Kathy Macdonald Executive Director of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society Photo by Andy Caulfield
Dear Friends,
The Massachusetts Horticultural Society's fiscal year ended on September 30. Let me share with you some of its highlights.
Our membership now tops 6,000, more than double the level of just three years ago. Memberships represent more than a quarter of our income and that revenue makes it possible for us to carry out our mission to educate people of all backgrounds about the art and science of horticulture. Our programs help introduce people to many aspects of gardening, flower arranging, and plants through classroom workshops and lectures, exhibits halls, and of course, our Gardens at Elm Bank.
Volunteers continue to be the backbone of our success. The circle of support from volunteers never fails to amaze me. Over 180 volunteers provide services from weeding, designed gardens, running events, helping with office chores, to working on the Blooms exhibits at the Boston Flower & Garden Show. Conservatively, our volunteers contributed in excess of 10,000 hours this past year.
A group of enthusiastic people helped start our new Garden to Table Program to help people learn about nutrition, growing their own vegetables, buying from local farmers, and cooking new and exciting dishes from the garden. In addition to designing a beautiful "edible landscape", the Chef's Garden, we planted a Food Pantry Garden and harvested and distributed over 2,000 pounds of vegetables to local food pantries. Our Chef's Garden beds will be featured in an episode of This Old House on PBS this fall.
We were able to expand our circle by working with other non-profits to help promote horticulture. We worked with YouthBuild Boston and a team of inner city youth to give them the opportunity to learn about landscape construction and build garden beds. The National Charities League helped with transportation to the Wellesley Food Pantry and we also partnered with the Natick Service Council to provide fresh produce for their clients.
With our Garden Keepers, volunteers, interns and staff we maintained six beautiful gardens at Elm Bank: the Trial Garden, Weezie's Chidren's Garden, Bressingham Garden, Crockett Garden, the Italianate Garden, and our new Garden to Table Vegetable Garden. We helped four interns learn more about plants, gardens, design, and park maintenance… and probably more about weeding than they thought possible! Volunteers maintain another half dozen gardens at Elm Bank, including the American Hemerocallis Society Daylily Garden, the Noanett Garden Club stroll garden, the Alan Payne Rhododendron Garden and the Herb Garden.
Our "Blooms" exhibit of amateur horticulture, floral design, Ikebana, mini-gardens and photography at the Paragon Group's 2011 Boston Flower & Garden Show was a great success. Our volunteers are already working on the 2012 show and its theme "First Impressions."
We have applied technology to horticulture to bring the Massachusetts Horticultural Society into the 21st century. In early June we initiated cell phone tours to help visitors to the Gardens at Elm Bank learn more about Mass Hort and our gardens. We have partnered with Hortycodes to bring QR (Quick Response) technology to plant labels to provide our visitors with more information about the plants they are viewing. Visitors in the Bressingham Garden will be able to scan a QR Code with their smart phone to learn more about the plant and where they can purchase it. This is a test of the QR codes ability to help local nurseries and growers.
I would like to give a hearty thank you to all our members, donors, volunteers, staff, and trustees who helped to make this past year such a success. I look forward to your continued support in the future.
Warmest regards,
Kathy
How to Make a Lot of People Very Happy
You have the opportunity this holiday season to make a lot of people very happy. All it takes is a little time and some imagination. Or, if you're short on time, a modest amount of money.
On November 23 - amazingly, less than two months from now - the Massachusetts Horticultural Society will open its third annual Festival of Trees. There will be 75 trees plus a display of gingerbread houses, all shown in the Hunnewell Carriage House, which will be decked out for the season.
Those trees will come from people like the Carrigan family of Medfield. They're "just people," according to Loretta Carrigan. "But we went to the Festival of Trees in 2009, saw some great ideas and said, 'we could decorate a really fun tree'," Loretta adds. The family went home and did just that. In 2010, a tree decorated with race cars was one of the hits of the show.
South Natick interior decorator Susan Dearborn prepares her teddy-bear-themed tree for the MassHort Festival of Trees.
