Boston Flora

Tag: Vita Sackville West

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • Monday, May 14 – Thursday, May 24 – England: Chelsea & the English Gardens of the Bohemians

    Join Pacific Horticulture May 14 – 24, 2018 and discover the extraordinary gardens of England’s bohemians, the artistic set made up of writers, philosophers, intellectuals, and artists in the early 20th century. We’ll explore the masterful gardens at Sissinghurst Castle created by Vita Sackville-West and Sir Harold Nicolson, and Charleston’s walled garden (pictured) created by the artists Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant while spending a half a day at its famed annual literary festival. We’ll also visit Farley Farmhouse, Nymans, and Virginia Wolfe’s home and garden, Monk’s House. This area of southern England also includes one of its greatest gardens, Great Dixter designed by Sir Christopher Lloyd. It and other gardens in this region will be on the itinerary, including lunch and a tour of the gardens at Gravetye Manor.

    Back in London, we’ll enjoy a walking tour of the Bloomsbury district where these intellectuals lived and visit some of its most famous Garden Squares followed by high tea. Our trip culminates at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show on the exclusive “members only” day. This tour will be escorted by PHS board member, Linda McKendry.

    Registration for this tour is now open. For complete itinerary details and information about booking this trip click on to http://www.sterlingtoursltd.com/Chelsea2018.html

  • 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.