Cuttings — Winter/Spring 2024

B E R K S H I R E B OTA N I C A L G A R D E N

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WINTER/SPRING 2024

FEB. 24 TO MARCH 15

MARCH 2

MARCH 30

The Bulb Show

27th Annual Winter Lecture

Spring Hoppening

BBG’s annual springtime gift to the community in the Fitzpatrick Conservatory.

Biodiversity at Great Dixter: How a Flower Garden Can Support Some of the UK’s Most Threatened Species, featuring Fergus Garrett.

Egg hunts, a story walk, crafts, pony rides, games, food trucks, and a visit from a rather large and friendly bunny.

BOARD OF TRUSTEES

S TA F F

Matthew Larkin, Chairman Madeline Hooper, Vice Chairman John Spellman, Treasurer Janet Laudenslager, Secretary

Co-Executive Directors

Adegboyega Adefope Nicholas Arienti Joanne Leonhardt Cassullo Mary Copeland Adaline Frelinghuysen Maura Griffin Lauretta Harris Nancy Hickey Ian Hooper Tom Ingersoll Jane Iredale Daniel Kasper Scott Lambert Stephanie McNair Joanna Miller Linda O’Connell Ramelle Pulitzer Mark Walker Robert Wlliams Suzanne Yale K. K. Zutter Trustees Emeriti

On the cover: As autumn turned to winter in December, BBG horticulturalist Kessa McEwen had thoughts of spring. In the Lexan Greenhouse, by means of a cutting, she propagates one of her favorite plants, oxalis, also known as “plum crazy.”

This page: We will kick off our spring season on March 30 with a cheerful family event, our Third Annual Spring Hoppening.

Jeannene Booher David Carls Cathy Clark Craig Okerstrom-Lang Gloria McMahon Jo Dare Mitchell Judie Owens Martha Piper Jean Rousseau Honey Sharp Gail Shaw Jack Sprano Ingrid Taylor

Mike Beck and Thaddeus Thompson Camp Director

Margaret Leahy Director of Education

Jennifer Patton Director of Horticulture

Eric Ruquist Director of Marketing Communications

Felix Carroll Director of Special Events

Rachel Durgin Education Coordinator

Shannon Welch Garden Educator

Megan Magner Horticulturalist

Kessa McEwen Manager of Buildings and Grounds

Kurt Dietrich Facilities Assistants

Sean McKenney Austen Dupont Manager of Membership and Development

Megan Weiner Marketing and Communications Assistant

Ruth Hanavan Operations Assistant and Volunteer Coordinator

Maggie Pate Operations Manager

Amy Butterworth Seasonal Gardener

Kevin Johnson Visitor Center Manager

Kristine Romano

CUTTINGS

Felix Carroll, Editor • Ruth Hanavan, Assistant Editor • Julie Hammill, Designer

APRIL 27–28

M AY 5

M AY 1 0 – 1 1

JUNE 1

The Daffodil Show

Roy Boutard Day

Our 90th Birthday Fête

We shall herald spring with this cheerful event hosted by the Lenox Garden Club and BBG.

A community celebration steeped in history and tradition that honors one of BBG’s most influential past directors.

47th Annual Plant Sale Our Plants-and-Answers Plant Sale featuring thousands of plants and plenty of helpful advice.

An elegant dinner celebration with live music and dancing to honor those who helped us grow. Plus, preview of our summer art show!

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CO-DIRECTOR’S CORNER MIKE BECK

Seek and Ye Shall Find The year was 1934. Americans were still reeling from the deprivations of the Great Depression. Bonnie and Clyde had been gunned down in rural Louisiana. Shirley Temple had made her singing debut in feature films, aged 5. And in Stockbridge, Mass., according to our written history, a botanical garden “appeared.”

It was not, perhaps, the biggest news of the year. But in their small way, the ripples caused by our founding have been making waves in our community for the last 90 years. We are the product of civic pride and community engagement, the brainchild of esteemed local organizations such as the Lenox Garden Club and the Laurel Hill Association. We were conceived as a public garden, a gathering place for the community that contrasted with the private, gilded estates of Stockbridge and Lenox. From the very beginning, our aim was to educate and inspire people about the natural world. Over the years, that has meant different things to different people. Whether helping to plant victory gardens in war times, or winning flower shows in the Eisenhower era, whether building passive greenhouses during an oil crisis or sowing a wildflower meadow during a global pandemic, Berkshire Botanical Garden (né the Berkshire Garden Center) has always had its green fingers on the pulse of relevant horticulture.

In time, we have grown our gardens and plant collections and expanded both our membership and our broader gardening community into what they are today. I think this calls for a birthday celebration, don’t you agree? So you should mark your calendars for a blow-out garden party on June 1, our Fête des Fleurs, a shindig befitting a nonagenarian. And we plan to celebrate BBG’s history and the wisdom of our ripe old age, all year long.

Our theme for this big anniversary year at BBG will be Lost and Found. So much historical fact tends to get lost in the fog of time, and yet here we are, combing through

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our archives and constantly finding nuggets in the form of faded photographs, yellowed posters from long ago events and all manner of rusted gardening paraphernalia stowed away in our maintenance buildings.

In recent years, sadly, our collective loss as gardeners and garden lovers has included that of plant and pollinator diversity, of natural habitats, and of cold Berkshire winters followed by temperate summers. And yet we are also finding long forgotten heirloom plants, exploring ways of honoring the first, native, inhabitants of these lands, and devising solutions to heal dirty waterways and degraded soil.

This year’s featured artists in BBG’s Leonhardt Galleries will likewise be exploring themes of losing and finding, whether in Todd McGrain’s grand elegiac sculpture that reminds us of the majesty of extinct American bird species, Peter Gerakaris’s shimmering icons depicting threatened flora and fauna or Ellen Driscoll’s haunting images of nature’s power to regenerate and remediate.

In the months ahead, all of us at the Garden will be working on making our anniversary season the best it can be, beginning with a Winter Lecture featuring that inspirational rock star of English horticulture, Fergus Garrett. Certainly there is no time to slow down for this old garden.

“With age comes wisdom, but sometimes age comes alone,” Oscar Wilde once said. Together, as we continue to nurture not just a beautiful garden, but a thriving hub of education and community connection, let us hope that at least in the case of BBG, he is proven wrong.

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Yes, and a Continued Call to Action.

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A New Epoch?

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An aerial view of the Berkshire Garden Center taken in 1937 or 1938, with the Center House (in the center) and what would become the Visitor’s Center (to the right).

To a certain extent, Berkshire Botanical Garden’s work has come full circle in these 90 years.

In 1935, land was first prepared and plotted out and two cold frames built for what would become this: The Garden Center’s Trial Garden.

1934 Birth of “The Garden Center,” at a rural crossroads in Stockbridge, Mass. The idea originated among members of the Lenox Garden Club and was presented at its annual meeting by the president Helen Suzette (Mrs. Carl A.) de Gersdorff.

With the support and involvement of other local garden clubs, public garden enthusiasts Bernard and Irene Hoffmann donated six acres and a 1790 farmhouse, which became known as the Center House.

1935 Kenneth Simpson of Lenox, Mass., hired as horticulturist to design the site plan for 25 display gardens, including a 100-foot-long perennial border, a rose garden, a rock garden, a pond garden, a children’s garden, and a productive vegetable garden. Among his first projects was to plant a collection of daylilies donated by the New York Botanical Garden.

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e were founded in 1934 during difficult economic times, and in our first decade we gave considerable focus on helping the community establish Victory Gardens to grow food at home as the world went to war. Now, after decades of economic abundance and breakneck societal and environmental changes, we find ourselves facing another set of formidable challenges.

Still ringing in our ears in these early days of 2024 are many of the words — the grim tidings and encouraging prescriptions — laid bare at our annual Rooted in Place ecological symposium on Nov. 12, attended by a full house at Berkshire Botanical Garden.

As we celebrate our 90th anniversary this year, as we deliberate a future focused on our mission “to fulfill the community’s need for information, education and inspiration concerning the art and science of gardening and the preservation of our local environment,” much of what was discussed at the symposium gave shape and summary to much of our efforts in recent years.

Gardening lectures held throughout the summer inaugurating a series that lasted until gas rationing in the 1940s.

First Harvest Festival held — net profit $160.

1936 Granted a non-profit corporation charter for the purpose of “gathering and disseminating among its members and the public information and knowledge of plant life and gardens, to provide a clearinghouse for garden information, to conduct educational courses in horticulture and experiments, to have a place where those interested in horticulture and gardening might meet, to maintain a library, to conduct lectures and seasonal exhibits for the foregoing purposes, and to hold entertainments, exhibits and sales for the purposes of obtaining funds necessary to pay the expenses of the Center in such educational services.”

Garden Center expands to 15 acres.

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The Harvest Festival in 1944, with horse and buggy heading west on Route 102.

The Herb Garden was first established in 1937.

We’re living in a new geological epoch.

It’s called the Anthropocene.

“The Anthropocene is defined by the impact of humans on the globe: rising carbon emissions, sea level rise, as well as the global mass extinction of species. These are all descripting factors of what we’ve done to the earth as humans,” said guest speaker Evan Abramson, founder and principal of Landscape Interactions, the Leyden, Mass.-based landscape design and planning company that promotes biodiversity through pollination science.

• As many as 30 to 50 percent of all species on the planet are heading toward extinction by the middle of this century. Most insect species could vanish at the current rate of decline within 100 years. North America has lost 3 billion birds since 1970, which is more than one in four birds over the past 50 years.

• The main cause is loss of habitat — through large agricultural operations, commercial or residential developments, as well as pollution, climate change, and effects from invasive species.

“We’re seeing essentially the potential collapse of nature,” Abramson said.

Donations of garden tools and supplies in 1940.

1937 A rocky slope was made into a terraced Herb Garden, designed by Edward F. Belches. Much admired and frequently photographed, the Herb Garden was on the cover of Horticulture Magazine in September, 1943, together with an article about the Garden Center.

1938 Mrs. Carl A de Gersdorff provided funds for the de Gersdoff Garden, a perennial border backed by a picket fence, designed by Edward F. Belches who also presented a Master Plan for future projects, making possible an orderly planning and development of the grounds.

1939 At the New York World’s Fair in May, the Garden Center staged an exhibit of Kenneth Simpson’s collection of native wood samples and photographs of trees by Edwin Lincoln.

Employment service established for gardening jobs.

Estimated 25 horticultural inquiries were answered per day by telephone, letter or in person.

1940s First issue of Cuttings published (1941).

Fisher Medal awarded from the National Council of State Garden Clubs “for the Garden Center which in proportion to its size has performed the greatest service to the community.”

Demonstration Vegetable Garden showed families how to supply vegetables for summer use and winter storage on 30foot by 100-foot-plots (1941).

The first Children’s Vegetable Garden established, “cared for by one small boy under the direction of the 4-H Club” (1942).

The Lecture Series, canceled due to gas rationing, resumed in 1945; emphasis had shifted to educating the public about growing and storing vegetables. A Victory Garden Program included a demonstration garden of vegetables and small fruits and a course in nutrition and canning (1942).