Some trees are provided by businesses. Susan Dearborn, of Susan Dearborn Interiors in South Natick, had trees in both 2009 and 2010. "It gets my business noticed," she says. "It's a wonderful association."
DePrisco Jewelers in Wellesley liked the idea of having a tree at the 2010 Festival of Trees, but the staff was already flat out preparing for the holidays. Their solution was to sponsor a tree. The nine-foot tree was 'decorated to order' using DePrisco's distinctive silver and purple colors.
There is no entry fee or other consideration if you choose to provide a tree. It can be as small as a two-foot tabletop entry or as large as nine feet. Most trees are six-footers. As to theme, it's entirely up to you.
"We've had trees that celebrated the Red Sox and that said 'J'taime Paris'," says Festival of Trees Chair Joyce Bakshi. A tree contributed by her family, which was all about wine, had the distinction of being the most popular tree on 2010.
The best part is that every tree goes home with someone. The Festival raises money through a modest admission but primarily generates its revenue through a raffle for the trees. Eight dollars buys a sheet of 25 tickets which can be allocated among many trees or a few.
The Santa Snowman tree and its winner.
If you're interested in donating, the starting point is an application. To download an application, go to www.MassHortFestivalofTrees.org and click on either the 'donate a tree' or 'sponsor a tree' tab. The rest is self-explanatory.
It's also never too early to think about scheduling a family visit to the Festival of Trees. Admission is just $8 for adults; there is no charge for children under 12. "We want this to be something you can bring the kids to, and then come back with the in-laws," Joyce says. "Many of the people who came last year told us it was one of the best experiences a family can have this holiday season."
The Festival of Trees is open from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. on weekends and the Friday after Thanksgiving. On weekdays and Thanksgiving Day, the festival will open at 3 p.m. and close at 8 p.m. Special hours beginning at 11 a.m. are available for groups. For full details concerning hours and how the tree raffle works, visit www.MassHortFestivalofTrees.org.
The Schedules Are Up!
Amateur horticulture at the 2011 Flower Show.
Do you have a great eye for photographing plants and landscapes? Do you have a green thumb and a house full of terrific plants to prove it? Are you ready to step up to the challenge of floral design against the best arrangers in the region?
If you answered 'yes' to any of these questions - or if you just want to get a sneak preview of what will be offered at next year's Blooms! at the Boston Flower & Garden Show - then you need to peruse the just-posted schedules from floral design, amateur horticulture and photography divisions of the show. They are here on the Massachusetts Horticultural Society website.
There are two floral design divisions, each with six classes and two entry days, representing a total of 112 entry opportunities. Division I, which is presented by the Garden Club Federation of Massachusetts, requires that all entries be from member of one of the 192 garden clubs that are part of the Federation. Division II, presented by the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, is the 'open class' and has no membership requirements to enter. Both divisions welcome 'novices' who have not previously won at a major show.
"We're always looking for rising talent," says Julie Pipe, Chair of Division II. "If you've progressed beyond winning club shows and you're serious about floral design, we want to hear from you."
Admiring photography at the 2011 Flower Show.
So does Beth Hume, Chair of the Photography Competition. "This is our second year," Beth says. "We received most of our entries for the 2011 show from outside New England, largely because there is a well-established community of garden-club-affiliated horticultural photographers around the country. This year, we're making a conscious effort to ensure that area photographers are well-represented by reaching out to photography clubs and a broad swath of garden clubs."
In Amateur Horticulture, the excitement is about the return of 'Juniors' competition. "We needed to get a feel for the facility," says Martha Clouse, Amateur Horticulture Chair. "The Seaport World Trade Center is lovely, but getting to it from anywhere except South Boston requires planning. Now that we've done two shows there, we know how to get people and cars in and out of the entry area without exposing plants to mid-March weather."
Martha says her committee is excited about re-establishing a competition open to budding horticulturalists 16 and under. "It was the one thing everyone missed from the days back at Bayside," Martha says. "I'm personally thrilled that it's going to be in place for 2012."
