Boston Flora

Tag: Royal Oak Foundation

  • Wednesday, December 2, 2:00 pm – Kiftsgate Court Gardens: Three Generations of Women Gardeners Webinar

    In this December 2 illustrated webinar, current owners Anne and Johnny Chambers will tell their personal tale of Kiftsgate Court’s history and share their plans for the garden’s future. The program is presented by the Royal Oak Foundation, co-sponsored by The Colonial Dames of America, Washington Decorative Arts Forum, and the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art, Southern California Chapter, and begins at 2 pm. $15 for sponsor members. $20 non-members.

    Kiftsgate Court is a family home and garden that has been loved and cultivated by the same family for over 100 years. Three generations of women gardeners have left their mark, each building on the family legacy.

    When Jack and Heather Muir bought Kiftsgate in 1919, Heather laid out the garden without any horticultural training. Instead of a lawn, she planted semi-formal beds of roses and other flowers, a tapestry hedge with a mix of beech, yew, and plain and variegated holly, and a rose border full of unusual varieties. Heather’s aesthetic favored the Arts & Crafts Movement, emphasizing perennials and Mediterranean plants chosen for their adaptability, including drought tolerant cistus, spiky agaves, and other Mediterranean style plantings. She was encouraged by her friend and next-door neighbor at Hidcote, Lawrence Johnston, as well as Vita Sackville-West, who planted the famous Kiftsgate Rose at Sissinghurst.

    Heather’s daughter, Diany Binny, continued the family gardening tradition during the 1950s. She designed paths, replanted borders with herbaceous plants, and re-fashioned the White Sunk Garden with a pool. Since the late 1980s, her daughter, Anne Chambers, and Anne’s husband, Johnny, have cultivated Kiftsgate. They introduced plants that flower year-round and added a water garden, a woodland, a tulip tree avenue, and an orchard. 

    Register at www.royal-oak.org. Use Discount Code BACKBAY20 to enjoy the Royal Oak member price ($15) when checking out.

  • Wednesday, October 14, 6:00 pm – Saving Fountains Abbey, Online

    The dramatic abbey ruins at Fountains are the largest monastic ruins in Britain. After the dissolution of the monasteries, the buildings fell into ruin until the 18th century when the abbey became the heart of one of Britain’s grandest landscapes ever created, Studley Royal Water Garden. 


    The water garden at Studley Royal is one of the few great 18th-century gardens to have survived well in its original form. It was the creation of John Aislabie and later his son, William. They both had astounding vision for how they wanted this garden to look, working with the landscape rather than changing it. Their design ingeniously channels the winding waters of the River Skell past the abbey ruins and into moon shaped ponds and mirrored lakes, framed with formal bosquet hedges and laurel banks. 
    They pushed the boundaries of what was considered to be a garden and heavily influenced the typical “English” garden style. Experience this extraordinary place for yourself on October 14 at 6 pm live or later, online, with the Royal Oak Foundation. All proceeds from this event will be donated to Royal Oak’s 2020 Campaign in support of the National Trust: Saving Fountains Abbey. $35 to access recording – register HERE

    The evening will include:

    • Guided tours of this UNESCO World Heritage Site with Fountains staff and volunteers
    • A presentation and Q&A with General Manager, Justin Scully
    • Engaging panel discussions of the history and the challenges facing the property
    • Special Guest appearance from renowned British artist, Ed Kluz
    • Musical performance filmed at the Abbey exclusively for Royal Oak members 
    A view over the Half Moon Pond and weir of Studley Royal Water Garden towards Fountains Abbey, North Yorkshire. Fountains Abbey, a Cistercian community of monks founded in the twelfth century, forms a picturesque backdrop to the water gardens created by John Aislabie and his son William in the eighteenth century.

  • Saturday, August 2 – Tuesday, August 11 – The Downton Abbey Experience & Classic English Manor Houses

    The picturesque South West of England is home to a veritable treasure trove of impressive stately homes and atmospheric manors. These magnificent properties boast extraordinary interiors and often feature fascinating garden styles and parkland too, many of which were created by 18th-century garden design trendsetters such as ‘Capability’ Brown.

