Boston Flora

Tag: English Gardens

  • Tuesday, April 20, 2:00 pm – The Naturally Beautiful Garden: Designs That Engage with Wildlife and Nature, Online

    Drawing from her new book The Naturally Beautiful Garden: Designs That Engage with Wildlife and Nature (Rizzoli, April 2021), Kathryn Bradley-Hole will consider ‘what makes a naturally beautiful garden?’ Interest in growing plants and creating attractive spaces that support pollinators, birds, and other wildlife is a recurrent theme in garden-making today. This online illustrated lecture will be held on April 20 at 2 pm and sponsored by The Royal Oak Foundation. $15 Royal Oak members, $20 general public. Register at https://www.royal-oak.org/events/spring-2021-online/naturally-beautiful-garden/

    Often it goes hand in hand with organic principles that shun the use of short-term, quick-fix chemical solutions. Kathryn will illustrate inspiring contemporary gardens that exemplify these principles from the UK and across the globe.

    These gorgeous gardens are located in a broad variety of climates and feature correspondingly varied flora, which support their local fauna in engaging ways! From 21st century public green spaces to modern cottage gardens, and from large country gardens to intimate city courtyards these gardens benefit people of all ages who use them, bringing the beauties of Nature close to hand.

    Kathryn Bradley-Hole’s distinguished career as a horticultural writer includes 18 years as Gardens Editor of the iconic English weekly magazine, Country Life, between 2000 and 2018. She has authored six books on a variety of garden subjects, including the bestselling BBC “Gardeners’ World” Garden Lovers’ Guide to Britain and Lost Gardens of England from the Archives of Country Life; and English Gardens from the Archives of Country Life Magazine (October 2020).

    A Fellow of the Linnean Society, her personal gardening interests focus in achieving visual harmony with the broader landscape and creating environments that assist wildlife. Her personal gardening interests focus on achieving visual harmony with the broader landscape and creating environments that assist wildlife

  • Tuesday, October 27, 2:00 pm – A Celebration of English Gardens, From the Archives of Country Life Magazine, Online

    “That the English are a nation of gardeners as well as weather-watchers is well known; the two national obsessions are as intertwined as the honey-suckle and the hedgerow,” writes Country Life Garden Editor Kathryn Bradley-Hole. Her October 27 online Royal Oak Foundation lecture, drawn from her new book, celebrates English gardens featured in Country Life, a pictorial weekly journal that launched in 1897, the year of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee.

    From picturesque cottage gardens to grand formal gardens; from kitchen gardens to water gardens; and from medieval monastery gardens to cutting-edge 21st century gardens, Kathryn will take a fresh look at horticultural treasures from across England. She will discuss those created by designers such as Capability Brown, Gertrude Jekyll, Rosemary Verey, Piet Oudolf and Arne Maynard among others.

    She will illustrate world famous gardens—Waddesdon Manor (NT), Hidcote (NT), and Great Dixter—alongside new and lesser-known places such as Woolbeding (NT), Warnell Hall, Cumbria, and Hauser & Wirth in Bruton. Using stunning photography from the archives of Country Life, Kathryn will distill the essence of what makes the British garden style so popular and celebrate English garden-making in all its astonishing variety, wit and inspiration.

    Kathryn Bradley-Hole’s distinguished career as a horticultural writer includes 18 years as Gardens Editor of the iconic English weekly magazine, Country Life, between 2000 and 2018. She has authored six books on a variety of garden subjects, including the bestselling BBC “Gardeners’ World” Garden Lovers’ Guide to Britain and Lost Gardens of England from the Archives of Country Life. Her most recent book, English Gardens from the Archives of Country Life Magazine, was just published by Rizzoli last October. Her own gardening interests have an organic approach, to support a diversity of wildlife.

    Thank you to our co-sponsors: The Colonial Dames of America; Washington Decorative Arts Forum; Rizzoli; Institute of Classical Architecture & Art, Southern California Chapter

    Online via Zoom Webinar – $15 for members of the Royal Oak Foundation, $15 for nonmembers. Register at www.royal-oak.org USE PROMO CODE BACKBAY20 at checkout for $5 off – thank you Royal Oak!

