This talk and all our lectures are FREE for Friends of the Botanical Gardens to attend. Members of the public are also welcome to join us on payment of £5 at the door on the day. Live talks are held in the Education Centre in the grounds of the Botanical Gardens - easily accessed via the Thompson Road Entrance.

In this talk, Griselda Kerr, gardener and owner of the Dower House in Melbourne, Derbyshire will reflect upon the need for aesthetic sustenance in our lives and just how much nourishment we get from gardening; of the importance of gardens and gardening in our lives and the joy, solace and positivity it bring us.  

Using photographs of plants in her garden she will consider the miraculous nature of gardening and the changing seasons.   

Following a 20 year career in the Fine Arts at The Royal Academy of Arts in London, Griselda moved to Hong Kong in 1992 where she raised her family before returning to the UK in 2000 when she moved back to Derbyshire.

In 2003 she decided to learn to garden - career number three.  She took herself to gardening school for 4 years followed by many courses and started planting The Dower House garden.  Keen to know how to manage efficiently the plants in her developing garden she looked for a book which told her what to do when, but not finding one, she to write one for myself.   'The Apprehensive Gardener' was printed by Pimpernel Press; it is strictly a reference book where the index is the first thing you turn to, to see what month something needs doing to whatever plant you look up.  Now in its second edition it continues to sell well.  

Gardening remains Griselda’s principal occupation but she is also involved in Foundation Derbyshire’s arts awards, in her Church and with the International Dendrology Society’s free worldwide internet site 'Trees and Shrubs Online’.

She also a Deputy Lieutenant of Derbyshire and a judge for East Midlands in Bloom.  

Griselda Kerr on Instagram