This year's schedule offers an exceptionally broad array of entry classes - more than 70 in all - that cover almost everything that a home gardener might have in a southerly window this winter. There's also a new, specialty class for plants native to Mexico and Central America as well as one devoted to topiary.
The schedules for the photography and design divisions are expected to reflect the overall theme of the Boston Flower & Garden Show which, for 2012, is 'First Impressions'. Schedules also need to be challenging to the designer or photographer and those who write the schedules are known for demanding a lot from entrants.
"We want to keep designers interested and challenged," says Yvonne Capella, Chair of Division I. "We want to attract the region's best designers. To do that, we need to constantly innovate in the way the schedule is written."
In Division I, where the overall theme is 'Personalities', one class calls for a design with two completely different sides when viewed from front and back. The name of the class? 'Two Faced', naturally. In Division II, the overall theme is 'Shall We Dance?' One class calls for designers to create a slipper covered with all dried plant material which will be mounted on a mirror. The name of the class? 'Cinderella's Ball'.
Wrapping Up Your Garden for the Season
by Betty Sanders Lifetime Master Gardener
The calendar says October, but it doesn't mean your work in the garden is done. There are four areas you need to concentrate on. I call them the 'Must Do's' , 'Should Do's', 'Could Do's' and 'Don't Do's'.
Let's start with the easiest list - the Don't Do's:
You can mulch up to a foot of leaves on your lawn.
Don't rake your lawn, mow it . By chopping up leaves with a mulching mower, you'll return nutrients to the soil. You say you can't because you have too many leaves? The Cornell Extension Service strongly disagrees. They say your lawn can take more than a foot of leaves being mulched into it for the winter. It doesn't matter if those leaves are oaks, pine needles, maples, birch or anything else. Finely chopped leaves will break down over the winter, giving your lawn and trees a feeding for the spring.
Don't prune spring blooming trees and shrubs now . If it bloomed in the spring or early summer it has already set next year's flowers. Pruning now will remove the flower buds. The exception to the 'don't prune' rule is for broken or diseased branches which should always be removed as soon as possible so the plant can heal.
Don't be alarmed by evergreen needle drop . Old needles drop all the time, not all at once as leaves do. After a hard summer, it may seem a lot of needles come down, but if the tree is still green, it's normal.
Don't wrap shrubs; instead, create a safety barrier of burlap stretched between poles.
Don't wrap shrubs. Wrappings can damage shrubs by limiting light and air circulation, breaking branches and providing hiding places for insects and rodents. If you fear that snow will be thrown on the plant and break branches or harsh winds will dry the plant, create a safety barrier of burlap stretched between poles. For small plants, a slatted wood A-frame can serve the same purpose.
Must Do's Some chores need to be done now because the plants require it or because it prevents future garden problems.
Winterize your houseplants. Your houseplants should already be indoors. If they aren't, start by checking them for insects they may have picked up outside and repot those plants that have grown too large for their pots.
Dig up what isn't winter-hardy. Dig tubers (dahlias), bulbs (caladium), rhizomes (cannas) and corms (gladiolus) that would otherwise die in a New England winter. Trim remaining stalks to 2 to 3 inches, dry them and remove soil. Then, pack them loosely in a paper or mesh bag with peat moss, shipping peanuts or other lightweight packing material. Be certain to mark the bag with the variety. Then store in a cool, dry place, such as a basement, where they will not freeze.
Keep harvesting your vegetable garden and cutting flowers for indoors. When the harvest is completed, clean the garden of all plant debris that may be infected with pests or disease. Don't compost that debris: bag and discard it. This is vital for all your gardens, not just the vegetable garden.
Should Do's Some garden chores can be put off but your garden will be healthier and Spring chores easier if done now.
Keep Weeding . It's an old saying but a true one: "One year's weeds, seven years seeds." Most of the weeds in your lawn will be dead with the winter cold, but their seeds will live on to become another chore next spring and summer. Pull or dig them, bag them and send them to the trash.
Fertilize your lawn in early October, but only if you didn't fertilize this year. Choose a product low in nitrogen (the first number and high in phosphate (the second number) to encourage root growth instead of grass blade growth for the winter. Get a soil test and add lime if the test shows excessive soil acidity.
