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Leaflet eNewsletter
June 2015 Edition
In This Issue
John Forti Given Certificate of Commendation
Garden-to-Table Spring Dinner Review
Book Review
June Hort Hints: Ready, Set, Garden!
End of the School Year at the Plantmobile
Essay: Three Down, Eight or Nine to Go
Notes from the Vegetable Garden
Introducing a New Horticulturalist at Mass Hort
A New Gardening Companion for Children
A Good Neighbor Lends a Helping Hand - Kennedy Country Gardens
Catching Up with the Last Half Century
Education Programs in June
Upcoming Mass Hort Events
Thu Jun 18 @ 7:00PM - 08:30PM
Spring Foraging Walk and Talk With Russ Cohen

Thu Jun 25 @ 7:00PM - 08:30PM
Historic Landscape Stewardship

Sat Jun 27 @10:00AM - 12:00PM
Herb Gardening

Tue Jun 30 @ 1:00PM - 02:30PM
Children's Afternoon in the Garden

Thu Jul 09 @ 7:00PM - 08:30PM
Insects in the Garden: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Sat Jul 11 @10:00AM - 12:00PM
Plan to Harvest: Vegetable Gardening

Wed Jul 15 @10:00AM - 02:00PM
Color Gardens: Learn to Create Three Season Flower Gardens with Winter Appeal

Thu Jul 23 @ 6:00PM - 08:30PM
Evening at Elm Bank: Arts on the Green

Tue Jul 28 @ 1:00PM - 02:30PM
Children's Afternoon in the Garden

Thu Jul 30 @ 7:00PM - 08:30PM
Seed Saving Basics

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 Letter from the President

 

Dear Friends,

 

Spring has been very busy at Mass Hort, so we've depended on the help of many volunteers and friends. John Lawrence of Pepper's Fine Food Catering and his team served up another wonderful Garden-to-Table Spring Dinner; Chris Kennedy and his team from Kennedy's Country Gardens helped plant many containers with unusual and beautiful designs. Wellesley Bank Charitable Foundation sponsored a wonderful evening of jazz in the Crocket Garden, where about 100 people enjoyed a picnic, music, and ice cream donated by J.P. Licks. Watch for additonal evening in the garden events in July and August!

 

The Plantmobile has been on the road this spring visiting schools and outreach events with science projects to delight young people. Thank you to the many individuals and organizations that continually help support this program with their donations.

 

Thank you again for being a member of Mass Hort and please help us grow by referring others, bringing them to an event or class, or for a stroll in The Gardens at Elm Bank.

 

Enjoy the garden.

 

Best wishes,

 

Kathy 

 
John Forti Given Certificate of Commendation                              

Marisa McCoy and John Forti
Marisa McCoy and John Forti
On June 3, John Forti, our Director of Horticulture and Education was presented with an award by Marisa McCoy, the outgoing President of the Garden Club Federation of Massachusetts, who composed its text.  In it she praises his vision for an earth-friendly future and particularly cites the School Gardens Conference which was held at Elm Bank in February.  It was seen as a fertile ground for encouraging enthusiasm among several groups with different approaches to creating school gardens. John Forti is commended for his energy and action in bringing people together.

John Forti's Certificate  

An Enjoyable Garden-To-Table Dinner - Celebrating the Spring Harvest!                           

Over thirty people enjoyed the Garden-to-Table Spring Dinner hosted by Chef John Lawrence and his team from Pepper's Fine Food Catering on Tuesday, June 2.

 

We opened the evening with a short tour of the vegetable garden plantings led by Hannah Traggis and John Forti, viewing the numerous crops like lettuce, onions, peas, cress,

 

 and nasturtium, many of which had been harvested to comprise tonight's meal. A reception in the Hunnewell Carriage House featured home-brewed sparkling hard cider with a touch of elder flower cordial to make a unique, delicious drink.  Another freshly mixed rhubarb-strawberry beverage and a range of wines garnished with dianthus or violet flowers were also enjoyed. Garden-based appetizers were passed, including "Strawberry and Local Chevre croustades" and "Smoked

Garden-to-Table Chef John Lawrence

Trout Canap� with strawberry horseradish sauce",and we were soon invited to our table to view Peppers Chef John Lawrence displ

ay his culinary skills. He began by describing his fresh-picked salad course created using numerous seasonal selections from our garden; he then mixed a unique dressing using a blender to combine ingredients including spring onions, lavage, wild garlic and sorrel, emulsified in oil and a touch of rice wine vinegar. What a treat!

