She won't be at her desk formally until next Monday but, for the past few weeks, she's been a regular presence around Elm Bank. She is Katherine K. Macdonald and, on January 10, she will formally take the helm as MassHort's new executive director.

Katherine Macdonald is the new Executive Director of the Massachusetts Horticulutural Society Photo Credit: Andy Caulfield

Her hiring is the result of a lengthy search that saw applications from around the country. As it turned out, Kathy was already well-acquainted with MassHort. She lives in Wellesley and Elm Bank has long been part of her regular cycling route.

"I was attracted by the extraordinary opportunity to leverage the turnaround that is already underway at Mass Hort as a launching pad for the organization's renaissance," Kathy says. "Mass Hort has been part of the environmental movement since 1829, and now is the time to make its voice heard in the contemporary conversation. My goal for MassHort is straightforward: to use the organization's considerable resources to meet society's changing needs. To that end, I believe MassHort must sharpen its focus on sustainability, protecting natural resources, health, and environmental stewardship."

"We are thrilled that Kathy is joining us," says Betsy Ridge Madsen, President of MassHort's Board of Trustees. "She is a talented strategist with experience in both the non-profit and for-profit sectors and has a proven track record of being able to transform mission and vision into actions. Mass Hort has moved through some challenging times to achieve institutional stability. Because of her combination of business acumen and non-profit spirit, we are confident that Kathy's leadership will successfully drive and expand the organization's educational mission."

At Thompson Island Outward Bound, a not-for-profit organization focused on providing experiential education to Boston-area youth, Kathy was responsible for generating $3 million of annual revenue that supported Thompson Island's core mission. She also helped develop an environmental program that combined Outward Bound's philosophy with environmental studies, to encourage teambuilding and environmental stewardship. One of her assignments there was to rehabilitate and preserve one of Thompson Island's salt marshes.

Her business career spans more than twenty five years, and includes entrepreneurship, technology start ups, the Xerox Corporation, the hospitality industry, and non-profits. Most recently, she was president of KMAC Marketing, which provides strategic planning and marketing assistance to profit- and not-for-profit organizations.

"MassHort is here today because of the hard work, perseverance and tenacity of many people," Kathy says. "The Society's trustees and staff, Master Gardeners, donors, and its many volunteers have seen the organization through a difficult period. I see my job as delivering on the promise of the Society on their behalf."

Kathy holds an MBA from Olin Graduate School of Business at Babson College and a bachelor's degree from Central Connecticut State University. Long active in civic affairs in Wellesley, she has been an elected Town Meeting member for 24 years. Kathy has served on multiple committees, including the Advisory/Finance Committee, the Wellesley Housing Development Corporation, and the Community Preservation Committee. She has managed several initiative campaigns including one, in 2002, for the Massachusetts League of Women Voters that focused on campaign television advertising. An avid cyclist and gardener, Kathy and her husband Kevin have lived in Wellesley for more than 30 years. They have two adult children, Brian and Bridget.

We caught up with Kathy Macdonald and Betsy Ridge Madsen this week and asked a few questions that were on our mind…

Betsy, what's in Kathy's background that makes her such a good choice for this role ?

Betsy : We were impressed with Kathy's mix of profit and non-profit career experience. She brings strengths in strategic planning, non-profit management, marketing and communications, which, as this juncture, are paramount to Mass Hort's future success. We also focused on her experience of creating and increasing mission-related earned income for a non-profit.

Kathy, what attracted you to the position?

Kathy: This is an extraordinary organization. It has been part of what we would today call the 'environmental movement' since 1829. I see an opportunity to make Mass Hort's voice heard in the contemporary conversation. Who wouldn't want to take on a challenge like that?

Didn't MassHort's past financial problems concern you?

Kathy : I was impressed with the perseverance of Mass Hort's board of trustees and staff, Master Gardeners, society members, donors, and its many volunteers who have support Mass Hort during these challenging times. What is important is that Mass Hort has learned from the past and is ready to move on by focusing on providing its mission and operating a sustainable organization.

