Boston Flora

Tag: John Phibbs

  • Tuesday, March 10, 2:00 pm Eastern – Repton at the Ecological Climax, Online

    Humphry Repton is generally regarded as the third of the great landscapers who led the English Landscape Movement. Indeed many books have been written about him – and a very good one by the London Gardens Trust. So how come he has the reputation of a second-rate failure?

    The huge contribution made by the farmland he designed to what we might call environmental ecology has been strangely overlooked by the scholarly consensus, but could still serve as a template for eco-friendly design and it makes a nonsense of the idea that old ‘historic’ landscapes are somehow at odds with the interests of bio-diversity. This March 10 London Parks and Gardens online talk will anatomize Darlands Park, Totteridge, and inspect the entrails for proof of his importance, but there will be lots of pictures of other places as well.

    John Phibbs is Principal of Debois Landscape Survey Group. He is also the author of Humphry Repton, Designing the Landscape Garden; Place-making: The Art of Capability Brown and Capability Brown: Designing the English Landscape

    This talk may be purchased as part of the entire winter series online package at https://londongardenstrust.org/lecture-details/?event=Season-Ticket-Winter

  • Sunday, May 14 – Sunday, May 24 – Olmsted’s Tour in England

    John Phibbs will lead a tour in May 2023 (May 14 – 24) to some of the parks in England that Frederick Law Olmsted visited, so participants may enjoy and study first hand the places that determined his own career, and the future of landscape architecture in America. Famously, Olmsted took from his travels not only the delight in nature that is so much a part of 18th century English landscape, but also its didactic and philanthropic role in ameliorating the lives of ordinary people in the new industrial cities. The creation of entire landscapes, he concluded, “all in imitation of nature, is to this day the peculiar art of England.” The trip will include some classic Capability Brown landscapes: Chatsworth, Charlecote, Knowsley, Trentham, and Weston Park. Also there will be some Repton classics, Rug and Stoneleigh, as well as other great landscapes Olmsted visited: Chirk, Hagley, Enville, the Leasowes. There are also the smaller but critically influential public parks created for the benefit of all classes of Birkenhead and at the Birminham and Derby Arboreta. John Phibbs’s wife Gilly Kitching is making all the arrangements so if you would like to know more, email info@inspirationevents.com.

  • Sunday, October 2, 5:00 pm – The Parks That Made the Man Who Made Central Park: A Frederick Law Olmsted Lecture, Online

    John Phibbs will speak on Sunday, October 2 at 5 pm Eastern time on Zoom on the topic of Frederick Law Olmsted and the influence of his travels in England on his work. In its travels across the Atlantic the English idea of gardens was stripped down and reformed to make a new approach to landscape architecture, which was, in turn, shipped back to Britain in the 20th Century. The talk is sponsored by the National Association of Olmsted Parks and is free to all. Register at

    https://olmsted200.org/events/the-parks-that-made-the-man-who-made-central-park/?mc_cid=4c61303777&mc_eid=24631ab4cc
    Birkenhead Park, Liverpool, the first public park and Olmsted’s inspiration for public parks

    Famously, Olmsted took from his travels not only the delight in nature that is so much a part of 18th Century English landscape, but also its didactic and philanthropic role in ameliorating the lives of ordinary people in the new industrical cities.