Boston Flora

Tag: Gardens Trust

  • Wednesday, January 28, 1:00 pm – 2:30 pm Eastern – Shaping Public Landscape, Online

    The third talk in The Gardens Trust’s online six part course in partnership with FOLAR showcasing women pioneers takes place January 28, individual tickets £8 (members £6). Register through Eventbrite 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 A link to the recorded session will be sent shortly after each session and will be available for 2 weeks.

    Building on FOLAR’s popular series of Women in Landscape, this new collection of talks brings together insights into the motivations and work of three leading contemporary landscape designers and their teams, alongside stories celebrating the lives and achievements of earlier pioneers.

    Each of these women has pushed boundaries to improve the lives of others. Some have studied and worked in the UK before adapting their knowledge and ideas to suit the unique contexts of their home countries – an exciting process of creative cross-pollination.

    Every generation needs its pioneers, those who make lasting, and at times radical, changes, and who also inspire others to think boldly and act with confidence. Throughout the history of landscape design, there have always been people whose ideas and work transform the way we understand and shape our environments.

    As with FOLAR’s previous series, these talks aim to showcase some of the most inspiring people, projects, and ideas in the field — past and present.

    Talk 3. 28th January: Shaping Public Landscape with Saira Ali

    As President Elect of the Landscape Institute and Team Leader of Landscape Design & Conservation at Bradford Council, Saira will share how co-design, inclusion, and purpose-led regeneration are transforming communities. Her journey shows how public service and landscape can drive climate resilience, equity, and meaningful change across places and people.

    Saira Ali FLI is President Elect of the Landscape Institute and Team Leader of Landscape Design & Conservation at Bradford Council. An award-winning leader in blue-green infrastructure, co-design, and inclusive regeneration, she champions landscape as a catalyst for social equity, climate resilience, and community wellbeing. Her collaborative approach drives systemic change, inspiring future generations through mentorship and advocacy.

  • Wednesday, January 21, 1:00 pm – 2:30 pm Eastern – Deep Ecology, Online

    The second talk in The Gardens Trust’s online six part course in partnership with FOLAR showcasing women pioneers takes place January 21, individual tickets £8 (members £6). Register through Eventbrite 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 A link to the recorded session will be sent shortly after each session and will be available for 2 weeks.

    Building on FOLAR’s popular series of Women in Landscape, this new collection of talks brings together insights into the motivations and work of three leading contemporary landscape designers and their teams, alongside stories celebrating the lives and achievements of earlier pioneers.

    Each of these women has pushed boundaries to improve the lives of others. Some have studied and worked in the UK before adapting their knowledge and ideas to suit the unique contexts of their home countries – an exciting process of creative cross-pollination.

    Every generation needs its pioneers, those who make lasting, and at times radical, changes, and who also inspire others to think boldly and act with confidence. Throughout the history of landscape design, there have always been people whose ideas and work transform the way we understand and shape our environments.

    As with FOLAR’s previous series, these talks aim to showcase some of the most inspiring people, projects, and ideas in the field — past and present.

    Talk 2. 21st January: Deep Ecology with Johanna Gibbons

    Biodiversity is hemorrhaging while the urban habitat is expanding more rapidly than any other. In this man-made scenario why is there not more proactive focus on making it full of LIFE, when intuitively the multiple benefits of nature are understood? Jo will focus on building for biodiversity through radical ecological concepts and social justice.

    Johanna Gibbons RDI is Founding Partner of J&L Gibbons, an award-winning landscape practice established in 1986 and Director of social enterprise Landscape Learn. Jo is a Fellow of the Landscape Institute and a Royal Designer for Industry, the highest accolade for a designer, in the UK.

  • Wednesday, January 14, 1:00 pm – 12:30 pm Eastern – Women Crossing Boundaries: Sisters in the Landscape, Online

    The first talk in The Gardens Trust’s online six part course in partnership with FOLAR showcasing women pioneers begins January 14, individual tickets £8 (members £6)

    Building on FOLAR’s popular series of Women in Landscape, this new collection of talks brings together insights into the motivations and work of three leading contemporary landscape designers and their teams, alongside stories celebrating the lives and achievements of earlier pioneers.

