Boston Flora

Tag: Garden Museum

  • Tuesday, September 30, 2:00 pm Eastern – Melbourne Hall Garden, Online

    Discover one of England’s most admired historic gardens in this special livestreamed event dedicated to the story of Melbourne Hall Garden. Join The Garden Museum on September 30 at 2 pm Eastern for the launch of the new title Melbourne Hall Garden, with author Jodie Jones, photographer Andrea Jones, and chaired by George Plumptre.

    Famed for its sweeping yew tunnel and Robert Bakewell’s extraordinary wrought-iron arbor – the celebrated ‘Birdcage’ that made his name – Melbourne’s garden has changed little since the early 18th century. Yet in the 20th century, it underwent extensive restoration, and under the care of Lord and Lady Ralph Kerr it continues to flourish. Unusual specimen trees, shrubs, and herbaceous borders have been introduced, bringing fresh botanical interest to this classical landscape.

    This talk will explore Melbourne Hall Garden’s layered history and celebrate its ongoing evolution. Join us for an evening of history, horticulture, and artistry in one of England’s great gardens. Book the livestream (£10) at https://gardenmuseum.org.uk/product/livestream-melbourne-hall-30-09-25/

  • Friday, October 3, 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm Eastern – Waterwise Garden: Sustain Your Garden Through Drought & Flood, Online

    Join award-winning garden designer Tom Massey and the Royal Horticultural Society online on October 3 for the launch of his new book, RHS Waterwise Garden: Sustain Your Garden Through Drought & Flood.

    Water is vital to a flourishing garden. In Waterwise Garden, multi award-winning garden designer Tom Massey explains how to design a garden that will use water efficiently, withstand drought and mitigate flooding.

    With a changing climate, it can be difficult to know how to create a beautiful garden that is fit to thrive in an uncertain future. In this talk, Tom shares practical design and planting tips that will help transform any outside space into a water-absorbing, water-saving haven.

    Published in association with the RHS and written in close collaboration with its science team, RHS Waterwise Garden explores why we must value water, how thoughtful garden design can build resilience, and what gardeners can do to be more waterwise at home. From enhancing the permeability of hard surfaces and managing water flow, to selecting plants and features that absorb excess rain, Tom Massey offers innovative solutions for gardens of every size.

    Register (£10 Livestream) at gardenmuseum.org

  • Tuesday, September 23, 5:00 am – 6:30 am Eastern (but recorded) – Accessing the Archives: William Andrews Nesfield and Castle Howard

    This Gardens Trust online talk, presented in conjunction with the Garden Museum, on September 23, will examine the commissions by the 7th Earl of Carlisle for Nesfield to transform the gardens at Castle Howard in the middle of the 19th century. His work included two large fountains, a parterre, and extensions to the south waterways over the course of fifteen years. The copious correspondence in the archives at Castle Howard chronicles these projects, including the disastrous over-run in costs, and the technical challenges for supplying the fountains. Acclaimed in its day, Nesfield’s garden at Castle Howard remains one of his most successful commissions, notwithstanding the alterations in subsequent years. The talk will also draw from Nesfield’s papers formerly in a private family archive and now in the collection of the Garden Museum and assess the present state of knowledge about this major landscape designer of Victorian England.

    Christopher Ridgway has been curator at Castle Howard since 1985, and has published widely on its architecture, landscapes and collections, including several essays on Nesfield. He is chair of the Yorkshire Country House Partnership, and adjunct professor in the history department at Maynooth University. His book, Castle Howard, A Grand Tour of England’s Finest Country House will be published in November 2025.

    This ticket is for this individual session and costs £8. Attendees will be sent a Zoom link 2 days (and again a few hours) prior to the start of the first talk (If you do not receive this link, please contact us), and a link to the recorded session will be sent shortly after each session and will be available for 2 weeks. Register through Eventbrite HERE.

  • Tuesday, September 2, 12:00 noon Eastern – Bunny Mellon: A Life in Gardens and Beauty, Online

    This summer, from August 23 through September 7, the Garden Museum presents a special pop-up exhibition in the Magazine Space celebrating the remarkable life and legacy of Rachel ‘Bunny’ Lambert Mellon – renowned garden designer, philanthropist and patron of the arts who shaped some of the 20th century’s most iconic landscapes, including the White House Rose Garden, now destroyed.

    In collaboration with the British design house de Gournay and the Oak Spring Garden Foundation, Bunny Mellon: A Life in Bloom offers a rare glimpse into the world of one of the 20th century’s most influential horticultural figures.

