PICKING PLANTS The Lexington Field and Garden Club presents “Designing a Garden with Native Plants’’ at Cary Memorial Library on Sunday, March 4, at 2 p.m. Claudia Thompson of Grow Native will provide an overview of the essential role of native plants in the health of an ecosystem. Using photos of her own garden as a case study, Thompson will explain the principles behind designing a garden that is beautiful and supports biodiversity, with especially dramatic benefits for birds, butterflies, other pollinators, and wildlife. The audience will learn how best to select native plants for success and will walk away with an understanding of how to improve one’s own garden. For more information, call 781-862-6288 or go to www.carylibrary.org. The library is located at 1874 Massachusetts Ave., Lexington.
BIRDS ABOUND Watercolor paintings of birds by Needham artist Nelson Hammer are on display through the end of February at the Natick Community Senior Center, 117 East Central St.. A retired landscape architect, Hammer uses as his inspiration photographs of birds taken by friends, relatives, and by the artist himself. He recently received permission to interpret the photographs of professional wildlife photographer Glenn Bartley, upon which his most recent depictions were based. For more information, call 508-647-6544.
BOTANICAL BRUSHWORK Acton resident Sharon Wu will exhibit her Chinese brushwork paintings at the Acton Memorial Library, 486 Main St., March 3 through April 28. Educated in horticulture at the National Taiwan University and the University of Georgia, Wu developed her style of creating botanical drawings with Chinese brush-painting over the past two decades. For library hours or more information, call 978-929-6655 or go to www.actonmemoriallibrary.org.
DIVERSITY WALK Regis College is hosting a semester-long Diversity Walk that includes discussions and gallery exhibitions focused on themes of racism, gender issues, and genocide. The first exhibit, “Resistance and Racism,’’ opened in early February and includes works by Synthia Saint James, who was selected by the Postal Service to design two stamps in recognition of Kwanzaa. In addition, the Diversity Walk includes several events related to Women’s History Month in March, including the opening of the exhibit “Resistance and Gender Issues’’ on Friday, March 2, and a discussion titled “A Woman’s Worth’’ on Tuesday, March 13, at 7 p.m. Both exhibits run through the end of April. For more information, go to www.regiscollege.edu. The Regis Fine Arts Center is on the Regis campus at 235 Wellesley St., Weston.
SHOPPING THROUGH HISTORY A new exhibition titled “Fresh Goods: Shopping for Clothing in a New England Town, 1750-1900’’ opens on Friday, March 2, and runs through July 9 at the Concord Museum. The exhibition showcases the museum’s extensive historic clothing collection, along with textiles and decorative arts, and examines questions related to fashion, utility, and shopping in the 18th and 19th centuries. The museum is at 200 Lexington Rd., Concord. For hours and prices: 978-369-9763 or www.concordmuseum.org.
MUSIC EVERYWHERE Boston-based singer-songwriter and guitarist Patty Larkin, artist-in-residence at Berklee College of Music, returns to the Circle of Friends Coffeehouse on Saturday, March 3, at 8 p.m. Doors open at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $25 and can be purchased at 508-528-2541, or visit www.circlefolk.org.
The coffeehouse is at the First Universalist Society Meetinghouse, 262 Chestnut St., Franklin.
Indian Hill Music’s professional chamber music ensemble will perform 20th-century works for violin and cello by Ravel, Kodaly, and Schulhoff, featuring violinist Li-Mei Liang and cellist Joseph Gotoff, on Sunday, March 4, at 3 p.m. at Indian Hill Music, 36 King St., Littleton.
Tickets are $15 for general admission and free for IHM students. For more information, call 978-486-9524 ext. 116 or go to www.indianhillmusic.org.
Avi Mehta serves as guest conductor for the Metropolitan Wind Symphony at a performance featuring works by Venezuelan composer Giancarlo Castro D’Addona, Shostakovich, and Hindemith on Sunday, March 4, at 3 p.m. in the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum, 33 Marrett Road, Lexington.
Mehta will deliver a pre-concert lecture at 2:30 p.m.
Tickets are $18 for adults, $14 for seniors, and $6 for students; they are free for children under age 5.
For tickets or more information, call 978-419-1697 or go to www.metwinds.org.
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