UpcomingPrograms

APRIL 2018 PROGRAMS

and Two Lecture Series, Below

APRIL 2018 PROGRAMS

at Fresh Pond Reservation

Offered by Friends of Fresh Pond Reservation and the Cambridge Water Department

These events are FREE and open to the public. Children are welcome in the company of an adult.

You will receive information on parking when you register. Registration information is below.

ONGOING WEEKLY OPPORTUNITIES

Mondays: Weekly Walk for Health

10:00 to 11:00am

Weekly Walk for Health

Meets at the Ranger Station, 250 Fresh Pond Parkway

Start your week off right with a weekly fitness walk! Join us as we walk the perimeter of the pond (2.25 miles). Meet other park goers, get some exercise, and together notice what's happening on the Reservation. All ages and abilities are welcome! Feel free to contact Catherine Pedemonti at friendsoffreshpond@yahoo.com with any questions.

Tuesdays: Woodland Restoration Area Gardening

Between 9:30am and 1:00pm

Meets at the Woodland Habitat (Northeast Sector)

Join other stewardship-minded volunteers in caretaking the native plant restoration area next to Lusitania Meadow, and learn about the diversity of native plant life! We seek dedicated participants who enjoy camaraderie and hard work that includes weeding, pruning, planting, watering new plantings, hauling wood chips and moving logs. Please email friendsoffreshpond@yahoo.com if you would like to come, and for more information.

Wednesdays: Fresh Air Walks

12:00 to 1:30pm

Meets at the Ranger Station, 250 Fresh Pond Parkway

These casual walks, led by Ranger Tim, will encompass Fresh Pond and take an informal look at each week in nature, life, and the city. Come alone or bring your co-workers! Rain or shine. Questions? Contact: tpuopolo@cambridgeMA.gov

Thursdays: Fresh Pond Stewards

10:00am to 12:00 noon

Meets at the volunteer trailer near the front of the Water Treatment Facility, 250 Fresh Pond Parkway.

Join our weed-warrior crew! We are Fresh Pond citizens dedicated to keeping invasive plants at bay for the benefit of wildlife, water and humans alike. No experience or long-term commitment necessary! All tools are provided; sturdy shoes, pants, long-sleeves and a water bottle are strongly recommended. Meets at the volunteer trailer in the lower parking lot. Contact tpuopolo@cambridgeMA.gov for more information.

PUBLIC PROGRAMS

Nature Storytime with Cambridge Public Library

Friday, April 6th

10:00am to 11:00am

Meets at Country Kitchen, lower level of Neville Place (back building), 650 Concord Ave.

Join us as we welcome Cambridge Public Library's children's librarian Margaret Macri for nature story time at Fresh Pond! We will read about what humans and wildlife do during this time of year. Bring warm clothes and go for a walk after story time is over. The Fayerweather Street School (265 Concord Ave.) has kindly offered us the use of their parking, allow an extra 10 minutes to walk from this location. Please feel free to contact Catherine Pedemonti at friendsoffreshpond@yahoo.com to RSVP or for parking information.

Migratory Bird Walk #1

Saturday, April 7th

9:00am to 11:00 am

Register for parking and meeting information, and for notice of cancellation due to weather.

Among the migrating birds that are passing through at this time of year, we might see several species of waterfowl as well as songbirds, including a variety of warblers. In addition, many of our summer residents will have returned: tree swallows, catbirds, phoebes, vireos, orioles, grackles and red-winged blackbirds. Beginning birders are welcome. We have binoculars to lend and will show you how to use them. Led by Nancy Guppy. Register with Catherine Pedemonti at friendsoffreshpond@yahoo.com.

Walter J Sullivan Water Purification Facility Tour

Monday, April 9th

6:00pm to 7:30pm

Meets at the front door, 250 Fresh Pond Parkway

Come learn how the Cambridge Water Department purifies drinking water for your tap after it’s conveyed from nearby Fresh Pond into our facility. You’ll have the chance to speak with water treatment staff, see the equipment in action and check out our water quality lab! For more information, contact Ranger Tim at (617) 349-6489 or tpuopolo@cambridgeMA.gov. Please call ahead if coming with a large group.

