Annual General Meeting & Lecture by Vanessa Berridge

AGM AND LECTURE WITH VANESSA BERRIDGE

The AGM will be held in the Lammas Room at Hill Close Gardens, Warwick followed by a lecture by Vanessa Berridge based on her book, Kiftsgate Court Gardens: three generations of women gardeners. Tea will follow.

AGM and lecture are free to members, £5 to non-members. Tea is optional and costs £6.25.

Like Borde Hill, the gardens at Kiftsgate Court have also passed through the hands of several generations of the same family, but, unlike Borde Hill, Kiftsgate has been a female preserve. The gardens were first laid out in the 1920s by Heather Muir, an instinctive plantswoman and garden designer, who turned a bare and challenging hill-top site into one of Britain’s loveliest gardens. In turn, her daughter, Diany, and then Diany’s daughter, Anne, have put their own mark on Heather’s creation, striking a fine balance between continuity and evolution. Vanessa unfolds how that quiet evolution also sheds light on changing social patterns over the course of the last century and how gardens and gardeners have constantly adapted to survive.

Vanessa was the launch editor of The English Garden magazine and is now an award-winning writer on gardening and garden history. She is county organiser for the National Garden Scheme in Gloucestershire and opens her own garden for the scheme at her home in Winchcombe.