Add compost , composted manure or shredded leaves to perennial beds and vegetable gardens. A layer of compost now means the beds are improved and ready in the spring without digging. If you wait until the ground freezes, you are also protecting your plants against heaving during winter thaws.
Plant spring bulbs after the first hard frost when the soil has cooled but not frozen. Bulbs need to start growing roots for the spring so add a pinch of fertilizer after the first inch or two of soil is covers the bulb. Deter rodents with a small amount of chicken grit or gravel placed around the bulb. Your bulbs will stand out next Spring if you place them in groups or sweeps - not rows of marching soldiers. Lime or cayenne pepper on top of the planting area can deter rodents.
Empty and clean all outdoor containers. Containers should be washed out to remove old soil and rinsed with a bleach solution before being stored.
Mow short when you mow last. Lower the mower blade to 1 1/2 inches for the last mowing. Tall grass can suffer from snow mold. It'll also give the leaves you've mulched into the lawn a final chopping. And, put a reminder note on the mower to reset the blade to three inches for next year.
Could Do's Take advantage of the cooler, wetter weather for these garden chores. You have more time in the fall than in the Spring when everything becomes a 'must do'.
Plant new trees and shrubs. Many nurseries have great sales at this time of year. And plant what you buy correctly--dig a saucer, not a teacup for your hole. Plant at the level of the crown, backfill with improved soil, but do not fertilize. Then water daily for a week, then weekly until the ground freezes. And put a reminder on the calendar to continue to water throughout the next growing season whenever we don't get an inch or more of rain in a week.
Renovate your lawn or overseed thin lawns now while there is little competition from weeds. The cooler, wetter weather improves success of your seeds. Always use a quality seed blend so you aren't wasting time and money putting down annual grass seed which will die with the cold. Adding a quarter-inch layer of compost to your lawn is a quick way to start it on the path to a healthier life.
Plant a cold frame with vegetables for November.
Vegetables for autumn. Plant your cold frame with crops such as lettuce, spinach, and other cold-tolerant vegetables. Think how good you'll feel when you tell your guests at Thanksgiving that the salad came from your garden that morning.
Create a new garden bed. Lay out a bed this fall with 6 to 8 sheets of newspaper covered with 6 inches of soil or mulch, the grass underneath will be dead and the bed ready to plant in the spring with flowers or vegetables.
Finally , pot up paperwhites, crocuses and other bulbs to force for yourself or friends. They make great gift and wonderful additions to your home in the depths of winter.
You can read Betty Sanders' Horticultural Hints each month in the Leaflet. You can find additional gardening advice on her website, www.BettyonGardening.com.
Coming Up in October and November
Monday, October 17 at 7 p.m.Making Tomato Sauce with Suzanne Goldenson. Presented by Mass Hort and the Wellesley Free Library's 'Wellesley Reads Together' Program, Suzanne Goldenson, owner of the Heirloom Tomato Sauce Company, will give a cooking demonstration on how to make and preserve tomato sauce from the garden. The event will be held in the Education Building at Elm Bank.
Tuesday, October 18 at 10:00AM - 12:30PM. The True North Author Series, a joint presentation of the Library of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society and North Hill, opens with Justin Martin, the author of Genius of Place: The Life Frederick Law Olmsted, a biography of the pioneering landscape architect of Central Park and 50 other green spaces around the United States. There will be no charge to attend the event, which will be held in the Hunnewell Carriage House at Elm Bank. Martin, a former staff writer at Fortune magazine, is the author of two previous biographies, Greenspan: The Man Behind Money andNader: Crusader, Spoiler, Icon. Martin's bestselling Greenspan biography was chosen as a notable book by the New York Times Book Review. To enroll and for more information, please contact North Hill Courses & Events:
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or 781-433-6400.
Thursday, October 20, 2011, 7 p.m. - 8:30 p.m. HolidayGifts from Garden and the Heart . Not every gift has to be purchased from a store. You can create beautiful things from your garden. In conjunction with the Wellesley Free Library's 'Wellesley Reads Together' Program, Mass Hort presents an evening of demonstrations on creating holiday gifts. The event will feature instructions and samples. Please note the event will be held at the Wellesley Free Library.
