MHS Leaflet, February 2023

Leaflet A MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY PUBLICATION

FEBRUARY 2023

TABLE OF CONTENTS 3

From the President's Desk James Hearsum

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Upcoming in the Garden

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Research

By John Lee

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No Leaves? No Problem! How to Identify Invasive Plants in Winter

By Erin Fogarty

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St. John's Wort Beetle

By Catherine Cooper

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Wild Edens: The History and Habitat of Our Most-Loved Garden Plants by Toby Musgrave and Chris Gardner Reviewed by Patrice Todisco

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From the Stacks

By Maureen T. O'Brien

CONTACT EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Wayne Mezitt

waynem@westonnurseries.com

MANAGING EDITOR Meghan Connolly

mconnolly@masshort.org

FROM THE PRESIDENT'S DESK Good horticulture is founded on good research. It is slow, hidden work, that can take years to pay off, but always does in the end. This time of year is made for it, this is the moment to dig down deep, not into the garden but into your records.

At MHS, this research process is central to many areas of our work. We are extremely fortunate to not only hold a still considerable historic and research library, but for it to be staffed by an excellent librarian and archivist in Maureen O’Brien and her exceptional dedicated team of volunteers.

Over recent years they have engaged with the most important of tasks in any collection, building catalogues. We know so much more now about the history of our Honorary Medal Winners going back nearly 200 years; have properly documented and stored our historic artworks and begun once again to view and manage our collection of historic treasures. In 2023 this hard work of the past three years will begin to open out to a wider circle of our community with new opportunities to volunteer and gain access to our research efforts.

In the Garden, Erin’s horticulture conservation work is unveiling the historic areas of the Olmsted Asian Garden piece by piece, returning every time with new information and a growing collection of objects and fragments of interest. Like a modern day archeologist, we are studying the land itself to understand its history and its future capabilities. As we go, documentation of invasive species, work done and its effectiveness all build a base of knowledge and experience for future work here and in our communities.

At home, you can do the same for your garden. If you keep garden diaries or photo records, now is the time to flick through them as you plan. What worked, what didn’t, what do you want to experiment with?

The gardening life is a life of learning, and we have been blessed with seasons that give us time, right now, to do just that. Enjoy this time, and spring will be the sweeter.

James Hearsum President & Executive Director

CLASSES: learn some

MHS Book Club NEXT MEETING:

Tuesday, February 21 1:30pm

F E AT U R E D C L A S S

Guided Winter Garden Tours Saturday, February 11 & Wednesday, February 22 10-11:15am

Starts February 23, 6:30-7:15pm Learn all the basics of horticulture in 10 weeks this spring in our course designed for beginners and experienced gardeners alike.

VIEW FEBRUAR 4 | February 2023

ething new this year!

Watercolor with Asian Paper Collage Friday, March 3 10:30am-2:30pm

Floral Design: It's Your Lucky Day – St. Patrick's Day Inspired Arrangements Thursday, March 9 7-9pm

Six-Week Spring Ikebana Course Starts March 7 6-8pm

Introduction to Forest Bathing: Healing with Nature Wednesday, May 17 10am-12pm

RY CALENDAR MHS Leaflet | 5

Join us for an evening in Boston's Seaport for an exclusive first-look at New England's Premier Horticulture and Epicurean Festival, Utopia Seaport!

Libations by Stellwagen Beer Company, Boston Harbor Distillery, Square One Spirits, and 90+ Cellars ­- each ticket includes two free drinks! Grazing Boards & Snacks by Buck & Bloom Raw Bar by Mullaney's Harborside. Silent Auction Items including sporting events, concert tickets, and more!

All proceeds to benefit MHS. Use code EARLYBIRD31 for 25% off!

March 2-March 5 Engage in demonstrations and tastings with New England’s talented chefs, mixologists, and independent wine, beer and spirits producers to tantalize your taste buds.

Meander through garden and floral installations to reconnect you to nature during the height of hibernation and inspire your spring planting plans.

Listen in on lectures on horticulture, sustainable living, and wellness with thought-provoking industry leaders.