    Each of these women has pushed boundaries to improve the lives of others. Some have studied and worked in the UK before adapting their knowledge and ideas to suit the unique contexts of their home countries – an exciting process of creative cross-pollination.

    Every generation needs its pioneers, those who make lasting, and at times radical, changes, and who also inspire others to think boldly and act with confidence. Throughout the history of landscape design, there have always been people whose ideas and work transform the way we understand and shape our environments.

    As with FOLAR’s previous series, these talks aim to showcase some of the most inspiring people, projects, and ideas in the field — past and present.

    The initial presentation is Sisters in the Landscape – Miranda and Octavia Hill with Gillian Darley

    Gillian will talk about how difficult early years gave both sisters an enduring appetite for the value of freedom and access to open ground, all based on the idea that the urban poor richly deserved access to nature. From that we can follow the strands that knit together in the Commons and Open Spaces Society, the Kyrle Society, Octavia’s pet project the Red Cross Gardens (Southwark) and eventually the National Trust.

    Gillian Darley’s biography of Octavia Hill was published in 1990 (Constable) and in a revised edition in 2010 (Francis Boutle Books). Her first book was Villages of Vision – an account of the planned village, with an emphasis on the utopian (Architectural Press, 1975). She has also published a biography of John Evelyn (Yale University Press, 2006) and John Soane (Yale University Press, 1999). In the mid ’90s she was (part time) director of the Landscape Foundation. She was awarded an OBE in 2015 for services to the environment and conservation.

    Get your tickets through Eventbrite 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 . A link to the recorded session will be sent shortly after each session and will be available for 2 weeks.

    Image: Photo of Caroline Southwood Hill’s memorial seat, Mariner’s Hill, Kent, ©Gillian Darley

  • Tuesday, December 9, 5:00 am – 6:30 am Eastern (but recorded) – Queer Gardens of Note

    Gardens are many things. An oasis for nature, a retreat from the outside world, a haven for blooms. But how has the LGBTQI+ community been involved with their design, upkeep and prominence throughout the years? How is queerness seen in the natural world?

    As well as being a historian and tour guide, Sheldon K Goodman is also passionate about gardening.

    The last session on December 9 is Queer Gardens of Note, This Gardens Trust talk is £8 through Eventbrite. Register HERE Attendees will be sent a Zoom link 2 days (and again a few hours) prior to the start of the first talk, and a link to the recorded session will be sent shortly after each session and will be available for 1 week.

  • Wednesday, December 10, 1:00 pm – 2:30 pm Eastern – David Marsh’s Favorite Gardens, Online

    The final talk in the Gardens Trust’s online series of Favorite Gardens will take place December 10 at 1 pm Eastern with David Marsh. Dr David Marsh was awarded his PhD in 2005 for a study of the ‘Gardens and Gardeners of Later-Stuart London’ and has been lecturing and supervising research in Garden History ever since. He is a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Buckingham and was co-course director for their MA in Garden History. A trustee of the Gardens Trust from 2016-2023, he helped set up and run the Trust’s online lecture program and is the author of a weekly blog about garden history.

    Choosing his favorite gardens, he reports, is impossible – but he’ll share a few that get close… there’s one in north London built on the waste from building a tunnel on the underground, and another in the wastes of the seriously frozen north. Then maybe a new formal one in the southern hemisphere and to finish a couple more where such formality mixes with eccentricity on a grand scale.

    This ticket LINK is for this individual session and costs £8 (Gardens Trust members £6). 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 2 weeks) will be sent shortly afterwards.