Betsy, was this a long search process?

Betsy: Longer than we planned, but we were aided by several trustees who stepped in on an interim basis. Joe Kunkel and Bruce Smith deserve high praise for their efforts. It was a long process for a couple of reasons: we wanted the right person, obviously, but we also wanted to get the financial issues behind us before we called an Executive Director. With audited financials and monies pledged via the Catalyst Fund to pay the director's salary, we became a much more viable choice for top-tier candidates.

You saw a lot of candidates?

Betsy: We reviewed more than 70 resumes over eight months with resumes from across the country. The Trustees interviewed 13 candidates. This could be characterized as the most important hire that MassHort has ever made. We wanted to make certain we found the right person at the right time to lead us from stability to strategic growth. I call that a very serious search.

Kathy, you must have a list of priorities already made up. Can you share a few of them?

Kathy: I have a lot of people to meet and to get ideas from. There are people who have remained committed to MassHort through thick and thin and I want to both thank them and learn what kept them motivated. There are others who, I am told, could become re-engaged and I want to hear from those people as well. We'll have a series of open houses over the next few months both to express our thanks and to hear ideas. Beyond that, it's achieving organizational sustainability - moving from stability to strategic growth while achieving long-term fiscal stability. It's a very long list.

Are you a gardener?

Kathy: I am. I have a wonderful perennial border in front of my home and vegetable garden at the Brookside Community Gardens in Wellesley. I am looking forward to learning more about gardening from the experts at Mass Hort.

Betsy, any final thoughts?

Betsy: This is a pivotal time in Mass Hort's history. We've successfully dealt with a lot of issues. I hope everyone out there sees Kathy's coming on board as a statement that we're ready to start moving forward. The next few years are going to be both exciting and fun. This is a perfect time for people to raise their hands and say, 'count me in'.

December 16 saw the graduation of the 2010 class of the Massachusetts Master Gardener Association (MMGA). A class of 40 completed the 14-week course and are now MMGA interns. Sixty hours of work in gardens, on the Master Gardener Help Line, in supplemental class work and at the Master Gardener booth at the Boston Flower & Garden Show will earn them the right to call themselves Certified MMGA Master Gardeners.

New master gardeners December 2010

MMGA holds its classes at Elm Bank where students learn from an array of industry professionals. Classes range from plant disease identification to pruning techniques.

Clark Byran (left) was made an honorary Master Gardener, Sonja Johanson (in blue) runs the class

Lifetime MMGA Master Gardener Holly Perry received the organization's second Golden Trowel award for exemplary service to the Master Gardeners. The graduation ceremony also saw MassHort's own Clark Bryan receive a badge as an Honorary MMGA Master Gardener for his continuing service to the organization.

Because of a high level of interest, a spring (March through May) 2011 class is currently forming. Anyone interested in registering for that class or in learning more about the Master Gardener program should visit www.MassMasterGardeners.org or follow this link to register for the class.

The leaves are gone, the sky is grey. New Englanders are getting ready for winter. But just as sure as the next three months will bring snow, March will bring… the Boston Flower & Garden Show. And, if you’re a MassHort member, you're set. If you're not a member - or if your membership lapses between now and March - then now is the time to renew.

Individual members receive one free ticket to the Paragon Group’s Boston Flower & Garden Show, to be held March 16 to 20 at the Seaport World Trade Center in Boston. Family memberships will receive two free tickets, with an option to purchase up to two additional tickets for family members at the discounted price of $15, versus the $20 value of the ticket.

The Boston Flower & Garden Show incorporates MassHort's Blooms! 2011, which encompasses amateur horticulture, two major floral design competitions, photography, Ikebana displays, and coordination of plant society displays. MassHort will also sponsor a full day of talks on both the demonstration stage and in the lecture hall at the show.