Fifty varieties of peonies planted in the trial beds (1945).

National Victory Garden Institute Award for the “contribution to the national war effort” (1946).

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The Harvest Festival, circa 1950s.

1950s The first Plant Market held (1951).

C. Roy Boutard became director (1954).

Window boxes built on many of the Garden’s buildings.

The Pond Garden begun below the Primrose Walk (1953).

The de Gersdorff Garden moved and replanted in its present location.

A greenhouse (later known as the Rice Greenhouse) moved to the south side of Route 102.

The Herb Associates organized (1957) to raise funds for the Garden by selling products created with herbs as well as cookbooks and other herbal information. The first Mai Bowle was held (1959) — a May wine beverage “flavored by sweet woodruff and decorated inside by strawberries and violets, with the bowl planted in a circle of growing herbs and tiny wildflowers.”

The first Summer Youth Workshops developed (1959).

1960s An additional five acres of land are purchased adjacent to the Director’s house (1961).

The Garden was repeatedly awarded significant prizes at the New York International Spring Flower Show.

The Beatrice Procter Memorial Garden dedicated (1966).

What term can we use to guide our actions?

The term is “regenerative thinking.” Whereas “sustainability” addresses viable use of natural resources, regenerative thinking concerns restoring and revitalizing ecosystem health.

“The challenge is, how do we bring back health through the ecosystem? How are we adding back?” said guest speaker Jono Neiger of Regenerative Design Group, the author of “The Permaculture Promise” and the founder of Big River Chestnuts, an agroforestry farm in Sunderland, Mass.

What might be the most important thing we, as individuals and communitites, can do?

Intensively accelerate the planting of biodiverse flora. That is to say, restore native pollinator habitat wherever possible, especially within developed landscapes where the most damage has been done.

That could amount to what?

• Something as small as a single plant or raised garden bed.

• Larger-scale actions like replacing an ecologically useless lawn with native plants, including trees and tree crops; redesigning public parks with pollinators in mind; embracing agricultural practices that grow more food using less space to preserve critical grasslands and woodlands; and embracing agroforestry practices dating back thousands of years that would help sequester carbon and restore ecosystem function.

BBG Trustee Tom Ingersoll has recently drawn our attention to the grassroots group Homegrown National Park, “a collective effort of individual homeowners, property owners, land managers, farmers, and anyone with some soil to plant in” to plant native plants and remove most invasive plants. We enthusiastically support this call to action.

Why native flora?

• Native flowers, shrubs and trees attract insect species that serve both as pollinators and food supply for other wildlife.

• Primarily it is insects that pollinate the plants that produce seeds and fruit, and over 80 percent of the world’s flowering plants need animal pollinators.

• In addition to helping to sequester carbon dioxide — the most commonly produced greenhouse gas — biodiverse landscapes can help to buffer the effects of flooding, drought, rising temperatures, and other potentially catastrophic weather events.

Left: The dedication in 1961 of what was originally the Margaret Rood Rice Greenhouse and Potting Shed, now the Fitzpatrick Conservatory.

Transplanting for the plant sale held at the annual Harvest Festival in 1976 are (from left) Mrs. Stephen Hibbard, Mrs. Anthony Boutard, Mrs. Frederic Francis, and Mrs. Charles Gibson.

1970s The original Youth Building was completed, adjacent to the greenhouse (1971).

“Meeting House” built (1973), later to be expanded and renovated to the present-day Education Center.

Beinecke Bell Award established by Lenox Garden Club.

Annual Flower Show contest winner rings a ship’s bell, located in the Center House (1976).

Solar Greenhouse completed (1977).

Sugar House built for maple syrup demonstrations (1978).

“An Indoor and Outdoor Garden for the Physically Disabled” wins the Massachusetts Horticultural Society Gold Medal at the Boston Flower Show (1978).

First Spring Plant Fair established (1978).

Roy Boutard, the horticultural director from 1955 to 1985, at the Children’s Flower Show in 1976.

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1980s Silver Seal Award presented to Roy Boutard by the National Council of State Garden Clubs (1981).

First Daffodil Show, sponsored and staged by Lenox Garden Club (1984).

Berkshire Garden Center renamed “Berkshire Botanical Garden” (1989).

Working being done in 1981 on the solar greenhouse, built in 1977 to raise vegetable crops in cold weather.

1990s Plant conservation symposium, “The Wild Berkshire Gardens: Our Endangered Legacy” (1990).

Some take-aways from the Rooted in Place panel discussion led by Elizabeth Keen of Indian Line Farm in Egremont, Mass.

• “I really went through this process of learning that I’m not going to save the world, that no individual can,” said Owen Wormser, of Northampton, Mass., the author of “Lawns Into Meadows.” A landscape designer, Wormser has spearheaded many communitydriven garden projects. What he has learned is “there’s this huge appetite” for biologically diverse public spaces. Many communities have citizens willing to volunteer to help plant and tend such gardens, and such projects often garner enthusiastic support from public officials.

• Marie Chieppo, a Cape Cod-based native plant designer and horticulturist, spoke of how she led a successful effort to transform a neglected, weed-choked park by a commuter train station in Needham, Mass., into a showcase of low-maintenance native plant species. “I wanted to educate, and it became an amazing teaching tool,” she said. One result: The local schools now include the study of native plants in their curricula. “That’s what can happen,” she said.

• Jim Schultz, a regenerative farmer at Red Shirt Farm in Lanesborough, Mass., which grows food for 150 families, said “Small-scale, organic, no-till agricultural techniques are not taught in our institutions and universities.” They need to be, he said.

Horticultural hotline service launched, serviced by Master Gardeners (1990).

Annual Winter Lecture begins (1997).

Below: Assembly in 1990 of the hoop house, with gardeners Duke Douillet (right) and Lawrence Hollander.

Above: Dorthe Hviid weeding in The Herb Garden in front of an ancient horseradish plant a few weeks after starting at BBG in June 1994. Dorthe served as director of horticulture until her retirement in 2020.

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A crew in 2018 works on the entrance garden to the renovated and expanded Center House, home to three galleries featuring horticultural-inspired art, a botanical library and study area, teaching kitchen, and a classroom/reception area. Graduate students from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, won a competition to design the new garden. Photo credit: Ben Garver, The Berkshire Eagle

Now what?

• Be an ambassador for native plants in your family and community.

• Lead and join efforts in your community to remove invasive plants from public spaces.

• Buy your food from local producers.

• Start planning your garden this season with natives in mind. (Remember that BBG’s own 47th Annual Be-a-Better Gardener Plant Sale on May 11-12, will include many native species, and we’ll have many experts to answer any questions.)

• If you can help it, don’t pass up the opportunity to take a class led by Ted Elliman here at BBG. The revered plant ecologist will lead a “Spring Wildflowers” class on May 2 and 4. There will be other opportunities this summer and fall.

• Visit our own website, BerkshireBotanical.org, as well as 234birds.org and homegrownnationalpark.org.

• Read some favorite books of ours, including “Bringing Nature Home: How You Can Sustain Wildlife with Native Plants” by Douglas Tallamy.

Rooted in Place was funded in part through the Mass Cultural Council.

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2000s Garden expands to 24 acres to include over 3,000 species and varieties of flora.

Farm in the Garden Summer Camp launched, engaging children in activities related to agriculture, gardening, animal care, and cooking (2011).

First annual Rooted in Place ecological gardening symposium (2016).

Roots Rising, a farm-based youth development program, launched with the Alchemy Initiative to connect teenagers with summer farm experience (2017).

Opening of $2.3-million Center House restoration and expansion, including the addition of a teaching kitchen, art galleries, a botanical library, classroom, and office space. Completion of a 4,000-square-foot entry garden (2018).

New 2.5-acre wildflower meadow is seeded (2021).

Mother Earth Lodge built for Farm in the Garden Camp (2023).

Outdoor Amphitheater opens (2023).

For advertising opportunities, please call 413-298-3926.

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F U LL S E A S O N A H

E AD!

COMING TO THE LEONHARDT GALLERIES Berkshire Botanical Garden’s 2024 Art/Garden exhibitions will spotlight acclaimed regional and national artists united by a shared purpose: to foster community engagement by illuminating the interplay of art and the natural world. Some will captivate through sheer beauty and wonder, while others will prompt fundamental discussions on sustainability and the impact of human activities on the natural world.

“Wild Findings” MARCH 1 THROUGH MARCH 24

“Spring Illusion,” by Carolyn Abrams (cold wax mixed with oil paint).

“Musings on Nature” FEBRUARY 9 THROUGH FEB. 25

In this juried show presented by the Guild of Berkshire Artists, 20 member artists each will present three works that interpret their concept of what nature means to them. The Berkshires, where many members live and work, serves as the Guild’s muse. That includes Berkshire Botanical Garden itself, which hosts the Guild’s plein air group. The Guild’s work covers a wide range of visual media, including painting, sculpture, photography, ceramics, textiles, wood, glass, and mixed-media. Opening reception is Friday, Feb. 9, from 5 to 7 p.m.

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Community Access to the Arts (CATA) presents an exhibit of paintings and drawings by artists with disabilities. Each work was created through CATA’s year-round workshops serving teens, adults and elders. Some of the works were created at Berkshire Botanical Garden as part of an ongoing partnership between CATA and BBG, while others were created Rory Adams’ “Happy”

by CATA artists at day programs and residences (acrylic on canvas). serving people with disabilities, as well as in CATA’s studios in Great Barrington, Mass. In their vibrant paintings and drawings, CATA artists share their perspectives on nature and our beautiful Berkshires landscape. All works in the exhibit are available for sale, with proceeds supporting commissions for the individual artists. Opening reception is Friday, March 1, from 3-5 p.m.

“BBG Creativity Unleashed!”

MARCH 29 THROUGH APRIL 12

The grounds and offices of BBG are filled with staff members and volunteers during the busy season and in the quieter times, too. Our members and visitors have only had a chance to see our “work” side, but they will Amy Butterworth’s lidded now have an opportunity to see our creative side, too. vessels (soda fired).

Featuring botanical bas relief, ceramics, concrete leaf sculptures, acrylic, oil and watercolor paintings, carved walking sticks, photography, and fine needlework, the exhibition will highlight work from staff and volunteers who have shown their work professionally or only to the delight of their friends and families. Opening reception is Friday, March 29, from 5 to 7 p.m.

Leonhardt Galleries Hours January through May 1 — Tuesdays through Sundays, 11 a.m.-3 p.m.

From May 1 through Oct. 31 — seven days a week, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Selected Works

by Peter D. Gerakaris JUNE 7 THROUGH AUG. 4

(Get a first look on June 1, at our annual Fête des Fleurs.)

Ellen Driscoll’s “Mustard with Oil Refinery” (ink and collage on paper).