Sunday, November 13, 2011 at 3 p.m. Winter ConcertFeaturing the New England Brass Band. The New England Brass Band is a 30-piece brass and percussion ensemble, adhering to the instrumentation of the "British Brass Band" tradition. Under the direction of renowned arranger, Stephen Bulla (former chief arranger for the 'President's Own' U.S. Marine Band.), the band entertains with musical selections from composers such as J.S. Bach, Kevin Norbury, Howard Evens and Stephen Bulla, himself. The event will be held in the Hunnewell Carriage House at Elm Bank ( read more or order tickets ).
November 23 through December 10. Massachusetts Horticultural Society's Festival of Trees at Elm Bank. It's never too soon to block off some time for a special event, and from November 23 through December 10, Elm Bank will again host an annual tradition: the MassHort Festival of Trees. Imagine the Hunnewell Building - the beautiful, converted carriage house on the grounds of Elm Bank - filled to overflowing with decorated trees. Trees that celebrate art or music, or the Red Sox, the beach, Cinderella, America, Disney characters, gardening, golfing or anything else you can imagine. Visit www.MassHortFestivalofTrees.org for full details.
Elm Bank in October
Below are images taken at Elm Bank last week.
They show the gardens are still beautiful in October and are worth visiting. Also illustrated is the last harvest of the season from the Garden-to-Table program and volunteers putting the Food Pantry and Chef's Gardens to bed for the winter.
You may click on any of the thumbnails to see a larger photo.
Continuous Container Gardens (Book Review)
Continuous Container Gardens:Swap in the plants of the season to create fresh designs year-round
by Sara Begg Townsend and Roanne Robbins Storey Publishing, 2010
Reviewed by Maureen Horn, Librarian
How do you think about the plants in your garden? Are they ephemeral things that get replaced because the calendar says October? Or do you see those outdoor plants as old, reliable friends? If you see plants as disposable accents, you need read no further. Continuous Container Gardens is a book for those who wants to establish a long-term relationship with particular cultivars. The authors tell us that if we work with containers in the way they recommend, we can make a modest collection of plants look fresh in all four seasons of the year.
The key to success is "swapping out" - taking plants from one container and transplanting them to another to create new combinations that will evoke the present season through color, texture, and size. Sara Begg Townsend is the experimenter, pushing the seasons by putting a container of early blooming flowers by her front door so she can relate to them before they begin to thrive in her larger garden. Roanne Robbins is the organizer. She knows that gardening is an art practiced by humans, but that nature always intrudes. Her job is to organize the attributes of nature, such as height, bushiness, color and need for sun; then to find plant combinations that will thrive.
The book's core message is that container gardening should be fun and a celebration of creativity. Townsend and Robbins are always seen smiling as they set about gathering plants for their containers. The resulting designs are flamboyant; layouts of individual plants are shown against diverse backgrounds, such as water, stone walls, burlap and beach sand.
The playfulness of the book's presentation is balanced by a practicality in its advice on tool selection, container choices, and must-have plants. The plant staples are mostly perennials, trees, shrubs, and grasses. One of the book's principal themes is that perennials, rather than annuals, should be used in the containers and that these should be plants that have more than one season of interest. After settling on the central plant, choose the underplantings and, then, the 'backbone' of the arrangement, such as a small tree or bamboo tripod that you won't get tired of looking at season after season.
The authors have developed twelve themes that are carried out in each of the four seasons, so there are 48 container designs to inspire us. Winter in New England is manifestly barren, so it is for the winter containers that the authors tell you to free to use non-plant decorations. The ideas offered are multidimensional; offering flowers, branch structure, interesting foliage, and sometimes berries.
Swap-capable containers can save money for the gardener because plants survive for a minimum of a year in the containers, and there are no discarded annuals. Shopping trips to nurseries provide most plant material for containers, but the authors also advocate transplanting from established gardens to 'try out' new locations and combinations.