There are plenty of reasons to renew your membership now – garden center and educational program discounts, magazine subscriptions, and free admission throughout the year to the beautiful gardens at Elm Bank. But the best reason to renew now is that you’re supporting the core educational mission of one of the country’s most venerable institutions. Horticulture is an essential part of our future and of our environment.

Oh, and renew your membership today and you will also receive a $25 Gift Certificate to White Flower Farm, just in time for holiday shopping.

If you prefer to mail in your membership order form click here.

You may also order any of these memberships by phone: 617-933-4963

When you think about it, flower shows are about more than just flowers. We all love that jolt to the senses that comes with seeing a red maple in full leaf in the middle of a cold day in March, or the scent of jasmine or lilacs in the air, though they are nowhere to be seen. Flower shows engage the senses and we capture images in our minds to replay when we return to the reality of a New England winter.

Photography accomplishes the same thing, but does so with physical images rather than mental ones. Horticultural photography has come into its own over the past decade and, thanks to the efforts of Garden Clubs of America (GCA), exhibitions of such photos are becoming staples of club flower shows.

MassHort has decided to kick it up a notch. Ten weeks from now, at Blooms! at the 2011 Boston Flower & Garden Show, we'll create a 'Division III' competition. Divisions I and II are all about floral design. Division III will be all about photography, and you are invited to enter.

There will be six classes, each with six entries (for a complete description, go to the Blooms! website). The overall theme is "Over the Rainbow", and somewhere among those classes is a place for a photo you've taken.

Have you taken a great photo of a garden pathway? That's the theme of Class 1 - "Follow the Yellow Brick Road." Or, perhaps your best shot is of a New England winter landscape? That's Class 3; "Deep Purple". Are you a devotee of black and white photography? If you have a terrific photo of a garden ornament, bench, or architectural element, then you'll want to enter Class 6 - "That Old Black Magic".

Three other classes offer showcases for specialty photography or subject matter. Class 2 - "Cherry Pink and Appleblossom White" calls for a highly manipulated image showcasing the hue of your choice. Class 4 - "Heart of Gold" is for a color portrait of a plant or a part of a plant. And Class 5 - "Life is Just a Bowl of Cherries" calls for a color photograph of an assemblage - either staged or natural - of plant materials.

If you are interested in entering, now is the time to reserve a place. The website includes a registration form and the deadline for indicating your interest is less than two weeks away. You have until February 15 to submit your photo, but the first step is registering. The schedule provides all the details.

Putting all of this together is a small committee headed by Chairman Beth Hume. A veteran of many club shows and a fearless organizer, Beth has tapped a highly capable group to manage this first major show outing. The innovative schedule was the work of Beth, Katherine Clark, Carol Donnelly and Westy Lovejoy. Vicki Saltonstall will handle entries and Arabella Dane is overseeing awards.

Dear Friends of Festival of Trees 2010,

Thank you! You made our 2^nd annual Festival a fantastic success. To our tree donors and gingerbread house donors, our visitors and our enthusiastic volunteers, we are grateful. The generous support from all quarters has already made this a major new Mass Hort event to enjoy each year.

We've posted a gallery of all of the trees that were displayed at this year's festival. Please visit it if you would like to relive the beauty of the trees.

Plans are already underway for Festival of Trees 2011. We are planning more outdoor decorations, more trees, more wreaths and maybe a visit by a jolly fellow in a red suit!

We are always looking for volunteers to help with Festival and if you are interested please email Vivian at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it . The 2011 Festival will need more hands on deck and we would love to have you join us! We are interested in your ideas and suggestions and welcome your emails.

Watch for more news about Festival of Trees 2011 in the near future. We will be sending out new ideas and items, all aimed at making Festival the premiere event of next year's Holiday Season.

With appreciation and sincere thanks for your continued support of Festival of Trees,

Joyce Bakshi, Overseer MassHort
Chairman Festival of Trees

Have a yen to see England's gardens at their peak? Care to do so in the company of fellow New England gardening enthusiasts? This June, you can have that opportunity to join the Bressingham Tour to England, which will include two days at Adrian Bloom's Dell, Wood and Foggy Bottom gardens.