“Re-Rooted” APRIL 19 THROUGH MAY 27

As the magnitude of our current environmental crisis becomes ever more urgent, New York-based artist Ellen Driscoll takes her inspiration from the quiet work plants do to survive, adapt and heal our planet. Driscoll, whose work is in major collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum of Art, says, “Some of these drawings reflect on the process of phytoremediation by which living plants use their root system to clean up toxic contaminants in soil, air and water. Others are inspired by plants used in the ancient process of making charcoal and by volunteers — plants that can take root and thrive in unlikely environments such as radioactive soil.” With “ReRooted,” Driscoll seeks to inspire the viewer to reflect on the botanical alchemy that exists around us and to take hope that we humans can also adapt and reroute the destructive environmental path we are on.

Opening reception is Saturday, April 20, from 5 to 7 p.m.

The creator of the “Spotted Owl Mosaic” – a site-specific public installation that resides at BBG – – Peter D. Gerakaris of Cornwall, Conn., will present an indoor solo exhibition of mixed-media Detail of “Spotted Owl Icon Triptych” artworks that engage myriad nature(Gouache and gold leaf on panel). culture motifs through vibrant, pluralistic strands. Seeking to mend culture’s fragmented relationship with the environment, Gerakaris’ exhibit not only invites viewers to discover conceptual threads amongst these diverse strands, but to connect these themes with the surrounding garden environment. With an interdisciplinary approach, the artwork showcases numerous environmental motifs, including endangered and rare flora/fauna, pollinators, and topographic-inspired imagery, all rendered with dynamic coloration and a verve for placemaking. Opening reception is Saturday, June 8, from 5 to 7 p.m.

“Lost Bird Project” JUNE 1 THROUGH OCT. 6 (outdoor sculpture exhibit) AUGUST 10 THROUGH OCT. 6 (indoor exhibition)

Todd McGrain’s “The Lost Bird Project” recognizes the tragedy of environmental destruction by immortalizing North American birds that have been driven to extinction, including the Passenger Pigeon, the Carolina Parakeet, the Labrador Duck, the Great Auk, and the Heath Hen. The exhibition includes large-scale outdoor sculptures and an indoor gallery show featuring smaller-scale versions of the same sculptures, supplemented with original drawings and other related artwork. “These bronze sculptures are subtle, Todd McGrain’s “Passenger beautiful and hopeful reminders,” McGrain says. “The Pigeon Memorial” (bronze). human scale of each outdoor sculpture elicits a physical sympathy. The smooth surface, like a stone polished from touch, conjures the effect of memory and time. I model these gestural forms to contain a taut equilibrium, a balanced pressure from outside and from inside — like a breath held in.

As a group, they are melancholy yet affirming. They compel us to recognize the finality of our loss, they ask us not to forget them, and they remind us of our duty to prevent further extinction.” Opening reception is Saturday, Aug. 10, from 5 to 7 p.m.

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2024 Winter Lecture: Fergus Garrett Meet ‘the Lionel Messi of Horticulture’ Fergus Garrett, the head gardener at Great Dixter in East Sussex, England, one of Great Britain’s most revered house and gardens and a place of pilgrimage for horticulturists from across the world, will present our annual Winter Lecture on Saturday, March 2. Just to warm him up for his trip across the Atlantic, we posed a few questions to this world famous plantman.

What is the most beautiful thing you’ve ever laid eyes on?

I think a meadow in full bloom in the valleys of the Kackar Mountains in northeastern Turkey. Large heracleums, Geranium psilostemon, various brassicas, Lathyrus rotundifolius, Cephalaria, Scabious, orange lilies, and many, many more in a vast and complex mosaic. It flowed in the wind with low clouds and the sounds of the mountains. It was quite moving.

What do you consider Great Dixter’s most significant contribution to the world?

Teaching to never be afraid to experiment. Be curious. Be bold. Listen to your gut. Pass on your knowledge. Share the excitement. Honor the sense of place.

Embrace your community.

You have spent much of your career experimenting in the garden. What’s your proudest experiment? What experiment went most awry?

I think establishing giant fennels (Ferula communis) on 4 inches of soil on top of a green roof — they flowered at 2 meters instead of 3 meters and looked spectacular against the blue sky.

The thing I regret most is leaving large specimens of barrel cactus out in the 12

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garden until October. They soaked up the autumn rains and then died a slow death in the greenhouse over the winter.

Without any limitations, what would your dream garden look like? Where would it be? What would be in it?

I think it would be on a cliff overlooking the sea. I would only be able to plant in cracks, growing the most tolerant of alpines as well as exotics like Geranium maderense, Beschorneria yuccoides, Echium wildprettii, and Echium fastuosum. I’d have cacti and succulents in it, and unusual ferns in the shady cracks. There would be rich patterns of lichen and lots of fungi, beetles and bees and flies, and the nighttime full of spectacular moths.

Would you agree that all great gardens and great places of natural beauty have their own “spirit” or energy or essence? If so, how would you define it? What would you consider to be the integral “ingredients”?

I do agree. I think when we talk of a place having a certain spirit that draws you, it’s made up of different things

depending on the place. Sometimes it’s people — very often — sometimes it’s the history, sometimes it’s the microcosm of life within a place, it’s the architecture, the kiss of nature, the caress of the landscape, the views, smells, and sounds, and the energy within all of this. It’s often a combination of all these things.

Very interesting subject and critical to a garden’s well-being. We should talk more about it, maybe at the Winter Lecture!

What are the biggest challenges current and future gardeners face?

Climate change. Period.

That leads to our final question — for now. Could you share some thoughts on the increasing responsibilities gardeners have today in helping to save species and foster biodiversity?

And — gulp — are you hopeful?

I am hopeful. Gardens can play a critical part in providing a haven for some of our most endangered species.

The biodiversity audit at Great Dixter proved this. The mosaic systems we have in a garden can be replicated in urban and suburban plots. Gardens can also

make a strong connection with people, converting the unconverted. And if your garden is small, it can still play a part, as all these small patches will all add up to a complex and diverse mosaic and be stepping stones for wildlife. Yes, I am hopeful.

27TH ANNUAL WINTER LECTURE

Biodiversity at Great Dixter: How a Flower Garden Can Support Some of the UK’s Most Threatened Species Saturday, March 2 2 to 4 p.m.

Snow Date Sunday, March 3 Duffin Theater, Lenox Memorial Middle/High School Order tickets at BerkshireBotanical.org

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AROUND THE GARDE N

Heads up: Literally.

Eric Ruquist planting the Woodland Garden last fall.

The Woodland Garden Has Expanded!

Long after the summer flowers faded and the crowds had gone home for the season, the BBG Horticulture team was as busy as ever. The main focus for Director of Horticulture Eric Ruquist was the planning and planting of a reconfigured Woodland Garden — a roughly 6,000-square-foot expansion of the area formerly consisting of the Hosta Garden and Primrose Path.

With funds from the Stanley Smith Horticultural Trust, about 100 plants were planted and more will go in this spring. The project has progressed over several stages beginning in late 2022 with some necessary soil preparation. That preparation consisted of smothering a portion of lawn with a layer of ram board and then covering it all up with a thick layer of mulch. This autumn, as the air became cooler, the time had come to plant.

Eric explained during a recent walkthrough that his goal is to create “a more continuous flow” in that particular corner of BBG that would incorporate a visitor favorite: the Pond Garden. With the new plantings, he created two path openings that correspond with paths at the Pond Garden. With the woodland expansion,

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BBG’s plant collection is expanding as well, with a variety of trees, shrubs and herbaceous plants. “We now have a number of interesting cultivars of Cornus kousa (kousa dogwood), some stewartias, a Parrotia persica (Persian ironwood), and a couple of interesting hydrangeas,” Eric said. As for geraniums — his favorite among the new plantings — there are now 10 different varieties.

“One that we have planted is the most well-known one, geranium phaeum, commonly known as ‘the widow’s geranium,’ which has flowers that are almost black-maroon. However, what many people don’t know is that geranium phaeum has many cultivars, some of them with mottled, variegated leaves. Some are white and the others go right on down the color wheel to black.”

Eric has also planted Delphinium tricorne (dwarf larkspur), Anemonopsis macrophylla (false anemone) and Glaucidium palmatum (Japanese wood poppy). Be sure to visit and wander this new shade area when it is in full bloom during the season.

Next time you come visit the Garden, venture back to the new Mother Earth Lodge and take a gander at the final touch in this remarkable building. Last fall, we had a weathervane mounted to its peak. Designed by BBG Chairman Matt Larkin and forged by Rich Wansor, a blacksmith in Otis, Mass., the weathervane features accurate North, South, East, and West markers and a horizontal “arrow” in the form of a pitchfork and shovel that turns and curtsies even in the gentlest of wind. (The pitchfork end points in the direction of where the wind is coming from.) The weathervane was gilded in 23-karat gold leaf by the artist Cynthia Wick.

It was Cynthia and her husband, Channing Gibson, who donated the funding for the weathervane.

In Matt Larkin’s Richmond studio, the artist Cynthia Wick gilds BBG’s weathervane.

A Peek at the Wildflower Meadow for 2024 Last August, BBG unveiled the Wildflower Meadow, a 2.5-acre native flora showpiece sown with a carefully curated mix of seed that has blossomed with horsemint, partridge pea, smooth aster, golden Alexander, Black-eyed Susan, and more. But what can we expect for the upcoming season? As usual, Eric has an answer.

“In terms of the meadow, this will be the third year that the plants have been sown, so we expect that more long-lived perennials will bloom alongside the short-lived perennials and biannuals, like the cirsium (thistle), that were so showy this summer,” Eric said. “The garden is evolving every year. It’s exciting to see what will happen next.”

Our Garden Runs on Volunteer Power We have opportunities in every area of the Garden to interest and engage you.

Consider the possibilities. You can be a handson gardener, working with a team to keep our display beds thriving. You can be a tour guide helping visitors experience unique aspects of the Garden or a docent in our Leonhardt Galleries featuring exhibitions of botanical-themed art. You can greet guests at our Visitor Center or work “backstage” on various administrative tasks. Or you can volunteer at some of our special events throughout the year.

An ecological landscape company

Limited time? The level of your commitment is up to you.

However you choose to volunteer, your help will be deeply appreciated. We reward our volunteers with an annual recognition party, vouchers for our educational programs and other special events and perks.

Please contact us at volunteer@berkshirebotanical.org with any questions, or call 413-298-3926.

Landscape Design & Construction | Stonework | Fine Gardening Organic Lawn Care | Food Systems | Natives & Restoration

natureworkslandc are.com | 413-325-11 0 1 BERKSHIRE BOTANICAL GARDEN

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How Do We Do This?

No Need to Sweet-Talk Spring into Existence. We’ll Do It. Our annual Bulb Show, which is free and open to the public, runs from Feb. 24 through March 15, inside the Fitzpatrick Conservatory. The Conservatory will be open every day from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

This sensory spectacle showcases hundreds of bulbs, including traditional favorites like narcissus, tulips and grape hyacinths alongside novel varieties.

Director of Horticulture Eric Ruquist describes the Bulb Show as the Garden’s annual “gift to the community,” offering a glimpse of early spring through creative and playful pairings of flowering bulbs.