Too many 'how-to' books focus solely on the mechanics of gardening. Continuous Container Gardens stands out - in addition to its terrific ideas - for the realization that the authors never lose sight of their belief that gardening is fun.
Volunteer Spotlight: Beth Gray-Nix
by Vivien Bouffard Leaflet Contributor
Volunteers drive the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. You see them everywhere, but especially in the gardens. They're the reason the gardens have kept their impeccably maintained look through the year and, as the number of gardens expand, so does the corps of (and need for) volunteers. Each month, the Leaflet will profile someone who contributes their time and skills to Mass Hort.
Beth Gray-Nix
This month, we start with Beth Gray-Nix. Beth served as the Italianate Garden 'Keeper' this summer. Keepers have primary responsibility for one garden though they can also be found elsewhere at Elm Bank. In larger gardens like the Italianate, Keepers may also oversee the work of other volunteers in their gardens.
Thursday mornings saw Beth steadily working to maintain Mass Hort's premier site for wedding photography. All that weeding apparently gave her plenty of time to think, because she has plenty of ideas for this lovely garden.
Beth, how did you start volunteering for Mass Hort?
I'd been attending flower shows ever since I was a little kid in Milton, but had never been to Elm Bank. I looked at information about the Master Gardener training program for several years, but was unable to take the course because I was working full-time. When I retired after 30 years as Director of Occupational Therapy for the Walter E. Fernald Developmental Center, my staff bought me the Master Gardener training course as a retirement gift. They had seen me gardening over the years around the property at work and knew it was something I would really like. I took the course in 2009.
We're glad you did. How did you manage the maintenance of the Italianate Garden this summer?
A lot of planning work is done by the paid staff in the Italianate because so many brides want to have wedding pictures taken there. Gardens Curator David Fiske designed the planting and color scheme. With a lot of volunteer help we planted hundreds of annuals from Proven Winners and then mulched them. From there, it has been a matter of weeding, watering, and keeping the edges neat. I really appreciated the volunteers, especially Sandy McMillen, Donna Doucette, and the members of the current Master Gardener class.
Who spends time in the garden besides wedding parties?
Artists like to camp out in the shady end and face the house to do their sketching and painting. And the kids especially like the fountain and the tiny tree frogs that hop onto the water lily pads. Also, visitors can now get recorded information about the garden via their cellphones. That's a great addition.
What would you like to see done in the Italianate Garden in the future?
I would like to plant something like Nepeta in front of the roses and eventually have some sort of planting on the side of the Manor House that visitors see first when they come up from the lower field. Currently there's nothing there.
Have you ventured out of the Italianate Garden recently.
Yes, the American Hemerocallis Society daylily garden needed some help. Ten of us worked for four hours and created a pile of weeds three feet high and ten feet long! Barbara Provest, the daylily garden coordinator, generously sent us each home with a freshly dug daylily. I love working at Elm Bank because of the group effort to make things beautiful. I also appreciate being able to contribute to the community through educating visitors, not to mention all the vegetables going to local food pantries.
Do you have other ideas about Elm Bank generally?
I went to England this summer on the trip arranged by the Master Gardeners and Adrian Bloom, and every time I visited one of the great English gardens, I thought how nice it would be if Elm Bank had a place to eat. Also, more places for people (especially the elderly) to sit. A lovely bench has just been installed in the Bressingham Garden in memory of Master Gardener Margaret Polito; I hope that eventually we'll have more like it throughout the gardens.
Beth Gray-Nix lives in Sudbury with husband Ron and son Roger, who is a math major at Northeastern. She shares her garden, which is close to an acre, with creatures from the abutting conservation land, and has a special passion for daylilies.
If you are interested in joining Beth in keeping the Gardens at Elm Bank beautiful, please e-mail
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October Horticultural Hints
by Betty Sanders
Lifetime Master Gardener
Pace yourself! Garden clean-up is something best done in stages. It saves the gardener's back and keeps attractive plants going longer. It's also common sense. For example, remove annuals now if they are overgrown or as soon as they are touched by frost. Remove any flowering perennials whose best days are past. Cut down foliage that has become unattractive due to disease or insects. And, as for that diseased foliage, don't compost it, bag them for the trash. You don't want it around your garden.
