Boston Flora

Tag: Judith Tankard

  • Tuesday, April 1, 9:00 am – 10:30 am Eastern – Beatrix Farrand: Garden Artist, Online

    The Arts and Crafts Movement sought a return to vernacular traditions in the face of increasing industrialization. It thrived for two decades or so around the turn of the twentieth century, although its effect is still obvious today in many decorative arts. In the garden, the movement was most clearly articulated through the work of William Robinson (1838-1935) and Gertrude Jekyll (1843-1932). Their example was followed by a plethora of British architects and designers into the middle of the 20th century and beyond, and their influence spread to Europe, the US and further afield. What we today identify as Arts and Crafts gardens are perhaps typified by a geometric layout of compartments in close relationship with the house, alongside the use of architectural features in local materials and abundant, color-themed planting.

    In this series, we will examine the origins of the Arts and Crafts garden, consider the work of Robinson and Jekyll in detail, and survey some of the many other British garden-makers who were influenced by the movement. The series will end with an international flavor, exploring the work of an American designer who was a life-long admirer of Robinson and Jekyll.

    This ticket is for this individual talk (Click HERE) costs £8, and you may purchase tickets for other individual sessions, or you may purchase a ticket for the entire fifth series of 5 talks in our History of Gardens Course at £35 via the link here. (Gardens Trust members £6 each or all 5 for £26.25). Ticket holders can join each session live and/or view a recording for up to 2 weeks afterwards. 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 (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 2 weeks.

    The final talk in this series will be given by The Garden Club of the Back Bay’s own Judith Tankard. Beatrix Farrand (1872-1959) was one of the first landscape architects in the United States. She began her practice in the 1890s and retired in 1950. During these years she had a thriving practice with a broad range of important clients, including Mildred Bliss at Dumbarton Oaks, her most famous commission. She was a life-long admirer of Gertrude Jekyll and William Robinson. In the 1950s, she acquired Jekyll’s archives of plans and photographs which she subsequently donated to the University of California, Berkeley, where they can be studied today.

    Judith B Tankard is a landscape historian and preservation consultant. She received a M.A. In Art History from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University and taught at the Landscape Institute of Harvard University for over 20 years. She received a Gold Medal from the Massachusetts Horticultural Society and was recently named an Honorary Member of the Garden Club of America. She is the author of twelve prize-winning books on landscape history, including Beatrix Farrand: Garden Artist, Landscape Architect (The Monacelli Press, 2022) and Gardens of the Arts and Crafts Movement (Harry N Abrams, 2004, revised 2nd ed Timber Press, 2018). She also writes articles and book reviews for Hortus. She lives in the Boston, Massachusetts, area and has a small garden on Martha’s Vineyard. Her new book Gertrude Jekyll at Munstead Wood, with co-author Martin Wood, is scheduled for publication in Spring 2025.

    Image: Beatrix Farrand’s cool borders at Garland Farm, photo ©Judith Tankard

  • Wednesday, September 27, 2:00 pm Eastern – Munstead Wood: Gertrude Jekyll’s Home and Garden, Online

    In June 2023, the National Trust in the UK announced the new acquisition of a Grade I listed house and garden—Gertrude Jekyll’s home and garden, Munstead Wood. Gertrude Jekyll was one of the most important garden designers of the early 20th century, a prolific writer, and skilled businesswoman. She often collaborated with architect Sir Edwin Lutyens and both worked on Jekyll’s own home in Surrey. Jekyll lived at Munstead Wood from the 1890s until her death in 1932. During that time, she created a woodland garden and designed seasonal gardens, such as the Spring Garden, the Hidden Garden, the June Garden, and the 200-foot-long colorful herbaceous border. Jekyll once spoke of Munstead Wood “My garden is my workshop, my private study, and a place of rest.” 

    Landscape historian and author Judith Tankard will discuss Jekyll’s home and garden, and talk about the designer’s theories on color, planting and design. She will show some of Jekyll’s own photographs and scrapbooks to demonstrate Jekyll‘s lasting influence on garden design. Andy Jasper, Head of Gardens at the National Trust, created a video for Royal Oak Foundation members to explain the upcoming restoration plans and Munstead Wood’s opening to the public. Ms. Tankard is a member of The Garden Club of the Back Bay.
    Watch LIVE on Wednesday, September 27 at 2:00 p.m. (ET) or RENT the recording!
    $15 Royal Oak members; $25 non-members
    LIVERENTAL

  • Thursday, April 7, 2:00 pm – Beatrix Farrand, Garden Artist, Landscape Architect, Online

