New England Botanic Garden at Tower Hill is excited to partner with Collette Travel to offer a stunning trip to Holland and Belgium to see the world-renowned tulips in the spring of 2023. During your trip you will enjoy a river cruise that explores the beauty of Europe where you will stop at key places along the way to see stunning gardens, history, and culture, including Amsterdam, Arnhem, Middelburg, Ghent, Bruges, Antwerp, Kinderdijk Windmills, and Keukenhof Gardens. This is one of New England Botanic Garden at Tower Hill’s most popular trips and for good reason. It is a plant lovers dream! For more information on the full trip itinerary view our trip page on the Collette website.
The aesthetic appeal of the images created by Maria Sibylla Merian (German, 1647-1717) has led history to label her as an artist who painted and etched natural history subjects. However, Merian was as passionate a naturalist (biologist in modern terms) as Charles Darwin or Carl Linnaeus, and like all scientists, she was impelled by her curiosity about nature.
Merian was the first person to spend decades studying the relationships of insects and plants, and her work revolutionized what came to be the field of ecology. Kay Etheridge, professor emeritus of biology at Gettysburg College, draws on Merian’s own words to consider her motivations in the context of her time and place, and discusses Merian’s body of work in comparison to that of her near-contemporaries working in natural history. The Smithsonian Associates online lecture takes place December 1 beginning at noon and is $20 for Smithsonian members, $25 for nonmembers. Register at www.smithsonianassociates.org.
Nantucket is particularly enchanting during the holiday season, when New England’s finest traditions come alive for the 48th Annual Christmas Stroll Weekend, December 2nd – 4th, 2022, part of Nantucket Noel, a months-long celebration organized by the Nantucket Island Chamber of Commerce.
The Annual Christmas Stroll Weekend is a community holiday celebration attracting visitors from around the world. Santa Claus arrives to the island via Coast Guard vessel and rides up Main Street in a jolly red fire truck accompanied by the Town Crier. Carolers in Victorian costumes, bell ringers, student choirs and other musicians perform on the Main Street stage as well as stroll through town performing, all the while visitors can enjoy Nantucket’s unique shops and restaurants.
Help create beautiful, natural wreaths to decorate the doorways of Deerfield. Bring your creativity, enthusiasm, and an extra pair of pruning shears. No experience required. Supplies and refreshments provided. Free, pre-registration required. To sign up, visit https://www.historic-deerfield.org/events
The Gardens Trust’s second series exploring how gardens and flowers have influenced and inspired other arts and crafts turns to ceramics. This lustrous material was invented centuries ago in China and has long been regarded as rare, beautiful and highly sought after, and by the 18th Century the secret of making and firing this material had been discovered in Europe. Porcelain provided an ideal background for painted decoration, and botanical designs and landscapes provided a rich source of inspiration. Three of our talks provide a brief chronology of floral images and themes on porcelain from the symbolism of Chinese peonies to the botanical depictions of ‘Sir Hans Sloane’s plants’. We also look at the eighteenth century fashion for illustrating topographical views on ceramics, including the iconic Green Frog Service and the depiction of the circuit created at Hafod, as well as other picturesque views, all of which have provided objects of great beauty, usefulness and prestige, as well as being an invaluable tool for the modern researcher.
This ticket is for the entire course of 6 sessions. or you may purchase a ticket for individual session, costing £5 via the link HERE.Attendees will be sent a Zoom link 2 days (and again a few hours) prior to the start of the first talk (If you do not receive this link please contact us), and a link to the recorded session will be sent shortly after each session and will be available for 1 week.
In 1762 Catherine II acceded to the Russian throne. Within 10 years, as the taste for the French baroque moved towards a more ‘natural’ approach to landscaping, employing English gardeners had become all the rage. Catherine wrote to Voltaire: I love English gardens to the point of folly; serpentine lines, gentle slopes, marshes turned into lakes, islands of dry ground, and I deeply despise straight lines. … in a word, my plantomania is dominated by anglomania. Negotiations were opened with Josiah Wedgwood to create a 50-person set of 90 pieces for dinner and dessert in creamware paste (rather than the finer porcelain). Her Anglomania was pampered by some 1,222 views of castles, abbeys, stately homes and gardens, and scenes of town and country not forgetting natural curiosities in Britain. Each piece had a green frog device for her ‘English’ residence on the road between St Petersburg and Tsarskoe Selo which she affectionately called La Grenouilliere, thus it has become known as the Green Frog Service. It is a marvelous product of Enlightenment and Industry in eighteenth century England. Most pieces are in The Hermitage.
