Unless you’re really into gardening, the prospect of spending a Saturday morning on a Go2Webinar call listening to educational webinars about gardens may be a little…I dunno, boring? But the American Rose Center – who make their headquarters here in Shreveport, where they typically host a year-round calendar of in-person events – have something special in the works for their 2020 Green Thumb Seminar on July 18.

RSVP to the 2020 Green Thumb Seminar on Facebook or register here.

This year’s seminar will feature Master Consulting Rosarian Claude Graves, who’ll share a presentation called “Gertrude Jekyll’s Lost Garden.” If you’re interested in history, great women of history, or self-taught, do-it-yourself makers and crafters, you are going to enjoy this 90-minute presentation scheduled to begin at 9 am. The streaming seminar is free and open to the public.

A photo of Claude Graves
Claude Graves.

Here’s the short version: In 1983, a woman named Rosemund Wallinger and her husband purchased a home called Manor House at Upton Grey, which you can see here. They found paperwork from 1908 that outlined the original designs of the garden, which had been designed by celebrated garden designer Gertrude Jekyll. The garden had been derelict and neglected since World War II.

“With hardly any garden experience, she set herself the task to carry out an exact restoration of this Edwardian masterpiece,” writes the blog www.villerthegarden.de.

How’d she do? Historians, gardeners, and tourists around the world regard Wallinger’s work as one of the finest garden restorations in existence. There are a few photos of the restored garden here. Graves, who has personally visited what’s become known as “Gertrude Jekyll’s Lost Garden,” brings an uncommon level of expertise and enthusiasm to the subject.

“Claude’s experience with roses gives him the ability to include details that you may not otherwise find out,” said Beth Smiley, publications director for the American Rose Society. “Rosemund Wallinger became this revered gardener, and she’d never gardened a day in her life. You hope that good stories like that won’t get lost.”

Like the American Rose Society on Facebook.
Register to attend the 2020 Green Thumb Seminar on July 18.

Claude Graves photo courtesy of American Rose Society.
“Jekyll garden, Moutiers” by amandabhslater is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0


20×49.com is a publication of the Shreveport-Bossier Convention and Tourist Bureau.