    Beatrix Farrand, the only female founder of the American Society of Landscape Architects, is one of the most important landscape architects of the early twentieth century. Today, the scope of her work and her influence on the profession are widely acknowledged, and her gardens are being studied, restored, and opened to the public. A long-awaited updated edition of the 2009 definitive monograph, Beatrix Farrand: Garden Artist, Landscape Architect chronicles the life and work of one of the most important figures in American landscape architecture. In this Garden Conservancy webinar, Garden Club of the Back Bay member Judith Tankard will discuss the full breadth of the work of this iconic landscape architect. $5 for Garden Conservancy members, $15 general admission, with an option of $50 for webinar plus one copy of the book. Garden Conservancy educational programs are made possible in part by the Coleman and Susan Burke Distinguished Lecture Fund and the Lenhardt Education Fund, with additional support from Ritchie Battle, Camille Butrus, Courtnay and Terrence Daniels, Celia T. Hegyi, Rise S. Johnson, and Susan and William McKinley. Register HERE.

    Judith B. Tankard is a landscape historian, preservation consultant, and the author or coauthor of ten books on historic gardens and garden designers, most recently Gardens of the Arts and Crafts Movement. Her other books include Ellen Shipman and the American Garden (winner of the J. B. Jackson Book Prize) and three works on Gertrude Jekyll. Tankard taught at the Landscape Institute of Harvard University for more than twenty years and served as a board member of the Beatrix Farrand Society. She’s a frequent lecturer on landscape history and a contributor to the British journal Hortus.

  • Wednesday, October 20, 8:00 pm – 9:00 pm Eastern – Rose Standish Nichols: Garden Designer and Writer, Online

    Garden Club of the Back Bay member Judith Tankard will be lecturing on Rose Standish Nichols on October 20 from 8 – 9, hosted by the Southern California Chapter | Presented as Part of the Bunny Mellon Curricula at the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art. $20 for the general public. Register at https://www.classicist.org/calendar/events/rose-standish-nichols-garden-designer-and-writer/

    Thanks to a generous $1 million grant from the Gerard B. Lambert Foundation, the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art is proud to present first-of-its-kind programming in landscape architecture for designers, students, and enthusiasts, with particular emphasis on educating the next generation: the Bunny Mellon Curricula. This curricula, the first to be named in honor of Bunny Mellon, honors her commitment to landscape design, and her deeply-held belief that architecture is firmly linked to its surrounding landscape.

    Please join landscape historian and author Judith Tankard in a talk about Rose Standish Nichols, who was among an elite group of East Coast women who took up residential garden design in the early 1900s when the profession of landscape architecture was in its formative stage. Her colleagues Beatrix Farrand, Marian Coffin, and Ellen Shipman among others are better known because they focused exclusively on garden design, while Nichols was a prolific author, antiquarian, and political reformer, among other roles. Most of her gardens, which ranged from New England to the South have disappeared except for several in Lake Forest, Illinois, where she collaborated with the architect Howard Van Doren Shaw. Rose was born into an old Boston family with ties to both Winslow Homer and Augustus Saint-Gaudens and her formative years were spent in the famed Cornish Art Colony in New Hampshire where she learned the finer points of garden design. An inveterate traveler with a critical eye for design, Rose’s most lasting claim to fame were her articles on design for House Beautiful and her books, English Pleasure Gardens, Spanish and Portuguese Gardens, and Italian Pleasure Gardens. Today her family home is the Nichols House Museum on Beacon Hill in Boston, where one can learn more about her life and accomplishments.

    Judith B Tankard is a landscape historian and author of Gardens of the Arts and Crafts Movement, Ellen Shipman and the American Garden, and Beatrix Farrand: Private Gardens, Public Landscapes.

  • Saturday, July 10, 10:00 am – 4:00 pm – Martha’s Vineyard Open Day

    Saturday, July 10, 10:00 am – 4:00 pm – Martha’s Vineyard Open Day

    The Garden Conservancy has scheduled an Open Day in Martha’s Vineyard on July 10, which will include the garden of The Garden Club of the Back Bay’s own Judith Tankard, in Edgartown.

    The Holmes Coffin Garden is a small garden in the historic village of Edgartown. The house was built in 1829. When the owners bought the house 23 years ago, much of the garden was already in place. The rose of Sharon at the back is about 160 years old. The gardener, Teresa Yuan, plants the border of impatiens annually, as well as all the window boxes and flower pots. Through the years, she has added to the irises and day lilies in the various beds, which bloom at different times for color throughout the season. Hydrangeas are a fixture on Martha’s Vineyard, as are rhododendron. The trumpet vine over the double driveway gate blooms a bright orange. The owners recently replaced overgrown arborvitae along the edge of the property with holly trees.    