    At the heart of the exhibition are exquisite works of art, rare manuscripts and botanical illustrations from Mrs. Mellon’s personal collection – now housed at the Oak Spring Garden Library in Virginia. These treasured pieces served as inspiration for de Gournay’s new hand-painted wallpaper and porcelain collection, which pays homage to Mrs. Mellon’s enduring passion for gardens, craftsmanship and the natural world. To coincide with the exhibition, we’re hosting a special evening on September 2 celebrating the life and legacy of Bunny Mellon.


    This special event will include contributions from designer and author Charlotte Moss, whose career spans over three decades and is considered one of the most celebrated and respected interior designers in America. Charlotte will be joined by Sir Peter Crane and Rachel Heslop of the Oak Spring Garden Foundation, offering personal insights into Mellon’s visionary world. Discover the story behind her private garden at Oak Spring, her extraordinary botanical library, and the new Bunny Mellon Collection by de Gournay, a tribute in hand-painted wallpaper and porcelain to her love of plants, art, and the handmade.

    Join us for a chance to explore how Mellon’s legacy continues to inspire beauty, creativity, and care for the natural world. To book the livestream, visit www.gardenmuseum.org/uk £10. The livestream will be recorded and you may watch on demand.

  • Through September 21 – Cecil Beaton’s Garden Party

    London’s Garden Museum summer exhibition is open now. Best known for his iconic fashion photography, Cecil Beaton had a bouquet of creative talents: he was also an accomplished costume and set designer for film, theatre and ballet, and a gifted artist. This exhibition is the first to examine the common thread weaving through Beaton’s work: gardens and flowers.

    Photographs, paintings, drawings, costume and set design will explore the role flowers played in developing Cecil Beaton’s creative practice; from the lavish floral installations he created for parties with flowers from his own gardens, to painted and fresh flowers used as backdrops for fashion photography and royal portraits, to the famous floral costumes in My Fair Lady.

    The exhibit, open through September 21, is curated by Garden Museum Curator Emma House and designed by artist and designer Luke Edward Hall. Can’t get to London? Buy the catalogue. This catalogue accompanying the exhibition includes a foreword by art historian and museum director Sir Roy Strong sharing memories of his lifelong friendship with Beaton, which followed their collaboration on Beaton’s 1968 exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, where Strong was then Director.

    An essay by Garden Museum Curator Emma House further explores Beaton’s passion for his gardens, with photographs, paintings, drawings, costume and set designs from the exhibition illustrating the role flowers played in developing his creative practice.

  • Tuesday, June 3, 11:30 am Eastern – Roses in the Garden with Ngoc Minh Go and Tania Compton, Online

    Join the Garden Museum online on June 3 for a talk bringing together two leading voices in the world of gardens: acclaimed photographer Ngoc Minh Ngo and celebrated garden designer and writer Tania Compton. They will explore the rose in image-making and landscape design, in famous gardens throughout the world.

    After 3000 years of cultivation the rose continues to seduce, and through conversation and exquisite images from Ngoc’s new book, they will discuss and celebrate a flower that has greater variety and popularity than almost any other. Ngoc and Tania will also reflect on the creative process, the power of photography to shape how we experience gardens, and the stories that emerge when design and documentation come together. £10 Livestream Book at www.gardenmuseum.org.uk

  • Wednesday, May 21, 12:00 noon – 1:00 pm Eastern – RHS Chelsea Flower Show Gardens, Online

    Join garden designers Nigel Dunnett and Tom Hoblyn for an exclusive insight into how they created their show gardens for this year’s RHS Chelsea Flower Show. The livestream will be available May 21 from noon – 1 Eastern, and will be available thereafter on demand. £10 Livestream. Register at www.gardenmuseum.org.uk

    Nigel Dunnett is Professor of Planting Design and Urban Horticulture at the University of Sheffield, and a gold-medal winning designer and author. He is one of the world’s leading voices on innovative planting design and ecological horticulture. He’ll be talking about his remarkable sand dune garden which takes its inspiration from the coastal location of charity partner Hospitalfield Arts in Arbroath. The garden interprets this landscape through the eyes of an artist, and creates a dramatic, highly sculptural topography. At the heart of the garden is an outdoor artists’ studio. The planting is resilient and forward-looking, and is established in sand, provoking discussions about trends for planting in low-fertility mineral substrates rather than rich topsoils for climate-adaptation. The garden features a dune pool, which collects rainwater from the studio and the surrounding dunes.

    Tom Hoblyn is a RHS Chelsea Flower Show veteran who has created the Hospice UK – Garden of Compassion at the show this week. The garden has been designed for patients and families at the end of life. Drawing from his deep connection to the Mediterranean landscapes he’s explored on plant hunting trips, Tom has crafted a garden that combines the grounding presence of natural stone with the calming effects of drought-tolerant plants. Tom has used materials from the North East of England (as the garden is being relocated to St Cuthbert’s Hospice in Durham after the Show) and he has worked with extraordinary artisans on the sculptural benches and water features, to make a garden that aims to support both the emotional and physical needs of those in hospice care.

