Somerville Garden Club

Three Member Demos – ‘Fells Art Project, Garden Haiku, Planting and Growing Wild Flowers’

At this month’s meeting, three members of the Somerville Garden Club will give demonstrations with a horticultural/gardening theme. They will present their demos three times at 20 minutes each during the one hour program, so participants will be able to circulate and enjoy all the demos.

• Fran McCormick and Ann Steinberg will run a mini-workshop about writing haiku to capture moments of beauty and interest in our spring and summer gardens.
• Rita Edmunds, a talented botanical illustrator, was awarded an education scholarship from the Somerville Garden Club to produce an art project pertaining to the flora of the Middlesex Fells Reservation. She will present a talk and slideshow on this project.
• Elizabeth Wylde, Coordinator for the Friends of Fresh Pond Reservation, will be giving a hands-on-demo on how to plant and take care of wildflowers. Participants will have the choice to plant wildflower seeds or seedlings in small containers they can take home.

All Somerville Garden Club meetings are free and open to the public. Meetings are usually held the second Wednesday of each month at the Tufts Administration Building, (TAB), 167 Holland Street, second floor, wheelchair accessible. Parking is available, and the building is a ten-minute walk from the Davis Square MBTA stop.

The Wild Nature of the Middlesex Fells

Dr. Bryan Hamlin, Chairman of the Friends of the Middlesex Fells, will talk about the great variety of habitats as the basis for many plants and animals in the Fells. He will show slides of the various habitats found in the Fells – – mixed woodland, wetland, both swamp and pond-side, and rocky outcrop – and of the scores of flowering plants that have adapted to those particular habitats.

Dr. Bryan Hamlin grew up in the south of England after World War II. His parents were avid gardeners. He was educated in Britain and has a BS in microbiology and a PhD in biochemistry. He has lived in the Boston area for 38 years. Bryan is Chairman of the Friends of the Middlesex Fells, and President of the New England Botanical Club. In 2013 he and three others published a seventy-page paper in the journal Rhodora, reporting in detail on the flora and habitats of the Fells from the late 19th century up to 2011.

All Somerville Garden Club meetings are free and open to the public. Meetings are usually held the second Wednesday of each month at the Tufts Administration Building, (TAB), 167 Holland Street, second floor, wheelchair accessible. Parking is available, and the building is a ten-minute walk from the Davis Square MBTA stop.