 

The next course, a small taste of "Pork Tenderloin Po Boy, crisp brioche, with poached rhubarb, Great Hill Blue Cheese Slaw" again consisted mostly of items just picked from the garden. A choice of several wines selected to complement the flavors of the ingredients was offered with each course. The main course, described in detail and prepared in our full view, consisted of an artful composition that included "Pan seared Salmon topped with Rhubarb ginger drizzle, over quinoa. Deemed exceptional and totally delicious by all, the meal concluded with a selection of fresh pastries, continuing conversations and much comraderie among attendees with a wide range of related interests. 

Our President with the Chef
Our President with the Chef

 

John Forti offered a dusk-and-full-moon tour of the herbgarden to view more elements that comprised tonight's banquet, to be followed (for non-designated drivers!) with a taste of unique self-fermented fruit and berry liqueur.

 

We hope that this this intrigues you, because Chef Lawrence will be hosting a Fall-Harvest Garden-to-Table Dinner in autumn-don't miss it!

 

 

ANTIQUES AT ELM BANK


At The Gardens at Elm Bank
  

ANTIQUES AT ELM BANK- SATURDAY, JUNE 13 AND SUNDAY, JUNE 14. Special admissions applies, as this is not a Mass Hort event.

Members and Friends Picnic June 7th

 

Picnic 2015
Members and Friends enjoyed music by LIVEWIRE in the Crocket Garden and the Maple Grove on a beautiful Sunday evening. The Wellesley Bank Charitable Foundation sponsored the event and L.P. Licks provided icecream!

Book Review                              

 

HUMMELO: A Journey Through a Plantsman's Life

Written by Piet Oudolf and Noel Kingsbury

The Monacelli Press: 2015


 

Reviewed by Patrice Todisco

 

"In 1982 Piet and Anja and their two boys - Pieter, then aged nine, and Hugo, aged seven -   moved into an old farmhouse on an acre of land outside the village of Hummelo, in the province of Gelderland, in the eastern Netherlands."From this opening sentence, which feels rather like the beginning of a fairytale, the unlikely story of how, through the singular focus and extraordinary talent of celebrated plantsman Piet Oudolf, the manner in which gardens are designed changed forever.

 

Floral labyrinth at the Trentham Estate, Stoke-on-Trent, Photo Piet Oudolf
Floral labyrinth at the Trentham Estate, Stoke-on-Trent, Photo Piet Oudolf

Written to mark Oudolf's 70th birthday, HUMMELO: A Journey Through a Plantsman's Life, is a lavishly photographed celebration of all that happened following the family's move to Hummelo.  While showcasing the evolution of Oudolf's work and design philosophy, it is also the story of a place, the nursery he and his wife founded to grow plants that, at the time, were unavailable for purchase elsewhere.  While the nursery flourished, drawing visitors from throughout the world, so too did Oudolf's practice. 

 

A gifted plantsman, Oudolf is at the center of the movement in planting design that focuses on ecological considerations and the use of native perennials and grasses.  Combining plants naturalistically, Oudolf deftly balances complexity and coherence, anchoring his designs with enough of a given plant to provide visual impact while also using a diverse palette of plant varieties. Form, texture and seasonality matter as much to Oudolf as color and his planting plans create landscapes that are often ethereal in their beauty, appearing deceptively natural despite being carefully designed. 

 

Homage is paid to both the people and places that shaped

The High Line, Manhattan, 2009 Photo- Piet Oudolf
The High Line, Manhattan, 2009 Photo- Piet Oudolf

Oudolf's career introducing the reader to influential German and Dutch designers and horticulturalists.  It is fitting that Oudolf would share his story so generously as throughout the book his independence as a designer is complemented by close collaborations and partnerships with others, including architects and landscape architects, and patrons for whom he has created gardens and most critically those who maintain them.

 

Piet in 1992
Piet in 1992

Described as an artist first and a designer second, Oudolf eschews the trappings of a professional office and staff maintaining sole responsibility for his work.  Planting design is by its nature a highly individualized and specific skill and according to close friend Rosie Atkins, former editor of Gardens Illustrated Magazine, Oudolf, "cannot delegate the design process any more than a composer could delegate a composition."As a result he now completes approximately eight projects a year.     

