Boston Flora

Tag: Gardens Trust

  • Wednesday, September 27, 1:00 pm – 2:30 pm Eastern – Head Gardeners at Historic Sites: Katy Merrington at the Hepworth Wakefield Garden, Online

    The Gardens Trust will focus on head gardeners working at historic sites. Split into two 5-week series on Wednesdays, the season will kick off with an exploration of the head gardener role over the past two centuries, followed by talks exploring how individual head gardeners are balancing the heritage of their site, the wishes of its owner(s) and their own interests and experience. We’ll hear about the role from both seasoned head gardeners and those more recently appointed. Join us to learn about the challenges they face, including climate change, as well as the joys of horticulture and heritage.

    At the end of the first series, we will also be offering a FREE roundtable discussion on the different career paths available to head gardeners, and ways of encouraging more people to enter or progress in the profession. Please register separately for this.

    You may purchase a ticket for the entire course of 5 sessions at a cost of £20 via the link here. [Gardens Trust members may use their promo code for a discount.] Please register separately for the roundtable discussion, or for individual sessions by following the links HERE. Ticket sales close 4 hours before the talk. 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.

    At The Hepworth Wakefield, an art gallery and creative space in the heart of Yorkshire, an unused acre of land has recently been transformed into a beautiful, free, public garden, designed by internationally acclaimed landscape architect Tom Stuart-Smith. His design draws inspiration from its unusual setting between 19th-century red-brick mills and a 21st-century art gallery, edged by the River Calder. It echoes the striking, angular shapes of the David Chipperfield-designed gallery while harnessing a naturalism that reflects Barbara Hepworth’s deep connection to the landscape. As well as Stuart-Smith’s distinctive planting, there are outdoor sculptures by Sir Michael Craig-Martin, Barbara Hepworth and Kim Lim.

    The garden is cared for by Cultural Gardener Katy Merrington and a team of volunteers and is a much-cherished urban oasis, providing space for events and activities, as well as being rich in biodiversity. Katy will be the September 27 speaker in this series.

    Katy Merrington studied fine art before training as a horticulturist and has previously worked in beautiful gardens across the UK and USA, including the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh at Logan, Dumfries & Galloway, Tresco Abbey Gardens, Isles of Scilly and Longwood Gardens, Pennsylvania, USA. Photo credit: Jason Ingram.

  • Tuesday, September 26, 5:00 am – 6:30 am Eastern (but recorded) – Birkenhead Park, Online

    The Gardens Trust has created a seven part series on Tuesdays, beginning September 12, to mark 50 years of UNESCO World Heritage, £5 each or all 7 for £28. Starting with an overview of World Heritage values and the changing nature of the UK list, the series will aim to enthuse people about individual sites around Great Britain, highlighting what makes each one exceptional, the advantages and challenges of being inscribed on the list, and the issues around sustainable future management of these global assets. 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 for the complete series HERE, or follow the links on that page to sign up for individual sessions.

    Week Three features Marie le Devehat and Rob Belcher speaking on Birkenhead Park. Birkenhead Park is widely acknowledged to be the earliest purpose-built and publicly funded urban public park in the UK. Designed in 1844 by Joseph Paxton, it was laid out in the picturesque manner, in response to the rapid growth of the urban population. The way its landscape was designed stirs the emotions and provides a feeling of countryside in an urban conurbation. Today, Birkenhead Park’s undulating parkland still provides a green oasis for everyone to enjoy. In April 2023, “Birkenhead the People’s Park” was officially included on the UK’s Tentative List as a potential future nomination for the UNESCO World Heritage List. It has exceptional value as an innovative and influential model for local authority funded urban parks and has continued to serve the social purpose for which it was created.

    Marie Le Devehat is the World Heritage Project Officer for Birkenhead Park. Since joining Wirral Council in November 2019, she has been working on the application to UNESCO for the Park. Before she embarked on this journey, Marie has held various roles with a focus on World Heritage sites, heritage management, and has personal research interests in ‘heritage & memory’ studies.

    Rob Belcher is currently supporting Wirral Council’s ambitions for Birkenhead Park. His background is in town planning and landscape design. For the majority of Rob’s 35-year career he has worked in the sphere of public parks management and development, finding himself increasingly focused on the restoration and improvement of historic landscapes. Prior to starting work at Birkenhead Park in 2018, Rob was fortunate to lead the comprehensive restoration of Burslem and Hanley Parks in Stoke-on-Trent.

  • Tuesday, September 19, 5:00 am – 6:30 am (but recorded) – The Lake District, Online

    The Gardens Trust has created a seven part series on Tuesdays, beginning September 12, to mark 50 years of UNESCO World Heritage, £5 each or all 7 for £28. Starting with an overview of World Heritage values and the changing nature of the UK list, the series will aim to enthuse people about individual sites around Great Britain, highlighting what makes each one exceptional, the advantages and challenges of being inscribed on the list, and the issues around sustainable future management of these global assets. 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 for the complete series HERE, or follow the links on that page to sign up for individual sessions.