    85 South Water Street is also the venue for a separately ticketed Digging Deeper program from 9:30 – 11:30 with Nan Sinton. In 1950 a sunken geometric garden in the form of a Union Jack flag was laid out to complement the historic eighteenth-century house. It was designed by Frances Louise Meikleham and her mother, a founding member of the Martha’s Vineyard Garden Club. The present owners, from London, are knowledgeable, hands-on gardeners who have collaborated with garden designer Nan Sinton since 1997. Their focus is to enhance the property, including the sunken garden, selecting interesting, salt-tolerant plantings for the seaside setting. This is a summer garden, planned to look at its most attractive from late June through September with a peak season in July and August. Presently it is carefully maintained by Edgar Avalino and his team.

    Finally, John and Judith Tankard offer up their summer garden. This is a new garden planted in 2006 to complement the historic house built around 1730 and fully renovated by the owners: an architect and a garden writer. The garden was designed by Nan Blake Sinton and is composed mainly of hardy shrubs and ornamental trees. Pale pink ‘New Dawn’ roses climb on the fence surrounding the garden and the roof of the garden shed is covered in ‘White Eden’ and ‘Abraham Darby’ roses as well as a Clematis montana ‘Rubens’.

    There are two crabapples (Malus ‘Donald Wyman’) and a large Viburnum sieboldii in the main garden. An espalier created from Viburnum plicatum ‘Mariesii’ on the wall of the house and a hedge of clipped Philadelphus coronarius in the parking area provide a bit of formality. There are small flower beds with astilbes, lavender, Nepeta, Salvia, and other perennials. A small brick patio is planted with lace cap hydrangeas and Hydrangea macrophylla ‘Enziadom’. At the front of the house, there are American hollies, English boxwood, Ilex glabra ‘Nigra’, and a large viburnum. One of the outstanding features of the garden is a large, old sycamore maple on the lane at the corner of the property, a survivor from earlier days.

    Pre-registration is required, no walk-ins are allowed, and no paper tickets or cash payments will be accepted on site. Visit https://www.gardenconservancy.org/open-days/open-days-schedule/martha-s-vineyard-ma-open-day-3

  • Thursday, November 12, 11:00 am – 12:30 pm – Gardens of the Arts & Crafts Movement, Online

    Thursday, November 12, 11:00 am – 12:30 pm – Gardens of the Arts & Crafts Movement, Online

    Join the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art, New England, on November 12 at 11 am for a Zoom webinar with Judith B. Tankard on Gardens of the Arts & Crafts Movement. Free with registration HERE.

    English gardens from the Arts & Crafts era are jewels of early 20th Century design. Part of the same design movement that flourished in Europe and North America between 1880 and 1920, these gardens emphasized medieval and romantic styles. Designed on an intimate scale, they blurred the distinction between indoors and outdoors, and emphasized the symbiotic nature of the house and garden as a unified landscape. Many contained a series of distinct outdoor ‘rooms’ often delineated by hedges and embellished with whimsical topiary. Most had lavish plantings of perennials, ornamental shrubs, bulbs, and annuals—all massed for color, textural effect, and seasonal impact. Small structures, such as pergolas, arbors, sundials, and other traditional ornaments produced storybook-like gardens that referenced Old English manor house surroundings of the 17th Century.


    In this illustrated lecture, Judith Tankard will give insight into the minds of the movement’s creative giants such as William Morris and Gertrude Jekyll, as well as lesser known designers such as Avray Tipping, Thomas Mawson, and Robert Lorimer. She will illustrate gorgeous National Trust gardens such as Hidcote, Standen, Snowshill Manor, Red House, and Kellie Castle, among others, and give visual tours of other stunning gardens, such as Hestercombe, Great Dixter, Gravetye Manor, and Munstead Wood. Tankard will show how these English models created a lasting impact on gardens across the pond, as American designers took inspiration from their British contemporaries.


    Judith B Tankard is a landscape historian, award-winning author, and preservation consultant. She is the author of 10 illustrated books, including Ellen Shipman and the American Garden, winner of the 2019 J. B. Jackson Book Award. Her book, Beatrix Farrand: Private Gardens, Public Landscapes, was named an Honor Book for the 2010 Historic New England Book Prize. She taught at the Landscape Institute of Harvard University for twenty years. Judith is a Garden Conservancy Fellow, a Heritage Circle member of The Royal Oak Foundation, and a Stewardship Council member of The Cultural Landscape Foundation. She lives in Boston, is a member of The Garden Club of the Back Bay, and gardens on Martha’s Vineyard. www.judithtankard.com

    For information on other upcoming ICAA New England Chapter tours and lectures, please visit: www.classicist-ne.org/calendar