Explore Main Street Marketplace with diverse and locally owned artisans & makers featuring home décor, house plants, garden products, and kitchen essentials.

MHS MEMBER DISCOUNT: GET $5 OFF YOUR TICKET WITH CODE MHS5 6 | February

SPRING 2023

A colorful display of over 50,000 tulips in Massachusetts Horticultural Society's Trial Garden SIGN UP HERE FOR UPDATES

Winter Plant ID Answers: 1. Multiflora Rose (Rosa multiflora) 2. Fox Grape (Vitis labrusca) 3. Asiatic Bush Honeysuckles (Lonicera morrowii, L. tartarica, L. mackii) 4. Winged Euonymus (Euonymus alatus) 5. Glossy Buckthorn (Rhamnus frangula) 6. Round-Leafed Bittersweet (Celastrus orbiculatus)

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RESEARCH

By John Lee

John shares stories of Bert and Brenda and their gardening wisdom. These chronicles feature recipes, tried-and-true gardening practices, and seasonal struggles and successes. Bert and Brenda were first introduced in the March 2022 issue of Leaflet.

The foreshortened days of the shortest month are indeed a blessing. Early to bed under a pile of quilts and flannel, Bert and Brenda could dream and scheme quietly of the longer days ahead nevermind put the days of the past year farther in the rear-view mirror. Bundled up in a jumble of comfy bedding, it is much more pleasant to forgive the misjudgments or poor choices of the year just passed. Stygian darkness generally provokes either sweeter reveries or disquietments of things that could have gone better.

Pretty much every year come midFebruary, the pantry begins to look

a bit lean and the stomach tends to hunger for what’s not there. This year Bert is getting tired of green beans. Funnily, just a few months ago, he remembers that he had the local bragging rights for what looked like an unstoppable crop.

Maybe there was one replanting too many given how prolific each planting was. Maybe he should have listened to his wife who now was saddled with too few new recipes to make their overabundance more interesting.

Seemed that everywhere Brenda looked, she could only find recipes for dry-bean preparations; their larder was awash in string beans.

Brenda mined every cookbook in the library for something that

3-BEAN SALAD (converted to a winter recipe) 1 pint 1 lb

each green and wax beans (canned or frozen), drained kidney or other dried bean (soaked over night and then b Some finely chopped onion 1/3 cup cider vinegar 1/4 cup vegetable oil 1/4 cup sugar (or a little less according to taste) Salt, pepper (a pinch or two) Minced parsley from the garden

Bring the oil, vinegar, sugar to a boil Pour over the beans to marinate at room temperature for an ho 8 | February 2023

Brenda’s flower beds looking for a little something to round out their altar obligation. Brenda, being slightly more generous of spirit than her husband, considered the Brenda tailored to what she had gifts of her garden to be a very on hand as she, too, was pretty affordable kind of tithing. Bert fed up with endlessly eating string simply thought these minor gifts beans but it was better than going to the community were one less hungry. Be thankful for small thing for him to take care of. mercies, she told herself.

Too many bean dishes only The bright side of this dilemma sharpened dreams of warmer was that with one less planting of weather. Bert particularly missed beans this summer there might be the smell of freshly turned earth. room for a few more late-season He never thought of it as dirt. Dirt annuals to brighten up the table was dead; earth (or soil) was a or decorate the altar when it was living being in need of his loving their turn to do the flowers. (Even ministrations. Earth was a balm though neither of them was much for his soul even on these cold a church regular, everyone in the mornings when they sat around parish knew where to go to dress up the kitchen table pouring over the altar when their flowers were gardening magazines (gleaned fading fast.) Saturdays would find from the library’s free-cycle bin). several of the neighbors (who did Every catalogue, each magazine tend to be regular) nosing about in was studied as one might scrutinize some arcane writing as if to find intrinsic meaning, some divination of an obscure truth. They traded magazines wondering aloud why boiled until soft; then drained) anyone would plant this thing or that. Even if one could forgive what might look like bad taste or zonal indignity, there seemed to be no reason on earth why anyone would buy some of the plants that were advertised. Their occasional cattiness lifted their spirits, simply masking their anxiousness our or so about getting outside. Brenda did not look like a thrown stack of bean pieces on the side of what had started to seem like every other dinner plate.

