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. […]
Have you noticed all the moths flying in front of your car’s headlights on some of the more balmy evenings recently? These are winter moths (Operophtera brumata) and as many of you know, this pest has been responsible for widespread defoliation for most of the last decade. Equally problematic, in its larval stage, the moth crawls into unopened buds of […]
Thacher Montessori students from Sally Fitzgerald’s Science Lab are conducting an experiment in their new greenhouse using some plant material from the Wakefield Estate. After collecting seed pods from some of the Wakefield Estate’s honey locusts, the students prepared the seeds by soaking them in near boiling water and then planted them in pots to take back to the school. […]
On October 30th, twenty five 8th graders from the Sarah Greenwood school in Dorchester came to the estate to do community service, planting seven new apple trees and bulbs. After completing the project, the students enjoyed a pizza lunch. After lunch, there was time for a tour of the site and a scavenger hunt. It was an amazing day and […]
On Friday, October 24th, students from the Adolescent Program at Thacher Montessori planted spring bulbs in the “Front Garden” of the Wakefield Estate. In Spring, this formal hedged garden is one of the most beautiful areas at the property with the early blooms of the red and white Cercis canadensis (redbud), azaleas, and spring ephemerals including Virginia bluebells, mayapple, Jack-in-the-pulpit […]