Seasonal Walkabout at Lusitania Wet Meadow

Friday, April 13th

10:30am to 11:30am

Meets at the “Meeting Rocks” (where the meadow meets the perimeter road trail)

Come out for a seasonal walkabout with Ranger Jean at the Lusitania Wet Meadow. We will monitor wildlife by sign, track or presence, and make note of weather, state of plants, condition of water and other abiotic resources. You can help chart the seasonal changes of some of our most active wildlife spots, or simply come to enjoy the walk. Come dressed to be outdoors for the hour. All knowledge levels welcome. We will be walking off-path. To RSVP, please contact Ranger Jean at (508) 562-7605 or email jrogers@cambridgeMA.gov, heavy rain postpones to the following Friday.

Fresh Pond Stewards

Mondays, April 16th, 23rd, & 30th

5:30pm to 7:30pm

Meets at the volunteer trailer near the front of the Water Treatment Facility, 250 Fresh Pond Parkway.

Fresh Ponding: A Look at Pond Life

Thursday, April 19th

11:00am to 3:00pm

Meets on-location at Black’s Nook

Take part in the Cambridge Science Festival and come to Black's Nook, a section of Fresh Pond Reservation, to take a closer look at water. Rangers will be there to help look for and identify the macro- and micro-wildlife that inhabit our city waters. Drop in for a bit or stay as long as you like, maybe even complete the 2.25mi stroll around Fresh Pond! Contact tpuopolo@cambridgeMA.gov for questions or directions.

Science in the City

Friday, April 20th

12:00 noon to 3:00pm

At Cambridge City Hall, 795 Massachusetts Avenue

Join City of Cambridge departments as we take over City Hall and turn it into a Science Fair for the day! Play, learn, and create with us from noon to 3pm on Friday, April 20th. All participants in our scavenger hunts will get a prize! All you adults, participate and you'll be entered to win a Fitbit! Contact Cambridge Community Development (617) 349-4600 for more information.

Migratory Bird Walk #2

Saturday, April 21st

8:00 to 10:00am

Register for parking, meeting information, and for notice of cancellation due to weather.

Part of the thrill of birding is that every bird walk is unique and an opportunity for surprise sightings. We can only guess in advance what we might see and hear. At this time of year many of the birds at Fresh Pond are courting and claiming territories, so we will probably hear plenty of bird song. We welcome beginners, and we will lend you binoculars. Led by Nancy Guppy. Register with Catherine Pedemonti at friendsoffreshpond@yahoo.com.

Animal Detectives: Frogs

Sunday, April 22nd

11:00am to 12:00 noon

Meets at the Ranger Station, 250 Fresh Parkway (under the clock tower)

April’s spotlight is on the frog. Come this Earth Day and see what it takes to be a frog as we explore how they live. This family program is best suited for kids between 4 and 12. Accompanying adult must be present, service dogs only please, and dress appropriately as this is an outdoor program. Groups please check-in with Ranger Tim at tpuopolo@cambridgeMA.gov prior to Thursday, April 19th.

City Nature Challenge 2018 BioBlitz

Saturday, April 28th

Meets 9:00 to 10:15am – Lusitania Wet Meadow

Meets10:30am to 12:00 noon – Black’s Nook

Join Earthwatch scientists for our kickoff event for the Boston Area City Nature Challenge at Fresh Pond in Cambridge, MA! Drs. Stan Rullman and Mark Chandler will guide us through an exploration of the urban wildlife of Fresh Pond Reservation’s Black’s Nook and Lusitania Meadow. We’ll comb through and document the flora and fauna of Black’s Nook and the Lusitania Meadow using the iNaturalist app. Wear sturdy shoes and bring your smartphone! Contact jrogers@cambridgeMA.gov for more information.