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usually considered these explorations with as broad brush: if the color scheme were to be less random, which palette might be more pleasant to view from her kitchen window? What about a blue garden this year (or a peachy palette)? Bert thought restricting the color scheme might be a little affected until Brenda pointed out that his palette was but a few shades of green year in and year out.

He pointed out that it was the fruit, not the flower, which guided his choice of what to plant.

Be that as it may, now was time plan their gardens and time out the harvests so that there would (to the extent possible!) be something coming out of the gardens all season long.

The bean imbroglio was not to be soon forgotten. In years past, anything that needed to started under cover meant that any sunny spot in the house or the very modest Bert-built cold frames were soon over-stuffed with hopes for the coming season. This year he proposed that he construct an expandable and moveable hoop house. He had, years ago, envied the ingenuity of Eliot Coleman and his greenhouse that could be moved down a rail/track ‘easily’.

But it looked too expensive to be

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affordable. Instead, he described hooping their raised beds and building a portable hoop-house out of light lumber and flexible conduit. All of the inputs could be found at the lumberyard and assembly required nothing more than a few screws, boards and brackets. Of course, it may be worth pointing out that Bert’s enthusiasm for most projects that required a capital expense might suffer from under-estimation.

Nevertheless, he was undeterred in his enthusiasm and as often as not that scintilla of inspiration was actually helpful. He figured that with a modest investment in

a few #2 pine 1”x8”x12’s, some brackets, corners and ¾” schedule 40 PVC conduit, he could have a house up and running in time for the sunny warm days to come.

Some ½ conduit would do nicely to hoop his raised beds for earlier salad greens.

While Bert fretted about the details of his construction, her solution to enhancing their production was to consider a more sensible mix of plant materials.

She fretted about over-working

themselves. (The bean fiasco this winter was a case in point that she hoped was not to be revisited.) A few more summer annuals mixed in with their garden vegetables would be a welcome prospect from any vantage point and, perhaps, a welcome oasis for pollinators. Just last month, she had shaken out some desiccated milkweed pods she’d harvested from the conservation land across town hoping to encourage more opportunities for monarch butterflies to flourish on native milkweed varieties where she could enjoy seeing them more often.

She fantasized that ‘No-mow May’ might last all summer if she seeded in a mix of Forget-MeNot, Snap Dragons, Campanula, Echinacea, Coreopsis, Sweet William, Verbena bonariensis and the like to encourage an even wider variety colorful plants of butterflies (and for cutting?). To find the most suitable all-season mix of colors would require a bit more looking into. But the seed was now planted in her head. The year is yet young, too young to rush to judgement.

John Lee is the recently retired manager of MHS Gold Medal winner Allandale Farm, Cognoscenti contributor and president of MA Society for Promoting Agriculture. He sits on the Governor's Food Policy Council and UMASS Board of Public Overseers and is a longtime op-ed contributor to Edible Boston and other publications.

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No Leaves? No Problem! How to Id Erin Fogarty, Historic and Conservation Horticulturist One thing you learn quickly when taking care of an area like the Olmsted Asian Garden is that invasive species remediation never stops – no, not even in winter. It’s not uncommon for me to be slipping around on some ice trying to get rid of a particularly nasty growth of honeysuckle or multiflora rose.

That being said, lots of people get nervous trying to identify plants without their leaves, especially in cases like this that involve cutting things down. Luckily, with a little bit of study and practice, it gets to be second nature. Here’s how I identify some of our biggest offenders here at the Garden at Elm Bank.