 

The book's final section Crossing the Atlantic, explores Oudolf's North American work including Chicago's Lurie Garden and New York's Battery and High Line.  Fittingly, these highly lauded public projects have brought Oudolf additional acclaim.  In 2013 he was awarded the premier Dutch cultural award, the Prince Bernhard Fund, for "achievements in the field of gardening and landscape design,"particularly his "significant impact on developments on The Netherlands and abroad."  In keeping with Oudolf's dedication to integrating natural landscapes into urban settings the award's prize will be used to establish "Green in the Neighborhood"for community- based volunteer projects in urban neighborhoods.

 

Told in partnership with frequent collaborator Noel Kingsbury, HUMMELO: A Journey Through a Plantsman's Life is part biography, part social history and part design manual.  While the narrative is structured around three broadly defined sections with a brief introduction the book also includes plans, notes on topics relating to planting design and a listing of places to visit.

      

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

 

June Hort Hints: Ready, Set, Garden!

By Betty Sanders
BettyOnGardening.com

Rain at last!  This has been the driest New England spring I remember; almost certainly one for the record books.  In a normal year, we get a lot of rain in the spring-vital for all the trees and shrubs and perennials as they emerge from winter and send out flowers and leaves.  This year we received virtually none until May 31.  No matter how much rain falls before you read this, we will still be behind on the water necessary for healthy plant growth.  But with the lack of rain, town watering restrictions went in earlier and with stricter rules.  So what's a gardener to do? 

A 'tree gator' will deliver water where it's needed
A 'tree gator' will deliver water where it's needed

First, keep your priorities straight.  Don't even think about using sprinklers.  Evaporation can cause the loss of half the water before it ever reaches your plants.  Trees and shrubs are costly to replace and take a long time to grow to size. Water them with drip bags or by direct hand watering into the tree basin.  Perennials are your next priority.  They will tell you when they need water by drooping early or late in the day (Drooping in the middle of the day means only that the roots can't keep up with the heat, not that the plant is under serious stress. Drip hoses laid through beds is another option.   Lawns do not need to be watered; they can survive periods of dryness, recovering naturally when rain returns.

Vegetable garden.  Did you take advantage of those 80+ degree days to put out your hot weather crops?  Unfortunately Mother Nature once again proved she can't be trusted in May by starting June with several days of temperatures in the 40's and 50's.  If you are lucky, your tomatoes, eggplants, squash and cucumbers may survive without significant damage.  It's also possible that they will be stunted by the colder temps and never reach their true potential.  If you have room, add an additional tomato or eggplant after the temperature warms and check its progress against any planted earlier in May.  But remember that additional fertilizer is never a solution for a stressed plant.  Fertilizer should be used only when a soil test says you need the additional nutrients.

When the weather warms again, get your second square of corn planted, put squash seeds in the ground, plant a fresh row of beans and another of lettuce.  This should ensure an abundance of midsummer produce.  Don't forget to tuck some native flowers such as bee balm and echinancea into the corners of the garden.  It will attract the pollinators you need for a successful crop, make your garden pretty to look at, and give the native pollinators - bees and butterflies - a badly needed feeding station.

Weeds may have been slowed by the dry weather but they will love the rain.  Expect to find them popping up in garden beds very soon.  In the immortal words of Roger Swain, the best weed control is infanticide: get rid of them while they are small, before their roots become too well entrenched to hand pull without dislodging the plants you want.  So pull, hoe and dig.

This is what swallowwort looks like in June
This is what swallowwort looks like in June

Be especially aware of the growing colonies of invasive weeds such as black swallowwort.  It looks like a vine as it grows; then a pretty purple flower appears and finally a pod full of seeds.  While the seeds look somewhat like milkweed pods, they will kill monarch larvae laid on the plants.  Your only hope is to cut down the vines before the flowers ripen into seeds.  Weed whackers (or clippers for small stands) will stop them temporarily, but keep an eye out because they will re-sprout.  Just keep cutting them until they don't return.  Or in your garden, dig out the root mass, bag it and leave it in the sun to kill.  Left alone they cover native vegetation or anything in your garden.  Think of them as New England kudzu.

---------------------------------

You can find more of Betty's gardening advice at www.BettyOnGardening.com.  We also congratulate Betty as, this month, she becomes President of the Garden Club Federation of Massachusetts

 

 

End of the School Year

At the Plantmobile
At the Plantmobile

It has come at last!

 

The end of the school year means one thing- fun times in the classroom. Schools all over Eastern Mass have booked the Plantmobile for a visit, and we've been busy!