Kids, Bugs, Art

Sunday, April 29th

1:00 to 3:00pm

Meets at Maynard Ecology Center, basement level of Neville Place, 650 Concord Ave.

Join us for a fun afternoon of art and citizen science! Come and make a puppet of a local insect - younger kids can make hummingbird and clearwing moth finger puppets, while older kids or adult/ child pairs can help to make parade butterflies and moths for Fresh Pond Day and other local parades. We will also look for wildlife species and upload whatever we find to iNaturalist on the spot as part of a global citizen science project. Co-sponsored by Cambridge Wildlife Puppetry Project and funded by Cambridge Arts Council. To RSVP or for question email CambridgeWildlifePuppets@gmail.com

(We still need volunteers! Visit https://goo.gl/forms/NEPntI7qAsBcUEoi2 if you’re interested!)

To receive monthly email program announcements, send an email to friendsoffreshpond@yahoo.com

DONATIONS

Friends of Fresh Pond Reservation is an all-volunteer organization. We no longer collect membership dues as we did in the past, but we still need money to do our work. We pay professionals to lead programs, maintain this website, and buy supplies for our conservation work on the Reservation. If you would like to help us by making a donation, we would be grateful. Thank you!

You can donate online via Paypal by clicking HERE.

Or you can mail a check to:

Friends of Fresh Pond Reservation

31 Mount Pleasant Street

Cambridge MA 02140-2613

Learn about growing Native Plants: Visit the website of
GROW NATIVE MASSACHUSETTS

You can sign up for the
City of Cambridge's user-friendly and informative
Recycling and Composting Newsletter
by emailing recycle@cambridgema.gov

Also, check out the Recycling Division's Website

New England Wild Flower Society's

URBAN GARDENING SERIES

The following classes are part of our Urban Gardening Series a set of classes designed to help city dwellers grow healthy, sustainable, and beautiful urban gardens. Led by Society staff in partnership with the Cambridge Conservation Commission, these FREE classes take place in the lecture hall at the Cambridge Public Library, 449 Broadway, Cambridge, MA 02138.

Native Lawn Alternatives

Date: Saturday, January 20, 2018
Time: 1 to 2:30 pm
Meeting Place:Cambridge Public Library, Main Library Lecture Hall
l1449 Broadway, Cambridge, MA 02138

“Lawns are a soul-crushing timesuck...,” reads the headline of a recent article on washingtonpost.com. According to NASA, more surface area in the U.S. is covered by lawn than by any other single irrigated crop. Lawns are resource-heavy, requiring irrigation, fertilizer, and pesticides to thrive in our climate. Learn some of the best, environmentally friendly lawn alternatives for urban gardens. Presenter: Mark Richardson

Rain Gardens

Date: Saturday, February 10, 2018
Time: 1 to 2:30 pm
Meeting Place:Cambridge Public Library, Main Library Lecture Hall
l1449 Broadway, Cambridge, MA 02138

By cleaning, cooling, and slowing runoff before it pollutes water bodies, rain gardens can play a significant role in urban and suburban areas. Learn how rain gardens work, how you can create low-tech and effective rain gardens, and which durable plants can fill them. Presenter: Anna Fialkoff.

Fresh Pond Reservation – Parkway Landscape Restoration

Date: Saturday, March 3

Time: 10:30 a.m.-12:00 noon

Meeting Place: Cambridge Public Library

449 Broadway,Cambridge, MA

Instructors: Kaki Martin and Zachary Navarro

Join the landscape architect and horticulture specialists as they explain the design of the Fresh Pond Reservation Parkway Landscape Restoration, a drainage and community garden project that began in 2009. The project will restore native plant communities, repurpose and improve a former rail corridor, address stormwater treatment and drainage, and update the community garden. Learn about the actions that make this project come to life!

