We are overjoyed at the amazing response we received for our first night of Music in the Garden! By providing new events and programming we hope to raise awareness and enjoyment of The Gardens at Elm Bank, in all areas.
With the loss of our summer event revenue, bands and performers have donated their talent to help us continue to grow! We are forever thankful for their contributions to the society, if you know of someone who would like to donate their time for an evening performance please let us know, education@masshort.org.
On another note, we've decided to release the tickets for our next evening performance!
P.S. If your plans change, please cancel your tickets so those on the waitlist my register
As we work to expand our lineup of events and programming at the garden we're asking for your support. From sanitizing to staffing, marketing to maintenance, alot of work goes into each event and class. Help us continue to bring new perks to your membership!
*In Partnership with the Perennial Plant Association
Virtual Music in the Garden
Mark your calendar for August 9th at 7pm, as we present renowned flutist, Carol Wincenc, along-side seven other amazing performers. We'll be releasing their private performance for all to enjoy.
Featuring the sounds of Telemann, Vivaldi, Villa Lobos, and Bach; you won't want to miss this!
Join in this exclusive free screening of Rosario Dawson’s award-winning documentary that many are calling the environmental film the world has been waiting for. With the planet on the brink of ecological disaster, and chronic disease rates skyrocketing, this is a story of real-world SOLUTIONS.
It will warm your heart, fill you with hope, and inspire you to take action.
Weekly, Drop-in Storytime
Listen in on the storybook adventures narrated by our Garden Educator, Melissa Pace. Bring a blanket or chair and join the squirrels, birds, and other garden creatures as we spread out in the grassy Maple Grove, picnics welcome! This event is included with garden admission or Free for Mass Hort Members.
Ailanthusaltissima is an extraordinary species that defies so many of the standards associated with most trees & shrubs. Abundantly conspicuous, even ubiquitous in so many locations this time of year, it’s an ancient species native to China, first introduced to USA in 1784. Few trees can boast such explosive growth, often rocketing to 6 ft. or more the same year it germinates; within 10 years it can already become dominant, reaching to 70 ft. at its 50-year maturity, displacing more-desirable trees.
Given its propensity to germinate and prosper in the most inhospitable locations, Ailanthus is a genuine pioneer species, even able to thrive in sidewalk cracks and broken pavement. It is among the latest of any woody tree to leaf-out in spring; its greenish-yellow June flowers are offensively-scented, as is its foliage, topped with abundant, colorful clusters of seed pods that persist into winter.
Bronze-colored new leaves turn dark green and can reach 4 ft. in length with multiple lance-shaped leaflets on red stems. Smooth-barked, grey trunk on young trees becomes rough and fissured with age, maturing to several feet in diameter.
Tenacious seedpods assure its seed continues to be distributed far afield by wind and water flow well into winter. It is difficult to eradicate, re-sprouting prolifically when its trunk is severed, and from root pieces. It emits soil secretions that can be toxic to nearby desirable plants, and has recently been identified as the preferred host for the Spotted Lanternfly (Lycorma delicatula), an Oriental plant-hopper that damages economic crops like grapes, hops and hardwood trees.
Few trees tolerate so many types and amounts of air and soil pollution as Ailanthus. It is considered by many to be the fastest growing tree in North America, but it doesn’t thrive in low-sunlight environs. Surviving in the most marginal of soils, it grows most vigorously in rich soils, tolerating extreme acidity toxic to many other trees. Its wood is hard and heavy, a plentiful source of firewood, and its yellowish, close-grained lumber has been used for cabinet work and kitchen utensils.
In Massachusetts Ailanthus is understandably characterized as an invasive species, a “junk” tree illegal to sell in garden centers. And it’s a challenge to remove once it gets established. Ideally, its fleshy root can be readily pulled intact when it initially sprouts. But after its first season, a combination of cutting, herbicide treatment and resolute follow-up will be needed to assure this remarkably unique species is eliminated from where it’s not wanted.
Parks and gardens are reopening for which we are all grateful. However, many of us remain close to home, dreaming of the future when we can safely travel again. In the interim, escape the summer doldrums with a selection of recently published garden and landscape books.
