Curious about the geographic or name origins of your favorite flowers? If so, Advolly Richmond’s lecture will delight and illuminate. Her 2024 book, “A Short History of Flowers: the stories that make our gardens,” contains charismatic portraits of 60 plants – including West Coast natives Matilija poppy and Oregon grape –  and she will highlight some of the most intriguing for us. These histories are embroidered with folklore, mythology, globe-spanning plant explorations, and tales of botanists, queens, kings, smugglers, monks and more. For a taste of her warm, inviting presentation style, sample The Garden History Podcast.

Speaker’s Bio:

Advolly Richmond is a garden, landscape and social historian fascinated by how gardens and gardening reflect social, political and economic currents. Based in the UK, she has an MA in garden history from the University of Bristol. Advolly lectures and writes about a range of 16th to 20th-century garden topics, with a special fondness for the gardens of the Italian Renaissance. She contributes garden history features to BBC’s tv program Gardeners’ World, writes for Scribehound and is a member of the Garden Media Guild. In addition, she is a Fellow of the Linnean Society and a Champion for the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. 

Additional Resource:

https://www.instagram.com/advollyr/