Attract Bees to Your Garden!
Attracting Native Pollinators to Your Garden – A Boston Gardeners Council Workshop: Please join ecologist Russ Hopping of The Trustees of Reservations for a free workshop on how to attract native pollinators like honey bees and butterflies to your fruit, vegetable and flower gardens. Learn how to create an attractive habitat that will support many of these essential species – without them we wouldn’t have a harvest!
Saturday, August 27
10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
City Natives, 30 Edgewater Drive, Mattapan
Registration required, contact Karen.
Announcing DEHC Free Saturday Workshop Series
DEHC’s workshop series runs most Saturday mornings in the Community Room, 450 Washington Street (Healthworks at Codman building.)
The Landless Garden workshop was a great success, thank you to everyone who came. We still have some kits available, please get in touch to find out when we are offering this popular workshop again!
The next green event is Saturday June 4th – the garden plot assignments are happening at Nightingale Community Garden, which is a few steps down Park Street from the 450 Washington offices. Call 617-474-1478, or email us for more information.
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These workshops are intended to be quick and inspirational, to help you connect with easy ways to green your life. Please email us if you have an idea for a workshop! We’re still brainstorming, below are some of the ideas we’re thinking about:
- How to build a garden bed
- How to fix a flat tire/ patch a tube for a bike
- How to compost (indoors/outdoors)
- How to be more energy efficient (and save money…)
- Making art/gifts/useful items out of recyclables
- Movie Screenings
- Field Trips
List of Workshops To Date:
April 30: Pruning Trees & Shrubs; May 7: Landless Garden; May 14: Nightingale Garden planning; May 21: Biking Local; May 28: Memorial Day weekend – No Workshop; June 4: Nightingale Garden Plot assignment – visit the new garden and get your plot (or wish you had signed up for one sooner!); June 11: Dot Bike workshop
Boston Orchard Program, Free Pruning Workshops
The Boston Natural Areas Network (BNAN) is launching the Boston Orchard Program to provide support and education for the care and cultivation of Boston’s fruit trees and orchards located on public land throughout the City of Boston. As part of the Boston Orchard Program, Boston Natural Areas Network is partnering with the Food Project, the Boston Tree Party, and the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation on two free pruning workshops in March – On Saturday March 5, 2011 as part of the Food Project’s Winter Workshop Series, John Bunker, Pomologist from Super Chilly Farm in Maine will provide pruning tips at the Shirley-Eustis House Orchard located at 33 Shirley Street in Roxbury.
On Saturday March 12, 2011 Ben Crouch, sole proprietor of Jamaica Plain’s Land of Plenty Gardens will provide more information about pruning at the Blake House Orchard located at 735 Columbia Road in Dorchester.
The free programs, for everyone interested in learning more about pruning fruit trees, begin at 10 a.m. Continue Reading »
How to Build Your Own Green Roof
Last Wednesday, we had the opportunity to attend the Green Roof workshop sponsored by the Urban Ecology Institute and CityRoots. At the workshop, Filomena from CityRoots installed an extensive green roof on a tool shed at the Claybourne Street Community Garden. The tool shed had been built last year with the help of YouthBuild with the intention of installing a green roof in the future.
Rooftop gardens can be built on any horizontal or slightly tilted roof, and they have many benefits. They provide insulation, cooling in hot weather and keeping warmth in during the winter; they reduce pollution caused by excessive storm water runoff, and when installed properly, they prevent roof leaks.
Here’s a quick guide to installing your own extensive (shallow) green roof:
- Choose a roof that can support between 15 to 30 lbs. per square foot
- Install a root barrier – a heavy-duty waterproofing layer. A good choice is a double layer of 20 mil. pond liner.
- Add a drainage layer – Urban Ecology Institute recommends a lightweight granular medium, such as pebbles, or a synthetic layer that helps retain moisture. An absorbent old carpet or a recycled blanket can work.
- Install a filter fabric on top of the drainage layer, with a honeycomb texture that can prevent fine soil particles from passing into the drainage layer.
- Add a lightweight, easily draining soil medium. A good guideline is approximately 75% inorganic (such as crushed slate, clay or vermiculite) and 25% organic (compost or clean topsoil). The picture to the left shows a mixture containing lightweight expanded clay aggregate (LECA) round stones.
- Choose a hardy and drought-tolerant plant such as sedum, hens and chicks, ice plants, chives, or columbine for the final layer. Some species of grass are an option if you are planting in a soil mixture deeper than 6 inches.
- Weed once or twice per year – roots of invading woody plants can damage the waterproof roof lining.
For the full guide to building a simple green roof, written by CityRoots and the Urban Ecology Institute, click here.
