Barbara Paul Robinson will talk from her personal experience as a gardener with Rosemary Verey and from her research for her book, Rosemary Verey: The Life & Lessons of a Legendary Gardener, which was published by David R. Godine in August 2012.

Rosemary Verey was an internationally acclaimed garden legend. Although she embraced gardening late in life, she quickly achieved international renown. She was the acknowledged apostle of the “English style,” on display at her home at Barnsley House, the “must have” adviser to the rich and famous, including Prince Charles and Elton John, and a beloved and wildly popular lecturer in America. A child of a generation born between the two World Wars, she went on to create the gardens at her home that became a mandatory stop on every garden tour in the 1980s and 1990s.

At age sixty-two, Rosemary Verey wrote her first book, followed by seventeen more in twenty years. By force of character, hard work, and determination, she tirelessly promoted herself and her garden lessons, traveling worldwide to lecture, sell books, and strengthen her network. A demanding and sometimes truculent taskmaster, and a relentless perfectionist, Rosemary Verey, in her life as in her work, was the very personification of the English garden style.

During a sabbatical from law firm Debevoise & Plimpton where she was the first woman partner, Barbara Paul Robinson worked as a gardener for Rosemary Verey at Barnsley House. A hands-in-the-dirt gardener herself, she and her husband created their own gardens at Brush Hill in northwestern Connecticut, featured in articles, books, and on television. Barbara has published articles in the New York Times, Horticulture, Fine Gardening, and Hortus; she wrote a chapter in Rosemary Verey’s The Secret Garden, and she is a frequent speaker.

Barbara is a member of the Garden Conservancy's Society of Fellows and opens her garden to the public as part of the Conservancy's Open Days program.

Date and time
Wednesday, March 27, 2013

6:30 - 8 p.m.

Location

Hunnewell Building

Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University

125 Arborway

Jamaica Plain, MA

Admission

$5 Members

$15 General admission

To register, call the Arnold Arboretum’s adult education department at 617.384.5277.

Sponsors

Co-sponsored by the Garden Conservancy, Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University, and the Friends of Wellesley College Botanic Gardens