Boston Flora

Tag: Troy Scott Smith

  • Thursday, December 7, 2:00 pm Eastern – Sissinghurst Through the Seasons, Winter Episode, Online

    Troy Scott Smith will guide you through the Garden Conservancy online course of a gardening year at Sissinghurst. Troy will share with you how the garden looks, which flowers are blooming at each season, and what the garden looked like when it was first created in the 1930s. He will uncover the secrets of pruning and propagation and the art of the English Garden. Each episode will be packed with information, all simply explained and illustrated, giving you techniques and confidence to put into practice in your own garden. The Winter episode will take place Thursday, December 7 at 2 pm Eastern. The bare blanket of earth that for many is the “winter garden,” need not be. If harnessed, the potency of the season can be as exhilarating as the heady explosion of summer. Pockets of evergreen planting, almost unnoticed in summer, are now an essential ingredient, exuding a presence and injecting solidity into the sparseness of the scene. Coatings of hoarfrost re-order the prominence of their outlines. Spring plants eager to steal a march on their competitor’s race to flower. There is nothing that disappoints about the winter garden, and in this final episode, Troy will share with you some of the possibilities to make winter in the garden a season to look forward to and enjoy.

    Sissinghurst was created nearly a century ago by the writers Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson as a private home and as refuge dedicated to natural beauty. Today it is owned by the National Trust and visited by hundreds of thousands of visitors annually. Troy’s career has been devoted to the beauty and romance of gardening. Since joining the National Trust of England, Wales & Northern Ireland in 1990, Troy has led some of the world’s most beautiful gardens, among them the Courts (Wiltshire), Bodnant (Wales), and two stints at Sissinghurst (Kent), where he has led a remarkable transformation and restoration of the Vita Sackville-West gardens.

    $5 for Garden Conservancy members, $15 for nonmembers. Register HERE.

  • Thursday, September 21, 2:00 pm Eastern – Sissinghurst Through the Seasons: Fall Episode, Online

    Troy Scott Smith will guide you through the Garden Conservancy online course of a gardening year at Sissinghurst. Troy will share with you how the garden looks, which flowers are blooming at each season, and what the garden looked like when it was first created in the 1930s. He will uncover the secrets of pruning and propagation and the art of the English Garden. Each episode will be packed with information, all simply explained and illustrated, giving you techniques and confidence to put into practice in your own garden. The Fall episode will take place Thursday, September 21 at 2 pm Eastern. Fall is a time for doing, for action, and productivity. The beauty of your garden next year relies on the things you do now. In this episode, Troy will be looking at lifting and dividing and how to make those edits for inspiring and flower-filled borders. Turf care, hedge cutting, propagation, and pruning are also essential tasks of autumn, and we will look at these too. Troy shall also not forget to enjoy and share with you, the beauty of the season.

    Sissinghurst was created nearly a century ago by the writers Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson as a private home and as refuge dedicated to natural beauty. Today it is owned by the National Trust and visited by hundreds of thousands of visitors annually. Troy’s career has been devoted to the beauty and romance of gardening. Since joining the National Trust of England, Wales & Northern Ireland in 1990, Troy has led some of the world’s most beautiful gardens, among them the Courts (Wiltshire), Bodnant (Wales), and two stints at Sissinghurst (Kent), where he has led a remarkable transformation and restoration of the Vita Sackville-West gardens.

    $5 for Garden Conservancy members, $15 for nonmembers. Register HERE.

  • Thursday, April 28, 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm – Reimagining Vita-Sackville West’s Sissinghurst Garden, Online

    For those of you who missed Troy Scott Smith’s talk at Long Hill on April 1, we have another opportunity. In this virtual illustrated Garden Conservancy talk on April 28 at 2 pm, Troy recounts his long tenure at Sissinghurst and his efforts to recapture the distinctive vision of its creators, the writers Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson, in the 1930s, as a refuge dedicated to natural beauty. He studied not only Sackville-West’s and Nicolson’s gardening style, but also their characters, philosophy, and interests, while balancing the reality of hundreds of thousands of annual visitors and the effects of climate change. In the end, Troy shows how he settled on an approach that allowed past, present, and future to co-exist.

    One of Britain’s best-known Head Gardeners, Troy Scott Smith, has devoted his career to the beauty and romance of gardening. Since joining the National Trust of England, Wales, and Northern Ireland in 1990, Troy has led some of the world’s most beautiful gardens, among them the Courts (Wiltshire), Bodnant (Wales) and two stints at Sissinghurst (Kent), where he has led a remarkable transformation and restoration of the Vita Sackville-West gardens.

    After spearheading a multi-year plan as Head Gardener at Sissinghurst, which included the recreation of a Mediterranean-style garden from the Greek Island of Delos, Troy left to take up leadership of the award winning Iford Manor Garden in Wiltshire, near Bath, where he set in motion a 10 -year masterplan. After two years, Troy returned to his spiritual home of Sissinghurst.

    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. $5 for Garden Conservancy members, $15 General Admission. Register HERE.

    Members of the Frank & Anne Cabot Society for planned giving have complimentary access to Garden Conservancy webinars. All Cabot Society members will automatically be sent the link to participate on the morning of the webinar. For more information about the Cabot Society, please contact Sarah Parker at sparker@gardenconservancy.org or 845.424.6500, ext. 214.

    Plant profile on roses and over view at Sissinghurst gardens , Sissinghurst, Kent June /July 2015 Rachel Warne

  • Friday, April 1, 5:00 pm – 7:00 pm – Reimagining Vita Sackville-West’s Sissinghurst Gardens

    In this illustrated talk, Troy Scott Smith recounts his long tenure at Sissinghurst and his efforts to recapture the distinctive vision of its creators, the writers Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson, in the 1930s, as a refuge dedicated to natural beauty. He studied not only Sackville-West’s and Nicolson’s gardening style, but also their characters, philosophy, and interests, while balancing the reality of hundreds of thousands of annual visitors and the effects of climate change. In the end, Troy shows how he settled on an approach that allowed past, present, and future to co-exist. The event, sponsored by The Garden Conservancy, will be held at Long Hill, 572 Essex Street, in Beverly, MA. This is an indoor event and masks and proof of vaccination will be required.

    $45 Garden Conservancy and the Trustees of Reservations members
    $55 General admission

    Register at https://www.gardenconservancy.org/

    One of Britain’s best-known head gardeners, Troy Scott Smith has devoted his career to the beauty and romance of gardening. Since joining the National Trust of England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, in 1990, Troy has led some of the world’s most beautiful gardens, among them the Courts (Wiltshire), Bodnant (Wales), and two stints at Sissinghurst (Kent), where he has led a remarkable transformation and restoration of the Vita Sackville-West gardens. 

    After spearheading a multi-year plan as head gardener at Sissinghurst, which included the recreation of a Mediterranean-style garden from the Greek Island of Delos, Troy left to assume leadership of the award- winning Iford Manor Garden in Wiltshire, near Bath, where he set in motion a ten-year master plan. After two years, Troy returned to his spiritual home of Sissinghurst.

  • 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.