This Gardens Trust online series of four lectures considers aspects of play and playfulness within the landscape and garden. For children, play is the life’s work. We all want to discover what’s new and explore what’s out of sight. We should never lose this sense of revelry. Families that play together come away walking tall and feeling better about themselves and each other. In the spirit, let us celebrate the importance and life-affirming joy of play. 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. This ticket link is for this April 26 individual session and costs £5: www.thegardenstrust.org
Mazes satisfy the urge to explore what is hidden and forbidden. They offer rich symbolism, puzzling adventures and shared bonding experiences. What are the key principles for creating mazes? What extra maze rules or methods of construction are possible? We also consider ways of creating your own maze in your private garden. The act of creation of a maze is often the most formative experience for the owners. Welcome to a word of imagination and delight with lecturer Adrian Fisher!
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.
On April 25, the focus is on the concept of Gan Eden in Judaism, the Garden of Eden in Christianity and earthy paradise of the Islamic chahar bagh garden; and expanding out to discuss mediæval monastic gardens and the hortus conclusus – how did the Virgin Mary become associated with the beloved in the Song of Solomon?
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 programmes on both the BBC and commercial television. He lives in Denmark and when not gardening, teaching or writing he works as a submersible pilot.
Tickets £16 for the series or £5 each. 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 . Register HERE.
The Garden of Eden with the Fall of Man, Jan Brueghel the Elder
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/
Week Two is The Other Rosaceae – Brogdale and the National Fruit Collection with Tom La Dell. The National Fruit Collection growing at Brogdale is the most comprehensive collection of fruit varieties in the world. It is the contribution of DEFRA (the UK’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization’s collections of genetic diversity to secure the future of the world’s food crops. It is the only fruiting collection, providing public access to the National Fruit Collection and to a wide range of education programs on the heritage of the varieties held, fruit cultivation, and fruit in a healthy diet, plus guided tours, festivals and events. Tom will talk about the 4,000 apples, pears, cherries, plums and smaller collections, and how Brogdale Collections is working to maximize the public benefits of these wonderful collections. Future plans include a series of fruit gardens from Medieval to Renaissance (Italian Villas) to Baroque (Versailles) and the Victorian kitchen garden, to show around 400 historic varieties in their historic settings.
Tom la Dell is a landscape architect and ecologist, a trustee of the charity Brogdale Collections, a member of the Kent Gardens Trust and the HRG. Originally a plant scientist, Tom became a landscape architect instead of working with breeding food crops. His work has included all aspects of landscape architecture, often combined with his work as an ecologist. He has written extensively for the KGT and the Historic Rose Journal. His long-standing interest in garden history and plant heritage started with excellent lectures in the late 1960s.
This Gardens Trust online series of four lectures considers aspects of play and playfulness within the landscape and garden. For children, play is the life’s work. We all want to discover what’s new and explore what’s out of sight. We should never lose this sense of revelry. Families that play together come away walking tall and feeling better about themselves and each other. In the spirit, let us celebrate the importance and life-affirming joy of play. 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. This ticket link is for this April 19 individual session and costs £5: www.thegardenstrust.org
For four thousand years, Labyrinths have symbolized the Thread of Time and the Path of Life. Across cultures and civilizations, the notion of the Labyrinth has kept appearing and reinventing itself, from Nordic folklore, Roman mosaics and medieval Christian cathedrals to present day examples.
Adrian Fisher gives his own particular interpretation of the Christian Path of Life; not ending (as in Jesus Christ Superstar) at the moment of mortal death; but continuing onwards beyond mortal life to eternal life and Salvation. Adrian FisherMBE is the world’s leading creator of mazes of all kinds, full of challenges, discovery and fun. For 44 years he has been transforming the traditional art of getting lost into state-of-the-art adventures, each with a compelling narrative and story line. He and his wife Marie live in the village of the Durweston in Dorset. Their garden contains his GEOMITICA art, and a hedge maze with a folly tower, mirrored chamber, spiral staircase and battlements.
He is the author of a whole shelf of books about mazes while his website www.mazemaker explains much more about his work.
