December Meeting and Holiday Potluck

MHG Meetings

Sponsored By: Metro Hort Group

December Annual Meeting and Holiday Potluck
Wednesday, December 11, 2024

Save the date!
The Central Park Arsenal
Fifth Avenue and 64th Street
Third floor: The Arsenal Gallery

Doors open at 5:15 pm
General meetings are free to Metro Hort members. No reservations are necessary.
Guests are welcome to attend for a $20 contribution

Marta McDowell

Marta McDowell lives, writes and gardens in Chatham, New Jersey. She shares her garden with her husband Kirke Bent and assorted wildlife. Her garden writing has appeared in popular publications such as Woman’s Day, Country Gardening, and The New York Times. She is a regular contributor to the British journal Hortus.

Marta's work typically follows the relationship between the pen and the trowel, that is authors and their gardens. Her latest book, Gardening Can Be Murder explores the garden as the inspiration for writers of crime fiction. Timber Press also published Unearthing The Secret Garden, Emily Dickinson's Gardening Life, The World of Laura Ingalls Wilder, All the Presidents' Gardens--released in a revised edition in 2024--and Beatrix Potter's Gardening Life. All the Presidents' Gardens made The New York Times bestseller list and won an American Horticultural Society book award in 2017. Beatrix Potter's Gardening Life won the Gold Award from the Garden Writers Association and is now in its ninth printing. Her books have been translated into Chinese, Italian, Japanese, and Korean.

In 2023, Marta wrote the text for a book of photography by Larry Lederman about five gardens of the du Pont family, now public gardens in the Brandywine Valley, published by Monacelli Press. She also edited a facsimile edition of Elizabeth Blackwell's 18th century work A Curious Herbal, released by Abbeville Press.

​If you visit the Emily Dickinson Museum in Amherst, Massachusetts, you can stroll the grounds with a landscape audio tour that Marta scripted. She was also the 2018 Gardener-in-Residence at the Museum and frequently coordinates its "Garden Days" for volunteers. Marta was an advisor for the New York Botanical Garden's 2010 show, "Emily Dickinson's Gardens: The Poetry of Flowers."

Marta teaches landscape history and horticulture at the New York Botanical Garden where she has been twice awarded "Instructor of the Year." A popular lecturer, she has been a featured speaker online and at locations ranging from the Chicago Botanic Garden to the Smithsonian Institution and the Beatrix Potter Society's Linder Lecture at the Sloane Club in London. She was honored to appear in the PBS American Masters "Laura Ingalls Wilder: Prairie to Page" which first aired in December, 2020, at the Garden Museum's Literary Festival at Chatsworth House in July, 2022, and the Emily Dickinson International Society Conference in July, 2023.

Marta interned at Wave Hill, Frelinghuysen Arboretum, the Royal Horticultural Society’s Rosemoor in Devon, England and at the Chelsea Physic Garden. She worked as a horticulturist for five years at Reeves-Reed Arboretum in New Jersey. Marta is on the Board of the New Jersey Historical Garden Foundation at the Cross Estate. She is the 2019 recipient of the Garden Club of America's Sarah Chapman Francis Medal for outstanding literary achievement. Her garden is included in the Smithsonian's Archive of American Gardens.

Her husband, Kirke, summed up Marta's bio as "I am, therefore I dig."

Jarema Osofsky

Jarema Osofsky is a Brooklyn-based landscape designer and author with roots in Hong Kong. She believes in the healing power of gardens and thoughtful design, and thus founded Dirt Queen NYC in 2017.

Jarema grew up in New York’s Hudson Valley, the daughter of an avid gardener. Throughout Jarema’s life, visiting family in Hong Kong and Arizona sparked Jarema’s love affair with tropical plants and the desert landscape.

After graduating from Oberlin College in Fine Art and East Asian Studies, Jarema worked as an artist and horticulturist at a large botanic firm in NYC before she started her bespoke design business. Jarema and her partner Adam Bertulli work closely with residential and commercial clients to build ecologically sustainable, verdant spaces for contemplation, entertainment and rejuvenation.

Jarema’s work has been featured in The New York Times, Architectural Digest, T Magazine, Elle Decor, and Apartment Therapy, among others. Jarema’s debut book, MOON GARDEN: A Guide to Creating an Evening Oasis, published by Chronicle Books, is available to order now wherever books are sold.