The show’s journey from bare bulb to high-wattage bling begins in late August and September as our horticulture staff orders an array of bulbs. In the Lexan Greenhouse, a precise potting ritual unfolds, starting with tulips, followed by daffodils and smaller bulbs. Each container is labeled with details like variety, date

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planted and anticipated pull date from cold storage for timely blooming.

These potted treasures find a temporary home within the depths of the Center House’s basement cold storage, where we set the temperature to about 42 degrees Fahrenheit to mimic Mother Nature’s rhythms and to coax bulbs into an early indoor bloom. Tulips are kept there for about 15 weeks, daffodils 12 weeks and grape hyacinths 10 weeks.

Multiple October plantings ensure a continuous bloom, with newly blooming pots replacing those on the wane during the Show.

Upon emerging from cold storage, the bulbs acclimate in the Lexan Greenhouse, taking up to two weeks to “green up” and produce flowers. Before bringing the plants to the Fitzpatrick for display, the staff adorns the pots with moss, pine needles or nut shells. They

experiment with size and color. They add visual contrast using succulents, stumps, branches, and other natural props.

Once everything is in place, the Fitzpatrick Conservatory is alive with vibrant colors. And because of the intimate space, visitors can enjoy an upclose, face-in-flowers experience.

In the heart of winter, the Bulb Show meticulously mingles horticulture and art to yield a warm, wondrous haven, an aromatic anchorage tethered to spring and the promise and beauty of rebirth.

The Bulb Show February 24 to March 15 Daily, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Admission is free.

SPRING HOPPENING SPRING HOPPENING

SAVE THE DATE TO CELEBRATE!

BBG’s 90th Birthday Féte June 1 Join us for an elegant dinner celebration with live music and dancing to honor those who helped us grow. Plus, preview of our summer art show!

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YEARS

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BERKSHIRE BOTANICAL GARDEN

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ONE STUDE NT ASKS

What Can I Plant on My Septic System Leach Field?

Maybe you’re the not-so-proud owner of a septic field: the final resting place of bodily discharges and brown water, all channeled in an assemblage of pipes and risers and embalmed beneath a carpet of useless turf?

Congratulations for not contaminating the earth!

And condolences for that view you may have: an oftentimes protuberant, unnatural-looking, hard-edged hillock that cost you a small fortune.

Maybe you, like Fred Perkins, a student of our Horticulture Certificate Program, wonder if you can do something — anything — ecologically valuable with that oddball piece of real estate?

Indeed, you can!

Plant a native meadow on top of it that attracts pollinating insects.

Perkins raised this topic in November during our ninth annual Rooted in Place Ecological Gardening Symposium.

“I’d like to put pollinators on my septic system leach field,” he said, during a question-and-answer session.

Knowing that most native trees and shrubs — and many smaller ornamental plants — have root systems that extend at septicsystem-destroying depths, Perkins wondered about native plants whose roots are as innocuous as the many shallow-rooted, nonnative, omnipresent, and ecologically useless green toupee turf grasses.

“Yeah, I’ve got a seed mix for that,” said Evan Abramson, principal at Landscape Interactions, the Leyden, Mass.-based landscape design and planning company that promotes biodiversity through pollination science.

“I think most people think their septic leach fields are unsightly,” Abramson said later, in an interview with Cuttings. “And you know, you can’t plant shrubs on them, or trees, so people don’t know what to do with them. And if they don’t want to just have more lawn, then the big question always is, ‘Well, can I do a meadow?’ You can actually do a lot with your septic.”

He has worked on several such projects.

After consulting with Prairie Moon Nursery, the venerable native meadow seed distributor in Winona, Minn., Abramson has drawn up a “septic-safe” meadow seed mix. Of utmost importance to him and to people like Perkins is to focus on plants that provide food and shelter for pollinating insects, whose numbers have been in steep decline in recent decades largely due to habitat destruction. More than 80 percent of the world’s flowering plants need these animal pollinators, which in the Northeast means insects.

Anyone who has visited Berkshire Botanical Garden’s Wildflower Meadow, which opened to the public last August, understands another benefit of native plantings: their enchanting natural beauty.

Abramson was kind enough to share his list of septic-field-safe plants. All can be planted with seed. Some can be planted using plugs. This list is for full sun, welldraining sites, the typical location for septic fields. Abramson said he could tweak the list for partial shade sites.

So for anyone out there exasperated and on the verge of forming an Unsightly Septic Field Owners’ Support Group, there’s another way.

A conceptual rendering for a Landscape Interactions project in Massachusetts showing what a meadow would look like over an existing septic field.

You Can Plant These Landscape Interactions Septic-Safe Meadow Seed Mix Purple giant hyssop (Agastache scrophulariaefolia) Butterflyweed (Asclepias tuberosa) Canada milk-vetch (Astragalus canadensis) Short-beaked sedge (Carex brevior) Partridge sensitive pea (Chamaecrista fasciculata) Pasture thistle (Cirsium pumilum) Poverty oat grass (Danthonia spicata) Purple lovegrass (Eragrostis spectabilis) Grass-leaved goldenrod (Euthamia graminifolia) Scarlet beebalm (Monarda didyama) Wild bergamot (Monarda fistulosa) Foxglove beardtongue (Penstemon digitalis) Northeastern beardtongue (Penstemon hirsutus) Common selfheal (Prunella vulgaris ssp. Lanceolata) Little bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium) Early goldenrod (Solidago juncea) Showy goldenrod (Solidago speciosa) Heart-leaved American-aster (Symphyotrichum cordifolium) Smooth American-aster (Symphyotrichum leave) Calico American-aster (Symphyotrichum lateriflorum) Goat’s rue (Tephrosia virginiana) Bird’s foot violet (Viola pedate) Arrowhead violet (Viola sagittate) Common golden Alexanders (Zizia aurea)

BERKSHIRE BOTANICAL GARDEN

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E DUCATION

The Syllabus: Seeds, Soil and the Future Itself

Today’s lesson — in fact, every day’s lesson in Berkshire Botanical Garden’s youth education programs — is this: the value of persistence, adaptability to changing circumstances, the interconnectedness of life, and the impact of our lives on the larger world.

Does this sound like a heavy course load? Not when you break things down to life’s wondrous fundamentals. On this day, an unseasonably warm one in autumn at Richmond Consolidated School in Richmond, Mass., BBG educators Shannon Welch and Megan Magner are out beside the vegetable garden and leading seventh graders on a deep dive into the most fundamental of fundamentals: seeds and the primary ways in which they naturally disperse.

The two educators explain how, through wind, water, animals, gravity, and “explosions,” seeds find themselves on fresh ground with the promise of new growth.

“Explosions,” a boy named Ethan says, clearly fascinated.

“That’s right,” says Shannon. She explains that, for instance, beans and pea 20

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plants, as their fruit ripen, discharge their seeds with a burst.

“Wild stuff,” she says.

‘Learning By Doing’ Like seeds, like flora itself, Berkshire Botanical Garden’s educational efforts have taken a quirky, 90-year journey to flourish from small beginnings.

The official “Report of Berkshire Garden Center,” dated Oct. 1, 1935, references “children’s activities carried on under the chairmanship of Mrs Simpson, including a contest for collecting tent caterpillar egg-clusters throughout the winter … a Children’s Flower Show … and distribution of gourd seeds” that would be displayed at the upcoming Harvest Festival.

The seed of an idea planted 1934 at a rural Stockbridge crossroads — now home to Berkshire Botanical Garden — has rooted and matured into something formidable and essential. In addition to the 2,000 adult learners who now participate in Berkshire Botanical Garden workshops and classes each year, BBG’s Farm and Garden youth program serves more than 550 children annually in day camps at

BBG and school time and afterschool programs throughout Berkshire County.

These programs are funded through grants, support from BBG members and proceeds from BBG events.

The goal all along? “To inspire a commitment to steward the environment while connecting people to plants both at Berkshire Botanical Garden and in the surrounding community,” says Jennifer Patton, BBG’s director of education. “We accomplish this by developing educational programs that emphasize learning by doing.”

‘Purposeful Play’ With some soil and seeds, creativity and collaboration, sweat and persistence, much of what the Farm and Garden program teaches today’s children targets much of what can be worrisome in these modern times.

Name a potential drawback for today’s youth raised in this digital age. Social isolation? Inadequate attention to physical and mental health? A kink in the line of knowledge passed down from generation to generation? Deficiency in teamwork

skills, mindfulness and appreciation for the natural world?

While BBG’s education staff recognizes that children are more complicated than seeds, still, all life requires favorable conditions for growth.

With that in mind, the educators introduce students and day campers to the practical application of several scientific disciplines, including botany, biology and chemistry. They teach the children “purposeful play,” linking them to gardens, our food system, the environment, and one another.

Children sow, reap and forage. They learn observational skills in nature, with specific emphasis on identifying symbiotic relationships. They cook together. They make botanical crafts, teas, salves, and balms.

Over the years, the students have collaborated with a local land trust and cultural institutions that serve the financially underprivileged. They have worked with farmers and local farmers markets. Bearing the gifts of garden bounty, they’ve visited senior centers.

They’ve designed and planted a veterans’ memorial garden. At BBG’s Farm in the Garden Camp on the grounds of BBG, children help run a weekly farmers market in the summer that raises funds for “camperships” — scholarships for camp families who need assistance.

Camp Director Margaret Leahy said the reason she got into this line of work was simple: “I realized that I could make a difference in the lives of kids.” Specifically, she realized the importance of introducing children at a young age to nature, the woods, the garden, engaging the senses, patiently tending plants, and growing and eating their own healthy food.

“That inspires them to love and care for nature — that the natural world is our

home and it should be protected,” she said.

Apart from the school and day camp programs, BBG education staff run a program at the iconic Pittsfield gift company Blue Q, where they oversee the planting and upkeep of 12 raised garden beds and have masterminded the planters in the adjacent pergola, each of which contain a merriment of fanciful flora. Joining BBG is a group of Blue Q employees from Berkshire County Arc, a non-profit that serves people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

The Perfect Seed?

Back in Richmond, the school’s director of the food service program eagerly awaits fresh, late season produce from the school’s garden that she will integrate into tasty meals and treats. At the moment, however, the topic remains seeds.

Seventh grader Adam has conceived an ultimate traveling seed that disperses by every means known to naturalists — by wind, water, animals, gravity, and explosions. The seed begins as a “spiky pod wrapped in sticky fluff.”

“The spikes eventually break,” he explains, “and there’s a berry leftover that will be eaten by a bird and eventually pooped out.”

“Impressive!” Shannon says.

“And that seed has a jumper thing on it,” Adam says, “and it will jump away to good soil.” His classmates give him a round of applause. “That’s pretty good, pretty good,” Ethan says.

Soon class is over and the students say goodbye for now to Shannon and Megan before scattering toward the rest of their lives.

FARM IN THE GARDEN CAMP

February 20-23 & April 16-19 | Ages 5– 10

SUMMER FARM IN THE GARDEN CAMP June 24 through Aug. 16 | Ages 4–12 (Sign up for one or multiple weeks.)