Glossy Buckthorn (Rhamnus frangula) Glossy Buckthorn has two main methods of identification. It’s best to start with what you can see above ground – the bark. Befitting its name, younger buckthorn bark – think branches or young whips – is a shiny mid-brown with touches of red, with white lateral speckles. These speckles are less visible on more mature bark, which is not shiny and more taupe in color. If you’re having issues identifying buckthorn by its bark, you can also find a small specimen – even just a seedling or a lateral root – and pull it up. Buckthorn has dark maroon-red roots, a trait that isn’t mirrored in other species you can find nearby.

Round-Leafed Bittersweet (Celastrus orbiculatus) Round-leafed bittersweet has very unique roots – they are a bright orange, like the color of a highlighter. By far, this is the best method of definitively identifying bittersweet. If for whatever reason you are unable to get access to the root system, look at the form of the stems: bittersweet tends to grow upward in thin, round stems with smooth bark that get smaller as they go up, with tips that look wiggly – think of an illustration of a plume of smoke. In a large growth of bittersweet, you can also look downward and check for a lateral root, which will have shaggy taupe bark with little bits of orange peeking through.

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Test out your Winter Plant ID skills on the next page with photos

dentify Invasive Plants in Winter Winged Euonymus (Euonymus alatus) Winged Euonymus has very unique bark, which makes it decently easy to identify. Like its name suggests, the plant has flat, thin “wings” – about the thickness of a piece of paper – on either side of each branch and trunk.

Fox Grape (Vitis labrusca) Although not an invasive species – it’s native to our region – fox grape is an absolute menace in our Olmsted area. Look up in the trees – if there’s a thick vine climbing through the branches, you’ve found it. Fox grape is the only plant that can get this high in our area, but in smaller specimens check out the bark for ID. It’s a mid-to-dark brown, and very shaggy. If it helps, imagine the microscope “before” image of unhealthy hair under a microscope in a shampoo commercial – it looks kind of like that.

Multiflora Rose (Rosa multiflora) Multiflora Rose is one of the easiest plants to identify in winter – just be sure to wear your gloves! While older woody stems are pretty non-descript, younger canes develop a vibrant red color which in combination with its thorns make the plant easy to spot.

Asiatic Bush Honeysuckles (Lonicera morrowii, L. tartarica, L. mackii) Although technically three different species, these bush honeysuckles are similar enough to be identified together. These grow in stands – lots of individual multi-trunk growing near each other (which makes them a headache to remove, but easy to identify at least.) Like many others on this list, check out the bark – invasive honeysuckles have smooth, grayish-taupe bark – imagine wet sand.

So there you have it: a quick tool kit for identifying invasive species in winter. You can control them in a similar way as you do in the summer – just avoid using any herbicide sprays until the dry season to avoid environmental contamination. Happy finding!

from the Olmsted Asian Garden. Answers are available on Page 7.

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ST JOHN’S WORT BE

By Catherine Cooper Curiosity might have killed the cat, but for millennia human curiosity has been a motivator for greater understanding of the world in which we live. While my personal curiosity is unlikely to lead to any groundbreaking discoveries, the research I do based on my curiosity about things I find in the natural world has led to greater understanding of the place I call home.

One such example is the St. John’s Wort or Klamathweed beetle. I first encountered this small iridescent beetle several years ago when walking through my garden. The boundaries of my borders harbor wild flowers and even weeds intent on keeping my plantings company. One

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Above: Partridgeberry (Mitchella repens)

EETLES

such plant that had crept into the edges of the border was non-native Common St. John’s Wort, Hypericum perforatum. Thanks to an online seller of native plants who supplies H. punctatum, Spotted Hypericum, I discovered that the way to tell them apart is that the native hypericum has small black dots not only on its petals, but also on its sepals and young leaves.

On this occasion my eye was drawn towards the hypericum as it was smothered with small beetles busily devouring the foliage. Curious to know what they were and whether other plants were at risk, I took some photos with the aim of doing an internet search to identify them.

Searching the internet can at times be frustrating as you have to know the right question to ask, but since then technology has advanced and as well as various identification apps, cell phones now have the ability to often identify living things just from the photo taken.