    ©David Marsh

  • Wednesday, December 3, 1:00 pm – 2:30 pm Eastern – Jill Sinclair’s Favorite Gardens, Online

    The Gardens Trust will present Jill Sinclair’s Favorite Gardens online on December 3 at 1 pm Eastern. Jill is a US-trained landscape historian. She has been a trustee of the Historic Gardens Foundation and co-editor of its magazine, Historic Gardens Review. For several years she taught the history of the English Landscape Garden for Oxford University. Jill is now a trustee of the Gardens Trust, overseeing its education and training work and organizing its program of online talks.

    Jill’s time living and working in the UK, US, France and India has given her the chance to explore many garden styles and cultures, and to relish the joy of places with great stories to tell. She will share tales of gardens inspired by an Indian empress, a hidden gem in Italy, the work of a modernist master – and a few other places still to be whittled down from a very long list of favorites!

    This ticket LINK is for this individual session and costs £8 (Gardens Trust members £6). 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 2 weeks) will be sent shortly afterwards.

    ©Jill Sinclair

  • Tuesday, December 2, 5:00 am – 6:30 am Eastern (but recorded) – Queer Gardens: Queer Ecology

    Gardens are many things. An oasis for nature, a retreat from the outside world, a haven for blooms. But how has the LGBTQI+ community been involved with their design, upkeep and prominence throughout the years? How is queerness seen in the natural world?

    As well as being a historian and tour guide, Sheldon K Goodman is also passionate about gardening. He will give three talks looking at queerness in gardens from the work of gardeners, LGBTQI+ led community gardening initiatives in London, historical people such as Virginia Woolf, Reginald Farrer and Sir Francis Bacon and queer ecology’s roots in Michel Foucault’s The History of Sexuality (tr. Robert Hurley, 1978-2021, Pantheon Books) as well as queer gardening in the here and now.

    The second session on December 2 is Queer Ecology. Nature is queer! The heteronormative lens that the natural world has been viewed with until comparatively recently is a sham. Nature is full of wonderful and remarkable examples of diversity, such as sex changing ferns, dual-genitaled garden pests and the unique same-sex relationships between some of our favourite garden birds. Sheldon will showcase some of these instances of queerness and will also be highlighting the work of queer ecologists who are tirelessly bringing awareness to our parks, gardens and open spaces through events, engagement and education. This Gardens Trust talk is £8 through Eventbrite. Register HERE Attendees will be sent a Zoom link 2 days (and again a few hours) prior to the start of the first talk, and a link to the recorded session will be sent shortly after each session and will be available for 1 week.

  • Wednesday, November 26, 1:00 pm – 2:30 pm Eastern – Katie Campbell’s Favorite Gardens, Online

    The Gardens Trust continues its online series on favorite gardens on November 26 at 1 pm Eastern with Katie Campbell’s Favorite Gardens. Katie is writer and garden historian. She lectures widely, has taught at Birkbeck, Bristol and Buckingham universities, writes for various publications and leads art and garden tours. Her most recent book, Cultivating the Renaissance (Routledge, 2022) explores the evolution of Renaissance ideas and aesthetics through the Medici Tuscan villas. Previous publications include British Gardens in Time (Quarto, 2014) to accompany the BBC television series, Paradise of Exiles (Francis Lincoln, 2009) a study of the late nineteenth century Anglo-Florentine garden-makers, and Icons of Twentieth Century Landscape Design (Frances Lincoln, 2006).

    Whether carved from an arboreal forest or a tropical jungle, a rubber plantation, an olive grove or an ancient oak wood, Katie finds that that the gardens which remain with her are the ones which respect the indigenous flora and agricultural traditions, but interpret these in a way which reveals as much about the designer as it does about the site.

    This ticket LINK is for this individual session and costs £8, and you may purchase tickets for other individual sessions via the links below, or you may purchase a ticket for the entire course of 4 sessions at a cost of £28 via the link here. (Gardens Trust members £6 or £21). 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 2 weeks) will be sent shortly afterwards.