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/
Week One on April 17 is The Humour of Hole with Martin Stott. This presentation is about the Rev. Samuel Reynolds Hole, 1819-1904, celebrated Anglican preacher, rosarian, horticulturalist, prolific letter-writer, author of the immensely popular A Book about Roses (W. Blackwood and Sons, 1869) among other works, and Dean of Rochester Cathedral. He was the first organizer of the National Rose Show in London, one of the inaugural recipients of the Victoria Medal of Honour awarded by the Royal Horticultural Society and the first president of the National Rose Society, 1876-1904.
A former journalist who has written for most of the UK’s national press, Martin Stott has made programs for Radio 4 and the BBC World Service in 21 countries. He is the co-editor of By Any Other Name, the heritage rose journal of the World Federation of Rose Societies and has written for the Historic Rose Journal and Gardens Illustrated. He is a member of the HRG and writes a garden history blog (see below). As well as being a keen rose grower, Martin is currently leading the restoration of a rare Georgian town garden at Bromley House Library in Nottingham – a garden that retains many of its original features from when the Grade 2*-listed house was created in 1752. He also has a growing collection of memorabilia about ‘the Rose King’, the Rev. Dean Hole; and a tolerant wife.
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.
Week one is entitled The Old World, beginning with a exploration and contrast of sacro-religious plants and gardens within three overlapping ancient civilizations/regions. Those of Ancient Egypt with its afterlife concept of Aaru (or the Field of Reeds), the Minoan civilization on Crete – did they make gardens?, and the Mesopotamian ‘Gardens of the Gods’. We will conclude with a look at the divine nature of the Ancient Greeks and religion in the Roman garden.
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 programmes on both the BBC and commercial television. He lives in Denmark and when not gardening, teaching or writing he works as a submersible pilot. To reserve this ticket link 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 The Gardens Trust). A link to the recorded session will be sent shortly after each session and will be available for 1 week .
Created and re-created against the backdrop of cycle of war and peace with its accompanying social and economic impacts, the twentieth century garden pivots between tradition and modernism, informality and structure. The century sees a shift in both style and materials as concrete takes its place at the heart of new towns and spaces, whilst the country house garden struggles to survive and flourish again in a new order. Garden design increasingly reflects the needs of a wider range of society, whilst literary and artistic movements locate gardens at the very heart of the struggle for meaning in a world of change and aspiration. The Gardens Trust series reflects the continuity and change in garden design and understanding through the twentieth century highlighting specific gardens and designers and setting them within more contextual discussions. 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 1 week. Tickets £30 or £5 each. To purchase a ticket for the complete series through Eventbrite, visit HERE. The Gardens Trust has complete details on its website.
The final lecture of the current series takes place March 30 on Icons of Twentieth Century Design with Katie Campbell. Created and re-created against the backdrop of cycle of war and peace with its accompanying social and economic impacts, the twentieth century garden pivots between tradition and modernism, informality and structure. The century sees a shift in both style and materials as concrete takes its place at the heart of new towns and spaces, whilst the country house garden struggles to survive and flourish again in a new order. Garden design increasingly reflects the needs of a wider range of society, whilst literary and artistic movements locate gardens at the very heart of the struggle for meaning in a world of change and aspiration. The Gardens Trust series reflects the continuity and change in garden design and understanding through the twentieth century highlighting specific gardens and designers and setting them within more contextual discussions.
Katie Campbell is writer and garden historian. She lectures widely, has taught at Birkbeck, Bristol and Buckingham universities; she writes for various publications and leads art and garden tours. Her recently published Cultivating the Renaissance (Routledge, 2022) examines how the Medici’s Tuscan villas reflect the changing ideas of the Renaissance. Earlier books include British Gardens in Time(Frances Lincoln, 2014) which accompanied the BBC television series,Paradise of Exiles (Frances Lincoln, 2009), which explores the Anglo- American garden-makers in late nineteenth century Florence, Policies and Pleasances: A Guide to Scotland’s Gardens(Barn Elms, 2007), and Icons of Twentieth Century Landscape Design(Frances Lincoln, 2006). She is currently working on Virgil and the Bees; a social history of beekeeping.
