How do you paint a 200+ year old house that has a dozen or more layers of old, deteriorating paint? Carefully! After conducting a thorough paint study and analysis that used a microscope to document the structure’s paint history since 1794, the old wooden clapboards were stripped of all the old paint, treated to restore some moisture, and then applied […]
This summer’s interns have already been busy making their mark at the Wakefield Estate. The interns are students from Milton, Hyde Park and Boston who will work a total of 7 weeks on a wide variety of projects including weeding invasives, rehabbing various “garden rooms,” pruning, hauling, and creating trails within our successional woodland. The members of this year’s crew […]
On July 15th, sixteen teens from Hyde Park and surrounding neighborhoods worked with Wakefield staff interns on maintaining and upgrading areas around the estate’s Entry Circle as part of their service with the Southwest CDC Green Team.
Nine high school students from Milton, Boston, Arlington and Norwood participated in the Wakefield Estate’s Summer Archaeology Institute during June and July. The students learned about archaeology and local history through a hands-on excavation at the estate under the direction of graduate students from Boston University.
During the first week of June, the Wakefield Estate became a learning landscape for students from Harvard’s Landscape Institute. The collaborative program brought together some of the best known horticultural experts in the region to lead day-long tours and sessions, using the Wakefield Estate as a laboratory of horticultural delights and mysteries. Paul Rogers, Jack Alexander, Marty Michener, and Richard […]
This summer, the Wakefield Estate is piloting several new programs. One is our new Landscape Fellows Program for college and graduate-level students in the fields of landscape design, preservation and management. Two fellowships were offered exclusively to Landscape Institute certificate candidates to conduct research and/or get hands-on experience in working with its unusual historic landscape and prized collection of woody […]
Several hundred students from Milton, Dorchester ad Roslindale visited the property during May and June to partake in a number of outdoor science activities. Subjects covered included competition and adaptation, structures of nature, water and sound studies, tree identification, and invasive species eradication. Some of the students enjoyed ponding, meeting the chickens and playing “Oh, Deer!” Check our Calendar of Events to […]
Wakefield Estate’s beekeeper Scott Harris recently visited the bee hive to check on the status and health of the bees within. It is important for the beekeeper to check the hive covering to make sure it is secure and getting sun, and to make sure the bees have adequate food for the duration of winter. Honeybees live through the winter […]
On January 2nd, over a dozen hearty souls joined the Wakefield Estate staff for a robust tour of the estate’s wintery landscape, and then had a chance to warm up by enjoying soup next to the farmhouse fire. Participants noted abundant evidence of recent deer activity despite efforts to protect specimens with fencing. A pair of cork tree rows planted […]
On Saturday, Nov. 22, the Mary M. B. Wakefield Estate sponsored a pair of demonstrations on how to dress up your home and containers with festive holiday trim and branches. Deborah Trickett of The Captured Garden started the day off with her presentation “Creating Winter Window boxes and Containers,” showing how dress up containers to look beautiful during the stark winter months. […]