Beth Chatto's garden at Elmstead Market in Essex

The tour opens June 21 with a visit to plantswoman and author Beth Chatto's garden at Elmstead Market in Essex. The following day, the tour is in Cambridge to see the University Botanic Gardens. On June 23 and 24, there will be two intensive days of gardening study in Bressingham, including full tours of the 17 acres of gardens created by Alan and Adrian Bloom, gardening talks and lectures by garden staff, and a English-style barbecue in the gardens with Adrian and Rosemary Bloom.

On June 25, the tour moves to Cottesbrooke Hall in Northamptonshire and the Plant Finders Fair. It's a showcase for dozens of specialty nurseries and an opportunity to find garden accessories available nowhere else. The next day will be spent at the Royal Horticultural Gardens at Wisley in Surrey. This is the flagship garden of the Royal Horticultural Society and a true, world-class one. The final full day of the tour, June 27, will be spent at the Savill Gardens in Windsor Great Park. This is the home of many National Collections, including conifers, magnolias and rhododendron. The day will also include a tour of Windsor Castle.

For information about pricing and to obtain a copy of the full itinerary, please contact Barbara Emerson at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it or call her at 978-526-1145.

by Betty Sanders
Lifetime Master Gardener

Blankets. Christmas brought a snowstorm that provided a lovely blanket on our gardens for a week, but then the new year brought the first thaw. The protection provided by a covering of snow is important to keep shallow-rooted plants from heaving during frost and thaw cycles. If you had a cut Christmas tree this year, remove all the large branches and use them to create a light covering over perennial beds. Greens you used to decorate around your home, even wreaths, can be placed over gardens, right on top of the snow or bare ground, to protect the plants underneath. And, if you have any mulch left over from last year, place that over the garden at a depth of two inches. You will not only protect plants for the winter, but save yourself some work in the spring. Remove greens in the spring when bulbs begin to show.

Dedicated recyclers may want to burn their Christmas tree in the fireplace, but it’s better to have it chipped for a mulch to go on your garden.

Houseplants. Most of our houseplants are still resting through the short days of winter. Water (with room temperature water) only if the soil feels dry or the plant droops. Houseplants that were received as gifts have come to you from greenhouses and are in shock. Where is the high humidity, the bright lights, the perfect watering, they enjoyed in their old home? If they are losing a few leaves, or even more than a few, don’t despair. They are adjusting to their new environment and may well recover to be a long-lasting delight. I have a 14-year-old cyclamen that came indoors in October with one leaf (after a summer spent under a rhodie) that now has a dozen-plus leaves and an equal number of flowers.

Cluster plants together to conserve moisture.

Keep humidity high by clustering plants together, misting, or placing pots on pebbles that hold water. [Make certain the pots stay above the water level to prevent root rot.] Central heating means bone dry air that promotes insects such as spider mites and cultural problems. And the dry air is not good for you either.

Composting. Don’t forget to keep an open path to your compost bin this winter. While kitchen scraps (and dead floral arrangements) can be kept in the house or garage during the coldest and snowiest periods, adding them to your compost bin now will lead to the pleasant surprise of a bin full of quality compost in the spring. Don’t have a compost bin? Make a resolution to start one at the first sign of spring. MHS will be selling closed bins that discourage scavengers.

New Plants. The catalogs and magazines are filled with glowing descriptions of new plants. Sad experience has taught me to forego most of these. Too often plants are released before they have been proven in field tests or exposed to the ‘real’ growing conditions of New England.

We have all purchased the exciting new plant, promised to be hardy to zone 5, that died the very first winter in zone 6. Or the hybrid that reverted to its old form after one year. I have vowed to stick with plants that have proven themselves with time. The sole exception: annuals, since my investment is smaller and my expectations are for just one the season. But beware, one lovely yellow grass promised to grow to 30 inches, but barely made it to 12, leaving my containers looking flat.

