This year, following on from the Gardens Trust’s successful 2022 series on the rose, in partnership with the Historic Roses Group, the Gardens Trust is happy to announce a new rose-related lecture series, again with the HRG, this time including an international slant.
With speakers hailing from Iceland to Australia, via England, Italy and the USA, these talks are wide-ranging. We begin with a portrait of a popular 19th century rosarian who loved riding as much as roses, knew everyone on the literary scene, was a celebrity preacher and organized the first ever National Rose Show in London. An account of a hillside rose garden in Italy which started as a collection of pots on a terrace in Rome; how to grow roses in the Arctic Circle and ‘down under’ on a working Australia farm; the intriguing stories behind the names of some romantic heritage roses; and where to find a unique UN Food and Agriculture Organization collection of the other – edible – members of the rosaceae family continue the series. We finish with practical advice about training and pruning your climbers, whether roses or wisterias, from a professional horticultural gardener, the latest in three generations of market gardeners and a shows organizer and designer whose sumptuous stands have won medals for the Historic Roses Group at the Hampton Court Flower Show.
This ticket costs £28 for the entire course of 7 sessions or you may purchase a ticket for individual sessions, costing £5. 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. Register through Eventbrite HERE or visit https://thegardenstrust.org/events-archive/page/3/
Week Two is The Other Rosaceae – Brogdale and the National Fruit Collection with Tom La Dell. The National Fruit Collection growing at Brogdale is the most comprehensive collection of fruit varieties in the world. It is the contribution of DEFRA (the UK’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization’s collections of genetic diversity to secure the future of the world’s food crops. It is the only fruiting collection, providing public access to the National Fruit Collection and to a wide range of education programs on the heritage of the varieties held, fruit cultivation, and fruit in a healthy diet, plus guided tours, festivals and events. Tom will talk about the 4,000 apples, pears, cherries, plums and smaller collections, and how Brogdale Collections is working to maximize the public benefits of these wonderful collections. Future plans include a series of fruit gardens from Medieval to Renaissance (Italian Villas) to Baroque (Versailles) and the Victorian kitchen garden, to show around 400 historic varieties in their historic settings.
Tom la Dell is a landscape architect and ecologist, a trustee of the charity Brogdale Collections, a member of the Kent Gardens Trust and the HRG. Originally a plant scientist, Tom became a landscape architect instead of working with breeding food crops. His work has included all aspects of landscape architecture, often combined with his work as an ecologist. He has written extensively for the KGT and the Historic Rose Journal. His long-standing interest in garden history and plant heritage started with excellent lectures in the late 1960s.