    ©Katie Campbell

  • Wednesday, November 12, 1:00 pm Eastern – Craze for Collecting: Dispatches from the Cape, Online

    Were they intrepid explorers and suppliers of beauty and scientific advancement, or imperialist plunderers and destroyers of fragile environments? The reputation of plant-hunters as brave adventurers tracking down botanical wonders has taken something of a battering in recent years. Make your own mind up about their role and continuing importance as The Gardens Trust shares some plant-hunter stories in this new five part series. Learn about the exploits of the late-18th century ‘father’ of modern plant-hunting and the adventures of a once-celebrated woman who led botanical expeditions to the Andes. Hear tales from those who’ve followed in the footsteps of famous collectors, revisiting the native habitats of exotic plants which are now staples in the British garden, and ponder on ideas about the very different role of collectors today in plant conservation and public education. This ticket is for this individual session and costs £8. Register through Eventbrite HERE. Attendees will be sent a Zoom link 2 days (and again a few hours) prior to the start of the talk, and a link to the recorded session will be sent shortly after each session and will be available for 2 weeks.

    Proteas are iconic wildflowers from Africa (most diverse and prominent in the fynbos region) and globally beloved as cut flowers, but what are the social and environmental contexts of this trade in the Cape? In this November 12 Gardens Trust talk, Rupert will explore some of the issues in his article with Prof Dave Bek in Protean Routes: Following the Commodification Chain of the Protea Flower between South Africa and the Netherlands (Dwaalstêr Editions, 2025).

    Plus, as English gardens embrace more naturalistic planting and meadows are trendy, what are the consequences in places where the more formal style of gardening and landscaping is still entrenched?

    Rupert Koopman is a fynbos-obsessed botanist based in Cape Town, South Africa who uses the flexibility of freelance work to protect and increase the appreciation of South Africa’s flora. Previous roles in both government and the NGO sector focussing on the protection of South Africa’s plants, especially fynbos of the Cape, give him a good overview of the country’s green wealth. Rupert’s interests include SA’s threatened plant species, citizen science, food plants, making plant conservation more relevant and accessible to a broader audience and participating in multidisciplinary projects. Being a qualified tour guide gives him a further platform to weave history, science and current affairs into a single narrative.

  • Tuesday, November 18, 5:00 am – 6:30 am Eastern (but recorded) – “An Awful Precipice”: Price, Knight, and the Picturesque

    The 18th century landscape is viewed by many as being the pinnacle of English garden design. From its early Arcadian experiments and passion for all things classical, through to the vast and minimal landscapes of Capability Brown and his contemporaries, the gardening century was brought to a close with conflicting appeals for rugged wildness and domestic prettiness.

    In a new five part series sponsored by the Gardens Trust, Dr Laura Mayer will explore some of the themes and trends that emerged during the century, with a particular focus on the role of art, antiquity and architecture in shaping 18th landscape designs. The series is designed to pick up on themes and ideas not covered in any depth in last year’s introductory course on the History of Gardens – and so may appeal whether or not you joined us for the earlier series. The ticket for the entire series costs £35 for the 5 sessions, or you may purchase a ticket for individual sessions, costing £8. [Gardens Trust members £26.25 or £6 each]. To register through Eventbrite, click HERE. 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.

    The final episode of the series takes place November 18, on the Picturesque. The aesthetic category known as the Picturesque developed in the latter part of the eighteenth century. Defined by the artist and travel writer William Gilpin as ‘that peculiar kind of beauty which is agreeable in a picture’, it was equally applicable to art, architecture and even music. In the case of British landscape, the Picturesque aesthetes championed a Romantic appreciation for rugged and sublime topography. Gilpin’s guidebooks provided advice on how to paint picturesque scenery and promoted picturesque destinations such as the Lake District to a growing band of domestic tourists who had turned their back on the Grand Tour.

    Through their writings, Sir Uvedale Price and Richard Payne Knight harnessed a growing disdain for the minimal landscapes of Brown and his contemporaries, instead encouraging Picturesque values of irregularity and wildness. This lecture grapples with the paradoxes inherent in a movement which championed unbridled naturalism through the artificial lens of taste, whilst recognizing the early role of the Picturesque writers in championing wilderness preservation.