  • Saturday, February 14, 1:00 p-m – 3:00 pm – Stourhead Garden: The Genius of the Place

    The Berkshire Botanical Garden will hold its 2015 Winter Lecture on Saturday, February 14 from 1 – 3 at Monument Mountain High School in Great Barrington. They are honored to welcome guest lecturer Alan Power, the Head Gardener at Stourhead.  Here is what Mr. Power says about the garden and about himself:

    Stourhead is one of the finest landscape gardens in Europe, and I would argue, in the world. Wrapped in and protected by the rolling hills of the ancient landscapes of Wiltshire, Somerset and Dorset, Stourhead has evolved over the last 300 years around a valley originally called ‘Paradise’. Before this period, the land was occupied by the Stourton family from 1448 until the early 18th Century. Human settlements have been recorded here since before the Iron Age. Lived in, admired, journeyed to, shared and recorded by millions of people during the centuries, Stourhead deserves the fame and importance it receives. Folk travelled across Europe and from America to admire Stourhead in the early days. Its fame and talk of its beauty spread fast and within 15 years of its conception, before it was fully complete, it had gained national and international recognition from experts at the time.

    After almost 20 years working in (and now managing) the garden and estate at Stourhead my love and commitment to the place grows every day. Often referred to as a pleasure ground in the past, the garden at Stourhead has far exceeded the original ambition of the great Henry Hoare in the early 18th Century. Not only is it a pleasure to gaze upon at all times of the year but it is also a wonder to explore and experience with close friends, family and loved ones. It’s an experience to be shared, talked about, treasured and passed on. One part of the work I do that really moves me is when I witness the heart-felt way in which the beauty of Stourhead can take someone over. I am proud of the work we do and achieve at Stourhead, just as I am so proud of the work we, the National Trust, do at all of our properties.

    However, it is our vision for the future of Stourhead that I am most proud of. Working in the knowledge that we hope to care for this magnificent place, secure its future, understand more of its past and inspire the next generation through sharing the Stourhead experience makes every day here a pleasure. Our ambition for the garden is a simple yet deeply important one. If all goes according to plan, we will have the landscape garden and its superb architectural features in as good of a condition as possible by 2020. We will also re-introduce some of the missing elements of the plant collection while adding the 21st century layer to the collection in the Pinetum. All this while we continue to re-introduce other lost elements of the plant collection. It’s incredible to think that this process continues 300 years after the Hoare family moved to this beautiful corner of Wiltshire, gave Stourhead its name and created a legacy for the nation.

    From Cork (close to the south coast of Ireland) I grew up surrounded by and spending time in one of the most beautiful natural landscapes, walking in the mountains of Kerry and hanging on the cliffs off the Old Head of Kinsale. From an early age, I knew my life needed to be outdoors and close to nature. From my father who worked in the retail business, I learned that interacting with and helping the public was important to me and from my mother I inherited a keen interest in gardening. It was the soil that really got me interested, so much captured in the soil to be released and absorbed by the plants and seeing the giant trees supported and anchored to the soil fascinated me. So I began to study horticulture at Writtle College and subsequently Arboriculture at Merrist Wood College. (Trees and gardens- my heaven!) After a while exploring the industry and working at Marks Hall Arboretum in Essex, I knew that historic gardens were for me. Stourhead had been brought to my attention during my studies as had the tree collection there – it became a dream of mine to work in such magnificent surroundings and eventually the opportunity arose not just to be a gardener but also to climb the trees as the property’s arborist. That’s where it all started for me 19 years ago; as a climber and gardener at Stourhead, then the Assistant Head Gardener. I did however head off for a while to the beauty of Northern Ireland to work at Mount Stewart Gardens – a plant collection second to none! It was there that my interest in garden history, plant collections and plant introductions deepened even further, and I was able to explore and learn about the fascinating family of the Londonderry’s. As much as I enjoyed that position, the job as Head Gardener at Stourhead was advertised and off I went – that was over 10 years ago. I have genuinely loved every minute here as the Head Gardener. I am closer to the garden, the people that created it, the plant collection and the visitors, than I ever thought was possible. It feels like home. My interests now firmly sit in the history of the garden, the plant collection and the people that created it and kept it going through the years. It’s an amazing story and one that continues to expand the longer that I am here.

