Garden Restoration: Philosophy and Practice

Gardens are works of uncompleted art, yet garden restoration starts with the premise that, at some fixed point in the past, that work of art looked better or felt more important than it does to day. Restoring a garden is no small undertaking, it requires drive, intellect, money, a knowledge and understanding of garden history and plants, practical skills across a wide range of fields and the diplomacy it takes to ensure the end result is not the famous horse designed by a committee; a camel. This talk draws on the half century of experience that has been Nick Dakin Elliot’s career as a gardener and uses Villa La Pietra’s garden as its primary example to look at the philosophy and practice of restoring historic gardens.