Camp runs Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

(No camp on July 4.)

Tiered pricing available.

For information, contact campinfo@berkshirebotanical.org or visit berkshirebotanical.org/camp.

BERKSHIRE BOTANICAL GARDEN

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Ron Kujawski doing some final weeding for the season last fall at his home garden in West Stockbridge, Mass.

Learning to Crawl, with Ron Kujawski Ron Kujawski, the longtime Berkshire Botanical Garden volunteer and author of the weekly Gardeners’ Checklist column on BerkshireBotanical.org, has a character trait worth emulating, though it causes his loved ones sometimes to question his sanity.

Take it away, Ron: “People bemoan weeding, but you have to think about the positive aspects of it. I like weeding,” he declares with an ebullience typically reserved for successful first-time parachutists.

This time of year, when most of us, our boots by the door, turn our thoughts to buds and blooms, springtime and the promise of Edenic green realms, Ron does, too. But he also pines to engage in that indispensable act of horticultural hair-pulling known as weeding.

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His daughter, Jennifer, a professional gardener with whom he co-wrote the book Week-by-Week Vegetable Gardener’s Handbook, published by Storey in 2010, acknowledges her love for her father while also wondering if he “has an unholy liking for weeding.”

She says, “He thinks everybody should enjoy it as much as he does, but —” Born into a family of consummate weeders — onion farmers in the famous black dirt region of Florida, N.Y., in Orange County — Ron recalls the first commandment passed down from his sharecropper elders. When he and his siblings each reached 7 years old and their fine-motor skills had developed enough to pull purslane, they were commanded: “Get out there and weed.”

And so, he dutifully did, on his hands

and knees. Somewhere along the line, Ron embraced this task of weed removal and dubbed it the “holy crawl.”

“Hands and knees, it’s better for the back,” says Ron, 79, a soft-spoken educator and scientist who has spent a lifetime emboldening the world with the ennobling joys of gardening.

He’s the founding father of the Western Massachusetts Master Gardener Association, a hothouse for many of the region’s talented horticulturalists. He’s now a retired newspaper columnist. He’s a longtime member of BBG’s Horticulture Advisory Committee. Most days and at most hours he can be found down in his quarter-acre (mostly) vegetable garden in West Stockbridge, Mass. He’s probably in his toasty greenhouse right now munching on freshly picked kale or bok choy.

VOLUNTE E R NE WS

Forthwith, Ron Kujawski’s four solidly sensible reasons why you, too, should love to weed:

1

Because you have to weed. Why fight it? Unchecked, weeds will endeavor to hog sunlight and space and binge upon the nutrients and moisture in your soil. “So, getting rid of weeds promotes the growth of the plants you want,” Ron says, “whether they’re ornamental plants, your flowering gardens or shrub borders or your vegetables.”

2

Because getting on your hands and knees allows you to get a better look at what’s going on in your garden.

“You get to see your plant materials — not just your weeds — up close,” says Ron, who loves to marvel at the complexity and intricacies of plants. “You get a view that you won’t get from above. You also get to see pollinators at work and check out which pollinators are attracted to which plants. I’ve had times when hummingbirds come right up by me, and I’m watching them feeding on the nectar and the flowers. It’s just an excellent view down there.”

3

Because Dostoevsky once said that beauty can save the world. (Incidentally, Dostoevsky also said that “suffering is the sole root of consciousness.”) Maybe you could simply start to save the world within your little patch of earth? Weeding out pernicious plants restores order from chaos. “It’s like painting a wall,” Ron says. “The wall may be dirty, initially, but then when you paint it and you’re done, you look and say, ‘Wow, that’s nice.’”

4

Because it can be a mindless task, and don’t our brains deserve a break? Yes, they do. Weeding is Ron’s form of meditation. “Your mind drifts,” he says. “You can think about other things besides what’s going on in the larger world — the bad things and all the politics. You can think good thoughts about how incredible all of this is: life, everything.”

What does Ron think about when he’s weeding?

We caught up with him in his garden in October, as he was weeding a row of carrots. He said most of his weeding thoughts are happy thoughts.

“I oftentimes think about what I want to grow next, what I might have done wrong this year that I can improve on next year — things of that sort,” he says.

Overhead, a murder of crows was giving the bum’s rush to a circling hawk. Sparrows and wrens were dropping in and out of the sky to help themselves to seeds exposed in freshly turned-over earth where his garlic would soon be planted.

Down at dirt level, a bucket beside him brimming with freshly plucked floral intruders, Ron was engaged in the holy crawl among the sacred rows of future sustenance.

“Now look at how neat those carrots look now,” he soon exclaims, victoriously. “Quick! Painless!”

Resolutions and Evolutions Dear Reader, in lieu of my usual column about how great it is to volunteer at Berkshire Botanical Garden (which it is!), I offer this poem. I hope it amuses you, whether or not you are a gardener.

And by the way, you can volunteer at BBG whether or not you are a gardener; we have lots of different ways to get involved. Even now, we have special events and docent positions in our art galleries that are warm, sociable spots in the cold months. If you would like to engage in meaningful work and make new friends in a beautiful, serene setting, please call 413-298-4532 or email volunteer@berkshirebotanical.org to learn about our volunteer opportunities.

Darwin in the Garden (Cocktails at Five) It can be a rude awakening when you try, and fail to do battle with a snail to simply make it fall into a pail yet somehow it outsmarts you sticking to your finger then tumbling to the ground where it cannot be found.

It appears to disappear.

An oxymoron, my dear.

And while searching you’re attacked by a mosquito which had been circling incognito.

And as you’re getting bitten it starts to drizzle dampening your spirit into a fizzle.

Just then you’re nearly hit by a frog bouncing by on its way to a bog as you’re gradually enclosed by the infloating smog.

Ah nature, I love it.

Can’t get enough of it!

But for now, you can shove it.

Can’t match wits with a snail?

It can make you derail!

I fear I’m undone.

Drinks, anyone?

Lauretta Harris President, BBG Volunteer Association

BERKSHIRE BOTANICAL GARDEN

23

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BIFF. THE BOUNTY OF FILM. THE BEAUTY OF THE BERKSHIRES.

join us! become a FRIEND OF BIFF today to enjoy year-round events visit biffma.org for passes and updates

blueq.com 24

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EDUCATION

JANUARY 2024 – MAY 2024

Education Berkshire Botanical Garden is offering a wide variety of classes this winter and spring, including arts- and science-based classes, experiential learning and a special winter lecture with an internationally acclaimed horticulturist. The Horticulture Certificate Program has never been more popular, producing another cohort of graduates re-entering the landscape with new knowledge and a better understanding of plants, soil and design. There are a couple of spots left in the spring semester, and some electives that are available to all. Please come join us!

For more information on classes and events happening at the Garden, visit berkshirebotanical.org.

APR

27 Mindful Beekeeping Beekeeper and founder of Bee Resonance Project Asher Silverwolff takes participants on a grounding and calming journey into the inner world of bees.

Learn more on page 34.

BERKSHIRE BOTANICAL GARDEN

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EDUCATION

Classes, Lectures and Workshops

ONLINE Our online classes are offered over Zoom.

Students receive class log-in information and materials lists, when applicable, once they’ve registered.

IN-PERSON The location of onsite classes is subject to change in accordance with state and federal regulations.

Students will be notified as soon as possible if classes require a change in location.

HYBRID These classes are held both online and in person. They feature the lecture portion of class online and a hands-on component in-person and outdoors.

OFFSITE These classes are held off-site.

HORTICULTURE CERTIFICATE PROGRAM

symbol denotes Horticulture Certificate H This Program classes, workshops, and lectures open both to students seeking credit towards one of BBG’s five acclaimed horticulture certificates as well as the general public. Please visit berkshirebotanical.org or call 413-357-4657 for additional information.

JA N UA RY Sun-Loving Native Perennials ONLINE Saturday, Jan. 20, 10 to 11:30 a.m.

Members: $15/Non-Members: $20

Kitchen classes are sponsored by Guido’s Fresh Marketplace with stores located in Great Barrington and Pittsfield.

Many gardeners know that a lot of native perennials grow well in shady sites. However, there are quite a few that also thrive in full sun. Instructor Duncan Himmelman will help participants discover a selection of sun-loving species that will delight the eyes, enhance any garden and support an abundance of native wildlife.

Reimagined Garden

F E B RUA RY

ONLINE Saturday, Jan. 27, 10 to 11:30 a.m.

Members: $15/Non-Members: $20

Houseplant Healthcare Clinic

In this class, learn about garden makeovers from Deborah Chud’s portfolio. Following a brief discussion of the features of wild landscapes fundamental to naturalistic landscape design, she takes you inside her solutions to garden dilemmas. The specific dilemmas addressed in this class involve replacement of traditional shrubs, integration of a valued backdrop and existing trees, and whether there can be too much of a good thing in a garden.

Gluten-Free Baking IN-PERSON at BBG Sunday, Jan. 28, 10 a.m. to noon Members: $75/Non-Members: $100 In this class, Rachel Portnoy will discuss the challenges of gluten-free baking, as well as introduce participants to the different grains that are available to gluten-free bakers. Learn new techniques and recipes using flavorful, gluten-free ingredients.

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IN-PERSON at BBG Saturday, Feb. 3, 10 a.m. to noon Members: $25/Non-Members: $40 As the days begin to lengthen and thoughts turn toward spring, beloved and sometimes bedraggled houseplants also yearn for more light and warmth. The pressures of being inside can take a toll on even the most robust plants. In this workshop, led by Plant Connector, participants will learn the basics of good houseplant health care, from identifying pests and problems to the preventive steps that will ensure that prized plants make it through the winter! Students are invited to bring along a houseplant they have questions about or one to which they’d like to give some extra TLC. Consider this a spa day for your houseplants!

Painting Birds, Bees, and Bears, Oh My! IN-PERSON at BBG Wednesdays, Feb. 7 through 28, noon to 3 p.m.

Members: $235/Non-Members: $255 Join artist Pat Hogan to capture in watercolor friendly denizens of the garden. Participants will work from photos and sketches of our visitors enjoying the BBG habitat.

TO R EGISTER , VISIT BER KSHIR EBOTA N I CA L .OR G

EDUCATION

Community Read: “Braiding Sweetgrass”

by Robin Wall Kimmerer IN-PERSON at Stockbridge Library, Stockbridge Wednesday, Feb. 7, 7 to 8:30 p.m.

Join Berkshire Botanical Garden and the Stockbridge Library for an engaging book discussion on Robin Wall Kimmerer’s book “Braiding Sweetgrass” in person at Stockbridge Library. This event is an opportunity to dive into the thought-provoking themes and stories shared in Kimmerer’s book. Whether you’re a nature enthusiast, a lover of indigenous wisdom or simply curious about sustainable living, this discussion promises to be insightful and inspiring. Note: Books will be available to borrow from the Library. No registration required.

Love: The Heart of Compassionate Participation in Our World IN-PERSON at BBG Saturday, Feb. 10, 4 to 5 p.m.