It's a win for everyone when private gardens are created for public benefit and even more so when a generous endowment accompanies them. Hillwood, the last home of socialite and philanthropist Marjorie Merriweather Post, is such a place. Meticulously planned, with help from leading landscape architects of the day, the 25-acre Washington, DC estate once served as a stage set for entertaining some of the most powerful people in the world. Today it is open to the public. "A Garden for all Seasons: Marjorie Merriweather Post's Hillwood" (Rizzoli Electa, 182 pages, $50) chronicles its history and provides a seasonal tour of its gardens.
The creation, decline, and rescue of another great American private garden conceived for public benefit is profiled in "Paradise on the Hudson: The Creation, Loss and Revival of a Great American Garden (Timber Press, 222 pages, $27.95). New York attorney Samuel Untermyer set about to build "the finest garden in the world" at Greystone, his 150-acre gilded era estate in Yonkers, New York. No detail was spared in its creation. Lacking an endowment, much of the estate was sold when he died, the remaining public land left to neglect. Thanks to the efforts of the Untermyer Garden Conservancy, his professional and garden-making legacy is being preserved. This is the story of that effort.
Closer to home off the coast of New Hampshire is Appledore Island where poet Celia Thaxter nurtured a 15 foot by 50 foot cutting garden. Restored, it is tended by volunteers and staff from the University of New Hampshire's Marine Shoals Laboratory. Tours to the island have been canceled this year but a recent edition of Thaxter's classic “An Island Garden,”(David R. Godine, 124 pages, $27.95) transports the reader to Celia's world.
In “Spirit of Place: The Making of a New England Garden” (Timber Press, 288 pages, $35), garden designer and former director of preservation for the Garden Conservancy Bill Noble, writes about his garden in Norwich, Vermont. He shares the pleasures and challenges of creating a garden that is deeply rooted in place and the singular passion of its creator. Designed to be maintained by himself and one other, Noble's garden uses interesting and appropriate plants to create a work of art within a beautiful, memorable setting. As a collector, Noble cultivates his garden to evoke emotion and create a sense of place, elements that underscore the influences, intentions and circumstances through which his garden has evolved.
Looking at emotion through a slightly different lens, Blooming Flowers: A Seasonal History of Plants and People (Yale University Press, 256 pages, $22.00) examines how flowering plants have served as cultural barometers and mediums for communication throughout time. Whether sensory, emotional, or associative, the myriad meanings of sixteen distinct flowers are explored, challenged and reinterpreted. Described as an anthology, or gathering (legein) of flowers (anthos) Blooming Flowers is a highly readable, engaging, idiosyncratic blend of historical antidotes and facts that bridge culture and time. Extensively researched (there are nearly 20 pages of credits), as a cultural history it transcends academic boundaries weaving together art, politics, science and culture in a feat of storytelling that surprises and entertains.
During this time of social distancing, as we navigate the boundaries between public and private space, the personal landscape is more important than ever. As are unheard voices. In "Writing Wild: Women Poets, Ramblers, and Mavericks Who Shape How We See the Natural World" (Timber Press, 287 pages, $24.95) a celebration of the overlooked role women have played in observing and writing about the natural world, both are explored. Illuminating diverse voices, the book spans genres, featuring women who overcame barriers, biases and bullying to share their stories. Natural history, environmental history, country life, scientific writing, garden arts, memoirs and meditations are the focus of their work and all are included.
Longlisted for the 2020 Wainwright Prize for UK Nature Writing, Rootbound: Rewilding a Life (Canongate, $23.00, 348 pages) offers a fresh perspective on the restorative benefits of green space for the urban dweller. Written by millennial author Alice Vincent, this is a coming of age story in which connecting to plants and the natural world of London provides the foundation for personal transformation. A mixture of memoir, botanical history and biography the story begins with a balcony garden and concludes with a flat in the woods, a new space and a fresh start as Vincent finds, through plants, a way of being beyond the life she had come to expect for herself.
