The Swellesley Report

More than you really want to know about Wellesley, Mass.

Elm Bank Reservation in Wellesley to host free summer concert Thursday, August 16

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Goddess Garden at Elm Bank
Goddess Garden at Elm Bank. Photo credit: Mass Hort.

All are invited to the Goddesses in the Gardens event at The Gardens at Elm Bank, Thursday, August 16, from 5:30 p.m. – 8 p.m. Enjoy an evening of live music, harvest tastings, kids’ activities, and garden tours. Bring your picnic dinner, and blanket or chairs and enjoy live music by What’s Goin’ On.

Kids can discover Weezies’ Garden for Children and create art from plants with special garden craft activities. Everyone can try
something fresh from our Seed to Table vegetable garden. Visitors can also help with flavor evaluations of new vegetable trials growing in Mass Hort’s Trial Garden.

Wine, beer, and other beverages will be sold.

What’s Goin’ On will entertain with live music – Classic R & B, Soul, Blues and Jazz – featuring singer Nicole Boyd Webster. Nicole’s soulful style of singing incorporates her love of Gospel, Jazz, R & B, and Rock. Band members Ric Maure and Michael Ball will also perform.

This year also features the New England Sculptors Association’s exhibition at Elm Bank. Nestled among the flowers, grasses, bushes and wooded areas are 31 sculptures created by New England Sculptors Association members. The exhibit runs through October 5, 2018.

Admission is free to all.

Rain date is August 23.

[Read more…]

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Linden Square Summer Sale ad Swellesley

Now that Fuller Brook Park in Wellesley is all neat and tidy, help keep it that way

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Fuller Brook Park, Wellesley
Photo credit: Wellesley DPW.

Want to help take care of Fuller Brook Park? The Natural Resources Commission is developing a Fuller Brook Park stewardship program to help maintain this 23-acre crown jewel in Wellesley’s park system. The NRC will hold two workshops in July to train volunteers to recognize and remove invasive plants along the path and stream banks. Space is limited; sign up in advance to attend one of these sessions:

  • Monday, July 23 at 2 pm
  • Tuesday, July 24 at 9 am

Workshops will be held in Fuller Brook Park; meet at Cameron Street.

An Olmsted was here

Back in July 2014, the town broke ground on restoration of the 100-plus-year-old Fuller Brook Park project. The park was established in 1899 and designed by John Charles Olmsted (nephew of Frederick Law Olmsted and a noted landscape designer in his own right) and others. A large portion of the park is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The park runs roughly parallel to Washington Street along Fuller Brook and the Caroline Brook.

Fuller Brook Park, Wellesley
Photo credit: Wellesley DPW.

So many tasks

In late 2017, work was completed on the previously eroding 2.5-mile route. Here are just a few things the town and outside contractor R. Bates & Sons, Inc. did:

– installed raised walkways and new boardwalk sections
– installed bioretention basins to filter stormwater and improve water quality in Caroline and Fuller Brooks
– completed roadway drainage work and installed granite curbing
– improved roadway drainage to protect from spills and other pollutants and remove contaminants from stormwater before it enters Fuller Brook
– installed stylish new stone markers, benches, and interpretive signs
– reduced standing water
-stabilized banks
-removed invasive vegetation such as knotweed
-planted over 25 different species of grasses and herbaceous flowering plants to create a diverse habitat attractive to insects, birds, and small mammals
-installed boulder clusters to enhance stream habitat
-created a path to link the park, Wellesley High School, and the WHS athletic fields
-upgraded drain pipes and repaired 5 bridges and culverts

The best-laid plans…

What fun would this have been without a late afternoon macroburst on July 18, 2016 (pictures of the damage here) just to keep things interesting? The wild wind storm tore through parts of Wellesley, including the section of Fuller Brook Park between Grove Street and Dover Road. In Fuller Park several large old maples, oaks, and pines suffered significant damage. Luckily no one was hurt. The DPW Park Department had to first remove hazards blocking the park path, then remove trees impacting the construction contractor’s access to the project, and then remove downed trees from Fuller Brook itself.