Caroline Holmes is an experienced and accomplished lecturer working for a wide range of organizations including leading tour and cruise operators. She is an Accredited Lecturer of The Arts Society and is also a Course Director for the University of Cambridge Institute of Continuing Education. Her own gardens are open to the public and have featured in many magazine articles and on television in both Britain and Japan. She is author of 12 books, her latest being Where the wildness pleases – the English garden celebrated (2021).
John Phibbs will lead a tour in May 2023 (May 14 – 24) to some of the parks in England that Frederick Law Olmsted visited, so participants may enjoy and study first hand the places that determined his own career, and the future of landscape architecture in America. Famously, Olmsted took from his travels not only the delight in nature that is so much a part of 18th century English landscape, but also its didactic and philanthropic role in ameliorating the lives of ordinary people in the new industrial cities. The creation of entire landscapes, he concluded, “all in imitation of nature, is to this day the peculiar art of England.” The trip will include some classic Capability Brown landscapes: Chatsworth, Charlecote, Knowsley, Trentham, and Weston Park. Also there will be some Repton classics, Rug and Stoneleigh, as well as other great landscapes Olmsted visited: Chirk, Hagley, Enville, the Leasowes. There are also the smaller but critically influential public parks created for the benefit of all classes of Birkenhead and at the Birminham and Derby Arboreta. John Phibbs’s wife Gilly Kitching is making all the arrangements so if you would like to know more, email info@inspirationevents.com.
This year Heritage Museums and Gardens in Sandwich will continue the celebration of lights that has become a treasured holiday tradition with a fully outdoor experience. This event features beautiful light displays throughout the gardens, as well as many activities throughout the grounds. Roast marshmallows at the fire pits. Participate in a reindeer scavenger hunt.
Tickets must be purchased online in advance, are date specific, and have a time-specific entry. Walk up ticket sales are not guaranteed at the door. All tickets are date and time specific, and attendance is limited to provide a safe, high-quality experience for all. Tickets are non-refundable and are only valid for the date and entry time for which they are purchased. Restrooms are located near the entrance and portable restrooms are located near the back of the property. More information is found at
Tickets are $20 for Heritage members; $22 nonmembers , Youth $11/$12, 2 and under free. Buy tickets at www.heritagemuseumandgardens.org
Ethel Mary Webb, daughter of wealthy landowner William Frederick Webb, was born at Newstead Abbey, Nottinghamshire, in 1862. She was reputedly one of the best amateur gardeners in England at the end of the 19th century.
In 1892 she visited Yokohama in Japan with her father William and her sister Geraldine, as part of a world tour. The visit fired Ethel’s interest in Japanese art and gardens and inspired her to create a Japanese garden at Newstead Abbey. This talk follows the achievements of one Victorian lady at a time when tackling even the toughest practical jobs was becoming an acceptable activity for upper class women. This ticket is for this individual session and costs £5 – register HERE through Eventbrite. Attendees will be sent a Zoom link 2 days prior to the start of the talk, and again a few hours before the talk. A link to the recorded session (available for 1 week) will be sent shortly afterwards.
Graham Hardman is Honorary Vice-President, Japanese Garden Society. He has been a freelance garden designer for over 20 years, with a special interest in Japanese gardens. He has co-designed and managed construction of several Japanese gardens in public spaces and has been awarded a gold and two silver medals for show gardens at the RHS Tatton Park Flower Show. In 2015 the Japanese Government awarded Graham the ‘Order of the Rising Sun with Gold Rays and Rosette’ for services in furthering awareness of Japanese culture in the UK through Japanese gardens.
Philip Jones is a garden historian, former librarian and lecturer in local and family history. He is Midland regional secretary of The Japanese Garden Society and currently researching the Victorian and Edwardian gardens at Newstead Abbey. His publications include Great Nottinghamshire Gardens(Nottinghamshire County Council, 2002) and Lost Houses of Nottinghamshire(Nottinghamshire County Council, 2006).