Growing Food in the City

Date: Saturday, April 28

Time: 10:30 a.m.-12:00 noon

Meeting Place: Cambridge Public Library,

49 Broadway,Cambridge, MA

Instructor: Rie Macchiarolo

Even in the city, you can grow your own fresh produce. During this lecture, we will discuss garden design and installation, crop planning, plant selection, and organic and ecologically responsible pest and disease management. Whether your goal is to transform your lawn into a vegetable garden or just grow a few herbs, you will learn the techniques for producing edibles in an urban space.

Planting Fundamentals

Date: Tuesday, May 15

Time: 6-7:30 p.m.

Meeting Place: Cambridge Public Library,

49 Broadway,Cambridge, MA

Instructor: Mark Richardson

There’s a lot to consider when adding new plants to your garden. Learn how to choose healthy specimens at the garden center and how best to plant trees, shrubs, and herbaceous plants to get them off to a good start in your urban garden

Rain Garden Fundamentals

Date: Saturday, June 30

Time: 10:30 a.m.-12:00 noon

Meeting Place: Cambridge Public Library

449 Broadway,Cambridge, MA

Instructor: Anna Fialkoff

As more land is developed for building, space for stormwater absorption and cleaning is rapidly disappearing. Rain gardens can play a significant role in urban and suburban areas by cleaning, cooling, and slowing runoff so that it doesn’t pollute water bodies. Learn how rain gardens work, how you can create a low-tech and effective rain garden, and which durable natives you should plant there.

Native Lawn Alternatives for Urban Spaces

Date: Saturday, July 28

Time: 10:30 a.m.-12:00 noon

Meeting Place: Cambridge Public Library

449 Broadway,Cambridge, MA

Instructor: Mark Richardson

“Lawns are a soul-crushing time suck” cries the media. Lawn covers more surface area of the U.S. than any other single irrigated crop, according to NASA. Lawns are resource-heavy, requiring irrigation, fertilizer, and pesticides to thrive in our climate. Learn some of the best, environmentally friendly lawn alternatives for urban gardens.

Native Plants for New England Gardens -- Book Talk

Date: Saturday, August 18

Time: 10:30 a.m.-12:00 noon

Meeting Place: Cambridge Public Library

449 Broadway,Cambridge, MA

Instructor: Dan Jaffe

Dan Jaffe, coauthor of Native Plants for New England Gardens, wants to teach you how to create lovely, low-maintenance gardens that support biodiversity and thrive in New England. This handy guide to more than 100 great native perennials, trees, shrubs, ferns, grasses, and vines features practical information accompanied by beautiful color photography. Join him for this informative discussion about native plants and all their garden uses–from plants to use instead of mulch to tough plants for urban gardens.

These FREE classes take place in the lecture hall at the

Cambridge Public Library, 449 Broadway, Cambridge, MA 02138.

Scroll Down for More Programs

Grow Native Massachusetts

presents

EVENINGS WITH EXPERTS
A FREE public lecture series at the Cambridge Public Library, 449 Broadway

First Wednesdays, February through May

7:00 to 8:30 pm

The Beautiful Adaptations of Native Plants:

Inviting the Wild into our Gardens

Date: Wednesday, February 7
Time: 7:00 to 8:30 pm
Meeting Place:Cambridge Public Library, Main Library Lecture Hall
449 Broadway,Cambridge

Speaker: Dan Segal, Owner of The Plantsmen Nursery
Native plants have evolved a broad array of adaptations in the wild, yielding not only the ornamental features embraced in horticulture but many fascinating mechanisms for survival. Dan will take us beyond 'pretty' plant features to explore the origins of these adaptive traits, and the critical importance of regional variation. This insight helps us to select plants that are genuinely suited to our landscapes. He will also compare and contrast large-scale nursery production that favors the cloning of cultivars, with small-scale nursery propagation that favors seed-grown straight species. To know and source native plants effectively, understanding their propagation can be just as important as species selection.

