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• Grow Native Massachusetts | Designing Biodiversity from Gardens to Regions

  • When
    11 Feb 2025
  •  
    7:00 PM - 8:30 PM
  • Location
    Cambridge Public Library, 449 Broadway, Cambridge, MA

  Evenings With Experts is a free public lecture series by Grow Native Massachusetts. Read more about this event on their website.  

  Cities, towns and watersheds have a vital role to play in strengthening, expanding and enhancing regional biodiversity, ecological health, and climate resilience. On sidewalks, parks, campuses, working lands, conservation properties, front lawns and backyard gardens, functionally diverse native pollinator habitat can serve as a building block for linking intact natural areas across a fragmented landscape. But what to plant, where to focus on first and how to measure the results? Evan Abramson of Landscape Interactions will present a series of case studies from project sites across the Northeast. An interactive discussion with audience members will follow.

  No registration required. 

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• Plan Your Garden with WCG | Hosted by Watertown Free Public Library

  • When
    15 Feb 2025
  •  
    2:30 PM - 3:30 PM
  • Location
    Watertown Free Public Library

  

  Attendees can expect to learn basic information on planning for sunlight and soil moisture conditions of their yards, starting plants from seeds with multiple methods, growing in raised beds and containers, and tips for protecting plants from common pests. This class will be focused on plants that grow well outdoors in Massachusetts.  Corey Barr and Linda Relson, members of the WCG Board and Pollinator Pathways Committee, will be presenting.

  Link to the Library's event page

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• MCPPG | Winter Sow Workshop

  • When
    17 Feb 2025
  •  
    1:00 PM - 3:30 PM
  • Location
    10 Juniper Road, Belmont MA

  Learn how to sow native plants from seeds that need to experience winter to grow!

  Brought to you by the Mystic Charles Pollinator Pathways Group and hosted by Mass Audubon's Habitat Education Center & Wildlife Sanctuary.
  

  Click here to register.

  Due to limited room size, each person can plant up to 4 one-gallon jugs (or the equivalent in clamshell containers or 6” pots).

  Please bring tools — awl, drill, heavy scissors — if you have them, your own containers, and native seeds that you have collected.

  We will supply potting soil, seeds from the MCPPG library, duct tape, markers, blank labels and tools, and have on hand extra gallon jugs.

  A donation of $2.00 for supplies is appreciated.

  For questions please email: mysticcharles.pollinatorpaths@gmail.com or call Jean @ 617-947-6256. (If you need to cancel at last minute, please let us know.)

  
  

  
  

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• How to Plant and Design Bump-outs and Planting Strips

  • When
    19 Feb 2025
  •  
    6:00 PM - 7:30 PM
  • Location
    First Parish of Watertown, 35 Church St, Watertown, MA 02472
  • Spaces left
    21

  Register

  Come in person to a free event.  Gather ideas for planting a low maintenance garden in the bump-out (curb extensions) or planting strip in front of your home. With a few feet of planted green space, you can offer food sources, water, shelter, and places to raise young for our native pollinators, the bees, butterflies, insects and birds.

  The focus is on native plants and perennials that thrive in typically dry, neglected areas.

  This event will include an informational presentation followed by a design activity with small breakout groups. Participants under 12 years old are welcome with a parent or guardian, but the presentation and activity are written for adults.

  Melinda Dennis, Marilyn Salvas, and other members of WCG will present the workshop.

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• Grow Native Massachusetts | An Experiment in Lawn to Meadow Conversion: Exceeding Expectations

  • When
    12 Mar 2025
  •  
    7:00 PM - 8:30 PM
  • Location
    Online via Zoom

  Evenings With Experts is a free public lecture series by Grow Native Massachusetts. Read more about this event on their website and register here. 

  
  

  In April of 2022, Sara and Evan Cooper moved into a new home in suburban Philadelphia with a 5,000 sq. ft. front lawn. Eager to transition it into a native wildflower meadow, Sara also wanted to avoid herbicide, heavy physical labor, and unhappy feedback from neighbors. Leaving the turf in place, she began a conversion process that relied on actions that weakened the lawn grass while strengthening her newly planted meadow. After two growing seasons, the results have exceeded expectations enough to be featured in The New York Times in 2024. Learn the practical steps they took, their successes and challenges thus far, methods of maintaining neighborhood harmony, and their plans for guiding the meadow to maturity.

  
  

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• Grow Native Massachusetts | What We Sow in Cultivated Places

  • When
    9 Apr 2025
  •  
    7:00 PM - 8:30 PM
  • Location
    Online via Zoom

  Evenings With Experts is a free public lecture series by Grow Native Massachusetts. Read more about this event on their website and register here. 

  
  

  Gardeners are powerful agents of change, and the landscapes we steward have a role to play in tackling a wide range of challenges— climate change, habitat loss, cultural polarization, communal wellbeing. Jennifer Jewell will explore the power of gardens through the lens of seeds: how they grow, where they grow, who grows them, and who sells (and controls) them. Drawing from her daily life, research, and decades of interviews with seed keepers, Jennifer will share how seeds can be both cautionary tales and guiding lights as we seek to effect positive change. You’ll be inspired to make bolder, braver, and more biodiverse choices in your garden.

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