Boston Flora

Tag: Kew

  • Tuesday, March 10, 5:00 am – 6:30 am Eastern (but recorded) – The Uprooted Empire: Epiphytes, Greenhouses and Hybrids in 19th Century England, Online

    Stories of horticulture and garden-making are often bound up with stories of empires. From the global trade in plants and the economic imperative behind botanic gardens to the acquired status and symbolism of certain plants and the realities of human exploitation, this series will explore the myriad ways in which economic and political power has influenced the seemingly commonplace activities of gardeners.

    This January 8-part online series from The Gardens Trust picks up themes and ideas from the Gardens and Empires conference presented in June 2025 by English Heritage and Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in association with the British Library. Some of the speakers from the conference will be expanding on the topics they presented, and additional researchers have been invited to share their perspectives. The series will focus on European empires and will examine their global impact and influence on plants and gardening. We will explore issues from the perspective of both the coloniser and the colonized, of individuals and institutions, of the past and continuing legacies today – and will see both the triumphs and cruelties inherent in the stories around empires, plants and gardening.

    This ticket link is for the series of 8 talks at £56 or you may purchase a ticket for individual talks, costing £8. (Gardens Trust members £6 each or all 8 for £42). There will be an opportunity for Q & A after each session. Ticket holders can join each session live and/or view a recording for up to 2 weeks.

    The final talk of the series will be held March 10. The expansion of the British Empire into tropical regions during the 19th century introduced previously unseen plants (often labelled as ‘exotic’) into everyday life in the United Kingdom. This talk focuses on epiphytes – plants that grow on other plants – and argues that they were not passive objects but active agents in their transport, acclimatization, and transformation beyond their natural range. Their striking visual features, such as showy flowers, turned them into desirable tropical commodities, while their minimal dependence on soil increased survival during oceanic transit. Once in Britain, epiphytes such as orchids and anthuriums drove innovations in greenhouse technology, enabling the recreation of diverse tropical climates despite the UK’s relatively harsh weather. Furthermore, their natural tendency to hybridise allowed horticulturists to interbreed species from different regions, creating artificial diversity that had never existed in nature. By examining the plants’ agency of epiphytes and their interplay with technology, this talk offers a fresh perspective on ornamental plant introduction in Victorian England.

    Diego Molina is a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at the Geohumanities Research Group at Royal Holloway, University of London, and the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Initially trained as a botanist, his latest research addresses the historically built interaction between people and plants in biodiverse cities. On this topic he has published various papers in journals such as Environmental History and Economic Botany. Additionally, he has just published his third monograph, Planting a City in the Tropical Andes (Routledge, 2024). Prior to his current fellowship, he was a Rachel Carson Fellow in Munich.

    This session will be chaired by Dr Caroline Cornish of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

    Image: John Atkinson Grimshaw, Il Penseroso, oil on canvas, 1875, (detail), Wikimedia commons, public domain

  • Tuesday, February 17, 5:00 am – 6:30 am Eastern (but recorded) – Deep in the Weeds: Colonial Language in British and North American Weeds, Online

    Stories of horticulture and garden-making are often bound up with stories of empires. From the global trade in plants and the economic imperative behind botanic gardens to the acquired status and symbolism of certain plants and the realities of human exploitation, this series will explore the myriad ways in which economic and political power has influenced the seemingly commonplace activities of gardeners.

    This January 8-part online series from The Gardens Trust picks up themes and ideas from the Gardens and Empires conference presented in June 2025 by English Heritage and Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in association with the British Library. Some of the speakers from the conference will be expanding on the topics they presented, and additional researchers have been invited to share their perspectives. The series will focus on European empires and will examine their global impact and influence on plants and gardening. We will explore issues from the perspective of both the coloniser and the colonized, of individuals and institutions, of the past and continuing legacies today – and will see both the triumphs and cruelties inherent in the stories around empires, plants and gardening.

    This ticket link is for the series of 8 talks at £56 or you may purchase a ticket for individual talks, costing £8. (Gardens Trust members £6 each or all 8 for £42). There will be an opportunity for Q & A after each session. Ticket holders can join each session live and/or view a recording for up to 2 weeks

    Lecture 5 will be held on February 17. From petty banter to agricultural concerns, the battle rhetoric imbued with the full force of colonial violence dominated the discourse on nineteenth-century weeds in North America. The colonial implications of displacing people and forcing compliance in human and plant subjects was often used when debating the value and strength of plant species. In doing so, subjective prejudice cast a shadow on botanical science in which man-made nationalities were mapped out onto nature. Using colonial language, Susan Fenimore Cooper (1813-1894), William Darlington (1782-1863), George Lawson (1827-1895), and Edward Waller Claypole (1835-1901), among others, advocated for a North American resistance against European weeds. Addressing their writings, this lecture will present how authors wrote about European weeds in North America and analyse their links to colonial warfare rhetoric. In doing so, we can critically interrogate the ideological binding of native plants with native people alongside foreign plants and settlers in North America.

