As associate members of The Gardens Trust, Buckinghamshire Gardens Trust members have the opportunity to book lecture series or one off zoom lectures. So do get your 2022 diary out and start booking for talks now.
Kent Gardens Trust and the GT: Unforgettable Gardens
To brighten up the dark days of January, Kent Gardens Trust will take us back to the heady days of summer with a series of talks featuring four of Kent’s finest gardens. Starting with Sissinghurst, the series continues with Restoration House at Rochester; the gardens at Walmer Castle; Balmoral Cottage at Benenden and lastly the garden of Charlotte and Donald Molesworth.
Forgotten Women Gardeners
Following the success of our series on gardeners last year, we are pleased to offer six lectures highlighting the work of women gardeners and their less well-known contributions to horticulture. From medieval weeders to the “All Powerful” Alice de Rothschild, Twigs Way will look at the way in which women were forced into the margins of the traditional overview of garden history.
The Landscape Garden
Our journey through Garden History has taken us into the 18th century, and in this third and final part we turn to the Landscape Garden. Over six weeks the series will cover the works of Brown, the proponents of the Picturesque and Repton, as well as the increasing significance of botany and plant collecting thanks to Joseph Banks.
Early Illustrators of Natural History
Henrietta McBurney, former curator in the Print Room of the Royal Library, Windsor, will speak about two of its treasures: the flower paintings in the Florilegium of Alexander Marshal and Maria Sibylla Merian’s wonderful illustrations for her book on the insects of Suriname painted with their native plants. These breathtaking images will enchant you in the dark days of January.
Sussex GT and the GT: Unforgettable Gardens – Informed By Their Histories
In February, in partnership with the Gardens Trust’s Unforgettable Gardens series, four wonderful Sussex Gardens will be presented. The title of the talks, Informed By Their Histories, reflects how these gardens are all benefiting from new and on-going research into their design and plant collection archives, whether through letters, catalogues and drawings or, most excitingly, the surviving plants themselves.
The Life and Work of John Bradby Blake
John Bradby Blake’s life was short but exceptional. During a span of only three years in the southern Chinese port city of Canton, Blake and his Chinese artist(s) produced several hundred exquisite, botanically accurate, coloured drawings of Chinese plants, many of which were unknown in the West. Hidden from public view for more than two centuries, these singular and historically crucial collaborative artistic creations have only recently resurfaced. This series of six illustrated talks, focussing on the botanical drawings, will lead you into a previously unknown world in London and Canton, which Blake participated in and shaped.
Royal Parks Winter Warmer Talks
Join the Royal Parks in a series of free ‘Winter Warmer’ online talks aimed at bringing a little light, community and learning to you during those long winter nights! From November through to March we will explore a variety of topics from hidden parts of the parks to the fantastic wildlife within the parks, and how the parks can benefit your health and wellbeing. Hear fascinating tales from the ancient catacombs, fun facts about brilliant butterflies and moths, or even just delight in the best winter wildlife spectacles in Britain.
Things to Do When You’re Not in the Garden
Crystal Palace from the northeast from Dickinson’s Comprehensive Pictures of the Great Exhibition of 1851-54
