As part of Falmouth’s Spring Festival week of activities, there will be the launching of a newly programmed “lecture and lunch” event – a series of stimulating lectures on a variety of topics, given by experts in their own field.  The lecturer for Spring Festival Week will be award winning garden historian Russell Bowes, who has delivered lectures on a diverse range of subjects for The National Trust, Imperial War Museum, National Portrait Gallery and the Museum of Garden History in London.

Wed 21^st March, 10.30am start – The Painted Garden

Take a virtual tour through some of the major art galleries of the world and a journey through all the major trends and fashions in gardening, explored through the medium of paintings.

Thurs 22^nd March, 10.30am – The Art of the Folly

This is an entertaining and lighthearted look at some weird, wonderful and whimsical garden buildings from the 18th and 19th centuries.

Lecture only tickets cost £4.50 and a combined ‘Lecture & Lunch’ ticket is £15 and includes a 2 course lunch in the new Garden Room Bistro. Both tickets also include the option to take part in a guided tour of the newly restored gardens in the afternoon, and an opportunity to chat with the on site gardener.

If you have any questions, or if you would like to book tickets this can be done through the Box Office: 01326 211222 which is open weekdays from 9am-1pm.

Trish Gibson, one of the trustees of Cornwall Gardens Trust, has recently finished work on her latest book.  The title is Brenda Colvin: A career in landscape and the publication was in February 2011.  It can now be ordered from Amazon at http://www.amazon.co.uk/Brenda-Colvin-Landscape-Trish-Gibson/dp/0711231710 or alternatively ordered from any good bookshop.

Brenda Colvin (1897-1981) ranks with Sylvia Crowe and Geoffrey Jellicoe as a pioneer of twentieth-century landscape design in Britain. This first full account of her life and work demonstrates her importance.

Early in her career Colvin visited the USA to see the new civic landscaping projects, especially the parkways.  In England she transformed the landscapes of power stations, reservoirs, industrial sites, new towns and national parks and worked on private gardens.   Her simple planting style and her ecological approach had enormous influence.   Colvin championed the profession of landscape architect as a founder member and president of the Landscape Institute.  Her books Land and Landscape and Trees for Town and Country remain standard works.  Hal Moggridge, who became her partner, has written the foreword to this book.
Trish Gibson has had full access to the archives of Colvin & Moggridge.  She draws on Colvin’s personal notebook and uses previously unpublished material.  The offices of Colvin & Moggridge continue to thrive at Little Peacocks, Filkins, Gloucestershire, where Colvin’s garden is kept as it was in her day.