A byproduct of staying close to home this spring and summer, as anyone who has visited a garden center can attest, is a renewed interest in gardening. In The Well Gardened Mind: Rediscovering Nature in the Modern World (William Collins, 342 pages, $25.00) psychiatrist, teacher and gardener Sue Stuart-Smith examines the relationship between gardening, the natural world and mental health, exploring how gardening helps people re-find their place in the world when they feel they have lost it. A blend of science, storytelling and memoir, The Well Gardened Mind implores us to embrace and reconnect with the natural world - a need that has never been more urgent.
Patrice Todisco writes about parks and gardens at the award-winning blog, Landscape Notes.
August Horticultural Hints
by Betty Sanders
Lifetime Master Gardener
Save Our Monarchs. A very nasty weed is coming into seed now. Swallowwort is a relative of milkweed and often confuses monarchs looking to lay their eggs. While milkweed both feeds and acts as nursery for monarch butterflies, swallowwort is a death trap. Eggs laid on that plant will die shortly after hatching when they feed on its toxic leaves. If you see swallowort’s unmistakable seed pods, cut them down, bag them, and send it to the trash.
Mark the spot and, next year, start early mowing or cutting it down as it emerges. If you keep at it, it will eventually die.
Except for annuals, stop fertilizing. By mid-August you should no longer be fertilizing any perennials, trees or shrubs. This year’s growth on your plants needs time to harden off before the cold weather begins. However, for annuals and plants in containers, keep fertilizing: you want them to bloom until they’re hit by frost.
August is when fungal diseases become a nuisance. The downside of this summer’s humid weather is that you need to be extra vigilant in scouting out fungal diseases. These diseases spread rapidly; propelled from one leaf to another and from one plant to another by insects or during rain or watering. Whether you choose organic or inorganic methods of treating diseases, best results
occur when you begin as soon as the problem appears and continue until you are certain it has been eliminated or you have disposed of the plant. If a plant can’t be saved, cut it, bag it and put it in the trash. But, don’t compost it (the disease may survive the process) or throw it into the woods. And, don’t spread the disease – clean your clippers with a disinfectant wipe before using them again.
August is also when we get to enjoy the bounty of our vegetable gardens. Regular picking is vital to keeping the harvest going as long as possible. If plants get overlooked (and oversized) they will start concentrating on producing seeds instead of more food for you. When Mother Nature is too generous, share the bounty with your friends and neighbors. And, as you pull spent vegetables, plant lettuce, spinach, arugula and other ‘leaf’ vegetables for a fall harvest.
Reinvigorating annuals and containers. To keep the annuals blooming and looking at their best until frost, you need to deadhead and keep them pruned into shape. When you water annuals, particularly those in containers, remember to add a weak solution of liquid plant food. The timed released fertilizer you added in spring or early summer has been depleted.
Buy now with care. It has been a bad year for nurseries. First, they could not open because of Covid-19 concerns. When they could, many people chose to stay away.
Support local growers and businesses, but think twice and inspect carefully before buying any discounted trees and shrubs now. They have spent a long hot summer in small containers, probably as stressed by the heat as you. If you chose to buy, plant properly, as quickly as possible, keep them well watered until the ground begins to freeze and consider how you can add protection for them against the winter winds and storms.
Planting trees and shrubs this month? Here’s how to do it properly. Start with its placement – will the new plant get the sunlight it needs? Or if it prefers shade, is there sufficient shade? Will it have to fight with other trees’ roots for water? Will the family touch football game run into it? And as it grows, will it run afoul of overhead wires or anything else?
Dig hole at least twice as wide and as deep as the new plant’s root ball is tall. Fill the hole with water and allow it to soak in.
Loosen all the wrappings on the root ball and remove as many as possible without it falling apart. Gently spread out any roots that you can move off the root ball without breaking Then begin placing new soil around it. Do not fill the hole with potting mix or bagged garden soil. Use the soil you dug out, with added compost mixed in, to feed the new plant.
Firm the soil by tamping down with your hands—not by stomping on it or pounding it—you need the new tree or shrub to quickly grow roots into this area. When the hole is half full, water generously. Then wait for that water to be absorbed. Add more soil and water again. Finish with soil being added up to the level where the tree or shrub sat before being prepared for sale. GENTLY tamp (do not stomp!) the new soil around the tree. The tree/shrub needs air in the soil to provide oxygen to the roots and spaces water can flow through to get to the roots.