    Kimberly M. Glassman is a Research Associate of Botanical Collections at the Fitzwilliam Museum; a postdoctoral position with the Collections-Connections-Community Initiative at the University of Cambridge. Kim investigates transatlantic 18th and 19th century botanical histories by drawing connections between correspondence archives, botanical artwork and herbarium specimens in the UK and North America. Her current research focuses on the aesthetics of plant disease. Kim has previously focused on highlighting Indigenous knowledge and women’s voices within 19th century Floras based on archival research at Kew Gardens. Kim is a postdoctoral associate of Newnham College, Cambridge and a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London.

    This session will be chaired by Dr Caroline Cornish of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

    Image: Jules Breton (1827–1906), The Weeders, 1868, oil on canvas, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, public domain

  • Tuesday, January 27, 5:00 am – 6:30 am Eastern (but recorded) – Kew in Jamaica: Colonial Botany and the Tourist Gaze at the Hope Botanical Gardens, Online

    Stories of horticulture and garden-making are often bound up with stories of empires. From the global trade in plants and the economic imperative behind botanic gardens to the acquired status and symbolism of certain plants and the realities of human exploitation, this series will explore the myriad ways in which economic and political power has influenced the seemingly commonplace activities of gardeners.

    This January 8-part online series from The Gardens Trust picks up themes and ideas from the Gardens and Empires conference presented in June 2025 by English Heritage and Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in association with the British Library. Some of the speakers from the conference will be expanding on the topics they presented, and additional researchers have been invited to share their perspectives. The series will focus on European empires and will examine their global impact and influence on plants and gardening. We will explore issues from the perspective of both the coloniser and the colonized, of individuals and institutions, of the past and continuing legacies today – and will see both the triumphs and cruelties inherent in the stories around empires, plants and gardening.

    This ticket link is for the series of 8 talks at £56 or you may purchase a ticket for individual talks, costing £8. (Gardens Trust members £6 each or all 8 for £42). There will be an opportunity for Q & A after each session. Ticket holders can join each session live and/or view a recording for up to 2 weeks afterwards. 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.

    The second lecture takes place January 27. The Hope Botanic Gardens in Kingston, Jamaica were founded in 1873 as a sugar experimentation station. Built on the grounds of the former Hope Plantation, they quickly developed into the primary botanic gardens on the island. Hope was the headquarters of both the Jamaican Botanical Department and the new Department of Agriculture from 1908, acting as an outpost of Kew in Jamaica.

    Walter Jekyll praised Hope as ‘a botanical garden made beautiful’ in his Guide to Hope Gardens (1904), signalling that the gardens were also worthy of the tourist gaze. In the ‘New Jamaica’ of the 1890s, the gardens became part of a picturesque vision of the island as a tropical paradise for prospective visitors. Based on archival accounts held at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, this talk will examine how the role of botanic gardens in the burgeoning Caribbean tourism industry intersected with legacies of enslavement in these colonial spaces.

    Dr. Heather Craddock is an environmental historian and Collections Researcher at The National Archives. Her PhD explored colonial histories of Caribbean botanic gardens in the archives of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and her current research focuses on histories of plants, gardens, forests, and occasionally animals. She co-curated an exhibition on the history of forest conservation and deforestation, entitled ‘Uprooted’, at Kew Gardens in 2023 and has taught English Literature and Environmental Humanities at Brunel University and the University of Roehampton.

    This session will be chaired by Dr Caroline Cornish of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

  • Through Sunday, December 15 – Rory McEwen: A New Perspective on Nature

    Rory McEwen: A New Perspective on Nature presents the vibrant career of the renowned Scottish artist, Rory McEwen (1932-1982). Focusing on his remarkable paintings of plants, the exhibition reveals McEwen’s lifelong enquiry into light and color in portraying his unique concept of the natural object. Over the course of his career, with his all-embracing perspective of modern art, McEwen developed a distinctive style, painting on vellum and using large empty backgrounds on which his plant portraits seem to float. In his paintings he forged his own personal interpretation of 20th century modernism, portraying individual flowers, leaves and vegetables as subject matter, “as a way of getting as close as possible to what I perceive as the truth, my truth of the time in which I live.”