  • Tuesday, May 28, 6:00 pm – 7:30 pm – Gardens of the Arts & Crafts Movement

    In this May 28 illustrated lecture, landscape scholar Judith B. Tankard surveys the inspiration, characteristics, and development of garden design during the Arts & Crafts Movement. Tankard presents a selection of houses and gardens of the era from Britain and the United States, with an emphasis on the diversity of designers who helped forge a truly distinct approach to garden design. Her lecture is the first event in a series of exhibition programming for The Gardens of Rose Standish Nichols, 1890-1935 opening May 16, 2019 at the Nichols House Museum. The lecture, beginning at 6 pm, will take place at the New England Historic Genealogical Society, 99 Newbury Street in Boston. $20 general admission, $15 students or members of NHM or NEHGS. Register by calling 617-227-6993, or online HERE.

    Judith B. Tankard is a landscape historian, award-winning author, and preservation consultant. She taught at the Landscape Institute of Harvard University for more than twenty years. She is the author or coauthor of ten books on landscape history, including Gardens of the Arts & Crafts Movement, Ellen Shipman and the American Garden and Beatrix Farrand: Private Gardens, Public Landscapes. A popular lecturer in the United States and Britain, Judith is a speaker at symposia and conferences devoted to the preservation of historic landscapes. She is also a member of The Garden Club of the Back Bay.

  • Thursday, February 7, 10:00 am – Ellen Shipman and the American Garden

    Thursday, February 7, 10:00 am – Ellen Shipman and the American Garden

    Judith Tankard is a landscape historian, author, preservation consultant, and member of the Garden Club of the Back Bay. She received an M.A. in art history from the Institute of Fine Arts, NYU and taught at the Landscape Institute for over 20 years. Ms. Tankard has authored or co-authored ten books on landscape history, including her latest book Ellen Shipman and the American Garden. There will be copies available for purchase and signing at The Garden Club of the Back Bay’s February 7 meeting, beginning at 10 am at The College Club, 44 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston.  Garden Club members will receive notice of the meeting and optional lunch following the lecture. If you are not a member but are interested in attending, please email info@bostonflora.com.

  • Saturday, October 27, 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm – Ellen Shipman and the American Garden

    Ellen Shipman (1869-1950) was one of the leading landscape architects of the Country House era, designing over 600 gardens, often in collaboration with leading architects, such as Charles Platt and Harrie T. Lindeberg. This Tower Hill Botanic Garden lecture and book signing on October 27 at 1 pm will explore Shipman’s career and recent restorations of her gardens, such as Longue Vue House and Gardens, Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens, and several private commissions. Free with admission to Tower Hill.

    Judith B. Tankard is an art historian specializing in American and British landscape history. She is the author of ten books, including Beatrix Farrand: Private Gardens, Public Landscapes and Gertrude Jekyll and the Country House Garden. She is a Fellow of the Garden Conservancy and an advisor for several landscape preservation organizations. She taught at the Landscape Institute, Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University, for more than twenty years. Most importantly, in our view, she is a member of The Garden Club of the Back Bay. For more information visit www.towerhillbg.org.

    Image result for Judith Tankard

  • Saturday, August 25, 10:00 am – 2:00 pm – Stone Acres Farm

    Saturday, August 25, 10:00 am – 2:00 pm – Stone Acres Farm

    The Garden Conservancy will hold an Open Days Special Program on Saturday, August 25 at Stone Acres Farm, 385 North Main Street in Stonington, Connecticut, from 10 – 2, including a talk and book signing by Garden Club of the Back Bay member Judith Tankard from 11 – 1.

    Stone Acres Farm is a small working farm situated in picturesque Stonington. The property’s rolling hills, gardens, and acres of vegetable production are open to visitors on a daily basis. A century-old boxwood hedge that is one-quarter-mile long, rose arbors, and a perennial cutting garden are highlights of the historic formal garden. There are interesting old outbuildings, a carriage house, grapery, greenhouse, annual cutting garden, a ha ha, and a pond once used for ice—now home for the herons.

    In the historic gardens at Stone Acre Farm, join landscape historian and Garden Conservancy Fellow Judith Tankard for a signing of her latest book, Ellen Shipman and the American Garden. In the 1920s and 1930s, Shipman was a famous landscape architect who designed hundreds of gardens, including 60 in Connecticut. She was known for her labor-intensive flower borders as well as charming water features and garden sculpture. Judith has also written books on Beatrix Farrand and Gertrude Jekyll. She is an Open Days Regional Representative and Garden Host on Martha’s Vineyard.

    Admission to the garden is $7. For more information and directions visit https://www.gardenconservancy.org/open-days/garden-directory/stone-acres-farm

    Image result for stone acres farm stonington ct