevards, squares, public parks and gardens created an environment full of light and air created a "lyrical, magical garden city" which serves as a textbook for cross-pollinating garden ideas at every scale and a model for the city beautiful movement.

It is this spirit of cross-pollination which infuses In & Out of Paris: Gardens of Secret Delights with vibrancy.  Père Lachaise Cemetery, described as an "uncommon sculpture park,"is afforded equal stature to Christian Fournet's Miami-esque poolside roof garden. Monet's garden at Giverny, a "painter's box of seasonal surprises"co-exists with Gilles Clément's tropical gardens at the Musée du quai Branly.  It's an eclectic mix.

Exquisite full-color photographs abundantly illustrate each of the book's two hundred and sixty one pages. Each is accompanied by descriptive text that includes an identification of the plant species depicted in the image. A resource section includes contact information about individual designers and a bibliography.     

The introduction to In & Out of Paris: Gardens of Secret Delights both begins and concludes with a quote from American statesman Thomas Jefferson, who "bedazzled" by Paris on a visit in 1844 noted, "A walk around Paris will provide lessons in history, beauty and the point of life."   The city of light continues to bedazzle with parks and gardens at its core.  

Patrice Todisco writes about parks, garden and the public realm at www.landscapenotes.com.

Photographs by Marion Brenner from In & Out of Paris Gardens of Secret Delights by Zahid Sardar. Reprinted by permission of Gibbs Smith. 

Part 3: 1960 - 1962 Pride of Purpose: the Society Reaches Out

During the early sixties, the Society experienced volatility in its financial situation.  President Oliver Wolcott worried because membership was dropping and regretted that the Flower Show did not produce the profit it merited.  Our ownership of Horticulture magazine was a mixed blessing because, even though subscriptions increased, a scheme for promoting its sales turned out to be very expensive.

Arno Nehrling, the Executive Secretary, expressed much concern about the physical space which M. H. S. inhabited.  A decaying building should have been expected because Horticultural Hall had been on Massachusetts Avenue, across from Symphony Hall, for 60 years.  Even the budget of the Boston Public Schools seemed to have an unfortunate effect on the operations of M. H. S. because a cut in the budget for school gardens resulted in our not having enough exhibits at our Children's Show.

The one happy thought in everyone's mood, though, was the continuing and growing appreciation by the Society's members and the general public for the homey atmosphere of the beautiful building, and the number of meetings held there grew every year. Members also liked to gather to visit gardens together, and there are pictures in the annual reports of crowds experiencing great conviviality.  The local people were not insular, though, and the Prize Committee made sure that they distributed their awards to many states and countries.

Above all, in the 1960's the Library was a source of pride and prestige.  It was generally recognized as the finest horticultural library in the land, and it took pains to send its books out to every state.  The reports of the Library Committee give space to urging patrons to call or write to the Library with the promise that books would be promptly mailed to them.  The Librarian, Dorothy S. Manks, who joined the Massachusetts Horticultural Society Library in 1929, was nationally renowned for the the classification system she created for botany and horticulture books, and it was used nationwide by similar libraries.

The Library today follows her lead by lending our books throughout the state, using the Interlibrary Loan component of the Massachusetts Library System.

by Neal Sanders

Leaflet Contributor

What on earth have I gotten myself into?

Back at our old home, the snow is quickly melting off the lawn and gardens, revealing grass that awaits only a light raking to spring to new life.  Daffodils, warmed by the house's foundation, are heading up for a mid-April bloom.

This morning, I gazed out the window of our new home where, also, the snow is receding.  But what is revealed is... mud.  Nothing but mud.  Gray mud that last fall was compressed into the consistency of concrete by trucks, trailers and cranes parked for weeks at a time.

This is the site of our new garden. 

Let us backtrack a few months.  Last year we found the ideal location for the home we plan to reside in until we are carried out, feet first.  It was a wonderful site but sitting on it was a dilapidated house.  Around that house was a forest of aging pines, a thicket of invasive barberry and burning bush, plus a lush garden of poisonous black swallowwort.

Our future garden

We had the house torn down and a wide area of trees and undergrowth removed.  Betty began planning a low-maintenance garden.  Then winter set in and our gardening plans were played in abeyance.

Now, we are ready to begin turning that tabula rasa into a garden, or at least begin gardening when the ground thaws.

To turn that concrete-like dirt into gardening soil we have a rototiller.  AARP just sent it a membership application.  We purchased our Troy-Bilt EconoHorse in 1980 and used it happily for ten years.  Then we moved and then moved again, taking along our rototiller because it had served us so well and we expected that one day we would use it again.  The last time either one of us can definitively remember using it was during the Clinton administration.

Our ancient rototiller

Two weeks ago we hauled our rototiller to the place that has kept our snow blower running for a decade and asked whether the EconoHorse could be saved or should it be put down.  A group of employees gathered around it and gazed, awestruck that such a machine could still exist and not have been reduced to rust.  A technician gave a tentative pull on the engine and said there was hope. 

Three days ago our aging rototiller came home, renewed with a host of sparkling new belts, hoses, and other parts, and ready to do its best.

 But while the machine is the same, the man behind that TroyBilt is not the same guy who, in 1980, created a 50 by 200 foot garden in a single weekend of sweaty, muscular grit and determination.  He is 35 years older and those muscles, while they have exactly atrophied, aren't what they were once upon a time.

And, tilling that dirt is just the first step toward turning it into soil.  There needs to be truckloads of compost worked into it plus whatever else a soil test tells us it needs.  Then, there are dozens of shrubs to plant, grasses and perennials to place, and paths to create.

 Like I wrote at the beginning of this essay, what have I gotten myself into?

 We do these things out of love.  We also do these things because we want to prove to ourselves that we still possess the stamina to carry out a major project that is long on physical effort.  Mostly, we do these things because we want to be able to say that we had a hand in creating something beautiful.

Get ready to pass the Advil.