25th September 2pm “Seeds - Time Capsules of Life”with Dr Wolfgang Stuppy

In a pioneering SciArt collaboration, scientist Dr. Wolfgang Stuppy and artist Prof. Rob Kesseler used the scanning electron microscope (SEM) to explore the astonishing microcosm of seeds and fruits. Whilst Stuppy provided the scientific expertise to manoeuvre their way through the bewildering diversity of plants, Kesseler turned the black-and-white images obtained with the SEM into sumptuously coloured works of art. In this talk, Dr. Stuppy will take you on a hitherto unseen journey into the world of seeds and fruits, revealing their intricate and often bafflingly unlikely structures and how they enable plants to survive in their different environments.

Currently curator of the Botanic Garden at Ruhr-University in Bochum, Germany, Dr. Wolfgang Stuppy spent 18 years as a botanist at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Starting out as Threatened Plants Officer in 1999, he soon took on the role of Kew’s Seed Morphologist to support Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank Partnership. In this international conservation initiative, Dr. Stuppy had found the ideal environment to feed his passion for the astonishing biology of seeds and fruits. A specialist in a rarely studied field, Dr. Stuppy has authored numerous scientific and popular scientific publications and books. He is a keen photographer and his images have been widely published.

16th October 2pm  ”Living in a Botanical World, a Small Garden with Big Dreams” with Paul Gellatly

Toronto Botanical Garden has a hidden gem in the heart of Canada’s biggest city. But not for long! Paul Gellatly, TBG’s Director of  Horticulture will walk you through his first year at the gardens with many lessons learned, passions shared, and exciting plans for the future. Paul will highlight some of the unique aspects to the current 4-acre garden including its perennial borders, Canada’s only Piet Oudolf designed garden, dynamic planters, revitalized trial gardens and natural areas; along with the upcoming plans to expand to a 35-acre world-renowned botanical garden.

A passionate life-long horticulturist, Paul Gellatly joined Toronto Botanical Garden as the Director of Horticulture on March 9, 2020. Prior to that, Paul was the Curatorial Gardener for one of Canada’s largest tropical plant collections at the Toronto Zoo. He worked on the zoo’s pollinator meadows and the revitalization plan to control invasive plants. This included proactively reintroducing native ephemeral and understory trees. 

6th November at 2 pm “ A Yorkshire Spade in a Tuscan Garden”with Nick Dakin-Elliott    

Nick Dakin-Elliot was born and brought up in Yorkshire. He started gardening early and saw no better place to forge a horticultural career than………Yorkshire. This talk compares and contrasts that formative experience with that gained as a result of two decades of gardening in Tuscany, Italy. The gardening traditions and ways of doing things are very different, as are the things folk hope to get from their gardens but, Nick argues, the wholeness of such diverse gardening experience is much greater than the sum of the two halves.  Nick, as Horticultural Associate, is responsible for the gardens and grounds of Villa La Pietra and, as Garden Manager of the garden of Villa Torre di Sopra, both in Florence, Italy.

Previously, Nick was senior lecturer in horticulture at Pershore College of Horticulture in England. He has written for a wide range of publications on horticultural issues and was a contributor to the Royal Horticultural Society’s Dictionary of Gardening. He has also given classes for the Society as well as organisations as diverse as the Seychelles government, New York Botanical Gardens and the Landscape Museum of Verbania, Piemonte.