    Rory McEwen: A New Perspective on Nature presents 85 watercolors on vellum and paper, representing a wide range of the artist’s work, along with many of the well-known 17th and 18th century masters who influenced him—including Robert, Redouté, Ehret, Aubriet as well as early illuminated manuscripts and folio volumes. McEwen’s work is also presented alongside the works of numerous contemporary artists who in turn continue McEwen’s artistic legacy. It includes works on loan from the Collection of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Mellon’s Oak Spring Garden Foundation Collection, the Shirley Sherwood Collection and the McEwen Family Estate Collection, as well as works from numerous private collections, most of which have never before been seen by the American public. McEwen’s work is found in private and public collections across the globe, including the British Museum; Victoria and Albert Museum; Tate; National Gallery of Modern Art, Scotland; Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge; Hunt Institute, Pittsburgh; and Museum of Modern Art, New York.

    The exhibition, Rory McEwen: A New Perspective on Nature, is presented by the Davis Museum at Wellesley College in association with Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (London) and Oak Spring Garden Foundation (Virginia); tour management by Landau Traveling Exhibitions, Los Angeles, CA.

    The Gerard B. Lambert Foundation has provided major support for the exhibition. Generous support for the Davis presentation is provided by Wellesley College Friends of Art at the Davis, the Alice G. Spink Art Fund, the Constance Rhind Robey ’81 Fund for Museum Exhibitions, and the Kathryn Wasserman Davis ’28 Fund for World Cultures. Below: Rory McEwen, Tulip ‘Julia Farnese’ rose feather, 1976, Watercolour on vellum, ©Estate of Rory McEwen

  • Tuesday, June 4, 5:00 am – 6:30 am Eastern (but recorded) – Botanists and Botanical Art: Marianne North, Online

    The Gardens Trust presents a series of three talks on botanists and botanical art across three centuries, exploring people and illustrations that have defined, recorded and celebrated the world of plants in all their distinctiveness and intricacy. We start the series with exciting new research on previously unremarked botanical images on the paneling of a fine Jacobean house in Hampshire. In the second lecture we will examine the extraordinary set of almost a thousand paper collages of exotic plants produced by an 18th century woman of advanced years, before finishing with tales of a Victorian lady traveler who sought out rare plants in their native lands, not to collect – but to paint. Tickets for the three part series may be purchased through Eventbrite at https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/botanists-and-botanical-art-tickets-834657221217 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.

    The final lecture on June 4 will focus on Marianne North (1830 – 1890) who lived an unconventional life painting exotic and rare plants in their native lands. Living and traveling with the ‘liberty of a wild bird’ but maintaining the dress and manners of a Victorian lady, the pursuit of plants took her around the world whilst her paintings were destined for Kew. This talk explores Marianne North’s work, her social context and the eventual creation of her gallery at the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew.

    Dr Twigs Way is a researcher, writer and speaker in garden history, fascinated by the past and intrigued by the role of flowers, gardens and landscape in art and culture of all kinds. Her research reflects that endless curiosity and her books on plants and gardens explore themes of symbolism and meaning, class and gender, art and literature. Currently (2024) delivering a series of talks for the Cambridge University Botanic Gardens on the overlap between garden design and textile fashion through the ages. Image: detail, View of the Jesuit College of Caracas, Minas Geraes, Brazil by Marianne North, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, CC BY-NC-ND

  • Tuesday, November 28, 12:00 noon – 1:15 pm Eastern – The Bridge Between Horticulture and the Environment, Online

    Horticulture is going through a revolution, as our fragile environment becomes increasingly in need of our care. The observation and analysis that is so embedded in this process, and the craftsmanship of tending for a garden, are perfect gateways to thinking about the neglected and overused places beyond the garden. Dan Pearson, whose painterly-natural landscapes are renowned in Britain and beyond, will demonstrate how landscape design can be the medium that brings together the worlds of nature, agriculture, and garden. This NDAL webinar will take place November 28 at noon, but the session will be recorded and available to registrants for 3 months following the live presentation. $42. Register at https://learning.ndal.org/courses/bridge-horticulture-environment

