Petticoats and Plants – The Untold Story of Scotland’s Gardening Women

A fascinating talk by Dr Deborah Reid. This talk is part of our online winter talks series.

The phenomenal success of Scotland’s gardening men has been well documented throughout history, but what of the women?  Until now, there have been only glimpses of the extraordinary women who went ‘beyond their garden gates’ – women who cultivated, collected and made substantial contributions to horticulture within Britain.  In-depth biographies of a selection of Scottish gardening women reveal how they were effectively marginalised and why their work has largely been forgotten within the narrative of Scotland’s garden history.

Deborah Reid was born in The Netherlands and now lives in Edinburgh.  She graduated from Strathclyde University in Glasgow with a first class degree in Marketing and Tourism and helped promote London’s Historic Royal Palaces and the Edinburgh International Conference Centre before swapping a career in marketing for plants.  Having retrained in horticulture at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, she completed her doctoral thesis in 2015.  She is a visiting lecturer at the University of Edinburgh where she tutors on the history of landscape architecture and mentors apprentice gardeners working within historic gardens at English Heritage properties.  A working gardener, her earliest memory is of weeding the carrots on her father’s allotment and she now travels throughout Britain and in Canada giving talks on the role and influence of Scottish gardening women in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Our talks are free but you must register beforehand in order to be sent a joining link.  You can register for the talk here.