    The fee to attend is $35 for BBG members, $45 for nonmembers. You may purchase your tickets online at www.berkshirebotanical.org.

     

  • Saturday, October 19, 10:00 am – Sissinghurst: Portrait of a Garden

    Join former Sissinghurst head gardener Alexa Datta at Berkshire Botanical Garden on Saturday, October 19 at 10 am for a first-hand look at the gardening year at Britain’s fabled garden at Sissinghurst Castle in Kent, England. Designed by writer Vita Sackville-West and her diplomat husband Harold Nicolson, this iconic landscape is one of the most renowned gardens in the world. Portrait of a Garden gives a short history of Sissinghurst Castle, the gardens, the creators, its philosophy and a visual tour that is sure to inspire. The gardens at Sissinghurst have certainly evolved over the years since its inception in 1930 and, though being conserved, it is currently being gardened in a dynamic way. Get the down and dirty on gardening from the woman behind the scenes at this classic English garden.

    Alexa Datta has been a professional gardener for over forty years and spent twenty-two of them as head gardener at Sissinghurst. She studied gardening at horticultural college in England, and has worked at several private and public gardens. In 1983 she joined the National Trust, which cares for many of Britain’s leading gardens and arrived at Sissinghurst in 1991. BBG members $30, nonmembers $35. Register by calling 413-298-3926, or online at www.berkshirebotanical.org.

    http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_EYWrl7M5zEc/TOrPo-DcIPI/AAAAAAAABYA/-pV9IasZbr0/s400/Sissinghurst.jpg

  • Sundays, April 3 and 10, 2:00 pm – 4:00 pm – Garden Adventurers Lectures

    On Sundays, April 3 and April 10, come to Heritage Museum & Gardens, 67 Grove Street in Sandwich, and travel to exotic gardens vicariously through the exploits of other Garden Adventurers! On April 3, Jonathan Shaw will share his visits to Japan’s most beautiful and unique gardens, including Kenrokuen Garden (The Six Sublimities, pictured below) in Kanazawa and Saihoji (The Temple Moss Garden). Mr. Shaw was formerly Director of the New England Wildflower Society at the Garden in the Woods near Boston, and is the retired President of Bok Tower Gardens in Lake Wales, Florida. He lives in Sandwich, his native town, where he has an extensive garden in the Village that he and Norwegian wife Eugenie maintain. Then on April 10, Linda Calmes Jones, who chairs Heritage’s Board of Trustees, will share her garden travel experience to London’s Chelsea Flower Show (The Great Spring Show) and various English gardens. Join them for both of these inspiring presentations, free with museum admission.  For more information, log on to www.heritagemuseumsandgardens.org, or call 508-888-3300.  Image from www.kanazawa-tourism.com.

  • Saturday, May 22 – Saturday, May 29 – Chelsea Flower Show and English Gardens Tour

    Do you need to give someone a Christmas gift wish list? The Education Department of Tower Hill Botanic Garden is sponsoring a guided tour of the Chelsea Flower Show and English Gardens from Saturday, May 22 through Saturday, May 29.  The Chelsea Flower show is considered to be the world’s pre-eminent horticultural event. Its Show Gardens are created by leading international landscape architects and garden designers. The Great Pavilion is the spectacular centerpiece of the CFS. Nurseries and growers dazzle visitors with displays of color from the world’s finest plant collections. The show also features the continuous Learning section that gives visitors insight into the gardens of the future. The Gardening Matters Marquee hosts talks by gardening experts, covering all aspects of gardening and design and gives the visitor the opportunity to pose questions to the experts. As added incentive, you will enjoy High Tea at a private estate overlooking magnificent gardens.  The price per person is $2,749, double occupancy, with a $585 single supplement.  Contact Tower Hill  at 508-869-6111, ext. 124 for a brochure, itinerary and purchase information.  You may also email registrar@towerhillbg.org.