It didn’t come free

The total project cost was a little over $600,000; the United States Environmental Protection Agency covered 60%, and the Town of Wellesley covered 40%.

Check out the project final report here.

On August 3, 2017 the NRC and DPW hosted a pizza lunch for the R. Bates & Sons, Inc. construction workers who put three years of work into the Fuller Brook Project. The town presented them with framed photos of various park views. Pictured: Bates Project Manager Jim Learned, Joe Milton, Paul Guadagnoli, Riley Ballou, Site Superintendent Kevin Coughlin, and DPW Project Manager Peter Jackson. Missing from the pic is Tim Ballou, a Bates employee who was onsite almost every day of the three-year project. Photo and caption credit: Wellesley DPW.
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Save the date: Arts on the Green at Mass Hort, July 26

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Weezie's Garden at Elm Bank
Photo courtesy of MassHort

All are invited to the Fourth Annual Arts on the Green, an evening at The Gardens at Elm Bank, Wednesday, Thursday, July 26, 2018, 5:30pm – 8:00pm. Elm Bank Reservation is located on Rte. 16 at the Wellesley/South Natick line.

Wander the gardens, enjoy live music, and stroll through the Art Walk of local artists showcasing and selling their work. There will also be family art activities and garden tours for all.

Wine, beer and other beverages will be sold. Souped up Food truck and Above the Clouds Catering will be on hand if you want to buy soup, bowls, sandwiches, and more; or just bring a picnic, and chairs or blanket. Admission is free to all.

Music by LiveWire Boston . LiveWire Boston plays an eclectic mix of the music that people love:  jazz, blues, R&B, soul, classic rock, and bossa, with a smattering of contemporary tunes that are destined to be classics.

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Nature-inspired artwork installation at Linden Square in Wellesley

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Wellesley artist Alexander Golob
Wellesley artist Alexander Golob in front of his work in progress, The Joy of Entering the Forest. The art installation will be completed soon.

Alexander Golob, a local Wellesley artist and recent Wellesley Middle School artist-in-residence, has installed his new mural, The Joy of Entering the Forest, at Federal Realty’s Linden Square courtyard near Sweetgreens.

The over 200 square-foot adhesive vinyl mural takes inspiration from plants found around Lake Waban and from 19th century United States folk art. The artwork creates lush three-dimensional views of plants such as rhododendron and pine punctuated by moments of flat and punchy Americana-inspired nature and patterns. Golob says, “The work is meant to explore the mysteries of beauty, morality, nature, and how stories and myths help us to grapple with these concepts.”

Alexander Golob, Linden Square
Art imitates life. Golob’s work is on the left.

It’s all part of Federal Realty’s push to create a more green look in the Linden Square area. Last year visitors to the Wellesley shopping and dining area watched as the first lettuces and vegetables from the raised beds that local Boy Scouts built grew to maturity. The garden, tended by participants in the Needham Charles River Center’s horticultural program, is still growing strong, and the farmers are back to work the garden and deliver the harvest to the Wellesley Food Pantry. The Pantry serves about 200 Wellesley households made up of more that 420 individuals, including about 280 children and seniors.

Raised garden beds, Wellesley
These greens in the raised garden beds at Linden Square are maintained by Horticultural Program participants of the Charles River Center. The Center empower sand supports people with developmental disabilities by offering high quality social, living, and work experiences that promote meaningful community inclusion.

Golob was born in 1994 in Cambridge, Massachusetts into a bilingual, Italian and Jewish-American household. He has studied art in both Boston and Venice, Italy. It is his mission to create engaging art that expands beyond the walls of a gallery to provoke thought in the public, lifts its viewers, and transforms physical space. He is a co-founder of the non-profit, Wellesley Parents Supporting Art Students, to which he has been a board member for six years. His studio, Golob Art, creates and consults for public art and placemaking for clients ranging from small nonprofits to large universities and from growing cities to major developers. The studio also has a 2,500 square foot art gallery, Post-Cubicle Gallery, in Boston’s Kenmore Square.

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