Daily Archives: October 27, 2023


Wednesday, November 8, 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Eastern – Plant Humanities Initiative, Online

Join the American Horticultural Society and Yota Batsaki, PhD, Executive Director of Dumbarton Oaks, online on November 8 to learn about Plant Humanities, a new, interdisciplinary field that explores and communicates the unparalleled significance of plants to human culture. The Plant Humanities Initiative collaborates to produce a digital platform of rare historic materials that document plants, building an accessible resource for well-researched, widespread horticultural storytelling. Batsaki will suggest how plant history from a spectrum of fields relates to contemporary topics of climate change, environmental degradation, and cross-cultural exchange. This virtual program will include a presentation, conversation with facilitator, and opportunities for participants’ questions.    

Yota Batsaki, PhD, is the Executive Director of Dumbarton Oaks, a Harvard University research institute, library, museum, and garden located in Washington, DC. As principal investigator for the institute’s Plant Humanities Initiative, Batsaki applies her expertise in comparative literature to the interdisciplinary study of plants and their significance to human culture. She has published essays and co-edited volumes on the intersection of history, literature, and culture, including The Botany of Empire in the Long Eighteenth Century.

$10 for AHS members, $15 for nonmembers. Register at www.ahsgardening.org


Monday, November 13, 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm Eastern – Highgate Cemetery: Rethinking a Historic Cemetery for the 21st Century, Online

The effects of climate change are wreaking havoc with Highgate Cemetery’s self-seeded trees and crumbling paths. The Friends of Highgate Cemetery Trust, its owners and operators, want to make the Cemetery more resilient, enhance its biodiversity and respond to the needs and demands of new generations of users. Gustafson Porter + Bowman are working on a landscape plan, and Hopkins Architects looking at conservation of historic architecture and opportunities for the sensitive provision of much needed new facilities. Overall the project aims to unlock the potential of the Cemetery and enhance its role in the community.  

Ian Dungavell is CEO, Friends of Highgate Cemetery Trust and former Director, The Victorian Society which campaigns to save Victorian and Edwardian architecture.  He is a former Lecturer at Sotheby’s Institute of Art on 19th and 20th Century Decorative Art and currently sits as the Scientific Representative on the Association of Significant Cemeteries of Europe. Join him online on November 13 for an examination of the forward thinking plans. Register (£5.00) with London Parks & Gardens HERE.