    Dan Pearson is a British landscape designer, horticulturist, writer, and gardener. He trained in horticulture at RHS Gardens’ Wisley, the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, Jerusalem Botanical Gardens, and the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Since 2014 he has been a Garden Advisor to the National Trust at Sissinghurst Castle. In 2013 Dan was the subject of an exhibition at The Garden Museum, London, Green Fuse: The Work of Dan Pearson, and was awarded an OBE in 2022 for services to horticulture. Dan’s books include Spirit: Garden Inspiration (Fuel Publishing, 2011) and Home Ground: Sanctuary in the City (Conran, 2011), and his most recent: Tokachi Millennium Forest: Pioneering a New Way of Gardening With Nature (Filbert Press, 2021). He is a Contributing Editor to Gardens Illustrated magazine and writes his own weekly blog, “Dig Delve.” 

  • Thursday, October 19, 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Eastern – Garden: Exploring the Horticultural World, Online

    Garden takes readers on a journey across continents and cultures to discover the endless ways artists and image-makers have found inspiration in gardens and horticulture throughout history. With more than 300 entries, this comprehensive and stunning visual survey showcases the diversity of the garden from all over the world—from the Garden of Eden and the grandeur of the English landscape garden to Japanese Zen gardens and the humble vegetable plot. Spanning a wide range of styles and media—from art, illustrations, and sculptures to photography, film stills, and textiles—Garden follows a visually arresting sequence, with works, regardless of period, thoughtfully paired to allow interesting and revealing juxtapositions between them.

    The Garden Conservancy will present an online talk on October 19 at 2 pm Eastern with Matthew Biggs, Abra Lee, and Kristine Paulus. A recording of this webinar will be sent to all registrants a few days after the event. We encourage you to register, even if you cannot attend the live webinar.

    Matthew Biggs, a graduate of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, is a well-known British gardener, broadcaster, and author of fifteen gardening and plant-related books. He is a panel member on BBC Radio 4’s Gardeners’ Question Time and author of the children’s book A Home for Every Plant, also published by Phaidon.

    Abra Lee is a storyteller and author of the forthcoming book Conquer the Soil: Black America and the Untold Stories of Our Country’s Gardeners, Farm­ers, and Growers. She has spent a “whole lotta time in the dirt” as a municipal arborist and airport landscape manager. Her work has been featured in publica­tions that include the New York Times, Fine Gardening, and Veranda magazine. Lee is a graduate of Auburn University College of Agriculture and an alumna of the Long­wood Gardens Society of Fellows, a global network of public horticulture profession­als. In January 2023 she joined Oakland Cemetery, a revered garden cemetery and vibrant park located downtown Atlanta, as Director of Horticulture.

    Kristine Paulus is a writer, photogra­pher, gardener, and librarian based in the Bronx. When she isn’t writing, photograph­ing, growing, or reading about plants and gardens, she can frequently be found at The New York Botanical Garden, where she is the collection development librarian. Biking, birding, and botanizing are some of her favorite pastimes—she sometimes engages in all of them at the same time.

    Register ($10 for public, $5 for Conservancy members) at www.gardenconservancy.org

  • Tuesday, October 10, 5:00 am – 6:30 am Eastern (but recorded) – Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Online

    The Gardens Trust has created a seven part series on Tuesdays, beginning September 12, to mark 50 years of UNESCO World Heritage, £5 each or all 7 for £28. Starting with an overview of World Heritage values and the changing nature of the UK list, the series will aim to enthuse people about individual sites around Great Britain, highlighting what makes each one exceptional, the advantages and challenges of being inscribed on the list, and the issues around sustainable future management of these global assets. 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 for the complete series HERE, or follow the links on that page to sign up for individual sessions.

    The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew tells the story of our relationship with plants, from innovative landscape design to global exploration, scientific endeavor and conservation action. The resulting rich and diverse cultural landscape is of national and international significance, spanning over 260 years. Kew Gardens was inscribed onto the World Heritage List in July 2003, acknowledging the value of its unique history, diverse historic landscape, rich architectural legacy, botanic collections and its position as one of the world’s leading botanic gardens for scientific research and education.

    Since the botanic gardens were first established by Princess Augusta in 1759, the site and collections have continued to grow and evolve through the work of RBG Kew’s scientists, horticulturists, educators and many volunteers. Over this time, RBG Kew has remained faithful to its original purpose, with botanists continuing to collect specimens and exchange expertise internationally. RBG Kew’s landscape, buildings and plant collections combine to form a unique testimony to developments in garden design, horticulture and botanical science that have subsequently diffused around the world.

