Embark on a richly curated horticultural and cultural journey through Australia, from the vibrant subtropical charm of Brisbane to the historic elegance of Adelaide and the creative pulse of Melbourne. This American Horticultural Society immersive program takes you through world-class botanic gardens, private estates, and lush rainforests, blending horticultural wonders with regional history, local cuisine, and architectural heritage. Highlights include the spectacular Tamborine Rainforest Skywalk, the iconic Mt Coot-tha and Royal Botanic Gardens, and private tours of historic homes and gardens. With expert guides leading the way, this is a rare opportunity to immerse yourself in Australia’s vibrant natural beauty at its peak. Optional trip extensions to Sydney and the Great Barrier Reef offer even more unforgettable discoveries. For complete information on this trip, taking place October 10 – 22, 2026, visit www.ahsgardening.org
The Harvard Graduate School of Design presents the Kenzo Tange Lecture with Sean Godsell on October 17 at 6:30 pm in Gund Hall in Cambridge. The event is free and open to the public. Complete information is available at www.gsd.harvard.edu
Australia is hot and dry. Over 70% of the country is arid or semi-arid and sparsely populated. We are basically a giant desert about the same geographical size as the mainland US but with approximately the same population as greater Los Angeles. Despite our vast mineral wealth, water remains our most precious commodity, and fire and floods are our constant concern. For us, “the bush” is a mystical, mythical place. Australians know of the Outback, the Never Never, the Dreamtime, and the Songlines of our Indigenous communities. Here, “the bush” mediates between our colonial coastalism and the endless emptiness of the rest. These are dreamy, half-real skies.
Sean Godsell was born in Melbourne, Australia in 1960. He graduated with First Class Honours from The University of Melbourne in 1984. He spent much of 1985 traveling in Japan and Europe and worked in London from 1986 to 1988 for Sir Denys Lasdun. In 1994, he formed Sean Godsell Architects. His work has been published in the world’s leading Architectural journals, and he has lectured and exhibited in the USA, UK, China, Japan, India, France, Finland, Germany, Italy, and New Zealand as well as across Australia.
In July 2002, the influential English design magazine Wallpaper* listed him as one of ten people destined to “change the way we live.” His Future Shack housing prototype was exhibited at the Smithsonian’s Cooper Hewitt Design Museum in New York in 2005 and the facade prototype of the RMIT Design Hub is on permanent display at the V+A Museum in London.
He has received numerous local and international awards, including the 2022 Australian Institute of Architects Gold Medal. His work has been published in the monographsSean Godsell(Electa, 2005), Sean Godsell: Tough Subtlety(El Croquis, 2013), and Sean Godsell: Houses(Thames and Hudson, 2018). In 2013 and 2014, he was visiting professor at the IUAV in Venice. He is adjunct professor of architecture at Deakin University. Photo below by Earl Carter.
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/
In Week Three, Michelle Endersby will discuss The Role of a Rose Garden on a Working Farm. A formal rose garden in the middle of an Australian farm with a high likelihood of drought and flooding rains may seem like a frivolous extravagance. But at Sages Cottage Farm in Baxter, Victoria, an historic 38-hectare property run by disability service provider, Wallara, the rose garden plays a pivotal role in the experience and programs for clients and visitors alike. Not only a tranquil and calming display garden, the roses are also a source of fodder for the farm animals, a cutting garden for the café, a source of materials for craft projects and food source for the bees for honey production. With a collection of interesting roses, rose garden tours are a potential source of income and education. Michelle will show you the microclimates and the multitude of opportunities provided by this special rose garden.
Michelle Endersby is a writer and visual artist from Melbourne, Australia, and the ‘Rose Lady’ at Sages Cottage Farm where she is responsible for the care of over 150 roses. Inspired by a vision of a light-filled rose garden she experienced on awakening from a coma following emergency brain surgery, Michelle has made roses the focus of her creative and horticultural endeavors. She is also a member of the HRG and has contributed to the Historic Rose Journal. Michelle is the creator of the popular Art, Gardens and Always Roses monthly e-newsletter.