Iris borer eggs will over-winter on iris foliage.
Speaking of bagging… Gladioli and dahlia tops should be bagged and discarded along with corn and sunflower stalks. They can all harbor corn borers over the winter. Even if they don't look diseased, composting iris foliage isn't a good practice. Iris borers lay their eggs on the iris leaves, and the eggs overwinter quite nicely. So, cut down and remove the iris foliage from your garden each fall.
Go native. When you admire the bright red of burning bush (euonymus alatatus) this fall, keep in mind it is an invasive that is taking over our woodlands, pushing out the native plants that birds and other wildlife depend on. In the woods it is usually pink instead of red and scrawnier because it is growing under a canopy of trees. But it is growing and spreading nonetheless. Removing the one in your yard is the first step to removing them from the environment. Need a replacement? Native shrubs including the fothergilla, itea, blueberry and viburnum provide great color with a clear conscience.
Euonymous alatus - burning bush - is invasive in New England.
Add a garden the easy way. Thinking of adding a new vegetable garden, flower or shrub bed to your property? Don't dig, cover. Mark out the area of the new garden, place cardboard around the edges, then put down 6 to 8 sheets of newspaper over the entire area. Cover it with 6 to 8 inches of chipped leaves, compost or soil. By spring the grass underneath will be dead. Next Spring, do not remove the soil or mulch but, rather, plant directly into it. Your bed will be lower as the material settled. You can edge with bricks, timbers or by just removing a narrow trench of grass around the edge. This keeps the grass from re-colonizing the new bed.
Start your houseplants' winter regimen. Your houseplants are still in shock if you summered them outdoor and moved them indoors during September. Don't give them fertilizer until they stop shedding old leaves and then, only provide fertilizer in weak doses. And, be careful not to overwater. Now that they're indoors, they are no longer dealing with strong summer sun or dry winds.
I had the pleasure of hearing Lynden B. Miller's talk at the Honorary Medals dinner in September. If you live in New York City, you've likely heard of her. If you know 'public spaces' design, you surely know her name. If you don't, and if you care about parks and open public spaces, you should make her acquaintance.
Lynden Miller
Ms. Miller describes herself as a 'painter and gardener' and it is true that she trained as a painter and that she gardens. But that's akin to calling Édouard Manet a French painter. It's technically accurate but it barely scratches the surface.
Ms. Miller got her start in 1982 when she was asked by Elizabeth Rogers, the Administrator of Central Park, to 'do something' with a space in Central Park. Today, we think of Central Park and we think, 'magnificence'. Thirty years ago, the park was just starting to come back from decades of neglect and much of the restoration work being done was at the southern end of the park where, frankly, all the wealthy donors lived. Ms. Miller was asked to tackle the Conservatory Garden at Fifth Avenue and 105th Street - well 'above 96th Street' as they say in Manhattan.
Ms. Miller knew the site well. She remembers when the Conservatory Garden contained both a series of greenhouses and a formal garden. The former was destroyed by Robert Moses, the latter fell into disrepair because of a succession of city decisions to stint on maintenance. By the early 1980s, the once-elegant gardens had given way to graffiti, broken bottles, compacted lawns and overgrown flower beds. People stayed away in droves. Ms. Miller did more than just design a new garden. She set about to raise private funds, hire qualified staff and organize a dedicated volunteer group of gardeners drawn from the neighborhood. Even better, she has stayed with the garden ever since, guiding its development, raising an endowment for its long term care, and, making the space a gathering spot for the community.
The Conservatory Garden in Central Park - designed by Lynden Miller.
I focus on that garden not just because it was her first 'commission', but because the garden became the cornerstone of Ms. Miller's philosophy: everyone, rich and poor, will respect and love a beautiful place when it is well-maintained. She also believes in encouraging people to sit down and enjoy themselves. The revamped Conservatory Garden encouraged people to linger by providing ample seating spaces.