If you need to stake the tree, do it gently with ropes. (Shrubs generally do not need staking.) Soften contact with the trunk by pieces of old hose or wrapped cloths to keep it from being held too tightly against the tree trunk. Water regularly for the first weeks to keep the new planting area moist. If you are not certain how far the water is penetrating, use a trowel to dig down gently, about halfway to the root ball and check with your fingers. Do not forget to water after the weather cools if we have a dry autumn or early winter.
If you need to stake the tree, do it gently with ropes. (Shrubs generally do not need staking.) Soften contact with the trunk by pieces of old hose or wrapped cloths to keep it from being held too tightly against the tree trunk. Water regularly for the first weeks to keep the new planting area moist. If you are not certain how far the water is penetrating, use a trowel to dig down gently, about halfway to the root ball and check with your fingers. Do not forget to water after the weather cools if we have a dry autumn or early winter.
You can read more of Betty’s horticultural advice on her website, www.BettyOnGardening.com.
A Minor Miracle in a Community Garden
by Neal Sanders
Leaflet contributor
As I have written before, my role as co-manager of my town’s community garden is to be its ‘ogre’ to Betty’s ‘garden guru’. While she is universally loved because she freely dispenses excellent horticultural advice, gardeners hear from me when there is a problem with their plot. I’m the one who tells people to weed their aisles, cut back their vines, and tighten their fences.
I do my job with a light touch. A plot in the community garden may be a limited, sought-after town benefit; but having one ought to be fun. If someone continually nags you to, say, pull weeds, it stops being fun and gardeners say to themselves, ‘I don’t need this.’ If that happens enough times, I run out of people on my waiting list and plots become jungles. Which is why I say ‘please’ and use phrases like ‘as soon as possible’ a lot.
In mid-June, I noticed one garden was developing a weed problem. I sent a polite email. A week later, I had neither received a written response (‘sorry, I’m on vacation…’) nor did I see evidence of weeding. Another, more urgent, email went out. Still no reply.
Then, the heat of late June and early July hit, and the weeds exploded. I wrote one last time with some urgency. That message drew a response – an unexpected one. The plot’s tenant wrote back to explain why she had been unable to garden.Her reasons were jarring proof that the Covid-19 epidemic reaches into our lives in unexpected ways. Like so many of our gardeners, she saw her plot as a refuge, but she did not have the hours it would take to bring it back into compliance.
So, I did something I’ve done a handful of times: I put out a plea to help rescue the plot. In a simpler time (before March 2020), I would send a request to meet on a given day at a certain time to a dozen long-time gardeners with big hearts and open calendars. In some fixed number of hours, we would correct whatever problem needed to be addressed. This year, social distancing made that impossible. Instead, I sent my request to the entire garden, telling everyone to do what they could on their own schedule, and to keep six feet apart in doing so.
At least 20 of the 76 gardeners responded. Each day, the garden showed tangible improvement. After a week I wrote the plot holder to say her garden was again respectable. I added, truthfully, ‘You have a lot of friends here.’ A few hours later, though, I received an unexpected reply: even with the reclamation, she would be unable to continue for this season. With regret, she was giving up her plot.
Some stories have unexpected plot twists, and this is one of those. That same day, I also received an email from one of our gardeners – a wonderful woman who is a professor at Wellesley College – wondering if surplus vegetables might be collected for a group of two dozen food-insecure international students remaining on campus for the summer. All on-campus food service had been shut down, supermarkets were miles away, and the students’ budgets were tight to non-existent.
I will add that, for more than a decade, we have regularly put out bins for our town’s Food Cupboard. This year, because of Covid-19 restrictions, they’re unable to accept donations of fresh produce. I told the Wellesley College professor that not only could we put out bins bi-weekly for such a food drive, but we would also devote plot 48B to the effort.
Two days later brought another plot twist. As volunteers were putting the final touches on cleaning and re-planting the garden, yet another of our members came by to help out. She is on staff at Babson College in Wellesley. When she heard about the Wellesley College students, she said she had just been made aware of a similar number of international students at Babson who also face food insecurity until classes begin in September. Then, half an hour later, the lady who has long coordinated the community garden collection for the Food Cupboard, also dropped by and said, yes, the Food Cupboard bins are all available and will be in place for our use.
