Cultivating Place: The Garden Conservancy

By Jennifer Jewell

Published October 27, 2016 at 10:00 AM PDT

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The Garden Conservancy website home page, courtesy of The Garden Conservancy.

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The Garden Conservancy website home page, courtesy of The Garden Conservancy.

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Gardener and Topiary artist Pearl Fryar in his fanciful Bishopsville, SC garden. The Pearl Fryar Topiary Garden and The Garden Conservancy have been in partnership to preserve the garden for future generations since 2006.

Photo courtesy of The Pearl Fryar Topiary Garden and The Garden Conservancy

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Photo courtesy of The Pearl Fryar Topiary Garden and The Garden Conservancy

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Reflecting pools at Frank Cabots famed Canadian garden Quatre Vents (four winds).

Photo by Andrew Lawson and courtesy of The Garden Conservancy

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Reflecting pools at Frank Cabots famed Canadian garden Quatre Vents (four winds).

Photo by Andrew Lawson and courtesy of The Garden Conservancy

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View from The Chase Garden in Orting, Washington. "The garden of Emmott and Ione Chase in Orting, Washington, is a testimony to the beauty of the natural landscape of the Pacific Northwest, to the modernist, Japanese-inspired design that came into its own

Photo by Marion Brenner and courtesy of The Garden Conservancy

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Photo by Marion Brenner and courtesy of The Garden Conservancy

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Home garden of George Shakespear and his wife, Emily. The Shakespear's “secret” walled garden, safe from deer, has participated in the Open Days Program three different times over the program’s 21 year history.";s:3:

Photo courtesy of George Shakespear, Director of Communications for The Garden Conservancy

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Photo courtesy of George Shakespear, Director of Communications for The Garden Conservancy

A view through the hedges and into a secret garden room at Hollister House Garden in Litchfield County, CT. The garden has been a Garden Conservancy preservation garden since 2005. Photo from “Outstanding American Gardens” (Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 2015).

Gardens and landscapes, gardeners and gardening are integral to our cultural literacy and sense of place and self as a nation. In 1989 Frank Cabot founded the Garden Conservancy in the United States in an effort to preserve exceptional gardens and landscapes for the future. This week on Cultivating Place we’re joined by George Shakespear of the Garden Conservancy to hear more about its work, including its garden education and conservation mission as well as its dynamic Open Days program, which brings access to many, many other private gardens across the country each year.

Several episodes ago, Cultivating Place spoke with the Ruth Bancroft Garden in Walnut Creek, California. That remarkable garden resulting from one woman’s passion and dedication became the garden that essentially launched the Garden Conservancy – an American nonprofit organization founded in 1989 by Francis Cabot. The conservancy is dedicated to preserving exceptional gardens and landscapes for the future.