This Gardens Trust talk on April 28 is the first in our 2nd series on Victorian Gardens on Thurs @ 10.00 GMT (5 am Eastern) from 28 April. £5 each or all 6 for £30. Register through Eventbrite 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.

On April 28 Mark Johnston will speak on Trees in Towns & Cities, Victorian Urban Arboriculture. Throughout the nineteenth century and particularly during Victorian times, trees became an increasing feature in Britain’s towns and cities. In this talk the focus is on those trees that were planted and maintained in a variety of urban settings. This includes trees in private residential gardens and squares, those in public parks and arboretums, alongside streets, in cemeteries and in therapeutic landscapes. The nineteenth century witnessed huge advances in the development of British arboriculture that laid the foundations for today’s arboricultural industry. This was particularly evident in development of new machinery, equipment and techniques. Much of this was prompted by the challenges of integrating large trees into the urban environment in close proximity to people, buildings and roads. After centuries of being regarded as synonymous with forestry or considered a branch of horticulture, arboriculture emerged in the late nineteenth century as a separate discipline.

Dr Mark Johnston is an independent scholar who holds a PhD in urban forestry from the University of Ulster. He has nearly fifty years’ experience in the greenspace industry, including working as a tree surgery contractor, tree officer in local government, consultant in private practice, government adviser and university academic. Mark was the Lead Researcher and main author of the government report entitled Trees in Towns II published in 2008. For fifteen years he was Research Fellow at Myerscough College and Course Leader for its MSc Arboriculture and Urban Forestry. Since his official retirement Mark’s research has focused on the historical aspects of arboriculture and he has published three books on this subject. His contribution to trees and the urban environment has been widely acknowledged with several prestigious national and international awards.