Daily Archives: November 1, 2021

Friday, November 19, 9:00 am – Public Parks: The Paradise of Victorian Innovation, Decay, Renaissance, and the Vandals at the Door, Online

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In this Online talk sponsored by the Berkshire Gardens Trust in Great Britain on November 19, David Lambert will describe the development of public parks from their innovative beginnings to their uncertain present, with the emphasis on Berkshire’s parks.  The invention of the municipal park, many of them funded by government grants and loans, was a response to the problems caused by Britain’s industrial revolution.  

The twentieth century inherited an extraordinary legacy of parks, which it largely squandered in the later decades, until the intervention of the National Lottery in 1996.  We have seen widespread recognition of their importance and beauty, with grants of nearly a billion pounds made in the twenty-two years until 2018 when the Lottery stopped its dedicated parks programme.   And now, as a result of years of austerity, parks are again facing an uncertain future

David Lambert is a landscape historian and has been a campaigner on historic parks and gardens since the mid-1980s when he was saving trees in Bristol.  He was conservation officer for the Garden History Society for ten years and in 2000, with former head of parks at the Heritage Lottery Fund, Dr Stewart Harding, he set up the Parks Agency, a not-for-profit consultancy to advise and campaign on the conservation of urban parks.  

He has lectured and published widely on the subject and as well as advising the first parliamentary select committee inquiry into public parks, he has served on advisory boards for English Heritage, the National Trust, Historic Royal Palaces and the World Monuments Fund.  

Please book online. The tickets are £5 each.  We will send you a Zoom link for the lecture a few days before the 19th November. The lecture will last approximately 1 hour, followed by questions. Please contact Janet by email at bgtmembership@gmail.com; or phone Fiona Hope on 0118 984 3504 for queries about the lecture. The time (2 pm GMT) corresponds to 9 am EST.


Saturday, November 6, 7:00 pm – Transitioning Ecosystems: Foundation Species Loss Due to Hemlock Woolly Adelgid Invasion Affects Ecosystem Function, Online

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The New England Botanical Club will present an online meeting on Zoom on Saturday, November 6 at 7 pm with Dr. Danielle Ignace, Assistant Professor, Indigenous Natural Sciences Department of Forest and conservation Sciences, University of British Columbia in Vancouver.

Eastern US forests are losing a foundation tree species, the eastern hemlock (Tsuga canadenis), due to the exotic insect pests hemlock woolly adelgid (Adelges tsugae) and elongate hemlock scale (Fiorinia externa). The widespread destruction of this important evergreen conifer has large ramifications for ecosystem processes and other species that depend on it for survival. The implications of this invasion for ecosystem processes are far-reaching because coniferous eastern hemlock is most often replaced by deciduous tree species, such as Betula lenta (black birch), which have differing effects on forest floor microenvironments. Using an “accidental experiment” initiated by patch-level timber harvesting, 30 years ago in western Massachusetts, Dr. Ignace presents the impacts on soil organic layer mass, C:N content, soil respiration, leaf litter characteristics, and the microbial community. Taken together, these impacts affect source/sink carbon dynamics, which may be exacerbated by a warming climate. Non-members may register for the meeting access link here.