Members: Free, Online or Victoria Hall
Non-Members: £10, Online or Victoria Hall
Please book, for online link only, by 1pm on the day of the event
Have you ever wondered where your favourite garden flowers came from? Where their names derived? Or why some cultivars go in and out of favour? Every flower in your herbaceous border has a story, and in this lecture Advolly Richmond will take you on a tour of the most intriguing, surprising and enriching ones.
Tales of exploration, everlasting love and bravery bring these beautiful flowers to life. Advolly has dug down to uncover the royalty, scholars, pioneers and a smuggler or two that have all played a part in discovering and cultivating some of our favourite flowers. From the lavish and exotic bougainvillea, collected by an 18th-century female botanist in disguise, to the humble but majestic snowdrop casting a spell and causing a frenzy. These plants have played pivotal roles in our societies, from boom to bust economies, obsessive hybridisation and making fashion statements. These unassuming blooms hold treasure troves of stories.
Advolly Richmond is a plants, gardens and social historian based in Shropshire. A fellow of the Linnean Society, she is also a Champion for the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew. She lectures and writes on a variety of subjects from the sixteenth century through to the early twentieth century and is currently teaching at the Department for Continuing Education at the University of Oxford. Advolly’s new book A Short History of Flowers: the stories that make our gardens, was published in March 2024. She also contributes garden history features on BBC`s Gardener’s World.