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 seventh talk takes place March 3. One of the proudest legacies of the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) is its role in broadening the range of plants grown in British gardens. However this is a history interwoven with British colonial expansion and exploitation, a fact that has not been fully acknowledged in past discussion or interpretation. Over the last 5 years, RHS Lindley Library has been working with archival papers relating to the Society’s most active period of plant collecting in the early 19th century. As part of this work, the RHS commissioned an external review of the papers from Drs Sarah Easterby-Smith and Elena Romero-Passerin (School of History, University of St Andrews). This talk will look at the insights gained from this work and how we can invite new perspectives on the archive, for instance drawing on other disciplines like ethnobotany, to develop a more inclusive understanding of the factors that shaped our gardens and gardening.

Fiona Davison is RHS Head of Libraries and Exhibitions based at the RHS Lindley Library in London. She has a background in museum curatorship and management. She has written two books on 19th- and 20th-century garden history: The Hidden Horticulturists (Atlantic Books, 2019) and An Almost Impossible Thing (Little Toller, 2023). She gives talks and lectures about the RHS collections and the history of gardening.

Dr Sarah Easterby-Smith is Senior Lecturer in Modern History at the University of St Andrews. She researches and teaches the social and cultural history of science in the 18th and 19th centuries; in 2017 she published Cultivating Commerce: Cultures of Botany in Britain and France 1760-1815 (Cambridge University Press). Alongside her university work, she has acted as historical consultant for the Royal Horticultural Society and, currently, is working for UNESCO on a project about botany and world heritage sites.

This session will be chaired by Dr Louise Crawley of English Heritage.