    On this Royal Oak Foundation tour, we will enjoy a wonderful Downton Abbey experience with a special visit to Highclere Castle, an evening Downton Abbey-themed event and a tour of filming locations of this iconic television series and film.

    We also will uncover some classic and sometimes hidden gems, from the Elizabethan Longleat House to the tranquil Heale House Gardens and Italianate Peto Garden. There is a guided walking tour of Bath with afternoon tea at The Pump Rooms for all you Jane Austen fans, a guided tour of the Bishop’s Palace & Gardens, tour and lunch at Bowood House, and much more. The trip, August 2 – 11, is $4,990 per person, and details may be found at https://www.royal-oak.org/downtown-abbey-experience-with-royal-oak/

  • Monday, December 4, 6:00 pm – Sissinghurst: Revitalizing Vita Sackville West’s Garden

    Monday, December 4, 6:00 pm – Sissinghurst: Revitalizing Vita Sackville West’s Garden

    Landscape designer Troy Scott Smith’s passion for the natural world developed during his childhood spent in the Yorkshire countryside. He began his gardening career in 1987 creating gardens in both the United Kingdom and France, and joined the National Trust in 1990. Apart from one year as the Curator for The Royal Horticultural Society, he has been caring for Trust gardens ever since. Troy spent seven years as Head Gardener at The Courts in Wiltshire and another seven at Bodnant Garden in Wales, where he led a 3.4 million pound restoration. Head Gardener at Sissinghurst Castle since 2013, Troy and his team of seven full-time gardeners are working to revitalize and maintain the beauty and romance of Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson’s exquisite garden.

    Troy has also worked with the Royal Botanic Garden, Sydney and Royal Botanic Garden, Kew, co-designing the Floral Colour spectrum at the latter. An avid photographer, Troy was awarded the Royal Horticultural Society garden photographer of the year prize in 2003. He also writes regularly for garden magazines and daily newspapers, and presents of NBC’s Gardeners’ World.

    The Royal Oak Foundation Fall 2017 Lecture will take place Monday, December 4 at 6:00 pm at The College Club of Boston, 44 Commonwealth Avenue. Ticket information will be available shortly. For more information visit www.royal-oak.org.

  • Tuesday, April 14, 6:30 pm – 8:00 pm – Tales of Loss & Redemption: The Country House in the National Trust

    From the 1880s through the 1930s, Britain experienced a revolution in land ownership only paralleled in its history by the Norman Conquest and the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Britain’s landed elites found themselves under attack by the forces of modernity on all fronts, and their bastions, the country houses, fell to the auction block and the wrecker’s ball in increasing numbers throughout the first half of the 20th century. Into this breach in the fabric of British landed society stepped a reluctant new force of social order, the National Trust. On Tuesday, April 14, at 6 pm, the Royal Oak Foundation’s Executive Director Dr. Sean E. Sawyer will discuss the National Trust’s role in rescuing some of Britain’s greatest country houses and their internationally significant collections of decorative and fine arts. From a reluctant recipient of a handful of houses in the 1920s, the Trust evolved, through its Country Houses Scheme, to lead the way in preserving houses and collections through the bleakest years of the post-World War II era. The last decades of the 20th century saw a revival of fortunes for the country house and the Trust’s adaptation as its role as a leading operator of visitor attractions. This is a story full of deaths, both mortal and material, and of daring rescues and bureaucratic blindness. This illustrated lecture, co sponsored by the Royal Oak Foundation and the Trustees of Reservations, will explore some of the Trust’s most important properties, including Blickling and Hardwick Hall, and of the families and great characters who haunt them still. The lecture will take place at Castle Hill on the Crane Estate in Ipswich. TTOR members $30, nonmembers $40. To register, call 978-356-4351, x 4050.