 

In late May, we enjoyed the warm weather and sunshine in Dover and Lawrence. In Dover, kindergarten students learned what plants need in order to grow. We took leaf rubbings to see the veins that move nutrients around the plant and dug through soil to find decomposers. Every student planted a flower to take home. In Lawrence, second grade students spent time in the shade, looking for insects on plants and finding connections between plants and animals in an ecosystem.

 

In the last four weeks, we made nine school visits and will do the same over the next two weeks. This Spring, the Plantmobile will have worked with thousands of students to share our mission and share the fun of gardening and the importance of a healthy environment.

 

Once school is out, the Plantmobile will be running programs for kids ages 8-13 in Weezie's Children's Garden. Come to the first of the three part series (You can come to one, two or all three) to plant your own container garden. June 30, 1:00 pm-2:30 pm. Please pre-register here.

 

Three Down, Eight or Nine to Go               

 

by Neal Sanders

Leaflet Contributor


 

For the past few weeks, there has seldom been a day when there has not been a copy of William Cullina's 'Native Trees, Shrubs and Vines' or the American Horticultural Society's 'Northeast Smartgarden Regional Guide' open on Betty's desk.  Alongside those two tomes have been catalogs from several area nurseries.

Two of our first three trees - an oxydendrum and native dogwood.
Two of our first three trees - an oxydendrum and native dogwood.


 

It isn't that Betty is expecting to find some heretofore unknown specimen of maple or oak lurking within those books.  Rather, she is looking for roughly a dozen very special trees. Specifically, native trees that will serve as the anchors for a brand new landscape.  The books are akin to audition tapes; a means of winnowing hundreds of candidates down to a few finalists.

We are starting with a blank canvas at our new home.  In the past two weeks we have carted away hundreds of cubic yards of rock and dirt officially classified by the University of Massachusetts Soil Laboratory as incapable of supporting plant life and replaced it with eighteen inches of organics-rich screened loam.  We topped that loam with several inches of mulch, which now awaits a garden.

The garden is being designed to combine beauty withecological sensitivity and low maintenance.  "Ecological sensitivity" translates to a strong emphasis on native trees and shrubs that will support the local population of birds and insects.  "Low maintenance" means exactly that: a garden that, once in place, doesn't require long hours of maintenance to keep it looking attractive. 

The trees are the anchors.  There will likely be eleven or

Our oxydendrum will have striking white flowers in summer
Our oxydendrum will have striking white flowers in summer

twelve of them.  On a recent weekday, we rode with senior horticulturalist Henry Schmidt of Weston Nurseries around their 'back lot', looking for the trees on Betty's list.  The first tree we spotted was an oxydendrum, sometimes called a sourwood tree.  It's a tree native to the northeast that is seldom seen, and that's a shame.  An oxydendrum produces white flowers on long, distinctive panticles in midsummer; those panticles remain in place even as the leaves turn a vivid red in fall.  The tree before us was a magnificent specimen, standing nearly twelve feet tall.

Deep in the tree holding area, Henry stopped in front of a group of cornus florida.  Flowering dogwoods can be found everywhere in New England, but most of the dogwoods we see are the Asian kousa varieties, and Massachusetts is considered the northern limit of the native variety. Betty specified one that was not only native but with pink bracts or petals. We found a perfect specimen, more than ten feet tall, and it was duly tagged.  The third tree on the list was an amelanchier, or shadbush.  We spotted a multi-stemmed clumping version of this beautiful ornamental tree that feeds early pollinators, then the birds, and finally turns a rainbow of colors in the autumn. 

Two days later, we returned to the nursery with a borrowed pickup truck and our three purchases were effortlessly loaded by a guy driving a nifty machine that functioned like a giant hand.  The 'hand' picked up the tree, tilted it just so, and placed it in the truck.  We got them home.  So far, so good.

The problem was getting them off of the truck.  In the past, we've purchased much smaller trees.  If their root balls were wrapped in burlap, the width of the ball was usually a foot to eighteen inches.  These three trees, by contrast, had root balls two feet wide or even larger.  Moreover, they were wet.  I tried lifting one.  It would not budge.

After ten minutes of my flailing and grunting, Betty grudgingly allowed me to go across the street to where our neighbors - a family roughly half our age - were entertaining some muscle-bound friends.  It turns out they had been watching our travails and were discussing whether to offer their assistance unprompted.  They were pleased to be asked to pitch in.  Even so, it took three of us to get the trees to their planned planting sites.  Had it not been for their intercession, those trees would likely still be on the truck.

