Join garden writer Clare Foster, celebrated garden designer Tom Massey and editor Blanche Vaughan for an inspiring conversation on the wild and wonderful gardens featured in Pastoral Gardens.
The pastoral garden is an intriguing contradiction. The word conjures up a rural idyll, with Hardyesque visions of a wild, untainted landscape – an idea that goes against the manicured expectation of formal or ‘designed’ green spaces. But our warming climate is propelling a monumental change in how we garden. Around the globe, garden-makers are responding to this new reality by creating remarkable plant-filled spaces that are inspired by the untamed landscapes around us, building back habitats and increasing the biodiversity that has been so tragically lost.
Pastoral Gardens explores 20 exquisite spaces that embrace this bucolic ideal. Created by some of the most well-renowned designers working today (including Tom Massey) these gardens respond directly to the beauty of our natural habitats, with wildflower meadows and grazing cattle integrated into holistic spaces where the boundaries between a conventional garden and the wider landscape are all but invisible.
The essence of these unmanicured spaces is displayed in over 250 breathtaking photographs, painstakingly captured by Andrew Montgomery. Illuminating texts by Clare Foster explore the history, design and planting of each garden, along with essays from four leading garden designers that complement the book’s chapters – Informality, Sanctuary, Landscape and Habitat.
Here at Thyme this January, our panel explore key themes in this beautiful book and how we might shape and support nature in our own gardens.
10-10.30am - Guest Arrival
10.30-11.30am - Talk
11.30am - Audience Q&A and Book Signing
12pm onwards - Lunch in the Ox Barn
*Talk and lunch ticket (£45) includes access to the talk, welcome refreshments and a two-course lunch in the Ox Barn (prix fixe menu).
*Guests may be seated on our communal Chef’s Table - if you have a seating preference, please let us know and we will do our best to accommodate you.
Clare Foster
Clare Foster is Garden Editor at House & Garden magazine and a freelance garden journalist. After starting her career in book publishing, she spent nine years at Gardens Illustrated magazine, latterly as Editor. As well as writing about plants and gardens, Clare has always gardened herself, first on an allotment in London, and now in her garden in the Berkshire Downs. She is the author of five books, including this book’s sister title, Winter Gardens. She is developing her own website Bud to Seed, and writes a popular garden journal on Substack.
Tom Massey
Tom Massey is one of the country's most talented young garden designers. He has designed four Chelsea gardens and is designing a fifth for 2025, and is particularly known for his ability to combine bold, imaginative design with deeply ecological principles. A private garden he designed in Richmond is included in Pastoral Gardens, showing how he brings nature into an urban environment.
Blanche Vaughan
House & Garden's food editor Blanche Vaughan lives a life dictated by the rhythms of her Devon garden and the seasonality of the produce she grows. She has authored several cookbooks and her recipes appeared in the likes of The Guardian, The Telegraph and The Times.