Native Plant Sale by the Middlesex Conservation District

Native Plant Sale by the Middlesex Conservation District

Leonard Norton and Angel Maldonado López will be our guides, discovering the complexity of bee life, their hives, and the fine nectar they produce, honey. They will give us a look at their hives and a sweet taste of the hive’s honey.

Exquisite and fragile, yet strong enough to migrate thousands of miles, monarch butterflies have captured our imaginations with their beauty and complexity. Littleton residents Elke Jahns-Harms and her husband Garth have come to know these magical creatures well while documenting their transformation up close.

The Christmas holidays are a special time as winter’s cold begins to fall.

Inside our cozy homes, our senses are elevated by the fresh pine scent of evergreens, bright red berries, sparkling lights, the smell of warm apple pie, and hot cocoa.

The Littleton Country Gardeners gather over the holidays to create beautiful wreaths and other floral items. We then participate in the local Holiday Bazaar, where we share our creative work. It’s a wonderful time as we meet and greet familiar friends, former members, and possibly new members.

We participate in the local Holiday Bazaar, where we share our creative work. It’s a wonderful time as we meet and greet familiar friends, former members, and possibly new members.

January is a slow time of year, when winter winds blow and snow falls while the mailman delivers garden catalogs to browse for the coming spring. Our thoughts turn to the needs of our gardens. The dirt is frozen, so we cannot use our favorite shovel to dig. Pruning that bush or tree is hard. Baby, it’s cold outside. So while we wait for the ground to thaw, have a warm cup of your favorite brew, sit in a comfy chair, and view your winter garden. This is a great time to clean our rusty tools, check our

bushes and trees, and look through the catalogs.

Most of us are all too familiar with the dreaded Japanese knotweed, Tree of Heaven from China, garlic mustard, and of course, Oriental bittersweet. The impact of these and many more invasives is overtaking the natural environment throughout the US. Lauren Redosh is a Weed Warrior as well as an Assistant Conservation Agent with the Littleton Conservation Commission.

Pruning is the selective removal of plant parts such as branches, buds, or roots. It helps improve plant health, encourage growth, control shape, and enhance flower or fruit production. There are techniques and methods to prune, and importantly there is timing: late winter/early spring, and late summer/early fall.

What better way to welcome spring than a walk in Garden in the Woods, in Framingham? We will have a one-mile guided walking tour of this naturalistic botanic garden focused on New England’s native plants. We will see a wide variety of plant species as well as learn the history of the garden.

We have reached the end of our 2026–2027 Littleton Country Gardeners program year. This year has been momentous, since we have been reaching out to welcome new members. We enjoyed a number of horticultural learning programs, from bees and monarchs to invasives and pruning.