In my case the words “small bronze beetle” soon revealed that my garden was hosting St. John’s Wort beetles, which are one of two similar species - either Chrysolina quadrigemina or Chrysolina hyperici. Despite my best efforts, I have not been able to identify which species was in my yard as C. quadrigemina is fractionally larger but otherwise almost identical in appearance. The answer to one question often led to other questions, but the sum of information I discovered from various government, university and insect identification websites is summarized below.

They are a quarter of an inch long and an eye-catching iridescent bronze or green and sometimes even blue or purple. There is one generation a year and their lifecycle goes through four stages: egg, larva, pupa and adult. Depending on the winter climate, this beetle can overwinter either as eggs, larvae or adults. Here in New England they are likely to overwinter as eggs, which will hatch in the spring. Larvae feed nocturnally on the basal foliage. The reason for the nighttime activity

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is that one of the chemicals found in these plants is a toxic compound, hypericin, whose effects are exacerbated by sunlight. The larvae are not immune to the phototoxicity of hypericin so they avoid daylight, but adult beetles seem immune, and show a preference for plants in sunny locations. During the hottest part of summer adults will aestivate, retreating into the soil at the base of the plants for several weeks to avoid the heat. They re-emerge in late summer to continue feeding. Females will lay up to a thousand eggs which will overwinter to become the following year’s generation.

As mentioned, H. perforatum is not native, having been brought from Europe centuries ago as a medicinal plant.

It is particularly suited to open grasslands, and in those regions of the United States it would proliferate, becoming an economic threat to the farming community. The hypericin in the plants is not only harmful to Crysolina larvae, but is also toxic to mammals.

Livestock that consume hypericum suffer from varying symptoms including diarrhea and vomiting, skin blistering, which is exacerbated by exposure to light, and in extreme cases even convulsions and blindness. It should be noted that if the garden ornamentals of this plant genus are grown, gloves should be worn when pruning so as to avoid skin irritation. The problem of this weed on grazing land became particularly bad in California, and in the 1940s the U.S. government allowed the introduction of both C. quadrigemina and C. hyperici to control the spread of hypericum. These beetles, themselves originating from Europe, and parts of Asia and Africa from where H. perforatum hails, proved to be effective in eliminating the hypericum from grazing land, and are one of the first examples of the use of a biocontrol agent. Studies of these beetles have shown that C. quadrigemina flourishes better in warmer regions such as California, while here in New England C. hyperici is more tolerant of our colder and wetter winters. Based on this information, it is more likely that the beetles I saw were C. hyperici.

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In recent years there has been at least one study to investigate whether these beetles have a negative impact on native hypericum. The research study I discovered, conducted by Jessica L. Pringle, Susan C. Cook-Patton and Anurag A. Agrawal studied C. quadrigemina damage to the native H. punctatum in New York State. For those interested in reading further, their findings are published here.

Hypericum perforatum can spread aggressively by both rhizomes and seed, and while I pull plants that pop up in my flowerbeds, I leave it in the uncultivated parts of my yard.

The beetles do not make a regular appearance on these plants and when they do, they are not in sufficient quantities to eliminate the hypericum. While my first impulse upon seeing these beetles was to identify them in case I needed to eradicate them, a bit of research has taught me that in my own personal environment they are fundamentally beneficial and therefore can munch with impunity.

Learn More:

St. John's Wort Beetle on What's That Bug

Klamatheweed beetle—Chrysolina quadrigemina on UC IPM Klamathweed Beetles (Chrysolina spp) on Montana Biological Weed Control Coordination Project Are St. John's Wort Poisonous on Plant Additcts

Spillover of a biological control agent (Chrysolina quadrigemina) onto native St. Johnswort (Hypericum punctatum) by Jessica Tingle​, Susan Cook-Patton and Anurag Agrawal Born in England, Catherine learned to garden from her parents and from that developed a passion for plants. Catherine is in charge of the greenhouse at Weston Nurseries Chelmsford. When not at Weston Nurseries, she can often be found in her flower beds or tending to an ever-increasing collection of houseplants.