Last week, we filled six bins with produce, all of which was taken by students. Collections will be made every other week. The recipients aren’t local families but the need is just as great. And, the once-abandoned plot is going to be devoted to that very good cause.
It is events like these that make being a Garden Ogre a proud occupation. This is what a Community Garden is supposed to be about.
Neal Sanders’14th mystery, ‘A Murder on the Garden Tour’ was published in February. You can find it at Amazon.com and in bookstores.
From the Stacks
By Maureen T. O’Brien,
Library Manager
On my part, I loved the old man because his heart was as transparent as a fountain; and I could see nothing in it but integrity and purity, and simple faith in his fellow-men, and good-will towards all the world. His character was so open, that I did not need to correct my original conception of it.
Thomas Green Fessenden (American Magazine, January 1838)
By Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)
What a tribute from the esteemed Nathanial Hawthorne! Hawthorne lived several months with Fessenden in 1836, got to know him well and became a dear friend.
Featured Collection ―Papers
The original papers of the Society are handwritten and can be difficult to decipher. With the help of volunteers, we are inventorying the papers and creating a typewritten transcription of each document. When completed we will publish these on our website to make them available to the public. This will also protect the originals for future generations since they are fragile and we want to limit handling.
When working on the project, we are often inspired to do further research to learn more about an author. This is what happened when we read a letter from Thomas Green Fessenden (1771-1837) to the Society’s President H.A.S. Dearborn. This is the transcription of that letter:
Boston March 5, 1831
Dear Sir,
Since you spoke to me relative to a list of Agricultural and Horticultural authors, Books etc. I have besides my usual avocations, been employed in looking for a place of residence in Boston and removing from Charlestown (illegible) and a man is search of a house is almost as sedulously and anxiously engaged as a bachelor in search of a wife. I have, however, set down a few and hope hereafter to make the list more complete.
With sentiments of esteem
Your obliged humble servant,
Thos G Fessenden.
When we first read the original, we misread it and thought he was looking for a wife! Upon further inspection and research, we discovered that at the time this letter was written, Fessenden was married, 60 years old and living in Charlestown, Massachusetts.
Fessenden was born in Walpole New Hampshire. He worked his way through Dartmouth College and graduated as valedictorian and member of Phi Beta Kappa in 1796 and later received a Master’s Degree from Dartmouth.In 1813, he married Lydia Tuttle (1785-1866) of Littleton Massachusetts. He died unexpectedly on Hancock Street in Boston in November of 1837. He is buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery.
Fessenden was truly a Renaissance man. He was a gifted writer employing his talents as an author, poet, satirist, humorist, lawyer and editor. After ventures in England, Vermont, Philadelphia, and New York, he settled in Massachusetts in 1822, when he became the first editor of The New England Farmer, a weekly devoted exclusively to interests of agriculture in New England. He was also a Massachusetts legislator, inventor and was an incorporator, Founding Member, Counsellor and poet laureate of the Society.
While he was not a farmer, Fessenden was erudite and an ardent advocate for science, skill, and industrial advancement in agricultural and horticulture. He skillfully navigated the divide between farmers who tilled the soil and gentlemen farmers. He was a strong supporter for the creation of an agricultural college in Massachusetts, something that did not come to fruition until 1863.
By the mid 1820’s, the offices of The Farmer, located above a seed store and agricultural warehouse on 52 North Market Street in Boston, attracted agriculturists and horticulturists from all around the country. It was here that seeds were germinated that lead to the founding of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. In an editorial in The Farmer, Fessenden lent his strong support to the founding of the Society. In its early days, the Society’s offices were also at 52 Hancock Street and TheFarmer was the principal means of recording the activities of the Society until Fessenden’s death.
Despite his many talents and achievements, on his death, Fessenden universally lauded for his personal traits as a good, kind person. His was a life well-lived.
The Library is currently closed for visits. Meanwhile if you wish to contact the Library send an email to mobrien@masshort.org.