    Week Two on September 19 is The Lake District with Harvey Wilkinson. The English Lake District is a self-contained mountain area whose narrow, radiating glaciated valleys, steep fells and slender lakes exhibit an extraordinary beauty and harmony. This landscape reflects an outstanding fusion between a distinctive communal farming system that has persisted for a millennium with improvements of villas, and designed landscapes during the 18th and 19th centuries. This combination has attracted and inspired writers and artists of global stature. The landscape also manifests the success of the conservation movement that it stimulated; a movement based on the idea of landscape as a human response to our environment. This cultural force has had world-wide ramifications.

    Added to the World Heritage list in 2017, the complex nature of the Lake District inscription, based on three areas of outstanding universal value, led to the creation of the category Cultural Landscape, of which the Lakes is one of the first.

    This talk will focus on the significance and role of the Lakes villas, gardens and designed landscapes.

    With a background as an art gallery curator in historic buildings, Harvey Wilkinson has worked for the National Trust for ten years, acting as Cultural Heritage Curator for the largest land asset in the National Trust, which amounts to 25 percent of the Lakes total area. He works at a landscape scale, covering all the Trust’s built assets and significant early land acquisitions.

  • Wednesday, September 20, 1:00 pm – 2:30 pm Eastern – Head Gardeners at Historic Sites: Graham Dillamore at Hampton Court and Kensington Palace

    The Gardens Trust will focus on head gardeners working at historic sites. Split into two 5-week series on Wednesdays, the season will kick off with an exploration of the head gardener role over the past two centuries, followed by talks exploring how individual head gardeners are balancing the heritage of their site, the wishes of its owner(s) and their own interests and experience. We’ll hear about the role from both seasoned head gardeners and those more recently appointed. Join us to learn about the challenges they face, including climate change, as well as the joys of horticulture and heritage.

    At the end of the first series, we will also be offering a FREE roundtable discussion on the different career paths available to head gardeners, and ways of encouraging more people to enter or progress in the profession. Please register separately for this.

    You may purchase a ticket for the entire course of 5 sessions at a cost of £20 via the link here. [Gardens Trust members may use their promo code for a discount.] Please register separately for the roundtable discussion, or for individual sessions by following the links HERE. Ticket sales close 4 hours before the talk. 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 September 20 we will hear from Graham Dillamore. Hampton Court and Kensington Palace are two of the six sites run today by the charity Historic Royal Palaces. Hampton Court Palace’s world-famous gardens include 60 acres of spectacular formal gardens and 750 acres (304 hectares) of parkland, all set within a loop of the River Thames. Kensington Gardens began life as a King’s playground; for over 100 years, the gardens were part of Hyde Park and hosted Henry VIII’s huge deer chase. Shaped by successive monarchs, highlights of the 107-hectare site today include Bridgeman’s Serpentine, the Long Water, Italian Garden, the Edwardian sunken garden, and a new wildflower meadow.

    Graham Dillamore is head gardener at Hampton Court and Kensington Palace and has cared for royal gardens for over 40 years. He started his career as an apprentice gardener at London’s Royal Parks, before becoming head gardener at Kensington Palace, and then joining the Royal Household to maintain the private gardens of the Prince and Princess of Wales in the 1980s. After transferring his skills to Hampton Court, Graham worked on several major landscape restoration projects including the recreation of William III’s Privy Garden (below), Home Parks tree avenues, the Royal Kitchen Gardens and more recently, the transformation of the Sunken Garden at Kensington Palace in memory of Diana, Princess of Wales.

  • Tuesday, September 12, 5:00 am – 6:30 am Eastern (but recorded) – World Heritage Landscapes, Online

    The Gardens Trust has created a seven part series on Tuesdays, beginning September 12, to mark 50 years of UNESCO World Heritage, £5 each or all 7 for £28. Starting with an overview of World Heritage values and the changing nature of the UK list, the series will aim to enthuse people about individual sites around Great Britain, highlighting what makes each one exceptional, the advantages and challenges of being inscribed on the list, and the issues around sustainable future management of these global assets. 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 for the complete series HERE, or follow the links on that page to sign up for individual sessions.

