From Cheerio to Chiao! ANNA PAVORD

The Flowering of Tuscany:
British Gardens in Italy
1900-1930

Bernard Berenson and Geoffrey Scott in the recently completed garden (1913)

Seed for Thought Lecture
Royal Oak Foundation
New York

ANNA PAVORD tells a good story.  You can see why she is in demand.   She delivers a riveting presentation punctuated by humor and knowledge.  She has done her research; found the interesting tidbit and overarching meaning of her subject.  Pavord began her lecture Tuesday night with this fact:

  At the beginning of the twentieth century,
one in six people living in Florence spoke English as their native tongue.

And then asked the question why?
1.  It was cheaper to live in a grand style
2.  Expats could reinvent themselves 

3.  Liaisons were tolerated, even indulged
4.  Sons could be sent to Italy,  if they proved unsatisfactory
5.  Industrialization had transformed the British countryside and some felt it was blighted
6.  The retreat to Florence represented a sense of "backwaterdom"
7.  Journals, diaries, sketches could be written
8.  Women found considerably more freedom in Florence than at home

The staircase at Villa le Balze

What exactly did the English bring to Italian gardens?  Pavord put it in the most lovely way, 

"... they laid on a muslin veil of flowers."

This story of the making of these gardens is greatly enhanced by the amount of hanky panky that went on between neighbors.  Homosexual, heterosexual, intramarital; it made no difference.  Sex was as much part of their lives as garden making. The actors:  Bernard Berenson, Lady Paget, Lady Sybil Cutting, Alice Keppel, Sir George Sitwell, Sir Arthur Acton,Vita Sackville-West, Charles Strong. 

But the guy who plays a pivotal role is the guy you haven't heard of:  Cecil Pinsent (1884-1963).  He arrived in Florence at age 24, joining his friend Geoffrey Scott on a study-tour of Tuscan architecture.  He designed 8 major gardens between 1921-1928.  Pinsent met the right people: each owned a large property and wanted a garden.  He understood the architecture of the Renaissance and the settecento.  This was his genius.  He made Italian gardens for British expats.  He used the Italian garden idioms and elements; creating designs more Italian than their ancestors'. 

Pavord took us through Pinsent's gardens, describing his landscapes, peppering her stories with the personal histories of the occupants of the houses and doing it all with a dose of British humor.

La Foce
Benedetta Origo
"...And then three years later, after my American great-grandmother had given my parents
enough money for a water pipe from a spirng six miles away,
he(Pinsent) was able to start this first little garden."

In passing, Pavord mentioned Torre di Bellosguardo.  Her husband had taken her there on holiday after a bout with cancer.  "Today, Torre di Bellosguardo is still surrounded by the silence of the garden and the hills, a haven of ancient and noble history that it shares with its guests everyday as a hotel of rare comfort and atmosphere".  She recommended a stay.  I googled it and decided this little piece of heaven would take a few more pennies in the piggy bank to become a reality.

Torre di Bellosguardo

Anna Pavord:  Author of nine books including:  The Tulip, Bulbs, The Naming of Names, The Curious Gardener.  She contributes to a number of magazines and regularly fronts programs for BBC Radio.  In addition to her role on the Natinal Trust's Gardens Panel, she also sits on the Parks and Gardens Panel of English Heritage.

Focused Attention: Dominique Browning and Anna Pavord

 

DOMINIQUE BROWNING

Wave Hill's Horticultural Lecture Series - March 17, 2010

Slow Love:  How I Got Knocked off the Fast Track, Put on My Pajamas for a Year and Found Happiness (Publication date: May 2010)

ANNA PAVORD

New York Botanical Garden- March 18, 2010

Bulb

 

What do these two women with in common?

They are both story tellers.  Dominique Browning's story is her own life in transformation:  from high-powered editing to slow living.  For Ann Pavord, plants, specifically bulbs, are the subject matter of her stories.  Pavord is interested in the whole package, from discovery to voyage to planting.

Browning spoke on Tuesday night as part of the Wave Hill Horticultural Lecture Series.  Her saga has become an all too common one:  lost her job, went into a tailspin and came out the other end with a different life.  Her new book, Slow Love recounts her journey:  which includes leaving a garden of 25 years and making a new one.

"I started wearing glasses as a child, when I was diagnosed as near-sighted.  I believe, I developed a habit of looking closely at things."  As her life unraveled, this habit of observing became a strategy for living...and gardening.

Browning talked about the idea of a long minute.  "Nothing to do is the place where hope begins to be possible."  Not worrying about failure is the guiding principle of her new way of gardenomg.  No grand design.  No overall scheme.  Simply put:  starting with a plant and seeing where it takes you.

If there is anyone on the planet, who has started with a plant and seen where it takes her, it is Anna Pavord.  Pavord became famous for her book, Tulip.  Followed in 2009 by Bulb.  Both are exhaustive tomes.  Pavord is interested in the back-story of plants.  Where plants come from, how they got their names, their personalities, native habitat and who were the people who brought these plants to the "new world."

I don't know if there is something in the water in Great Britain or the genes, but British gardeners have a way of talking about plants that draws you in.  It's beyond enthusiasm.  It's as if deep observation of nature is part of their DNA.  Does living in a small country make you concentrate on what's beneath your feet more?

Whether Anna Pavord is talking about an exotic South African lilly or an ordinary iris, her tone is the same.  "Bulbs are the best kind of dinner guests.  They are the first to greet you and the first to leave.  Who could ask for more?"  It's that wonderful way of characterizing an aspect of bulbs that many people don't treasure, that gives Pavord her unique voice.

In some ways, I can't think of any two women so different in their approach.  Browning's obsession with self; documenting the slightest quiver in her mind.  Pavord's self her power of regarding attentively backed up by phenomenal research.

Browning spoke on Wednesday evening;  Pavord on Thursday afternoon.  At the end of Pavord's talk she asked if anyone in the audience had any questions.  A hand was raised.  Dominique Browning stood and asked Pavord, "I understand you moved to a new house, did you take any plants with you?'  Pavord, "Just two."

Part I

Photograph of Dominique Browning by Francis Palmer
Photography of Anna Pavord from the Telegraph