Green Acres

Courtesy Cantor Center for Visual Arts

It’s one long garden party at Cantor Arts Center this summer. The major exhibition, “The Artist and the Changing Garden: 400 Years of European and American Gardens,” features nearly 180 paintings, prints, drawings, photographs and sculptures illustrating pleasure grounds private and public, from Versailles to Central Park, through September 7. A free concert series stays on theme with harpsichordist Elaine Thornburgh playing “Musical Images from Nature” on July 17; jazz on the south lawn by the Anton Schwartz Quartet August 21; and “Wired Gardens,” an interactive multimedia performance on September 7. On second and fourth Sundays, guided tours explore campus gardens, including a new one sculpted by New York environmental artist Meg Webster. And free outdoor films—The Secret Garden, Greenfingers, even Edward Scissorhands—screen at dusk on July 31, August 7 and August 14. Phone (650) 723-3469 for program details. The main exhibition will travel to the Dixon gallery in Memphis, Tenn., in October and to the University of Michigan ’s Ann Arbor museum next March.