If you’d like to check out some of the new annuals that may be offered in 2012, stop by the Massachusetts Horticultural Society gardens this year and look for the All-American trial garden (right across from the Education Building) from June through September. Not only will you see some plants guaranteed to get you excited, you will also see some failures, because that’s how life in the garden goes.

You can explore more of Betty Sanders’ gardening thoughts at www.BettyonGardening.com.

by Neal Sanders
Leaflet Contributor

Outside my window this afternoon is a world of white - a product of the Boxing Day Blizzard - punctuated by a dismal oak tree that for reasons outside of my understanding, hangs onto its limp, brown leaves.

Fortunately, indoors, I have a cacophony of never-ending color. Thank goodness for cyclamen.

Cyclamen, along with orchids and a few other tropicals, are the bright spots of a cold winter. If I may allowed a moment of anthropomorphism, they're perky little plants that cheer me on as winter hunkers down and gets entrenched in New England.

Hooray for Cyclamen!

If you don't know cyclamen, head to your nearest garden center and get acquainted. They're a European import that is more than welcome in any home. They produce prolific white, pink and purple flowers all winter long; seldom seem bothered by disease, and thrive indoors with little more than watering. Their leaves are a marvel of plant biology: a veritable roadmap on each one etched in green, black and white. We keep a clutch of cyclamen in our master bathroom where they greet us each morning. There are other groupings around the house, where ever there is a splash of sunlight and a welcome need for color.

They're also durable. By April, their energy is spent (but by then, the first spring bulbs are up) and we consign our dozen or so cyclamen to the basement for six weeks of rest. Then, in mid-May, we un-pot them and plant them in out-of-the-way, shady spots in the garden. There, the bulbs (technically speaking, corms) gather strength and produce a few leaves. Before the first frost, we gently dig them up, re-pot them with a loose potting mix, and find them a window with good, filtered light. By the time Thanksgiving has passed, they're back in flower. In case you think this migration is hard on the plants, we have one cyclamen that has made the pot-to-earth transition for considerably longer than a decade and is going strong.

Orchids are another winter pleaser. They've come a very long way in the past decade. Once orchids were rare, temperamental and outlandishly expensive. Today, tissue culture technology has made them readily available, especially phalaenopsis and dendrobium which adapt well to growing in homes. Ours occupy a tray in our upstairs hallway where a southeast-facing set of windows provide all-day light. We provide the moisture they need by resting the orchid pots on trays filled with a thin layer of pea gravel and water.

Orchids require more care than cyclamen. They need a reasonable amount of air circulation and higher humidity than most homes can provide in winter. They're prone to spider mites, scale and aphids and so need to be watched (a little alcohol or soapy water is the best medicine). But the payoff is worth the effort: months of spectacular flowers on spikes and, miracle of miracles, re-blooms on plants that have been allowed to rest and gather energy.

The croton with its own skylight.

My other, personal favorite winter plant is the croton. Its colorful, glossy tropical foliage can only be called gaudy when you see it in summer. In the winter, with all that miserable snow outside, it's a bit of heavenly eye candy. I grew up in Florida with masses of crotons outside my bedroom window and I never appreciated them because "they didn't bloom". Well, I've learned my lesson. There are two in our home, both several feet high and I cherish their cacophony of color. All that's missing is a mynah bird cawing in the distance.

Crotons want even moisture and lots of light. Ours have a skylight all to themselves and they reward us with a bountiful display of leaves. Yes, just leaves; but they're red and yellow and dark green and gold and no two are alike. They make winter a little more bearable.

And, isn't that what houseplants are for?

Neal Sanders is a frequent contributor to the Leaflet. We encourage you to read his contributions to our In the Gardens Blog where he focuses on interesting cultivars that can found in the Elm Bank gardens. Neal's first novel, Murder Imperfect, has been published. You can learn more about it here or order it through Amazon.com.