Members: $15/Non-Members: $25 Join meditation-in-nature guide Sandrine Harris for a community meditation gathering open to all adults exploring cultivating a heartcentered life in relationship with the Earth and each other. During this time together, participants will explore brief practices, have meaningful conversations and invite our whole selves (body-heartmind) into investigating love as a skillful path to compassionate participation in our world. *No meditation experience is needed to join us, and we will not be in a single, hour-long guided meditation.

There will be pauses, walking (optional), sitting, and conversation. All adults (18+ yrs) are welcome to join us via advance registration.

NEW! Plant-Pollinator Interactions on the Landscape: Native Pollination Systems Design and Restoration IN-PERSON at BBG Saturday, Feb. 10, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Members: $140/Non-Members $160 Instructor Evan Abramson will discuss the critical role that plant selection plays in designing biodiverse landscapes. Understand why pollinator habitat is the single most important factor to consider in creating resilient terrestrial ecosystems. An interdisciplinary presentation on plant-pollinator interactions and their intersections with science, design, climate resilience, ecological health, and food security will be followed by a day-long design workshop with participants working in small teams. All necessary research and drafting materials and light lunch will be provided.

Connect with us!

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Soups from Scratch IN-PERSON at BBG Friday, Feb. 16, 6 to 8 p.m.

Members: $75/Non-Members: $100 What better way to celebrate seasonal ingredients than by making soups? In this class, taught by Rachel Portnoy, students will start with the basics of flavor-building and move on to how to create hearty, delicious and nutrient-dense soups. Participants will learn about different cuisines and culinary traditions and use simple manipulations to take a soup in an entirely new direction.

NEW! The Supply and Demand of Straight Native Species IN-PERSON at BBG Saturday, Feb. 17, 10 a.m. to noon Members: $40/Non-Members: $55 Instructors Marie Chieppo and Jasmine Callahan will discuss the recent surge in demand for straight native species by homeowners and others who are invested in the campaign to attract birds and insects that depend on straight species for food and habitat. Why does this void exist and what can we expect down the road? The class includes a presentation and interview, with discussion and Q&A to follow.

Give to the causes you care about.

We’ll handle the details.

Learn how to simplify your end-of-year giving. berkshiretaconic.org/simplify BERKSHIRE BOTANICAL GARDEN

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EDUCATION

Science of Plant Propagation IN-PERSON at BBG Saturday and Sunday, Feb. 24 and 25, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

BBG Members: $215/Non-Members: $240

Medicinal Mushrooms IN-PERSON AT BBG Saturday, Feb. 17, 2 to 4 p.m.

Members: $40/Non-Members: $65 Are you curious about the power of medicinal mushrooms?

Taught by Wille Crosby, this exploration of medicinal mushrooms is an introduction into some of the common mushrooms found in the Northeast woods and cultivated at home. Participants will learn how to prepare mushrooms to access their medicinal potency, as well as get to know reishi, cordyceps, lion’s mane, maitake, and other fungal allies.

An Introduction to Greenhouse Management OFFSITE at Monument Mountain Regional High School Greenhouse Saturdays, Feb. 24 through March 16, 9 a.m. to noon Members: $215/Non-Members $240 Led by Bill Florek, this course will focus on the fine points of controlling the greenhouse environment. Whether maintaining a conservatory collection of ornamental plants or producing greenhouse crops, participants will learn how to grow, care for and maintain plants in a greenhouse setting. The relationship between temperature, water, light, fertilization, plant health, and diseases will be covered, with a strong emphasis on integrated pest management. This program is appropriate for homeowners with conservatories, glassed-in porches and greenhouses.

“Galantines” Snow Moon DIY Herbal Spa Day IN-PERSON at BBG Saturday, Feb. 24, 1 to 4 p.m.

Member: $65/Non-Members:$80 Treat yourself to a beautiful afternoon of fun and pampering with this DIY Self-Care Saturday class! Relax, meet new friends, and discover the world of herbal skin care. Nicole Irene will lead participants through an entire facial routine with products that participants will create in the class.

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Learn about the art and science of plant propagation in a return of this popular class. Adam Wheeler will again focus on the basic botany needed to understand and successfully propagate plants. Sexual and asexual propagation methods including sowing seeds, cuttings, grafting, layering, and division will be covered. Students will learn the fascinating science behind propagation along with the various techniques used to create new plants. Please bring your own lunch.

The Language of the Flowers Continues with a Splash of RED IN-PERSON at BBG Monday, Feb. 26 and Tuesday, Feb. 27 from 10a.m. to 4 p.m.

Members: $200/Non-Members $220 Join Anastasia Traina for an engaging and creative exploration of color in the world of flowers. Over two days, participants will delve into the fascinating world of color mixing, and to enhance our understanding. Participants will incorporate the psychology of color, concentrate on red hues using watercolor and colored pencils, recognizing that red is often associated with passion, energy and intensity. Students will also revisit the various shades of greens using watercolor and colored pencils, and consider not only the technical aspects of color mixing but also the emotional and psychological responses that different shades of green can evoke. In the realm of watercolors, students will experiment with creating a stunning rainbow grisaille effect. Grisaille involves painting in shades of gray to mimic the appearance of sculpture or drawing. By combining the technical aspects of color mixing with an understanding of color psychology, students will expand their artistic skills and infuse a deeper layer of meaning and emotion into their botanical creations.

Landscape Design I

H

IN-PERSON at BBG Tuesdays, Feb. 27 through April 2, 5:30 to 8:30 p.m.

Members: $215/Non-Members: $240 Taught by Tyler Horsley, this design course will introduce students to the design process — the systematic way designers approach a site and client. The course will include a series of simple projects that will end with a garden designed by the students. Learn design principles such as form, balance, repetition, line, texture, color, and spatial relationships.

Additionally, students will be introduced to landscape history and how it helps the designer resolve and inspire garden design.

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M A RC H 27TH ANNUAL WINTER LECTURE:

Biodiversity at Great Dixter How a Flower Garden Can Support Some of the UK’s Most Threatened Species IN-PERSON at The Duffin Theatre, Lenox Memorial Middle and High School, Lenox, MA Saturday, March 2, 2 to 4 p.m. (snow date March 3) Join us for our 27th annual Winter Lecture as we welcome Fergus Garrett, the CEO and Head Gardener at Great Dixter House and Gardens. Great Dixter was the family home of gardener and gardening writer Christopher Lloyd – it was the focus of his energy and enthusiasm and fuelled over 40 years of books and articles.

Now under the stewardship of the Great Dixter Charitable Trust and Christopher’s friend and head gardener, Fergus Garrett, Great Dixter is an historic house, a garden, a center of education, and a place of pilgrimage for horticulturists from across the world. The garden at Great Dixter is known for the way in which it merges the natural and the cultivated world. Its long grass, scattered ponds, old walls and changing flower borders provide a rich environment for all manner of fauna and flora. Lecture is followed by coffee, tea and baked goods.

Container Garden Design IN-PERSON at BBG Wednesdays, March 6 through 27, 5:30 to 8:30 p.m.

Members: $215/Non-Members: $240 Acquire knowledge of the skills required for beautiful and successful container gardens with Jenna O’Brien, owner of Viridissima Horticulture and Design. Get to know the plants that thrive in containers and how to care for them. This class will cover practical aspects of gardening in containers with style throughout the New England garden season. Consider container selection, siting, planting, growing, and maintaining moveable gardens.

NEW! Cannabis as Medicine IN-PERSON at BBG Saturday, March 9, 1 to 4 p.m.

Members: $90/Non-Members: $110 Join Kimberly Geiser, clinical and folk herbalist, as she gives an overview of the endocannabinoid system and how cannabis can be useful as medicine. Participants will explore what a “master plant” is, how we can connect with a plant’s “spirit,”and what place that relationship has in a healing journey. Students will be able to prepare the following at home: infused oils, alcohol extracts, cannabis as food medicine, and how to test for potency.

Participants will sip tea, prepare together a cannabis extract and turn that extract into a variety of different preparations.

Participants will take home recipes, a prepared extract and the confidence to do it at home.

GRANT LARKIN INTERIORS LIGHTING FURNITURE 414-698-2599 GRANTLARKIN.COM

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BERKSHIRE BOTANICAL GARDEN

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NEW! Imagining and Observing Nature: Drawing IN-PERSON at BBG Saturday, March 9, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Members: $100/Non-Members: $120 Drawing is about seeing, wondering and experimenting. The tools for doing it are everywhere, from a stick in the dirt to proper art supplies.

Drawing with fresh eyes and imagination can strengthen an artist’s work.

With Ann Getsinger as a guide, participants will have the opportunity to work in mixed media on a variety of toned (not white) paper while working from natural forms like pods, cones, grasses, bones, etc, and imagination. The goal is to enjoy the process, for each person to experiment in their own way. Note: additional $10 materials fee.

NEW! Principles of Biological Systems

IN PERSON at BBG Saturday and Sunday, March 16 and 17, 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Members: $175/Non-Members: $225 In this two-day course, Dan Kittredge will provide an overview of the principles and practices of biological farming. The goal of this workshop is to build upon existing knowledge and experience to find ways to increase the health of your soil and crops for greater yields, healthier produce and better marketability. Participationbased with questions and answers, the workshop is designed for farmers, growers and gardeners of any type. Participants will grasp and apply innovative, reliable principles and practices for producing healthier, better tasting food crops. The workshop will include a number of topics and themes related to helping plants achieve their full genetic potential through management of the environmental factors of soil, air, water, minerals, and biodiversity.

NEW! Berkshire Spring Awakening with Chef James Gop IN-PERSON at BBG Friday, March 22, 6 to 8:30 p.m.

Members: $130/Non-Members: $150 Join Chef James Gop of Heirloom Fire for an exclusive evening, celebrating spring’s arrival in the Berkshires through a culinary lens. The “Berkshire Spring Awakening” dinner is a five-course tasting menu that brings the season to life, with each dish crafted from locally-sourced fresh and preserved ingredients. Chef James will guide participants through a journey of early spring cooking, highlighting the connection between menus and local farm produce and a cooks journey attempting to connect them.

In this intimate setting, enjoy a series of perfectly paired wines selected by our partners at Dare Bottleshop & Provisions. This event is an immersive experience with a community that values sustainability, education and the art of fine dining.

Reserve your seat for a night of culinary exploration and be part of a unique experience that celebrates the essence of spring in the Berkshires.

Spring Equinox Meditation Gathering IN-PERSON at BBG Saturday, March 23, 5 to 6 p.m.

Members: $15/Non-Members: $25 With the turning of Spring, the energies of this season inspire the beginnings of new growth. Join meditation-in-nature guide Sandrine Harris for a community meditation gathering. This meditation will take place outside in the gardens, with a mix of walking, conversation, guided practices, and time to reflect movement out of winter’s hibernatory energy. Note: No meditation experience is needed to join us, and we will not be in a single, hour-long guided meditation. There will be pauses, walking (optional), sitting, and conversation. All adults (18+ yrs) are welcome to join us via advance registration.