    http://z.about.com/d/golondon/1/0/-/K/-/-/ChelseaFlowerShow149.jpg

  • Saturday, July 18, 10 – 4 – Williamstown Open Day

    The Garden Conservancy partners with the Berkshire Botanical Garden to sponsor this Open Day.  For information and to reserve tickets, log on to www.gardenconservancy.org.

    152 Ide Road, Williamstown

    This garden, surrounding an old carriage barn, is divided into rooms to resemble the English gardens loved by the owner/gardener/English professor. A walled garden leads to a formal pool, with an island waterfall and the divine lotus that blooms in mid-July. The entrance, a rustic pergola, borders a trellised, ornamental kitchen garden. A white garden, surrounding clumps of native birch, pays homage to Sissinghurst. A folly, with broken stones and a dripping column, evokes ancient ruins, while an arched window on an old marble base, framing the folly, the long hot border, or the distant landscape, looks into the past and future.

    260 Northwest Hill Road, Williamstown

    This lovely house features a harmonious landscape of interweaving meadow, lawn, stone terrace, gardens, pools, and house. Elegant, yet informal, the outdoor spaces vary in character from a dramatic woodland ravine, to an intimate bedroom shade garden, to an expansive lawn with views of Mount Greylock and Dome Mountain. Guests are immediately welcomed by an arrival garden with a terraced front entrance. They will visit a rhododendron and hosta shade garden, a rock garden with fishpond, and a lower grove with a sitting garden. Each is unique in character, yet intimately connected with the house and the surrounding multi-level terrain.

    Brooks Garden, 36 Keep Hill Road, Williamstown

    This garden surrounds one of the first “modern” houses in Williamstown, which was built in 1948 overlooking the valley and Mount Prospect beyond. The pond and fountain in the entrance circle is one of four made by the owners. On the west side of the circle is a small katsura grove. Connecting the house and garage is an herbal courtyard with a pergola and trellis that holds grapevines, wisteria, and kiwi in profusion. In the middle is a small pond with a quiet fountain surrounded by herbs and pastel spring flowers which give way to warmer colors that attract hummingbirds and butterflies later on in the summer. A larger pond and watercourse is found in the more extensive part of the garden where paths connect different rooms—a shade garden and sedum garden are among them. On the east side of the house is a small vegetable garden, a grove of lilacs, and the patio with a small fountain. All landscaping, garden design, stone walls, and care are provided by the owners.

    Mount Hope Farm, Williamstown

    Views of Mount Greylock and the Taconic Range from informal gardens makes this property enjoyable to see any time of day. Carol and Bob began creating their gardens at their hilltop home in 2000. Carol is interested in newly introduced, native, and sometimes rare plants, Zone 4, that give color, shape, and texture throughout the year and stand up to strong winds and low temperatures. There are mixed grasses at the entrance, native plants and a dry creek with mosses and ferns leading to the front door, and a sculptural installation and a sunken patio/ room where there are tender perennials. Succulents and low-growing plants surround a seating area. Most of the plants have been selected and tended by the owners.

    Wagner Garden, 33 Haley Street, Williamstown

    One of the original Haley houses in Haley Village, Williamstown, this in-town house and garden on a quarter-acre lot has evolved over a period of seventeen years. The garden complements the simple lines of the 1940s house and is a creative example of what can be done in a small landscape. The garden has been designed and entirely maintained by the owner. Mixed borders consisting of perennials, shrubs, and ornamental trees create garden rooms that each have their own character. The lawn is used as a path to lead visitors from one area to another. Annuals and containers are used for continuous color, especially on the stone patio. A variety of vines have been used for privacy fences and to add visual height to the garden. Rather than an abundance of flowers, the main focus of the garden is on foliage textures and plants of personal interest.