Digging holes for the trees was another revelation.  Current theory says that you should dig "a saucer, not a teacup".  Once upon a time, you dug a hole slightly larger than the root ball, lowered the tree into the hole, and filled the hole with enriched soil and water.  The problem with that practice was that the tree roots would get to the edge of that rich soil, encounter the lesser-quality surrounding stuff, and decide to stay put, resulting in a stunted tree with a poor root system.

Hence the saucer, which provides the tree with ample room to stretch out its roots.  The problem is that it require removing two to three times as much soil as the "saucer" technique.  The hole for each tree required up to an hour of digging, despite all that new loam.

But the trees are in.  They all stand up straight and face in the correct direction.  My one piece of advice to all assistant tree planters reading this is to always make certain that the Chief Tree Planter has specifically signed off on the tree direction, even at the risk of annoying the Chief Tree Planter by asking that unseemly question, "Are you sure?"  The alternative is trying to wrestle a tree's root ball in a morass of mud, an exercise that can result in the uttering of many Bad Words.

And, did I mention that ort expedition produced three trees?  And that there are eight or nine more to be located?  It's going to be a long June....

-----------------------------------

Neal Sanders is the author of nine mysteries, many with horticultural themes.  His latest, 'Murder in Negative Space', was published in March and is available in bookstores and at Amazon.com.

 

 

 

Notes from the Vegetable Garden             

Susan Hammond

 

When is a vegetable garden like a movie theater?

 

When it features both "Playing Now" and "Coming Attractions"!

 

May 2015 has been like that for us in the vegetable garden. As we've noted in previous issues of the Leaflet, our unusual weather has given us some challenges and caused us to make different crop and planting selections.  

 

While not everything has worked the way we intended, we were able to start harvesting for our food pantries in May. Our first harvest featured rhubarb, cress, lettuce, pea shoots, and herbs, all good solid spring crops which we'll be harvesting for a while more. These are our "Playing Now" features.


 
The garden also provided produce for the Garden-to-Table Spring Dinner. This was a great opportunity for us to show how much variety is available in the spring, as we featured things that are easy to grow at home even in small spaces.

 

Work continues in the garden to make sure that our "Coming Attractions" will do well as the season progresses. We've continued to do succession planting of many of our early crops and we staggered our planting of others (like potatoes), so we could have an extended harvest of them.

 

If you'd like to learn more about how we plan this garden, and how to make adjustments for challenging seasons, sign up for Saturday, July 11th's "Hands On Hort" program, "From Plan To Harvest".  We'll start in a classroom and take you step by step through our planning process, and then you can go out into the garden for hands-on learning. Learn more and register here.


On May 30th, the first weekend after Memorial Day, we had

our Tomato Planting Day and put in over 100 tomato plants plus lots of peppers and eggplant as well as other heat-loving crops.   Mother Nature then decided to send cool rainy weather to us, but our beds are planted and ready to go when things warm up again.

Our strawberries are starting to ripen; we have raspberries forming on the bushes and carrots are up...come visit the garden and see our future harvests taking shape!

 

Introducing a New Horticulturalist at Mass Hort

Thibaut Collin joined our team in mid-May as a Horticulturist, and since then, he has been active in planting and taking care of our gardens.  He will be conducting many of our 11:00 daily garden tours.

 

Thibaut speaks for himself: "I am a Massachusetts Certified Horticulturist, originally from France, where I studied Agronomy in Montpellier and Horticulture in Angers.  After the completion of my Master's Degree, I was a Nursery foreman in the Lyon area, at P�pini�res Rey, for more than five years.  I moved to Boston two years ago and quickly got involved in Plant Records and Propagation at Mount Auburn Cemetery as a volunteer.  Last year, I worked as a Horticulturist for the Rose Kennedy Greenway, Boston's all-organic urban park.  I now live in Auburndale and am very excited to join MassHort.  I am thrilled by its demonstration of fine horticulture and inherited knowledge and I believe that the living collection and the unique site have a tremendous potential.  I look forward to meeting you in the gardens!"


 

A New Gardening Companion for Children  

Molly Faulkner has joined the staff as a Weezie's Garden Gardener and Hands-On Educator.  She has extensive experience in teaching through gardening with children, supervising the siting and design for two large raised bed gardens, and working as a paid garden mentor for Massachusetts Agriculture in the Classroom (MAC, www.aginclassroom.org). As a founding member of the Wayland Green Team, www.waylandgreenteam.org , she set up a system for composting kitchen and cafeteria food scraps, helped to design and construct unique no-turn bins, and managed the garden (planting, care and harvest schedule) for Claypit Hill Elementary School for three years.  Molly is thrilled to work at Elm Bank and she looks forward to becoming more comfortable in the company of non-edible plants and to sharing the pleasures of growing things with children and their families.


