With the rise of the English landscape movement in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, gardens became a reflection of taste, fashion, and social ambition. The sweeping designs of Capability Brown and the picturesque visions of Humphry Repton reshaped the countryside, while at the same time, an expanding global plant trade introduced new flowers and shrubs into Regency gardens. These developments were more than aesthetic—they carried cultural, economic, and even political significance, shaping the very spaces Jane Austen and her contemporaries inhabited. Molly Williams, author of Jane Austen’s Garden: A Botanical Tour of the Classic Novels will trace the history of these gardens and the plants that filled them, revealing how horticulture and literature together illuminate Austen’s Regency world.

The Royal Oak Society presents Molly Williams in a live presentation on October 29 but more importantly, in a Zoom recording of her presentation available to registrants from October 30 through December 31. For complete information visit https://www.royal-oak.org/event/zoom-rental-gardens-in-jane-austens-works/

Molly Williams is the author of Jane Austen’s Garden: A Botanical Tour of the Classic Novels; The Junior Plant Lover’s Handbook: A Green-Thumb Guide for Kids; How to Speak Flower; Taming the Potted Beast: The Strange and Sensational History of the Not-So-Humble Houseplant; and Killer Plants: Growing and Caring for Flytraps, Pitcher Plants and Other Deadly Flora. Molly is a Gates Cambridge scholar and PhD student at the University of Cambridge, where she studies nineteenth century literature and horticulture. She is an avid houseplant collector, gardener, florist, and teacher of many things, including creative writing. If you would like to reach her, she’s probably in a greenhouse somewhere, or you can visit her Instagram — @theplantladi.

The Zoom rental is $15 for Royal Oak members, $25 for nonmembers.