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TO R EGISTER , VISIT BER KSHIR EBOTA N I CA L .OR G

Beginner Chainsaw Skills for Women IN-PERSON at BBG Saturday, March 23, 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.

Members: $195/Non-Members: $225 Learn to use a chainsaw safely; Beginner Chainsaw Safe Operations is taught by arborist Melissa LeVangie Ingersoll and Bear LeVangie. This workshop is designed for the noviceto-beginner chainsaw operator who wishes to gain greater confidence with this powerful tool. The class will combine lecture and hands-on learning, covering topics such as personal protective equipment, the anatomy of a chainsaw, reactive forces, basic chainsaw maintenance, and additional tools for use with a chainsaw. Techniques will include holding and starting a saw, hazard ID, escape options, log analysis (binds), planning cuts, overall plan, and bucking and limbing. Attendees will cut logs on the ground and/or elevated on sawhorses and will leave with a better understanding of the safety features of a chainsaw and be able to operate a chainsaw based on safety fundamentals.

No experience necessary. Note: Equipment will be provided; if you have your own chainsaw or personal protective equipment, please bring it with you Dress and prepare for the weather including long sleeves, pants and boots. Bring a bag lunch.

Artisanal Bread Baking IN-PERSON at BBG Sunday, March 24, 3 to 5 p.m.

Members: $75/Non-Members: $100 Bread is such a fascinating subject.

From different ways of leavening bread, to the enormous variety of heirloom grains available to make delicious breads, Rachel Portnoy will take us on a deep dive into the logic of bread, providing participants with the skills to enjoy forever. Students will be working with white and whole grain flours as you learn to mix, knead and shape different breads and rolls.

Plants to Paint: Plant-based Watercolors IN-PERSON at BBG Saturday and Sunday, March 23 and 24, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. both days Members: $170/Non-Members: $190 (cost of materials per student $85 in addition to the registration fee) This class will help participants see plants and paintings in a whole new light. Led by Maggie Pate, students will create insoluble pigment the first day then transform that into watercolor paints through a blending method. Students will also be given access to Maggie’s E-course on the subject.

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BERKSHIRE BOTANICAL GARDEN

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EDUCATION

Painting a Winter Arrangement IN-PERSON at BBG Wednesday to Friday, March 27 through 29, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Members: $235/Non-Members: $255 Join Casey Krawczyk for an exciting floral course. Learn to paint a charming floral arrangement in an “alla prima” approach through observation of the subtle nuances of color, temperature and form. Casey will guide students each step of the way through demonstration and individual instruction, helping students develop a better understanding of design, color mixing/observation, form modeling, and applying finishing touches.

Spring Pruning of Woody Ornamental Plants IN-PERSON at BBG Saturday, March 30, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Members: $50/Non-Members: $70 Spring is a great time to assess woody shrubs for shape, structure, and winter damage. Ron Yaple, owner of Race Mountain Tree Services will demonstrate how to renovate, rejuvenate, and shape shrubs and small ornamental trees for structure, health, and optimal growth. Plants covered will include viburnums, lilacs, witch hazels, deciduous azaleas, sweetshrubs, crabapples, and ornamental cherries. Participants should dress for the weather, and bring pruners, work gloves, and a bag lunch. There will be some pruners available, provided by BBG.

Vernal Radiance: Prepare for Springtime with a DIY Spa Day! IN-PERSON at BBG Saturday March 30, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Members: $65/Non-Members: $80 DIY Self-Care Saturday! Led by Nicole Irene, participants will treat themselves to a beautiful morning of fun and pampering!

Relax, meet new friends, and discover the world of herbal skin care. Go through an entire facial routine after creating products that you will take with you to continue your spa day in the comfort of your own home.

APRIL NEW! How to Design, Plant, and Care for a Low-Maintenance, High-Impact, Pollinator- Friendly Flower Garden IN-PERSON at BBG Saturday, April 6, 8:45 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.

Members: $110/Non-Members $130 Led by Kerry Ann Mendez, this in-depth course covers key steps for designing and planting ever-blooming, sustainable flower gardens, including light and soil assessment, bed preparation, and plant placement. Participants will learn about top-performing perennials, flowering shrubs and annuals (many of which are natives or nativars), as well as unusual, proven techniques for producing marathon-blooming compositions. Registration includes extensive handouts and gardening catalogs, class gift, refreshments, door prizes, and CEU form for Master Gardeners and green industry professionals. Also, a light lunch will be provided.

Chainsaw Safety – Beyond Firewood IN-PERSON at BBG Friday, April 12, 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.

Members: $195/Non-Members: $225 This workshop is designed for the chainsaw operator who wishes to gain greater confidence with this powerful tool. The class, taught by certified arborist Melissa LeVangie, will combine lecture and hands-on learning, covering topics such as personal protective equipment, the anatomy of a chainsaw, reactive forces, basic chainsaw maintenance, and additional tools for use with a chainsaw. Techniques will include hazard ID, escape options, log analysis (binds), planning cuts, and bucking, limbing, notches and field tricks and tips. Attendees will cut logs on the ground, elevated on sawhorses, and practice felling notches. Students will leave with a better understanding on operating a chainsaw more productively based on safety fundamentals. Note: Prior BBG class participation or vetting by the instructors to attend this class is required. Equipment will be provided; if you have your own chainsaw or personal protective equipment, please bring it with you. Dress and prepare for the weather including long sleeves, pants and boots. Bring a bag lunch.

The Garden Conservancy

Open Days 2024 Walford, located in West Stockbridge, MA

Serving the greater Berkshire area since 1992; providing cross disciplinary expertise in design, horticulture, arboriculture, irrigation and excavation for both residential and commercial clients.

Countrysidelandscape.net 413.458.5586

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Visit America’s most interesting, creative, and inspiring private gardens through Garden Conservancy Open Days!

Our 2024 season includes many exciting garden-visiting opportunities, Digging Deeper programs, and extensive educational offerings in Connecticut, New York, and Massachusetts.

TO R EGISTER , VISIT BER KSHIR EBOTA N I CA L .OR G

Découpage Workshop IN-PERSON at BBG Saturday, April 13, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Members: $90/Non-Members: $110 In this hands-on workshop, taught by Marsha Edell, participants will learn the steps for creating four unique, waterproof, botanicalthemed, ceramic tile coasters. The focus will be on creating four-by-four inch, cork backed coasters which will be completed and ready to take home at the end of the class. Supplies will be provided, but feel free to bring in any decorative papers: garden themed or abstract. Bring your own fabric, which can be treated and used on the coasters in the workshop.

Serving the Berkshires since 1981

A Cutting Garden Five Years On IN-PERSON at BBG Saturday, April 13, 10 a.m. to 12 p.m.

Members: $25/Non-Members: $40 Follow Elisabeth Cary’s journey as she has moved from avid home gardener to micro-flower farmer. Consider how to maintain a small and manageable garden while maximizing floral production.

Elisabeth will share her planting scheme, germination schedules, horticultural sources, pest management, harvesting, and flower conditioning. Some unique “give-aways” will be shared.

NEW! Landscape Graphics and Communication IN-PERSON at BBG Thursdays, April 18 through May 23, 6 to 8 p.m.

Members: $250/Non-Members $275

Taught by Chuck Schnell and Walter Cudnohufsky, participants in this class will focus on the free-hand drawing techniques that precede the more precise and highly technical world of hard-line drafting of Construction Documents. Students will learn and put into practice conceptual and schematic style graphics which may appear free-hand and loose but acctually include some precision and being at proper scale. This class will teach an Illustrative and informative approach to landscape plan rendering, and help students learn to convey with both graphics and carefully crafted words the design intent. We will work together in a studiolike environment and learn that good landscape drawings that combine words and graphics can be very compelling!

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Native Habitat Restoration Returning Balance to Nature

Wetlands Woodlands Meadows Fields Invasive Plant Control

(organic options)

Field Clearing Forestry Mowing Wetland Restoration

(413) 358-7400 NativeHabitatRestoration.weebly.com Licensed in MA . CT . NY . VT

BERKSHIRE BOTANICAL GARDEN

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EDUCATION

Spring Plant-Based Cooking

Cyanotype Tote Bags

IN-PERSON at BBG Friday, April 19, 6 to 8 p.m.

Members: $75/Non-Members: $100

IN-PERSON at BBG Saturday, April 20, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. (rain date April 21) Members: $60/Non-Members: $80

This class will focus on demystifying plant-based ingredients. From appetizers, mains, and even desserts, Rachel Portnoy will gives new and incredible flavor combinations and ingredients to use.

Come join us in a veggie-forward class making dishes that will leave your bellies satisfied and your tastebuds awakened.

Magical and simple cyanotypes are a camera-less technique that results in graphic blue and white prints. This alternative photographic process uses a light-sensitive solution on paper, sunlight, and pressed plants to make beautiful botanical images. For this class, taught by Madge Evers, participants are encouraged to bring objects or pressed plants with interesting silhouettes from home to use in their compositions, and then we will print on tote bags.

Landscape Smartphone Photography IN-PERSON at BBG Wednesday, April 24, 9 to 11 a.m.

Members: $25/Non-Members: $40 Whether your passion is photographing your garden, close-ups of flowers or broad-brush images of the most beautiful landscapes in the area, this workshop has been designed for you. Thaddeus B. Kubis will explore floral photography, creative composition and garden photography using smartphones, tablets, DSLR/mirrorless or film photographic systems. This two-hour session will explore how to capture the creative beauty of the Berkshires and surrounding region landscapes, and will include operation of your camera system, creative composition, basic editing, and sharing your creative compositions.

Gardening for Hummingbirds IN-PERSON at BBG Saturday, April 20, 10 a.m. to noon Members: $25/Non-Members: $40 Ruby-throated hummingbirds are amazing creatures and always a wonder to see. Make your yard a haven for these tiny flying jewels with a great selection of native plants that provide food sources and nesting sites all season long. This class is taught by Duncan Himmelman.

Native Groundcovers IN-PERSON at BBG Saturday, April 20, 1 to 3 p.m.

Members: $25/Non-Members: $40 Kick mulch to the curb! Replace it with a beautiful tapestry of foliage and flowers that are more visually appealing and ecologically valuable. Discover a selection of tough, versatile native plants to use as groundcovers in a variety of growing conditions. Gardeners of all levels will benefit from this addition to their gardening know-how.

This class is taught by Duncan Himmelman.

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Mindful Beekeeping IN-PERSON at BBG Saturday, April 27, 10 a.m. to noon Members: $25/Non-Members: $40 Beekeeper and founder of Bee Resonance Project, Asher Silverwolff takes participants on a grounding and calming journey into the inner world of bees. Participants will experience meditation, show and tell, touch and feel and lots of time for Q&A. Asher will share stories of his relationship with bees, how it helps him relax and stay focused, what the year ahead looks like, and explore how the Bee Resonance Project might support those interested in taking up the mantle of beekeeping or already keeping bees.

Pollinator Paradise IN-PERSON at BBG Saturday, April 27, 1 to 2:30 p.m.

