Lectures, Programs & Travel
2013-2014 Horticultural Lectures and Programs for Adults
(For art classes, select the menu choice: Art Courses at the Botanic Gardens)
NEW! Click for 2013-2014 Program Brochure
Click for registration form.
Questions? Contact WCBG Friends: wcbgfriends@wellesley. edu or 781-283-3094.
Teeming with Trees: An Armchair Tour of an African Hotspot
The Maputaland-Pondoland-Albany Hotspot in southern Africa’s eastern
region holds the highest tree diversity of any of the world’s temperate
forests with nearly 600 tree species represented. In total, about 8,100
species of plants from 243 families occur within this hotspot, and nearly a
quarter of these are found nowhere else.
Botanist, artist, author, and tour guide Elsa Pooley,
has spent years identifying, studying, painting, and
cataloging the flora of this second richest floristic region
in Africa and an important center of plant endemism.
She will speak about some of the hotspot’s most
interesting habitats and the plants found there, with a
primary focus on its trees.
Location: Arnold Arboretum’s Hunnewell Building
125 Arborway, Boston. Free parking.
Thursday, September 19 6:30 p.m. – 7:30 p.m. HOR 14 010
Offered in collaboration with the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University
and Friends of Wellesley College Botanic Gardens
Members Free / Non-Members $10
An Eden of Sorts: The Natural History of My Feral Garden
Thirty years ago John Hanson Mitchell, Editor, Sanctuary,
published by the Massachusetts Audubon Society, made
a brash decision—to cut down a forest of native white
pines to build a home and make a garden. Over the next
three decades he replanted the land in a series of garden
rooms. The irony of his story is that by cutting down
the forest of native trees and replacing it with a human
construct, he significantly increased the biodiversity of the
area. Learn about the plants and animals, including people, who moved
into and sometimes out of this dynamic landscape and how it is possible
to increase the biodiversity of developed land.
Location: Arnold Arboretum’s Hunnewell Building
125 Arborway, Boston. Free parking.
Thursday, October 3 6:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m. HOR 14 020
Offered in collaboration with the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University
and Friends of Wellesley College Botanic Gardens
Members Free / Non-Members $10
Wellesley College Botanic Gardens: A Living Laboratory Tour
The Botanic Gardens have some exciting new
research gardens that are engaging students in
multiple ways. Journey along with Kristina Jones,
Director of the Botanic Gardens, and explore
through the eyes of an ecologist the Creighton
Educational Garden, the green roof planted with
native species, the Climate Change Monitoring
Garden and the in-progress Edible Ecosystem
Teaching Garden, all within a short walk from our
starting point at the Greenhouse Visitor Center.
Tuesday, Oct. 15 1:00 – 3:00 p.m. HOR 14 030
Offered in collaboration with New England Wild Flower Society
and Friends of Wellesley College Botanic Gardens.
Members $24 / Non-Members $28
Plant Stories and Poetry Reading Group
Bring your lunch and join us at the Greenhouse Visitor Center for a
weekly discussion of short stories and poetry featuring plants with
experienced group leader Joan Parrish, WCBG docent with a master’s
degree in adult education from Boston University and teacher of short
story courses for LLARC (Life Long Learning at Regis College).
Each week read one assigned short story and one poem for discussion.
Peas, mango blooms, sawlogs, and blue flowers are some of the plants
that inspire and contribute meaning to works by authors including Andrea
Barrett, Rick Bass, and Wellesley College Class of 1912 alumna Marjory
Stoneman Douglas. The story for the first session, “Flowers” by Alice
Walker, and the poem, “Peonies” by Jane Kenyon can be read online or
picked up at the Friends’ office.
5 Fridays: October 25; November 1, 8, 15, 22
12:15 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. HOR 14 040
Members Free / Non-Members $25
America’s Romance with the English Garden
Professor Emeritus of Communication Studies at Bridgewater State
University and author of America’s Romance with the English Garden,
Thomas Mickey blends his background in communications studies with
his passion for gardens and history to describe the 1890s revolution in
advertising resulting in the English garden becoming the look of America.
Cheap paper, faster printing, rural mail delivery, railroad shipping, and
chromolithography paved the way for the first modern, mass-produced
catalogs. The fledgling modern garden industry revolved around seed
and nursery catalogs with beautiful pictures of middle-class homes
surrounded by sprawling lawns, exotic plants, and the latest accessories
for the garden, in other words, the quintessential English-style garden.
Delivering aspirational images to front doorsteps from California to
Maine, the catalog images seduced the masses and fixed the English
garden in the mind of the American consumer.
Offered in collaboration with the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University,
Friends of Wellesley College Botanic Gardens, and the Garden Club of the Back Bay
Afternoon Presentation
Wednesday, Nov 13 1:00 p.m. HOR 14 050
Afternoon Location: WCBG Visitor Center
Evening Presentation
Wednesday, Nov 13 6:30 p.m. HOR 14 055
Evening Location: Arnold Arboretum’s Hunnewell
Building, 125 Arborway, Boston
Either Lecture: Members Free / Non-Members $10
The Botanic Garden and Southeast Asian Cooking
Items for a Southeast Asian meal in the middle of a New England winter
are relatively easy to source in our global world. This is possible because
of research pioneered in botanic gardens, often-overlooked immigrant
entrepreneurs, and consumers who equate consuming ethnic food with
cultural cosmopolitanism. Professor Alex Orquiza, a Mellon Postdoctoral
Fellow in American Studies at Wellesley College, shows how many of
the plants from the WCBG connect to our everyday lives, with individual
histories that include both old and new cultural exchanges. The talk
includes a cooking demonstration. Professor Orquiza is completing his
first book, A Pacific Palate: Food, Culture, and American Imperialism in
the Philippines, 1898-1935.
Wednesday, December 4 1:00 p.m. HOR 14 060
Members Free / Non-Members $10
Music Inspired by Nature
by Composer Toni Lester
Join us for a special afternoon filled with a concert of
contemporary classical music and spoken word poetry by
Boston-based composer Toni Lester, inspired by the natural
world, the impact of noise pollution on it, and how species
communicate. With flutist Clare Nielsen, pianist Stephen Porter
(stephenporterpiano.com), cellist Reinmar Seidler, and soprano
Jessica Petrus. Part of the recital will invite listeners to walk through the
Greenhouses while music is being performed.
Saturday, December 7 1:00 p.m. HOR 14 070
A preconcert talk will begin at 12:15 p.m.
Suggested donation $20