More commissions followed: gardens for The Central Park Zoo, Bryant Park (with its hundreds of portable folding chairs that, contrary to everyone's fears, don't get stolen) , The New York Botanical Garden, Madison Square Park, and Wagner Park in Battery Park; waterfront gardens in Red Hook, Brooklyn, improvements to Union Square Park and the 97th Street Park Avenue Mall, renovation of the "Gateway to Harlem" Broadway Mall at 135th Street, Loeb Plaza for Hunter College, and the 67th Street Armory.
Stony Brook University, softened by Lynden Miller.
Her other project that caused gasps from the audience was her work at Stony Brook University, the Long Island campus of the State University of New York (SUNY). Built in the 1960s, the campus embraced that decade's 'brutalist' style of architecture: acres of raw concrete and windowless buildings that looked like bunkers. It was once one of SUNY's least desirable campuses.
Since 2000, she has overseen the gradual transformation of the site, installing walkways, trees and large sweeps of colorful plantings to replace those vast stretches of concrete pavement which had make the center of the campus a barren and inhospitable place. Twenty thousand ground covers, ornamental grasses, perennials and shrubs were planted to soften and humanize this area. The result is nothing short of startling.
The thing I find most fascinating is that Ms. Miller focuses on New York. She has wandered as far as Princeton but the great body of her work is in the five boroughs. I don't see work in Dubai or Los Angeles. She may speak in Boston, but I don't see a cadre of apprentices churning out plans for parks here (the apotheosis is Michael Van Valkenberg). In her talk, she said she believes strongly that public open spaces with superior, well-maintained plantings can change city life. She accurately and wisely acknowledges that well-planted public places (Bryant Park, for example) have a huge impact on the surrounding neighborhood, attracting visitors, reducing crime and raising real-estate values.
She is, in short, a treasure from whom we can learn a great deal.
Neal Sanders is a frequent contributor to the Leaflet. Neal's most recent mystery, The Accidental Spy, has just been published and you can learn more about it here . That book, plus his first two mysteries, The Garden Club Gang and Murder Imperfect, can be ordered through Amazon.com.
Founded in 1829, the Massachusetts Horticultural Society is dedicated to encouraging the science and practice of horticulture and developing the public's enjoyment, appreciation, and understanding of plants and the environment.
Monday, October 17 at 7 p.m. Making Tomato Sauce with Suzanne Goldenson. Presented by Mass Hort and the Wellesley Free Library's 'Wellesley Reads Together' Program, Suzanne Goldenson, owner of the Heirloom Tomato Sauce Company, will give a cooking demonstration on how to make and preserve tomato sauce from the garden. The event will be held in the Education Building at Elm Bank.
entation of the Library of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society and North Hill, opens with Justin Martin, the author of Genius of Place: The Life Frederick Law Olmsted, a biography of the pioneering landscape architect of Central Park and 50 other green spaces around the United States. There will be no charge to attend the event, which will be held in the Hunnewell Carriage House at Elm Bank. Martin, a former staff writer at Fortune magazine, is the author of two previous biographies, Greenspan: The Man Behind Money andNader: Crusader, Spoiler, Icon. Martin's bestselling Greenspan biography was chosen as a notable book by the New York Times Book Review. To enroll and for more information, please contact North Hill Courses & Events:
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or 781-433-6400. 
Sunday, November 13, 2011 at 3 p.m. 
November 23 through December 10. Massachusetts Horticultural Society's Festival of Trees at Elm Bank. It's never too soon to block off some time for a special event, and from November 23 through December 10, Elm Bank will again host an annual tradition: the MassHort Festival of Trees. Imagine the Hunnewell Building - the beautiful, converted carriage house on the grounds of Elm Bank - filled to overflowing with decorated trees. Trees that celebrate art or music, or the Red Sox, the beach, Cinderella, America, Disney characters, gardening, golfing or anything else you can imagine. Visit 
Continuous Container Gardens: Swap in the plants of the season to create fresh designs year-round
by Betty Sanders
by Neal Sanders