Dan Segal is the owner of The Plantsmen Nursery near Ithaca, NY, specializing in native plants, local seed collection, and natural landscaping. Dan has collected and propagated over 1,000 species of native plants in his three decades of work as a nurseryman, giving him great insight into the fascinating variety of adaptations that plants have evolved to survive. He founded the Ithaca Native Plant Symposium in 2009.

This lecture co-sponsored by the Friends of Fresh Pond Reservation.

Lessons Learned when Field Botany Meets Design

Date: Wednesday, March 7
Time: 7:00 to 8:30 pm
Meeting Place:Cambridge Public Library, Main Library Lecture Hall
449 Broadway,Cambridge

Speaker: Uli Lorimer, Curator of the Native Flora Garden at Brooklyn Botanic Garden
Ecologically attuned designers are increasingly looking to nature for inspiration in the design of managed landscapes. But connecting field botany to horticulture is complex, and insights gained from observations in the wild don’t always translate directly into a cultivated garden. Uli will use the recently expanded native flora garden at Brooklyn Botanic Garden, a cultivated pine barrens and coastal plain grassland, as a case study— sharing lessons learned along the way as the project evolved from a concept into a dynamic, living landscape. Good design allows for change and succession to occur, and flexibility in design intent is a valuable strategy because things do not always work out as planned.

Uli Lorimer has been the Curator of Native Flora at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden Garden for over a decade. He was instrumental in the expansion of the Garden’s native plant collection, using only material sourced from the wild and grown from seed. As Field Chair at BBG, he coordinates fieldwork with regional botanists and leads botanical expeditions for naturalists and horticulturists.

This lecture co-sponsored by Mount Auburn Cemetery

Revealing a Sense of Place

Date: Wednesday, April 4
Time: 7:00 to 8:30 pm
Meeting Place:Cambridge Public Library, Main Library Lecture Hall
449 Broadway,Cambridge

Speaker: Matthew Cunningham, Principal and Founder of Matthew Cunningham Landscape Design
4Seasonal New England is rich in its unique and dynamic ecological patterns. Join us, as Matthew explores how his observations of these natural systems have influenced his firm’s creation of contextual and native plant-centric projects that grasp the rhythms of everyday life. He will show us a variety of residential landscapes, large and small, that embrace our regional flora, utilize ecologically sustainable principles, and that build connections between interior and exterior spaces to strengthen our relationship with nature. Come be inspired by these beautiful, vibrant landscapes that enhance life for both their human and their wild residents.

Matthew Cunningham is a rising star in the world of landscape architecture. He is passionate about the landscapes of New England and is committed to excellent design with ecologically sustainable principles. A graduate of the Harvard Graduate School of Design, he worked at the renowned firm Reed Hilderbrand Associates before starting his own practice. Matthew was named “International Designer of the Year” by the APLD in 2017.

This lecture co-sponsored by the Boston Society of Landscape Architects

Evoking Nature: Form and Function on the High Line

Date: Wednesday, May 2
Time: 7:00 to 8:30 pm
Meeting Place:Cambridge Public Library, Main Library Lecture Hall
449 Broadway,Cambridge

Speaker: Andi Pettis, Director of Horticulture, Friends of the High Line
The High Line in Manhattan was born of a city that is constantly reinventing itself. Built on a mile-and-a-half long elevated railroad, this dynamic landscape was inspired by the tenacity of plants in its industrial setting, and it uses a matrix of perennial and woody plants to evoke a natural landscape. Wildly successful and overwhelmingly popular, caring for this garden in the sky poses unique challenges. Andi will describe how her team uses traditional and innovative horticultural techniques, how they work to promote the park’s biodiversity and wildlife habitat, and how they foster an emotional connection to nature in this challenging urban environment.

As Director of Horticulture for the Friends of the High Line, Andi Pettis leads a world-class team of gardeners who care for this beloved elevated park in Manhattan. Andi’s horticulture career in New York City spans nearly two decades, including work in both private and public garden settings, park management, and teaching at the New York Botanical Garden.