    Georgina Darroch is Kew Gardens World Heritage Site Manager. Georgina has worked at Kew for 10 years, starting out as a student on the Kew Diploma in Horticulture before going on to work in Kew Science and then on several high-profile projects including the Hive and the Temperate House restoration. Georgina took on the management of Kew’s World Heritage Site responsibilities in 2019, leading the development of Kew’s current WHS Management Plan and engaging in several Planning Inquiries. Georgina has a background in archaeology and heritage management.

    Simon Toomer is Kew Gardens Curator of Living Collections, a new role that he took on in 2022 to lead the delivery of Kew’s Living Collections Strategy and develop Kew’s Landscape Succession Plan. Simon has been a forester, arboriculturist and horticultural botanist with previous roles including Director of Westonbirt Arboretum, Senior Consultant for Plant Conservation with the National Trust and Chair of PlantNetwork, the primary support and advisory network for holders of living plant collections throughout Britain and Ireland. He is also the author of several books on topics about trees and plant collections, including Trees for the Small Garden (Timber Press, 2005) and Planting and Maintaining a Tree Collection (Timber Press, 2010).

  • Thursday, May 5, 5:00 am – Kew’s Palm House, Online

    This Gardens Trust talk on May 5 is the second in our 2nd series on Victorian Gardens on Thurs @ 10.00 GMT (5 am Eastern). £5 each or all 6 for £30. 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 (available for 1 week) will be sent shortly afterwards.

    At the start of Queen Victoria’s reign, the royal gardens at Kew were regarded as an unnecessary expense and threatened with closure. Saved by a press and parliamentary campaign, Kew was transferred from royal to public ownership in 1840, and Sir William Hooker was appointed director.

    To build Kew’s status, Hooker persuaded the royal family to grant more land and commissioned a magnificent new Palm House. Designed by iron-founder Richard Turner and architect Decimus Burton, the Palm House employed the latest in engineering technology. Hailed as ‘the glory of the gardens’, the Palm House offered Londoners the experience of a day trip to the tropics. Britain’s foremost landscape designer, William Nesfield, laid out the surrounding grounds to make the Palm House the centrepiece of Kew.

    Kate Teltscher explores the function of the Palm House as imperial symbol and botanical spectacle. She traces Hooker’s transformation of Kew from small run-down garden into splendid national botanic establishment. Dr Kate Teltscher is a cultural historian and writer. Her most recent book is the acclaimed Palace of Palms: Tropical Dreams and the Making of Kew (Picador, 2020). She is an Emeritus Fellow of the School of Humanities at the University of Roehampton, Honorary Research Associate of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

  • Monday, May 10, 1:00 pm – 2:30 pm – Other Voices in Garden History: Collecting with Lao Chao

    This fifth in a series of illustrated lectures sponsored by The Gardens Trust will explore the impact and legacy of empire, colonialism and enslavement on western garden and landscape history. Our aim is to bring back some of the voices usually absent from this history, to identify and fill gaps in our collective knowledge, and to explore new ways of engaging with the whole history of gardens, landscapes and horticulture.

    For years, the curators of museums and living collections, and their visitors, have been programmed to respond to and expect tales of the grand, death-defying adventures of our collectors, rather than the realities and injustices of what really happened on expeditions. In this lecture, Yvette Harvey will use the archives of the Royal Horticultural Society and the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh to explore the escapades of well-known plant hunters from the perspective of others on their teams, and to discuss where credit should lie for the plant collections that have a huge impact on what is grown in our gardens today. The main focus of the lecture will be the Scottish botanist and plant hunter George Forrest (1873 – 1932) and will examine the role played by the teams of local Naxi people whom he employed to collect, process and label specimens. It will give voice to team leader Zhao Chengzhang and those who worked alongside him, acknowledging their valuable work and tenacity.

    This ticket costs £5, and you may purchase via the Eventbrite link here. Attendees will be sent a Zoom link 2 days prior to the start of the talk, and a link to the recorded session (available for 1 week) will be sent shortly afterwards.

    Yvette Harvey is the curator of the herbarium of the Royal Horticultural Society based at RHS Garden Wisley. She has coached on the topic of herbarium management for Kew’s Herbarium Techniques course. She maintains a professional interest in the Flora of West and Central Africa and is on the council of the Natural Sciences Collections Association, whose mission is to promote and support natural science collections and the people that work with them. Her research on decolonizing plant hunter narratives has been part-funded by the 1951 Royal Commission and the National Lottery Heritage Fund.