SELT

Gardens in Relationship: Designing with Native Plants
2026-03-11 17:30 - 18:30 (America/New_York) | The Nan and George Mathey Center for People and Nature at Burley Farms, 247 North River Road, Epping, NH, 03042, United States
Join us as Landscape Designer Ashley Robinson and Van Berkum Nursery’s Director of Outreach & Education Roanne Robbins explore the art and science of designing native plant gardens that support biodiversity while reflecting both your personal goals and the realities of your space. Participants will learn how plants interact over time and how those relationships shape dynamic, living landscapes. The session focuses on creating resilient, sustainable, and visually engaging gardens that provide ecological value year-round. Attendees are encouraged to bring photos, sketches, and site-specific information to collaborate and brainstorm their designs with Ashley and Roanne.
Ashley Robinson has nearly 20 years of experience designing and consulting on ecologically grounded landscape practices, with a strong emphasis on native plants, biodiversity, and regenerative land stewardship. Her work centers on integrating homes into their landscapes in ways that support local ecosystems and strengthen connections to place.
She holds a degree in Urban Studies from the University of San Diego and has studied at Radcliffe and the Landscape Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Ashley values collaboration, field-based learning, and ongoing education, continually deepening her understanding of dynamic ecological systems.
Guided by a deep respect for natural processes and regional landscapes, Ashley’s designs prioritize habitat creation, ecological resilience, and long-term environmental health. She currently resides in Vermont and serves on the board of the Vermont Nursery & Landscape Association. She is also a member of the Biodiversity Alliance and the Ecological Landscape Alliance.
https://www.arobinsonlandscapes.com/
Also, you will have an opportunity to participate in SELT’s first annual native plant sale before it ends on March 15 and ask Roanne questions about the plants that are a part of the sale.

Registration required: CLICK HERE

2026 Volunteer Field Season Kick-Off
2026-03-14 09:00 - 12:00
Join SELT’s Volunteer Program Staff at The Nan and George Mathey Center for People and Nature on Saturday, March 14 from 9:00 am to noon for the fourth annual Volunteer Field Season Kickoff!
The Kickoff will give volunteers a chance to meet SELT staff and other volunteers, and learn about some of the ways to volunteer with SELT. After light refreshments we’ll do a group icebreaker, then split into groups for three rotating training sessions. We’ll finish up with a review of the volunteer portal and time tracking sheet, with time for questions. This event is open to anyone interested in volunteering with SELT, so feel free to share this information with your friends and bring them along!
Field Season Kickoff Schedule

9:00 am – Arrival, coffee, networking
9:15 am – Welcome and icebreaker
9:30 am – Rotating training sessions (details TBD)
11:00 am – Volunteer program info and Q&A
12:00 – Event ends

REGISTER HERE

Little SELTies Storytime: Early Spring 1 of 2
2026-03-19 10:00 - 12:00
We welcome our Little SELTies to join us for a morning of nature stories, songs, and activities in the Pratt Family Community Room at the Mathey Center at Burley Farms. Led by SELT’s Education Program Manager, Lizzy Franceschini, we will start our morning inside the community room with story time activities, then head outside for a short hike in the forest and/or winter play in Burley’s Backyard. This program is designed for children ages 0-5 and their caregivers. Storytimes for Early Spring will run on 3/19 & 4/2.

Registration Required: CLICK HERE

Reading Rural Landscapes with Dr. Rob Sanford
2026-03-25 17:15 - 18:30
Join us for an active engagement PowerPoint presentation on viewing and interpreting common local rural environmental features that provide clues to our historical past. Ordinary landscapes can reveal what happened in the past. So, we will not be dealing with the exotic, just what you might expect to see around your own homes. You can follow up these clues with historical research, oral interviews and field work. But sometimes it is fun to just look around and see what we see on a walk. Time and weather permitting, we will go outside after and see what our setting at Burley Farms happens to say.
Rob Sanford is a Registered Professional Archaeologist and a Professor Emeritus of Environmental Science & Policy at the University of Southern Maine. His books include Reading Rural Landscapes, River Voices: Perspectives on the Presumpscot, and Cultural Resources Archaeology.
Registration Required: CLICK HERE

Little SELTies Storytime: Early Spring 2 of 2
2026-04-02 10:00 - 12:00
We welcome our Little SELTies to join us for a morning of nature stories, songs, and activities in the Pratt Family Community Room at the Mathey Center at Burley Farms. Led by SELT’s Education Program Manager, Lizzy Franceschini, we will start our morning inside the community room with story time activities, then head outside for a short hike in the forest and/or spring play in Burley’s Backyard. This program is designed for children ages 0-5 and their caregivers. Storytimes for early spring will run on 3/19 & 4/2.

