The popular Garden Club Federation of Massachusetts Landscape Design School (LDS) will be held in Lexington on October 25 and 26, 2018. Landscape Design School (LDS) is a series of four courses presented by distinguished lecturers on landscape design, methods, history, theory and analysis. LDS is open to the public. While the courses do not confer professional status, it is an enriching experience and can serve as an entrée to the subject.

The speakers this year include Historian Lucinda Brockway; Darrah Cole, Senior Horticulturist and Designer on the Greenway; Christie Dustman, APLD; Heather Heimarck, ASLA, of HighMark Land Design; landscape architect and designer Laura Eisener; Designer Yvonne Watson, and Andrew Whittaker, Green Abundance by Design.

To find out more and obtain a registration slip visit here.

The Community Outreach Group for Landscape Design (COGdesign) is pleased to showcase final designs for their eight 2017-18 projects. This year’s projects range from community gardens in Chelsea and Mission Hill to parks, plazas and stormwater management plans for transitional housing, after school programs, and community groups in five additional Boston neighborhoods, and in Framingham. Following the showcase, Dan Adams and Marie Law Adams of Landing Studio will present their design solution for Charlesgate, a complex project to restore ecological infrastructure performance, urban connections, and public access recreation to the terminus of the Olmsted-designed Emerald Necklace.

COGdesign provides pro bono landscape design services to community groups by matching them with volunteer designers and architects who then collaborate to create resilient, green landscapes which meet neighborhood needs.

Landing Studio is an award-winning architecture, design, and research practice whose work negotiates the intersection of large scale global industry with urban environments. Since 2005, Landing Studio has developed projects with port facilities and transit infrastructure entities in Boston and New York by designing shared industrial and public access landscapes, light installations, festivals, exhibitions, tours, and industrial/community operations agreements.

Free and open to the public. Registration requested.

Sponsored by the Community Outreach Group for Landscape Design and the Arnold Arboretum

Register at my.arboretum.harvard.edu or call 617-384-5277.

Massachusetts Horticultural Society and Historic New England present a guided garden tour of three historic estates on May 30, 2018.

The tour includes the 1804 greenhouses at Lyman Estate in Waltham, the gardens at the Eustis Estate in Milton and the Cheney Estate at Elm Bank, home of the Society in Wellesley. Lunch on the porch of the Eustis Estate and explore the first floor of the mansion before heading to Wellesley.

Renewal of the Blue Garden in Newport, Rhode Island

The Friends of Fairsted are pleased to partner with the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University on the recent restoration of The Blue Garden in Newport, Rhode Island to present a free lecture on Wednesday, May 30, 2018 at 7 p.m at the Hunnewelll Buiding, Arnold Arboretum. Reception to follow.

Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. with the Olmsted Brothers firm, designed the Blue Garden from 1912-1918 for the Newport estate of Arthur Curtiss James and his wife Harriet. The garden room, enclosed in an evergreen screen, features a plantng palette of blues and purples "with some whites" and shades of green foliage. The garden, opened in August 1913 with a celebration called "The Blue Masque," was heralded in numerous magaine articles and photographs that depicted its architectural and horticultural riches. By 2012, the garden was almost forgoten, subsumed under a thick covering of weeds and invasive trees. This lecture will present the story of the people who created the Blue Garden and how the restoration team used original plans, drawings and photographs and drawings to reinterpret the design and rebuild the garden in all its glory, while meeting contemporary sustainable standards.