The Norwood Evening Garden Club will host Joann Vieira, the state-wide Director of Horticulture for The Trustees of Reservations on Tuesday, March 31, at 6:45 p.m. at the Carriage House behind the First Baptist Church, 71 Bond Street, Norwood. The public is invited to attend for a small donation. Refreshments will be served.
Vieira is passionate about plants – trees and shrubs in particular – and will share some of her favorites, along with tips on sourcing and growing them. Come and learn more about distinctive trees and shrubs that will add interest and sophistication to your garden year-round. And learn about which ones are fragrant, which ones have interesting form or winter presence, which ones have beautiful flowers and/or foliage and which ones are well suited to New England gardens.
Vieira brings many years of experience in public horticulture, including serving as the founding Director of Horticulture for Tower Hill Botanic Garden in Boylston, MA, a position she held for nearly 30 years. She was instrumental in shaping the gardens, landscape and plant collections, transforming the property from a 132-acre dairy farm to a vibrant and growing 171-acre public garden hosting over 140,000 visitors each year.
Vieira holds a degree in Environmental Design from the Landscape Architecture department at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. Her passion for native plants led her to the Stockbridge School of Agriculture, then to the Landscape Architecture program at UMass, to The Native Plant Trust’s Garden in the Woods where she completed an internship, and subsequently to Tower Hill Botanic Garden. She has served on many boards and horticultural committees and is the recipient of the Worcester County Horticultural Society and Massachusetts Horticultural Society Silver Medals, and the Thomas Roland Medal of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. She also received the Beacon Award of the Massachusetts Association of Landscape Professionals in 2018. She is a frequent lecturer on a variety of horticultural topics throughout the region, and contributes to horticultural publications regionally and nationally.
Founded in 1891, The Trustees of Reservations is the nation’s first and the Commonwealth’s largest conservation and preservation organization. Among the nearly 120 properties protected by the Trustees, there are significant and treasured historic landscapes and gardens, including 11 public gardens. Since 2016 the Trustees have been working to preserve, restore and reinvigorate these public gardens – assessing and cataloging collections and bringing the gardens to life for their more than 140,000 members, as well as visitors to the gardens.
A member of The Garden Club Federation of Massachusetts, New England Garden Clubs, and National Garden Clubs, Inc., members of the Norwood Evening Garden Club have been providing education and public beautification in Norwood and its surrounding communities since 1996. The Club, open to novice and expert gardeners, draws its members from Norwood, Walpole, Westwood, Dedham, Medfield, Randolph, and Stoughton. For information about the Norwood Evening Garden Club, visit www.NorwoodEveningGardenClub.com.