The Suffolk Gardens Trust is pleased to be offering a series of four talks to highlight some aspects of the county’s rich gardening heritage. It is offered as a companion to the newly-launched co-operative project on ‘Suffolk’s Unforgettable Garden Story’ by The Gardens Trust and the Suffolk Gardens Trust, with funding by Historic England. This seeks to encourage research into the historic parks and gardens, public parks, cemeteries and other good examples of designed landscapes of Suffolk, with the overarching aim of adding layers of protection to these green spaces and to promote their future survival.
This ticket (click HERE) is for this individual session and costs £5, and you may purchase tickets for other individual sessions via the links below, or you may purchase a ticket for the entire course of 4 sessions at a cost of £16 via the link here.Attendees will be sent a Zoom link 2 days prior to the start of the talk, and again a few hours before the talk. A link to the recorded session (available for 1 week) will be sent shortly afterwards.
This final installment on November 23 is on Ickworth Park. Ickworth’s clayland park provides a fascinating setting for the architectural developments of the Hervey family from John, created Baron Hervey, then 1st Earl of Bristol, to the sad demise of the 7th Marquess in 1999. The Earl Bishop provides an eighteenth-century interlude that takes us across Europe, into Ireland and back to Bury St Edmunds, his architect wrote: ‘The Rotunda is a monument to the idea of Italy in the English mind’ but for his widow it was his stupendous monument to folly. The formal gardens were laid out in the early 1800’s to replicate the floor plan creating what is arguably the first Italianate garden in the UK, now a National Trust property.
Caroline Holmes is Academic Tutor and Course Director for the University of Cambridge ICE, lecturer for The Arts Society, and is the author of 12 books. Her consultancies include devising planting for The Poison Garden, Alnwick, Humanist Renaissance inspired gardens around Notre Dame-de-Calais and currently for a new development near Thetford, creating two areas to celebrate the Queen’s Green Canopy and other public spaces. She has presented Viking TV features and her garden was filmed in September. Academic but not dry she has spoken on every continent except Antarctica.
The Gardens Trust’s second series exploring how gardens and flowers have influenced and inspired other arts and crafts turns to ceramics. This lustrous material was invented centuries ago in China and has long been regarded as rare, beautiful and highly sought after, and by the 18th Century the secret of making and firing this material had been discovered in Europe. Porcelain provided an ideal background for painted decoration, and botanical designs and landscapes provided a rich source of inspiration. Three of our talks provide a brief chronology of floral images and themes on porcelain from the symbolism of Chinese peonies to the botanical depictions of ‘Sir Hans Sloane’s plants’. We also look at the eighteenth century fashion for illustrating topographical views on ceramics, including the iconic Green Frog Service and the depiction of the circuit created at Hafod, as well as other picturesque views, all of which have provided objects of great beauty, usefulness and prestige, as well as being an invaluable tool for the modern researcher.
This ticket is for the entire course of 6 sessions. or you may purchase a ticket for individual session, costing £5 via the link HERE. Attendees will be sent a Zoom link 2 days (and again a few hours) prior to the start of the first talk (If you do not receive this link please contact us), and a link to the recorded session will be sent shortly after each session and will be available for 1 week.
In 1710, after years of experimentation under the patronage of the Elector of Saxony Augustus the Strong, scientists and potters at Meissen discovered the ‘Arcanum’ – the secret of making porcelain. This ‘white gold of Saxony’ together with the innovative skills of the factory’s artists and the brilliance of its colour palette earned Meissen fulsome praise as the most prestigious factory in Europe. Its splendor and magnificence were later eclipsed by Sèvres under the patronage of Madame de Pompadour. At both factories, skilled porcelain painters were inspired by the botanical delights of 18th Century gardens. Flower-painting enriched imposing vases or grand services for dessert. At Meissen, the clothes of finely modeled porcelain figures were strewn with flowers, simulating embroidered silk. Other European factories included the du Paquier workshop in Vienna and the Vincennes factory – the precursor of Sèvres – famous for its exquisitely modelled trompe l’oeil flowers. The lecture concludes with the magnificent Flora Danica porcelain service from Copenhagen.