Members: $25/Non-Members: $40 “Bee-friendly” backyards support lots of pollinators and beneficial insects, which make gardens more beautiful. Master Gardener Chris Ferrero will discuss important pollinators and their needs and habits in a garden. Participants will discover ways to adapt home landscapes to attract and sustain pollinators with a wide diversity of flowering plants for home gardens, as well as learn about the importance of native plants and the role of “nativars.”

TO R EGISTER , VISIT BER KSHIR EBOTA N I CA L .OR G

M AY Branching Out in Watercolor!

IN-PERSON at BBG Wednesdays, May 1 through 29, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Members: $265/Non-Members: $285 Study a selection of fabulous BBG trees with Pat Hogan. On day one, kitted out with sketchbooks and cameras, and with the guidance of an arborist, participants will traverse the Garden learning to identify trees by habitat, shape, bark, leaves, etc. Back in the studio, the sketches and notes will inspire radiant paintings celebrating trees!

Spring Wildflowers HYBRID CLASS (ONLINE and IN-PERSON) Thursday, May 2, 5 to 6 p.m.

Saturday, May 4, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Members: $80/Non-Members: $100 Led by botanist Ted Elliman, this class will focus on the wildflowers that grace Berkshire County’s spring woods. The evening program will present an overview of native wildflowers found in several kinds of forest communities in the Berkshires, with a focus on their identification features and particular habitats. The Saturday walk will be in woodlands notable for the beauty, abundance and variety of their spring flora.

Cultivating Mushrooms Outside Saturday, May 4, 1 to 3 p.m.

IN-PERSON at BBG Members: $40/ Non-Members: $60 Start spring early with a dive into the fungal kingdom! Instructor Willie Crosby will teach participants how to inoculate logs, wood chips and stumps for mushroom cultivation in your backyard.

Learn the basic information everyone should know about fungi and get hands-on experience doing these easy to replicate growing methods. By the end of class participants will be familiar with six different wild mushroom species, three cultivation techniques and have loads of new fungal lore to share.

Floral Arranging Demonstration IN-PERSON & FREE at BBG Sunday, May 5, 3 to 4 p.m.

As part of our Roy Boutard Day celebration, join Manager of Buildings and Grounds Kurt Dietrich as he demonstrates the construction of a formal flower arrangement: from cut flower selection, to structural advice, and tips for longevity while putting together a classic tabletop arrangement. Enjoy the spectrum between structured formality and fanciful whimsy… and walk away with inspiration!

Spring Tree Identification IN-PERSON at BBG Saturday, May 4, 9 a.m. to 12 p.m.

Members: $50/Non-Members: $70 Led by Tom Ingersoll and Melissa LeVangie-Ingersoll, participants will revisit trees through the seasons (this class will look at the spring season), and witness their unique characteristics with and without leaves. Identify species of trees as their leaves begin to sprout, ID a tree by its bark, and understand which trees flower in spring. Come join in the journey of the magic of trees, starting with how to identify them in the landscape and forest settings.

Botanical Bounty: Creating and Using Herbal Infused Oils IN-PERSON at BBG Saturday, May 4, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Members: $65/Non-Members: $80 Delight in a spring bloom-inspired tea while making lip balms, skin salves, and roll-on perfume/bug repellent energized by the Flower Moon. In this beginner-friendly class led by Nicole Irene, participants will learn techniques to extract the healing properties of herbs and infuse them into nourishing oils. Craft your very own herbal oil; whether you seek relaxation, revitalization, or radiant skin, this workshop empowers you to harness the healing potential of nature.

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As we celebrate a year of achievements, including the “Historic Hotels of America Legendary Family Historic Hoteliers of the Year,” The Red Lion Inn roars on, creating unforgettable experiences for the next 250 years.

Plan Your Stay

redlioninn.com

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EDUCATION

NEW! Farm to Table Lunch Series IN-PERSON at BBG Sunday, May 12, 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. (Mother’s Day) Five-Part Series: Members: $420/Non-Members: $480 Individual Class Fee: Members: $90/Non-Members $110 Classes will be held May 12, June 9, July 14, Aug. 11 and Sept. 15.

Join farmer, chef and educator Tracy Hayhurst for this Farm to Table cooking class series. Working with the BBG’s vegetable garden, participants will harvest from the garden, then head into the kitchen with Tracy to make a multiple course meal. The first program is on Mother’s Day; bring your Mother and we will celebrate her with delicious food.

The Language of the Flowers Continues with a Splash of YELLOW IN-PERSON at BBG Thursday, May 16 and Friday, May 17, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Members: $200/Non-Members: $220 Join Anastasia Traina for a two-day workshop exploring color in the world of flowers. In this workshop, participants will delve into the fascinating world of color mixing and incorporate the psychology of color. Using watercolor and colored pencils, participants will explore the yellow and red hues, of which yellow is associated with warmth, positivity, and energy, while red is often linked to passion, energy, and intensity. Participants will also explore greens, considering the technical aspects of color mixing but also the emotional and psychological responses that different shades of green can evoke. In the realm of watercolors, participants will experiment with creating a stunning rainbow grisaille effect. Grisaille involves painting in shades of gray to mimic the appearance of

Come visit and see what makes Bay State special!

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sculpture or drawing. By combining the technical aspects of color mixing with an understanding of color psychology, participants will not only expand artistic skills but also infuse a deeper layer of meaning and emotion into botanical creations.

NEW! Pickling Party with Halo Perez-Gallardo IN-PERSON at BBG Friday, May 17, 6 to 8 p.m.

Members: $75/Non-Members $100 Pickling isn’t just for preserving large amounts of summer’s garden veggies, it’s also a great way to make foods stand out with unusual flavor combos. Join Halo Perez-Gallardo of Lil’ Deb’s Oasis to stretch your palette in this fun and approachable workshop. Participants will experience a hands-on approach to pickling and get a chance to experiment with bold, tropical flavors.

Seafood lovers will pickle beautiful wild shrimp and vegetarians will pickle locally cultivated mushrooms, pulling from methods showcased in the restaurant’s first cookbook “Please Wait to be Tasted”.

Field Study: Boggy Meadow and Bunker Farm Thursday, May 16, 8:30 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Members: $130/Non-Members: $160 (includes transportation and cost of lunch) Join BBG for a trip to Walpole, NH to visit Boggy Meadow Farm, a three-acre, historic farm dating from 1812, and known for crafting cheese, growing heirloom beans and pressing cider vodka. The garden, planted by Fanny Peabody Mason on a small bluff above the Connecticut River, is an informal garden, with many elements of an older, more formal garden. There are English borders, a grape arbor, and a small sunken garden with a narrow ravine down to a stream.

The Boggy Meadow Farm tour will be followed by lunch at French-themed restaurant Burdick’s on Main Street. NOTE: reservations are required; please send any food or allergy issues in advance. The last stop will be The Bunker Farm, where unique plants are grown using sustainable, almost entirely organic practices and biological pest and disease management. Their plants are mostly raised from seed, which is either collected year after year, selecting seed from the best plants, or sourced from reputable seed companies in the USA and abroad. The selection of plants for sale is a combination of tried and true performers as well as many rare and unusual speciality plants.

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EDUCATION

NEW! Get “GARDENFIT” with Madeline Hooper IN-PERSON at BBG Saturday, May 18, 10 to 11:30 a.m.

Members: $25/Non-Members: $40 A fun, interactive class on how to use your body to garden without causing aches and pains. PBS presenter and instructor Madeline Hooper will demonstrate the basic principles of form, balance and posture and teach participants about the best body mechanics for gardening: lifting, bending, weeding, digging, and getting up and down from the ground. Participants will also be given key gardening warmups and stretches. You will leave this course knowing how to make your body your most important garden tool.

Gardening for Baby Boomers: 10 Ways to Garden Smarter as We Get Older IN-PERSON at BBG Saturday, May 18, 1 to 2:30 p.m.

Members: $25/Non-Members: $40 Join Master Gardener Chris Ferrero to explore how to maintain perennial borders, foundation plots and vegetable gardens that have been created and tended over the years. This course will teach participants how to reshape their garden design, and how to choose appropriate types of plants that can improve the gardening process.

NEW Beginner Birding and Naturalist Walk IN PERSON at BBG Saturday, May 18, 7 to 9 a.m.

Members: $25/Non-Members $40 Led by BBG’s Education Coordinator Shannon Welch, this class will lead participants on a birding and exploratory experience in the meadow at BBG. Meadows are often a draw for certain species of birds that require open grassland space and prefer more open and edge habitat. Many native species provide important food sources for birds when they go to seed in the fall, but are also home to many larvae and other prey species that birds rely on during the springtime. This walk will be through the Meadow and then down towards the Pond Garden.

Binoculars, good footwear, and field guides are recommended, as well as the MerlinID app from Cornell if you have a smartphone.

MAY 18TH & 19TH, 2024 Saturday, May 18th Extraordinary garden tours & community events

Stonemasonry: An Overview IN-PERSON at BBG Saturday, May 25, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Members: $140/Non-Members: $160 This workshop, led by Sam Mercier, will focus on the steps taken to start new projects and methods for fixing existing problems. The class will begin with a demonstration and Q&A, then participants will take a walk of the grounds, examining masonry and looking at techniques for fixing stone projects that have been worn down over time. After an in-depth look at the basics on the planning board and in the field, the instruction will move to masonry tools, finishes and fabrication.

This will cover cutting stone with saws large and small, splitting stone, chiseling, and other finishes necessary in stone projects.

TO R EG IST E R, V IS IT BE R KS H IRE B OTANICAL.O RG

Sunday, May 19th Rare Plants & Garden Antiques Sale Event Lime Rock Park - Lakeville, CT

Rain or shine No Pets on either day

@trade_secretsct facebook.com/TradesecretsCT

BERKSHIRE BOTANICAL GARDEN

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Become a BBG Member!

Nonprofit Org. U.S. Postage Paid Qualprint

All BBG Member Levels Include: Discounts on merchandise from BBG’s gift shop and plant sale and at participating garden centers

5 West Stockbridge Road Stockbridge, MA 01262 413-298-3926 • berkshirebotanical.org

Unlimited free admission into the Garden Entrance into the American Horticulture Society: free admission into 300+ botanical gardens Member rates for adult and youth programming and select events Free subscription to BBGs magazine, Cuttings, and a digital subscription to Better Homes & Gardens

413-298-4532 membership@berkshirebotanical.org

PLANTS & ANSWERS Friday and Saturday, May 10–11 (MOTHER’S DAY WEEKEND)

ANNUALS • PERENNIALS • VEGETABLES • HERBS • CONTAINERS WOODLAND PLANTS • RARE TREES & SHRUBS • EXPERT GARDENING ADVICE EARLY BUYING FOR BBG MEMBERS: FRIDAY 9 – 11 A.M. HOURS FOR THE GENERAL PUBLIC: FRIDAY 11 AM – 5 PM, SATURDAY 9 AM – 5 PM ADMISSION AND PARKING ARE FREE