The stories of the individual plant hunters who operated between the mid-eighteenth and mid-twentieth century have often been told and told well. The aim of this online Gardens Trust series of lectures with Dr. Toby Musgrave, therefore, is to broaden the subject and to explore four complementary yet contrasting topics. It will also serve as an introduction to the whole topic of plant hunting, collecting and transfer round the world, which we are planning to cover in more depth in the autumn. The final lecture on March 27 is Plant Hunting Today. The series ticket costs £16 for the course of 4 sessions or you may purchase a ticket for individual sessions, costing £5. To register through Eventbrite, and for more information, visit HERE, or visit The Gardens Trust events page, https://thegardenstrust.org/events-archive/?events=gardenstrust. 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.
A century ago, George Forrest and Frank Kingdon-Ward were plant hunting in Western China. How different the landscapes and both the objectives and practicalities of plant hunting are today. This final lecture brings the story of plant hunting up to date with an analysis and assessment of how and why plant hunting is conducted today.
Created and re-created against the backdrop of cycle of war and peace with its accompanying social and economic impacts, the twentieth century garden pivots between tradition and modernism, informality and structure. The century sees a shift in both style and materials as concrete takes its place at the heart of new towns and spaces, whilst the country house garden struggles to survive and flourish again in a new order. Garden design increasingly reflects the needs of a wider range of society, whilst literary and artistic movements locate gardens at the very heart of the struggle for meaning in a world of change and aspiration. The Gardens Trust series reflects the continuity and change in garden design and understanding through the twentieth century highlighting specific gardens and designers and setting them within more contextual discussions. 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 1 week. Tickets £30 or £5 each. To purchase a ticket for the complete series through Eventbrite, visit HERE. The Gardens Trust has complete details on its website.
Spanning art from the rural idylls of Helen Allingham to the gritty reality of wartime allotments, and on into the mid-century with artists gardeners of the middling and suburban classes: this Gardens Trust talk on March 23 with Twigs Way will attempt to draw out strands of meaning and symbolism, reflection and realities, that span a century of garden art through war and peace. The talk will introduce lesser known artists, particularly of wartime gardens and public gardens, as well as those more familiar to us creating gardens in the luxuriance of peace. Co-incidentally the talk will discuss some of the artists who will be appearing in the Garden Museum exhibition on Private & Public: Finding The Modern British Garden which commences the day before this talk!
Twigs Way is a garden historian, writer and researcher. Twigs is fascinated by the past and intrigued by the role of flowers, gardens and landscape in art and culture of all kinds. Her talks and books reflect that endless curiosity with themes of symbolism and meaning, class and gender, art and literature . . and her desire to follow unknown paths towards the unexpected. From gnomes in Neasden to hollyhocks from the Holy Land every plant has a tale to tell, every garden a past. Twigs is an accredited Arts Society lecturer and her history of the Chrysanthemumin art and culture was published by Reaktion in 2020. She is currently not-quite working on the equally golden daffodil.
The stories of the individual plant hunters who operated between the mid-eighteenth and mid-twentieth century have often been told and told well. The aim of this online Gardens Trust series of lectures with Dr. Toby Musgrave, therefore, is to broaden the subject and to explore four complementary yet contrasting topics. It will also serve as an introduction to the whole topic of plant hunting, collecting and transfer round the world, which we are planning to cover in more depth in the autumn. The third lecture on March 20 is Victorian Excesses. The series ticket costs £16 for the course of 4 sessions or you may purchase a ticket for individual sessions, costing £5. To register through Eventbrite, and for more information, visit HERE, or visit The Gardens Trust events page, https://thegardenstrust.org/events-archive/?events=gardenstrust. 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 century before the outbreak of the First World War was the zenith of British domestic horticulture, a time when private gardens were a statement of conspicuous consumption and the plants cultivated often rare and expensive. This lecture will reveal some of the less well-known and sometimes barmy tales of horticultural excess.
