No other floral genus has greater variety and enticement than the rose. They blossom in an endless variety of shapes and a surprising spectrum of colours; their perfume is ineffable. After three thousand years of cultivation, the rose continues to seduce.
At Thyme this spring, acclaimed photographer Ngoc Minh Ngo, and Garden Editor Clare Foster explore the beauty, history and culture of this remarkable flower, visiting many of the places that served as inspiration for Roses in the Garden, from the most romantic garden in the world to the Rose Garden of Sakura.
Included in the ticket price is a welcome refreshment and a two-course lunch in the Ox Barn. Following the talk there will be time for an audience Q&A and a book signing with Ngoc Minh Ngo.
10.00-10.30am - Guest Arrival
10.30-11.30am - Talk
11.30am-12pm - Audience Q&A and Book Signing
12pm onwards - Lunch
*Talk and Ox Barn lunch ticket (£50) includes access to the talk, welcome refreshment and a two-course lunch in the Ox Barn (prix fixe menu). Guests may be seated on a communal table - if you have a seating preference, please let us know and we will do our best to accommodate you on the day.
Ngoc Minh Ngo
Ngoc Minh Ngo is a celebrated photographer and the author of Bringing Nature Home, In Bloom, and Eden Revisited. Ngoc’s images have been published in the World of Interiors, T Magazine, Architectural Digest, Cabana, and House & Garden UK.
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 her most recent title Pastoral Gardens. She is developing her own website Bud to Seed, and writes a popular garden journal on Substack.
Roses in the Garden
Acclaimed photographer and writer Ngoc Minh Ngo showcases the queen of flowers through a curated list of preeminent gardens in England, France, Italy, Spain, Morocco, and Japan, as well as the US. Each garden, like its roses, has a unique personality, which is captured through the author’s prose and camera lens, highlighting the delight and seduction of this unique flower. Ninfa, outside of Rome and considered the most romantic garden in the world, is documented in all of its beauty in the springtime, while the Rose Garden of Sakura, Japan, is best seen in early summer. With extraordinary gardens in eleven locations, Roses in the Garden is a dazzling tour of the history and glory of the rose through its most beautiful homes.
"Memory and history are at the center of the photographer Ngoc Minh Ngo’s Roses in the Garden (Rizzoli), an effusive and elegant book with a genesis in loss." — Vogue
"One of my favorite photographers, Ngoc Minh Ngo, has approached the subject of one of my favorite flowers, the Rose, in a beautiful and very unique way. She takes us to some faraway and unusual places to introduce us to gardens that are redolent of these ancient and romantic flowers, and she focuses not on specific blooms but on the way these shrubs and bushes and vine like plants consume areas, covering architecture, obscuring walls, climbing trees and becoming the landscape. I learned a great deal going through this beautiful book, and I now have even more appreciation of the rose as a plant as well as an individual bloom! Brava Ngoc!" — Martha Stewart
"The rose is the queen of all flowers and no book could possibly serve its majesty finer. Roses in the Garden is as noble, delicate, mythical, romantic, dream-inducing and gorgeous as its subject." — Deborah Needleman