Discover true splendor Down Under as you explore some of Australia’s best public and private gardens with the Pacific Horticulture Society November 5 – 19. The island’s biodiversity unfolds as you travel from Melbourne to Sydney to Tropical North Queensland, including an excursion to the spectacular Great Barrier Reef. Our itinerary includes a variety of habitats and garden styles, featuring endemic species as well as plants from around the world as we tour 19th-century colonial farm gardens, formal European-style gardens, eco-conscious contemporary parklands, and rainforest trails of the aboriginal Kuku Yalanji people. You’ll get an insider’s look at some of the most iconic public gardens, including the Royal Botanic Gardens in Melbourne and Sydney and the City Botanic Garden in Brisbane; also enjoy more intimate visits to a selection of exceptional private gardens such as Stonefields, Lubra Bend, Alowyn Gardens, Wendy’s Secret Garden, and Tabu Gardens. Discover firsthand why Australia’s diverse and abundant flora is one of its most prized assets and how climate change is affecting the landscape. Along the way, go behind the scenes to meet the curators and directors, conservationists, scientists, garden designers, and other experts who are at the forefront of the country’s most exciting horticultural projects. Land cost $7,775 per person, single supplement $1,475, does not include airfare.
For complete itinerary details and information about booking this trip, visit www.holbrooktravel.com
Join the Pacific Horticulture Society for a special opportunity to visit gardens in Australia when it’s springtime down under.
Our tour starts in the vibrant city of Sydney and continues on through the Blue Mountains and scenic highlands of New South Wales to the capital city of Canberra. Continuing to the state of Victoria, we’ll visit charming townships like Daylesford, Dunkeld, and Sorrento, and Grampians National Park. The tour will end in the cultural city of Melbourne. Tour attendees may want to add a few days to their trip and take in the Melbourne Garden DesignFest, taking place the following weekend, before heading home or continuing their travels in Australia or beyond.
Throughout our tour you’ll take in a wide variety of interesting and enjoyable public and private gardens often using indigenous plants. You’ll see wildflowers and visit specialty nurseries like Lambley Nursery as well as gardens designed by leading landscape architects including Paul Bangay and Sam Cox. We’ll take in country estates, historic gardens, small urban gardens, wineries, galleries with sculpture parks, and important botanic gardens such as Royal Botanic Gardens Cranbourne. All carefully chosen to show you the best that Australia has to offer.
Most importantly, our tour emphasizes fun, quality experiences, and good food. You’ll meet the locals, be entertained in their homes, and leave Australia knowing what a dinkum Aussie is!
Last fall, visiting Arnold Arboretum researcher Juan Losada and Head Arborist John Del Rosso traveled to Australia to make collections of Austrobaileya, an evergreen vine found only in the rainforest of Queensland. Although the Arboretum has a century-long history of plant collecting in Asia, this trip marked only the second expedition by Arboretum representatives to the Australian subcontinent. Join us for a special presentation for Arboretum members on January 22 in the Hunnewell Building; refreshments at 6:00pm, presentation at 6:30pm. Juan and John will talk about their experiences and share pictures and videos from the tropical rainforest. Register on line at www.my.arboretum.harvard.edu.
In his newest book, Here on Earth, Tim Flannery, Australian scientist and author, offers a sweeping account of the dual evolutionary history of Earth and the life it supports. Beginning with the birth of stars to the creation of water and the accident of simple life forms, Flannery documents life up through the 2-million-year rise of our human species and ponders our future as a “superorganism” capable of either sustaining or destroying the planet’s ecosystems. This Thursday, April 21 Harvard Museum of Natural History program begins at 6 pm. Free and open to the public, Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford Street. For more information log on to www.hmnh.harvard.edu.
Entomologist, photographer, and intrepid world-traveler Mark Moffett explores the parallel between ant colonies and human societies in his latest book, Adventures with the Ants. From his travels to the Amazon, the Congo, Borneo, Australia, California and elsewhere, Moffett provides fascinating details on how ants live and dominate their ecosystems through strikingly human behaviors: hunting, fighting, building, recycling, and even creating marketplaces. Mark Moffett — “Dr. Bugs†— grew up in Beloit and graduated from Beloit College in 1979. His explorations of tropical forests and ecology have taken him around the world, from the top of the world’s tallest tree to deep in unexplored caves. He has discovered new plant and animal species while risking life and limb to find stories that make people fall in love with the unexpected in nature.
Moffett captivates audiences with first-hand stories of tropical ecology, treetop exploration, teamwork and goal accomplishment under extreme conditions, adventures under a rock (wonderful and weird stories of ants and spiders), and the love of nature and conservation. Television’s Stephen Colbert calls him “Ant-Man†and Conan O’Brien calls him a “frog-licker,†but Moffett calls himself a storyteller.
The lecture, followed by a book signing, will take place Tuesday, May 11, at 7 pm, at the Harvard Museum of Natural History, 26 Oxford Street in Cambridge. The lecture is free and open to the public. For more information you may call 617-495-3045, or email hmnhpr@oeb.harvard.edu.