Registration Required: CLICK HERE

Dover Pottery Studio at SELT - April 2026
2026-04-22 17:30 - 20:00
* THIS EVENT IS AT CAPACITY * Please feel free to reach out to register@seltnh.org to inquiry about a waitlist.
Join and for a fun and unique experience making pottery at SELT. We will begin with a short 30-minute walk into the forest at Burley Farms to get natural items to use in making imprints on the pottery and then Kim Hanson, owner of The Dover Pottery Studio will lead a 2-hour pottery making session.
In this hands-on session, you’ll create your very own unique Bird Feeder using a variety of hand-building and clay construction techniques. This session is designed for all skill levels. After the session, our studio staff will glaze and fire your creations, making them ready for pick-up approximately four weeks after the workshop.
The event is limited to 20. The cost is $65 to cover material costs and glazing.

Registration and payment required in advance: CLICK HERE

Little SELTies Storytime: Spring 2026 Session 1 of 2
2026-04-23 10:00 - 12:00
We welcome our Little SELTies to join us for a morning of nature stories, songs, and activities in the Pratt Family Community Room at the Mathey Center at Burley Farms. Led by SELT’s Education Program Manager, Lizzy Franceschini, we will start our morning inside the community room with story time activities, then head outside for a short hike in the forest and/or spring play in Burley’s Backyard. This program is designed for children ages 0-5 and their caregivers. Storytimes for spring 2026 will run on 4/23 & 5/7.

Registration Required: CLICK HERE

What’s Wild in New Hampshire with Eric Orff
2026-05-06 17:30 - 18:30
Join us on Wednesday, May 6th at the Mathey Center in Epping for an inspiring presentation by Eric Orff that will teach us about the “wild” right here in New Hampshire, and how to better appreciate and protect it.
As the state’s first bear biologist in the 1970s, Eric Orff began a half-century career as a “forest ranger who works with animals,” his stated dream job as a 7-year-old. With more than thirty-one years at the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department and another fifteen years with the National Wildlife Federation, Eric still publishes a video blog called “What’s Wild in New Hampshire” that regularly receives hundreds of thousands of views each week.
Eric’s career has spanned much more than bears; he has been called to work with White-tailed Deer, bats in a laundry room, snakes in a bathroom, and more. Journey with Eric through his childhood fishing expeditions, “eeling” mishaps, and dancing with fire in the field. Don’t miss a chance to learn about Eric’s entertaining and inspiring stories as a wildlife biologist. After the event, the book will be available for purchase and signing.
Registration Required: CLICK HERE

Little SELTies Storytime: Spring 2026 Session 2 of 2
2026-05-07 10:00 - 12:00

SELTie Book Club - Spring 2026
2026-06-17 17:30 - 19:30
The SELTie Book Club continues! The book selection this time around will be An Immense World by Ed Yong and the discussion on June 17 will be led by Vicki Brown who recommended the book during a previous book club discussion. Light refreshments will be provided.
The Earth teems with sights and textures, sounds and vibrations, smells and tastes, electric and magnetic fields. But every kind of animal, including humans, is enclosed within its own unique sensory bubble, perceiving but a tiny sliver of our immense world.
In An Immense World, Ed Yong coaxes us beyond the confines of our own senses, allowing us to perceive the skeins of scent, waves of electromagnetism, and pulses of pressure that surround us. We encounter beetles that are drawn to fires, turtles that can track the Earth’s magnetic fields, fish that fill rivers with electrical messages, and even humans who wield sonar like bats. We discover that a crocodile’s scaly face is as sensitive as a lover’s fingertips, that the eyes of a giant squid evolved to see sparkling whales, that plants thrum with the inaudible songs of courting bugs, and that even simple scallops have complex vision. We learn what bees see in flowers, what songbirds hear in their tunes, and what dogs smell on the street. We listen to stories of pivotal discoveries in the field, while looking ahead at the many mysteries that remain unsolved.
Funny, rigorous, and suffused with the joy of discovery, An Immense World takes us on what Marcel Proust called “the only true voyage . . . not to visit strange lands, but to possess other eyes.”

Registration Required: CLICK HERE