 

Friendly Words From Margot Lee                               
Hi, my name is Margot and I'm a student studying Biology with a concentration in Biotechnology at Gordon College where I'll be graduating this December. I'm excited for the opportunity to help children learn about and appreciate the joys found in the garden, and our responsibilities as stewards of nature. I was drawn to Elm Bank because of its history and beauty. I also appreciate how interactive the gardens are for the visitors. 

 

A Good Neighbor Lends a Helping Hand     

Mass Hort is grateful to  Kennedy Country Gardens, our neighbor in Scituate, Mass., for planting six of our large Elm Bank containers.


Catching Up with the Last Half Century                               

Maureen Horn, Librarian

 

Part 5

The Late Sixties: Change in Personnel & Technology

Roxbury Dorch Pilot Garden
Roxbury Dorch Pilot Garden

 

In 1966, the Massachusetts Horticultural Society underwent significant changes, which caused a difficult year for its leaders.  First, was the prolonged illness of the President, Oliver Wolcott, who entered the hospital in the early summer of 1965, and his demise just before the 1966 Spring Flower Show. The Society missed his wise counsel and effective administration.

     

Second, the Publications Committee undertook the largest subscription campaign of its history to boost circulation for Horticulture.  It was hoped that the magazine would no longer be a financial burden for the Society.  The direct mailing expenses were onerous, but growth was about 45%.  Difficulty arose with the servicing the subscriptions because a shift was made to computer operations.  Almost fifty years ago, the venerable organization was forced to grapple with new technology, and the operators confessed that "conversion of a mailing list to a computer is by no means a simple problem."  (In 1963, Zip Codes were introduced, and the mailing list was already becoming more cumbersome.)

 

Oliver Ames, the Acting President, reported that with the development of their neighborhood by the Christian Science Church, the Massachusetts Horticultural Society must exert more efforts to promote the conservation and quality of the environment.  It was tentatively agreed that the Society could make its best contribution by maintaining its residence in Horticultural Hall on Massachusetts Avenue.  The new emphasis on the beautification of neighborhoods prompted the presentation of an honorary medal to a fellow advocate, First Lady Claudia Taylor Johnson , who accepted the Large Gold Medal in absentia.

     

Another activist was Executive Secretary Carlton B. Lees, who served on many local and national committees which worked to beautify the landscape.  One result was the Pilot Garden at Erie and Ellington Street is Dorchester.  The beginning of Mass Hort's present dependence on volunteers was foreshadowed by a plea went forth for members to roll up their sleeves and participate in the work.

     

In 1967, financial considerations forced the cessation of annual reports for a while.  Subsequently, in 1969, when Nasturtium, an innovative newsletter,  was two years old, it was used to bring the Society's reports up to date. Oliver Ames was still the Acting President, and had the unpleasant task of telling the members that Horticulture was still placing the financial structure of the Society in a precarious position.   The age and condition of Horticultural Hall was also causing worry.

     

The members, though, were admonished to take heart by thinking of the devotion of Carlton B. Lees, who, after being hit by a car in London and after a painful operation, continued serving the interests of the Society.

 

Education Programs in June                         

Come. Learn. Grow. 

 

June is a beautiful time in the garden, and we have a lot going on to help you appreciate our gardens, and make the most of yours! Please register for one of these events today! Members receive discounts on classes.

 

Russ Cohen will join us on Thursday, June 18, to lead a Spring Foraging Walk and Talk. Russ has been foraging in New England for more than 40 years. He will entertain and show you the world of wild edibles, and share some seasonal, local delicacies. 7pm-8:30pm Sign up here.

 

Thursday, June 25, Chris Beagan of the National Park Service will present on Historic Landscape Stewardship. Learn of the work being done in Massachusetts to preserve and share the stories of our heritage. Chris will show images from sites all across the state and New England. 7pm-8:30pm Sign up here

 

On Saturday, June 27, join Karen O'Brien of the New England Herb Society in the society's display garden at Mass Hort. She will discuss the many uses of herbs and the many ways to propagate these plants. Each participant will go home with a cutting or two. Please sign up now. 10am-Noon.