  • Tuesday, April 15, 3:00 pm – 4:00 pm Eastern – Wonderlands: British Garden Designers at Home, Online

    The Garden Museum is delighted to host the official launch of garden writer Clare Coulson’s new book, Wonderlands: British Garden Designers at Home, showcasing the stunning private gardens of eighteen leading landscape architects and garden designers. The event will be streamed online on April 15 from 3 – 4 pm Eastern, and is £10 Livestream.

    With breathtaking photography by Éva Németh, the book offers a rare glimpse into the inventive and idiosyncratic ways these designers craft their own gardens, some of which have been photographed for the first time.

    Miranda Brooks, one of eighteen designers featured in the book, will join Clare in conversation to discuss her career in landscape, which has taken her from apprenticing with Arabella Lennox-Boyd to founding her eponymous landscape studio in New York, where one of her first commissions was to create a garden for Anna Wintour.

    Miranda’s gardens are distinctive yet completely timeless, with a deep sense of the pastoral and a connectivity to nature. Alongside discussion of her design practice, the talk will also cover her latest project developing the gardens and landscape at her home in Gloucestershire, which includes an expansive kitchen garden, herbaceous borders and meadows, all of which is managed biodynamically. Book at https://gardenmuseum.org.uk/events/talk-wonderlands-british-garden-designers-at-home/?mc_cid=40c0190e3d&mc_eid=03faa403db

  • Tuesday, April 8, 7:00 pm – 8:00 pm GMT – The Swimming Pool Garden, Online and Recorded

    Christopher Woodward explores the history of swimming pools as features in the design of private gardens from the 17th-century until 1939. This Garden Museum program will be livestreamed on April 8 at 7 pm – 8 pm Greenwich Mean Time, and I’ll leave it to you to figure out just what that means in your time zone, but you will be able to access the talk after the event with a link which will be sent to registrants. The cost of the livestream is £10. Buy your ticket at https://gardenmuseum.org.uk/product/livestream-christophers-lecture-08-04-25/.

    In this talk, Christopher Woodward will begin by discussing candidates for the earliest swimming pool in Britain, and the distinction between cold bath and swimming pool in the Georgian age; public swimming pools became a phenomenon of the Victorian city but it was not until the Edwardian age that country house gardens gave centre stage to the pool as an ornamental feature.

    The 1920s and ‘30s were the Golden Age of the swimming pool, owing to a heady cocktail of Hollywood movies and Country Life magazine, chlorinated water and elasticated swimsuit – and for the first time men and women swimming together in a fashionable new sport.

    This talk is research in progress by Christopher Woodward, Director of the Garden Museum. Christopher is an architectural historian and a swimmer, who has recently swum 100 kilometres in Greece to raise funds for the new public garden of Lambeth Green. He reviews swimming pools for Country Life, the Telegraph and the Financial Times.

  • Saturday, January 18 – February 8, 10:30 am – 4:30 pm GMT – Looking at Historic Landscapes and Gardens: An Introduction to Garden History 2025, Online

    Hosted in partnership with The Gardens Trust, this Garden Museum livestreamed course provides an introduction to the history of gardens and garden design through the ages. This course offers students with little or no previous knowledge a chronological panorama of the development of garden history from medieval and Tudor gardens through to the twentieth century, and will end with the 21st century, tomorrow’s history in the making!

    The sixteen lectures will run over four Saturdays, January 18 – February 8, and be delivered by well-known speakers and experts in their fields.

    Week One: Saturday January 18 2025

    • What is  garden history with Tim Richardson
    • Overview of the early modern era with Jill Francis
    • John Tradescant naturalist, gardener, collector with speaker TBA
    • Looking at surviving 17th century gardens with Jill Francis

    Week Two: Saturday 25 January 2025

    • Setting the scene of the Georgian era with Dr. Twigs Way
    • Looking at landscape parks with Dr .Twigs Way
    • Looking follies and grottoes with Peter Cooke
    • Understanding picturesque landscapes with Dr. Deborah Evans

    Week Three: Saturday 1 February 2025

    • Setting the scene on the Victorian era with Francesca Murray
    • High Victorian design with Ben Dark
    • Working class gardening with Ben Dark
    • Looking at the arts and crafts garden with Cherrill Sands

    Week Four: Saturday 8 February 2025

    Modern women gardeners with Caroline Holmes

    Overview of the 20th & 21st Century with Tim Richardson

    Post industrial landscapes with John Little

    Planting styles in the 20th century flower garden with Andrew Wilson

    Livestream 4-week course: £100. Livestream single day: £30. Register at www.gardenmuseum.org.uk