SGT Winter Lectures 2026

Following a very wet winter, one of the hottest and driest summers in Suffolk and a very challenging year for the establishment of young trees, David will talk about the species of trees most likely to cope with our changing climate, as well as best practice tree planting and aftercare, and pest and disease treatment.

David was educated in Easton and Framlingham, and still lives in Framlingham. He worked for Notcutts for 26 years, first joining in 1978 as a nursery apprentice followed by many years as despatch manager at Pettistree, finally working as a nursery sales executive dealing with trade and council customers as well as B&Q and Homebase accounts. He joined Barcham Trees in 2004 as part of the Sales Team, now looking after a range of customers including the Royal estates of Sandringham and Windsor as well as the Duchies of Cornwall and Lancaster. For the last three years he has been running the industry-recognised ‘Trees on Tour’ events around the country.

The Chatelain’s Garden explores the role of women as clients in the process of laying out landscapes. The book looks at 12 female garden creators, covering 300 years of garden design, right up to the present day. What the ladies all have in common is that they have worked with professional designers. It considers what results from the unique interaction between female client, designer and the individual characteristics of the site. The great 20th century landscape architect, Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe, called this interplay a ‘magical alchemy’. The talk will be an over-view of the research so far, with some context on women and gardens since 1720. As part of her research for the book Kate will be examining the role of Lady Middleton at Shrublands Hall.

Kate is a garden historian and consultant. For over quarter of a century she has advised on a wide range of designed landscapes, of all periods, from Elizabethan water gardens to Edwardian seaside parks. She is the author of The Secret Life of the Georgian Garden, a social history of 18th and early 19th century designed landscapes. The Times described the book as ‘a pioneering work and an important addition to the literature of the country house.’ Kate is currently working on a new commission for Yale University Press. The talk will be a preview of this work in progress.

For centuries Mount Etna has sent lava to engulf towns and villages, terraced fields, citrus groves, orchards and vineyards, and yet despite all, a quarter of Sicily’s inhabitants still choose to make their home on her slopes. Why?
In this richly illustrated lecture Helena will reveal the extraordinary biodiversity and unique plant varieties nurtured by Europe’s biggest and most active volcano, and consider the influence of volcanic soils on life in her shadow.
‘A scholar of all things Italian, and especially Sicilian, with an eye for the quirky and the poetic, Attlee does for Etna what she did for lemons: she delves deep into the history of the volcano and the relationship of its people to their unpredictable land’ – Caroline Moorehead, The Spectator.

Helena is a best-selling non-fiction author. Her latest book, The Fire in The Mountain, Sicily, Etna and Her People was published in April 2026, and was recently broadcast as BBC Radio 4’s ‘Book of the Week’. The Land Where Lemons Grow, The Story of Italy and its Citrus Fruit was a Sunday Times best-seller. It was shortlisted for the Stanford Dolman travel-writing prize, won the Guild of Food Writers’ Book of the Year, and was also broadcast on BBC Radio 4. It has already been published in several languages, and will be translated into Italian later this year, for publication by Touring Club Italiano. Helena teaches creative writing in Britain and abroad. She also runs academic writing workshops for PhD students at universities all over Britain.

This will be an archaeologist’s exploration of what makes a garden – how do we recognise one, what do we expect to find, and, importantly, how are our expectations influenced by the changing needs, values and beliefs of the societies we live in? Defining the significance of gardens has been an important strand in the work of the Suffolk Gardens Trust over the last few years as it has participated in a joint Gardens Trust and Historic England project entitled ‘Suffolk’s Unforgettable Garden Story’, which had the aim of increasing the number of Suffolk gardens on the official Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England.

Edward is probably well known to most members as he was chairman of the SGT from 2021 to 2025. He also has over 40 years experience as a professional archaeologist and landscape historian. He is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London and a vice-president of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History. His chapter on East Anglia in Medieval Rural Settlement: Britain and Ireland 800-1600 (N. Christie, P. Stamper & S. Wrathmell eds, Windgather Press) is due to be published in September. Many of his other publications are available on-line at https://independent.academia.edu/EdwardMartin6.

In this talk Jonathan Zerr looks at his own progression as a gardener and the different places where he has worked, with reference to working with nature, biodiversity and sustainability and the problems and wonders of working in a ‘legacy garden’.

Jonathan recently won the Chartered Institute of Horticulture’s annual Young Horticulturist of the Year competition. He is head gardener at Bottengoms, the former home of John and Christine Nash and later of their friend, the nature writer, Ronald Blythe. Bottengoms is now being developed as a flagship conservation garden for the Essex Wildlife Trust. Jon was a trainee under Head Gardener James Horner at Benton End, the former home and garden of Cedric Morris that has been recently restored and revived. His traineeship was funded by the WFGA (Working for Gardeners Association) through the National Gardens Scheme.