    Week One is an Introduction to World Heritage with Chris Blandford. This introductory talk will explore how the UK list has evolved from the early iconic monument sites to include more extensive, diverse, and complex cultural landscapes and cityscapes. It will highlight how improved approaches to management, partnership, and stakeholder involvement are helping support the sites – and how significant challenges remain. Chris Blandford is a world heritage specialist, master planner and landscape architect with a professional career spanning 45 years. He is currently President of World Heritage UK, the charity that represents and promotes, both locally and nationally, the interests of the 33 UK World Heritage Sites. He is Vice Chair of the Gardens Trust. Until 2017 he was Chairman and CEO of the award-winning CBA Studios, which he founded in 1977. He is a Fellow of the Landscape Institute, Vice Chairman of the South Downs National Park Design Review Panel and a past trustee of ICOMOS.

  • Wednesday, September 13, 1:00 pm – 2:30 pm Eastern – Head Gardeners at Historic Sites: Introduction, Online

    The Gardens Trust will focus on head gardeners working at historic sites. Split into two 5-week series on Wednesdays, the season will kick off with an exploration of the head gardener role over the past two centuries, followed by talks exploring how individual head gardeners are balancing the heritage of their site, the wishes of its owner(s) and their own interests and experience. We’ll hear about the role from both seasoned head gardeners and those more recently appointed. Join us to learn about the challenges they face, including climate change, as well as the joys of horticulture and heritage.

    At the end of the first series, we will also be offering a FREE roundtable discussion on the different career paths available to head gardeners, and ways of encouraging more people to enter or progress in the profession. Please register separately for this.

    You may purchase a ticket for the entire course of 5 sessions at a cost of £20 via the link here. [Gardens Trust members may use their promo code for a discount.] Please register separately for the roundtable discussion, or for individual sessions by following the links HERE. Ticket sales close 4 hours before the talk. 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.

    The first talk is titled: Real Virtues and Exasperating Foibles: The Fraught Relationship between Landowner and Head Gardener, 1823-2023. Drawing on personal experience as a head gardener as well as archive material and contemporary diaries, Ben Dark examines the often tense, occasionally combative and sometimes staggeringly productive relationship between an estate’s most unusual servant and their employer.

    Starting in 1823, when Joseph Paxton met the 6th Duke of Devonshire, and ending in 2023 with the return of ‘the celebrity head gardener,’ this talk will examine how professional horticulturalists and wealthy landowners have responded to changing garden fashions, social structures and ways of life. It will end by drawing on two-centuries’ worth of conflict and collaboration to make a prediction about how gardeners and their employers will be getting on (or not) fifty years from now.

    Ben Dark is a gardener and writer. After reading History at university he trained in horticulture, working his way up to head gardener level while completing an MA in Garden and Landscape history. In November he was named Journalist of the Year at the Garden Media Guild Awards and his book, The Grove: A Nature Odyssey in 19 ½ Front Gardens (Mitchell Beasley, 2022) a mixture of garden history, biography and nature writing, has been widely praised in the gardening and general press.

  • Monday, May 29, 1:00 pm – 2:30 pm Eastern – Roses from the Arctic to Australia: Pruning and Training – Getting the Best Out of Roses and Wisteria, Online

    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 Seven, Bev Bond will cover Pruning and Training: Getting the Best Out of Roses and Wisteria. In this talk Bev will be aiming to show the possibilities of these marvelous and sometimes majestic plants and will introduce you to some beautiful plants that she has cared for over the years. She will explore training, supports, growing plants on buildings, (including historic buildings) and the importance of soil, aspect and establishment. She will discuss some of her techniques, rose varieties, pruning cuts, wound healing, pruning for direction and planning ahead. Bev will also look at the supposed dichotomy between historical accuracy and ornamental value, and the possibilities when restoring plants. Some information on tools, tool maintenance, health and safety, ladders, attachment, wires and tying, will follow.

    Bev Bond was born into two families of market gardeners; her father and both grandfathers grew vegetables and flowers for Covent Garden. She was educated at grammar school, then Braintree College, Shuttleworth Horticultural College and The Open University. After working some years in the family business, Bev moved to inspecting production of oats, fruits and nuts, throughout Europe, for a major food manufacturer, for 10 years. Then, during a decade employed as gardener, guide, and garden guardian in a historic garden, she further developed her pruning skills on large wisteria, climbing roses and so forth and began to branch out on her own.

    For the past 23 years Bev has been self-employed as a horticultural gardener, and over the last 17, specializing in wisteria and rose contract pruning and training. She has been lecturing on garden history and presenting talks on gardens, and plants for over twenty years.

  • Monday, May 22, 1:00 pm – 2:30 pm Eastern – Roses from the Arctic to Australia: Il Piccolo Roseto di Giovanni Chilanti, Online

    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 Six, Helga Brichet will speak on Il Piccolo Roseto di Giovanni Chilanti. This small rose garden on a hillside outside Rome overlooking olive groves was established by Italian engineer Emanuele Dotti in memory of a dear friend who had inspired him with a love of old and species roses. It started life as a collection of roses grown in large containers on the terrace of Emanuele’s Rome apartment, but soon expanded so that outside space became urgently needed to house them. Some land on the edge of a small village outside Rome was located, and this is the story of how the rose garden developed, with over 600 roses bushes in beds, borders, and climbing up olive trees, overlooking a valley in a beautiful countryside setting. Now there are plans to establish a reading room in the farmhouse for visitors, with a collection of books on roses from the late Milton Nurse, former editor of the Historic Rose Journal, donated by the Historic Roses Group.