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Wild Edens: The History and Habitat of Our Most-Loved Garden Plants

by Toby Musgrave and Chris Gardner Kyle Books, 256 pp., $50.00 Reviewed by Patrice Todisco

“Why do we travel?,”

asks the New

York Times in its annual 52 Places to Go in 2023, “For food, culture, adventure, natural beauty?” Each year, I peruse the list, tally the places

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I have visited then ponder those that I have not, wondering how they might inform future travel plans. It’s never easy to decide where to go next, as I travel for a bit of everything mentioned, tempered by my desire to visit gardens on my never-ending bucket list.

I therefore envy Toby Musgrove and Chris Gardner, authors of Wild Edens: The History and Habitat of our Most-Loved Garden Plants, whose singular focus on exploring the history of ornamental plants has taken them on a global journey to some of the world’s most beautiful places. Described as an armchair traveler’s guide to the most interesting plants, flora, and fauna on the planet, Wild Edens traces the evolution of ornamental

plants from their native habitats to our backyard gardens, placing their ‘forgotten stories’ within both historical and contemporary contexts.

To do so, they visit the world’s floralistic regions identified by plant geographers for their distinctive plant life and high degree of plant endemism, a term used in biology to talk about the distribution of a plant species limited to a small geographic area and found naturally in that place. Across the globe, there are six floralistic kingdoms.

These coincide closely with faunal regions mapped by animal geographers and together they create biogeographic regions, based on the species found in them.

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Wild Edens includes nine chapters each featuring a distinct floralistic region. Arranged geographically, and by and large chronologically, the first chapter is on the Mediterranean, where Western Civilization was born, and the earliest archaeological evidence of ornamental gardening occurs.

Chapters on North America, the Antipodes, the Western Cape Province, Chile and Patagonia, Himalaya and Tien Shan, the Pontic Alps, Japan, and Western China follow.

Each chapter contains personal reflections, an overview of the flora and fauna to be found there, a brief history of plant discovery in the region, the gardening impact (legacy) of the ornamental plants of the region, plant recommendations, “floral hotspots” highlighting areas of exceptional biodiversity, and the best seasons to visit. Combined with lavish illustrations, including maps, color photographs (many by the authors) and botanical plates from Curtis’s Botanical Magazine, Wild Edens presents ornamental plants through a unique perspective - underscoring the authors’ intent to present them in an entirely “new light – growing in their natural form, in their native habitat and in their uncultivated plant associations.”

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There’s a lot to delve into and depending on interest (and possibly potential travel plans) one’s attention will be drawn to different chapters. While visiting North America, Musgrave and Gardner focus on two coastal regions, the Eastern Seaboard and the Pacific Coast, both geobotanically located in the floralistic Holarctic Kingdom. So, too is Japan, which may help explain why so many ornamental plants from that country are found here, including Lysimachia clethroides (Gooseneck Loosestrife) which has found such a welcoming home in my perennial bed that I fear I will never remove it. The authors note that there can hardly be a temperate garden that does not include a plant of Japanese origin and that no other global hotspot has provided as much garden variety. As an example, Magnolia stellata, a mainstay of Boston’s Commonwealth Avenue, was sent from Japan by George Rogers Hall to Francis Lee of Chestnut Hill, and eventually found its way to the historian and horticulturalist Francis Parkman, who cultivated the plants in his garden in Jamaica Plain.

One could go on and on, tracing the backstories of the ornamental plants in their gardens and then assessing how to see these plants

in their native habitats. Ubiquitous in all our gardens and taken for granted, they have stories to tell that are often complex and sometimes mysterious.

By integrating descriptions of topography, geography, climate, flora plant location, history and personal narratives, Musgrave and Gardner implore us to imagine

anew the plants that we take for granted and use them as gateways to exploration.

Why might we travel? To visit some of the finest locations where ornamental plants can be found in the wild.

Patrice Todisco writes about parks and gardens at the award-winning blog, Landscape Notes.

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Research is creating new knowledge.

