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Garden Extracts

May 18, 2016
by the gentle author

In celebration of the East End’s horticultural history and heritage, Townhouse Spitalfields, is staging ‘Garden Extracts,’ a series of events between May 21st & June 5th as part of the Chelsea Flower Show Fringe, including an exhibition of botanical prints from ‘The British Herbal’ published in parts by John Hill 1756 – 1757 and a series of talks and workshops.

POTTING SHED: FLIFF CARR & MATILDA MORETON are running workshops this Saturday 21st & Sunday 22nd May, giving you the opportunity to impress flowers into clay and make your own ceramics Click here to book

STEPHEN NELSON: PLANTSMAN & PERFUMER will be giving three talks on the history of scent on 31st May, 1st June & 2nd June at 2:30pm

TWENTIETH CENTURY PERFUME: LIZZIE OSTROM AKA ODETTE TOILETTE will be giving a talk on contemporary perfume Sunday June 5th

Stephen Nelson, Plantsman & Perfumer recreates perfumes from history

Learn more about Stephen Nelson’s work at www.darasina.co.uk

You may like to read these other horticultural stories

Nicholas Culpeper in Spitalfields

Thomas Fairchild, Gardener of Hoxton

The Auriculas of Spitalfields

A Brief Survey of East End Garden History

4 Responses leave one →
  1. May 18, 2016

    The Garden Extracts events at the fringe should be good, wish I lived nearby. The set of botanical prints shown here are quite breath-taking. Original botanical prints of similar quality can also be seen at Kew Gardens. Best wishes to Stephen and Co. John

  2. May 18, 2016

    The old prints are wonderful. Wish I lived nearer so that I could join in. Valerie

  3. May 18, 2016

    Please bear with me if I “intrude” on this beautiful post, with a slightly-off-topic request:
    Back in the early Eighties, my husband and I made a trip to London and one of the pure delights was a very definitive exhibit at the V&A about gardening. In recent years, I have wondered about the title of the exhibit and whether there was an exhibition catalog, etc. As I recall (!!??) the exhibition area was replete with actual plantings and garden beds (indoors), as well as sheds and other gardening accoutrements and regalia. The creativity of the exhibition was off-the-charts and now that I am older-and-wiser, I would love to find out more. Does anyone else share the memory of the exhibit, or have any info about the title, year, catalog, etc?
    Thank you for the incredible botanical images above — Spring has been quite reluctant in the Hudson River Valley this year, and it has been too cold to start my containers. But these images remind me that it will be worth the wait.

  4. pauline taylor permalink
    May 18, 2016

    I love all botanical drawings and paintings as this is what I was taught to do by the late, great Richard Chopping, with occasional advice from John Nash. Dickie was an extremely good and patient tutor, and I treasure one of his paintings, that he did for a proposed book of all British wild plants, which he gave to me before he died. Sadly the book turned out to be far too costly for the publishers so it was never finished. Very sad as it would have been so beautiful.

    Thinking back to another recent piece GA, I always think that scent sounds much more evocative than perfume. All, or most flowers have perfume, but from them we can make lovely scent!! But I like the sound of Garden Extracts, I’m sure it will be memorable.

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