    Helga Brichet is a distinguished rosarian, plant-hunter and lecturer who was President of the World Federation of Rose Societies (WFRS) from 1997 – 2000. Now Emeritus President, she lives with her Belgian husband, André, in Italy, on a 5-acre hillside property in Santa Maria, Umbria, central Italy. Here Helga grows a large number of China roses and Hybrid Giganteas, Hybrid Sempervirens and “Mystery Roses” from Bermuda. In her 9 years as chairman of the WFRS Conservation Committee she established the Specialised Conservation Committee, constructing an international database on endangered rose varieties and their location. One of her ambitions has been to introduce to rose lovers in the western hemisphere old and historical roses from China, many scarcely known previously in the west. In 2000 a beautiful chance seedling rose with single pale pink blooms, discovered by Australian nurseryman John Nieuwesteeg, was named ‘Helga Brichet’.

  • Monday, May 15, 1:00 pm – 2:30 pm Eastern – Roses from the Arctic to Australia: What’s in a Name? Online

    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/

    The fifth in the series is What’s in a Name? with Darrell Schramm. If you’ve ever wondered how or why an historic/heritage rose obtained its name, you may be interested in this talk. Who or what was the original inspiration for these often tantalising names? Were the roses named for celebrities of the past, for particular places or famous events, or for people who were linked personally to the rose breeder? More prosaically, did hard-nosed business play a starring role? If so, did this do the trick and help bring profit for the breeder and lasting fame for the person, place or event – or for the rose? Darrell Schramm will briefly discuss the background or history behind about four dozen old garden roses, and show you beautiful images of them, too. It will be a virtual story time. Pour yourself a cup of tea – or maybe something stronger – and be prepared to be enlightened, amused and entertained.

    A teacher and professor for about 45 years, Darrell Schramm taught literature, English composition, poetry, editing, and rhetoric, and is now retired from University of San Francisco. He was born in North Dakota, and has also lived in Colombia, Portugal, and Spain. His publications include a book of poetry and Rainbow: A History of the Rose in California (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2017), as well as poetry in more than 100 poetry publications, plus articles in various academic magazines and journals. He is currently editor of Rose Letter for The Heritage Roses Group and of The Vintage Rose for The Friends of Vintage Roses, and American Rose Society Chair for Heritage Rose Preservation, as well as a member of the Historic Rose Group and a regular contributor to the Historic Rose Journal.

    ‘Monsieur Jule Lemaitre’

  • Tuesday, May 9, 5:00 am – 6:30 am Eastern (but Recorded) – Gardens of the Gods: Pantheism and the New Beliefs

    The Gardens Trust presents a four part online lecture series with Toby Musgrave beginning April 18. Tickets £16 for the series or £5 each through Eventbrite. For thousands of years peoples and civilizations the world over have adopted belief systems that give a key role to the natural world and the trees, fruits and flowers to be found there. Whether living a primitive existence in a desert land or enjoying the fruits of a richly cultivated soil, man endows his spirit world, his gods and his presumed afterlife with fertile, sweet surroundings that reflect an ideal – a garden paradise. Taking a global perspective and with a chronology of over 5,000 years, Gardens of the Gods examines, explores and interprets the purpose, role, use and symbolism of plants and gardens in more than fifteen belief systems, some still practiced and others not.

    The final lecture of the series on May 9 is Pantheism and the New Beliefs. The individual ticket may be reserved 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 (If you do not receive this link please contact us). A link to the recorded session will be sent shortly after each session and will be available for 1 week .

    The last lecture embraces a combination of religions in which pantheism and plants were significant: in Northern Europe the Celtic and Norse traditions, in North America the Native American ones, and those of Mesoamerican cultures. The lecture wraps up with a look at how plants and gardens remain symbolic in today’s ever increasingly secular society.

    Dr Toby Musgrave FSA FLS is a garden and plants historian, horticulturist and author. His books have covered a wide range of subjects from head gardeners to heritage fruit and vegetables, plant hunters to paradise gardens, and a biography of Sir Joseph Banks. He was a major contributor to Radio 4’s series “The British Garden” and he has been a consultant for many gardening and garden history related programs on both the BBC and commercial television. He lives in Denmark and when not gardening, teaching or writing he works as a submersible pilot.

    Norns Under the Sacred Ash Yggdrasill