"

Neil Armstrong (1930-2012)

"

The Society’s founders were avid readers of books by the foremost authorities in agriculture, horticulture and related fields. Books in the early 19th century were expensive and rare. Those shrewd founders immediately formed the Society’s Library to share the latest wisdom from throughout the world. They even hired agents in New York, London and Paris to acquire the most important books of the day.

Featured Collection ― Books One of our treasured holdings is the 19th Century Collection of books.

Many of these books are not pretty publications but they represent the most forward thinking and scientific knowledge of the day. The Society built the most comprehensive and complete horticultural library in the United States which was emulated by other institutions and collectors.

The Library published its acquisitions annually: first in the New England Farmer and later in the Society’s Transactions. Periodically, between 1831 to 1972, the Society published catalogs for sale that served as guides to institutions and others building their own collections.

With the dramatic growth in 20th century publishing, research and educational, the Library began to narrow its focus. Today, the Library preserves its existing collections and adds selective, contemporary publications received primarily through donations. With the advent of the internet, the majority of our books are found on our online catalog.

In 2022, the Library added 212 books to its catalog.

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A treasure in our 19th Century book collection: a well-loved edition of Andrew Jackson Downing’s A Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening (1844) is inscribed by Downing “Presented to the Massachusetts Horticultural Society – Andrew J. Downing, Newburgh, December 27, 1844.” Downing, considered the founder of American landscape architecture, influenced Olmsted and Vaux, designers of Central Park and others. He died tragically in 1852 in a steamship fire.

Book Club Contributed by Barbara Owen A cloudy January day outside didn’t slow down the discussion inside as we shared our thoughts about Jamaica Kincaid’s My Garden Book.

Reactions ranged from frustration with trying to read slowly to savor the descriptions, to appreciation of the message that this is not a book for rushing through, evident in the book cover and page design. We were interested in her description of her childhood in Antigua, living mostly outdoors and then her reactions to the contrast of her life and trying to garden in Vermont. We were touched by her description of the impact of racism and colonialism on her life and blunt, forthright descriptions of her reactions to events around her. Her comments about growing up in one place and moving to live in a very different place resonated with several members of the group.

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The Book Club’s next meeting will be February 21 at 1:30 pm to discuss Rosemary Verey: The Life and Lessons of a Master Gardener by Barbara Paul Robinson.

Here is the line-up for the following four months: Tuesday, March 21: The Nature of Oaks by Doug Tallamy. You can view Tallamy’s engaging lecture on “The Nature of Oaks” hosted by Grow Native Massachusetts here.

Tuesday, April 18: A Clearing in the Distance: Frederick Law Olmsted and America in the 19th Century by Witold Rybcznski.

Tuesday, May 16: Fifty Plants That Changed The Course of History by Bill Laws.

Tuesday, June 20: We Are The Ark by Mary Reynolds.

Meetings take place in the Education Building if the weather is poor; otherwise, meetings are in the Crockett Garden. All are welcome to attend.

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COME VISIT: The Library is open by a Please email Library Manager Maureen O’Brien at mobrien@m

The Windows – New Books Join Our Happy Group of Volunteers at the Library!

We have a need for several volunteers to work 2-3 hours a week at the Library. Here are some of the projects available:

Cataloger: The Library uses the Massachusetts Library System for cataloging and the Library of Congress Classification System. We have several cataloging projects keeping us busy and could use your help.

Filer: The Library maintains vertical files and periodicals. We could use your help in getting our files up to date.

Data entry: we create Research Aids on Excel that are published online at the Library’s Webpage.

Miscellaneous: Filling the Little Free Library, retrieval and sorting of books, etc.

Interested? Please send an email to Library stating your area of interest and availability to Archives Manager Maureen O’Brien at mobrien@ masshort.org. Hours are flexible.

Thank you to the New England Unit of the Herb Society of America for its generous donation of this beautiful natural oak exhibit case.

appointment and when the lights are on. masshort.org for an appointment if you want to schedule a visit.

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The Garden at Elm Bank Open April 1-October 31 Classes, Programs Year-round masshort.org

Massachusetts Horticultural Society 900 Washington St Wellesley, MA 617.933.4900