Academic but not dry, informative and entertaining
Lecturer and Speaker
By its nature ‘academic’ anticipates an appetite for a deeper study of a subject whilst ‘informative’ seeks an insight into a body of knowledge, and then there is the more sensory process of practical handling of plants and food.
Academic Tutor for the University of Cambridge Institute of Continuing Education – Course Director on International, Residential and accredited programmes.
Speaker for The Arts Society
Join me in our garden filmed for Viking TV https://viking.tv/tv/this-week-on-viking-tv/mondays/get-a-glimpse-into-english-country-life-with-guest-lecturer-caroline-holmes
Watch me on livestream:
Monet at Giverny https://viking.tv/live/monday/explore-claude-monets-life-in-giverny-with-guest-lecturer-caroline-holmes
English Homes & Gardens in the West
Explore English homes and gardens with guest lecturer Caroline Holmes | Viking.TV
Broadcaster and Consultant Designer
Watch the genesis of the gardens I designed for the Notre Dame de Calais project
ENGLISH VERSION Engraved on my Heart: a new garden for Calais
FRENCH VERSION Gravée dans mon Coeur: un nouveau jardin pour Calais
Also featured on TF1 December 2018
Caroline Holmes at home
Our house and garden have been featured most recently on Viking TV (see above), in Country Homes and Interiors, Country Life, Country Living, Garden News and The English Garden and filmed for BBC and Anglia TV.
NHK (Japanese National Broadcasting) filmed a 50-minute programme (broadcast in Japan) on my work and lifestyle in my gardens, house, office and surrounding countryside
Watch a young me making a salad from my garden on www.youtube.com/cookingtipstv
Author
12 books the latest ‘The English Garden celebrated – where the wildness pleases’. for ACC Garden Art Press. Enjoy a preview
https://www.accartbooks.com/uk/book/where-the-wildness-pleases/
Water Lilies and Bory Latour-Marliac, the genius behind Monet’s Water Lilies published 2015 Garden Art Press ACC in English and French
RHS Herbs for Gourmet Gardeners - finalist in Garden Media Guild’s ‘2014 Reference Book of the Year Award’
Monet at Giverny – my bestselling book reprinted several times since 2002
Garden Art Press ACC
in English, French and Norwegian
Impressionists in their Gardens Nominated for ‘2012 Inspirational Garden Book of the Year’ Award by the Garden Media Guild
Garden Art Press ACC
Lecturer, Speaker and Consultant
Lecturer and Speaker
Consultant Designer … past green worlds
Lecturer and Speaker
National and international – on every continent except Antarctica. France, Germany, Ireland, Spain, Portugal, USA and Japan as well as for The Arts Society in the UK, Spain, Australia and New Zealand, the Gardens Trust, Royal Horticultural Society, Noble Caledonia, Viking Cruises, Seabourn Cruises, and other specialist organisations.
See below for list ‘Lectures and talks into other worlds’
Course Director for the University of Cambridge Institute of Continuing Education
2023 Residential weekend at Madingley Hall go to section University of Cambridge ICE
2023 University of Cambridge International Summer Programme
https://www.ice.cam.ac.uk/courses/international-summer-programmes
Tours and cruises
Consultant Designer … past green worlds
Lecturer and Speaker
2022 saw the return of tours and cruises: in April I was Guest Speaker for Viking joining their world cruise from Aqaba to Piraeus. In May I was Guest Speaker for Noble Caledonia on a land tour of the Italian Lakes. Then in June and August for Seabourn Cruises from Ravenna to Barcelona, and Amsterdam to Copenhagen. In October I was Guest Speaker on the Trade Routes of the Middle Ages from Bergen to Barcelona for Viking. In 2023 it is West Indies Explorer, then several cruises around the Mediterranean including Venice, the Adriatic & Greece and Mediterranean Treasures. In 2024 I will be travelling up the Amazon, exploring the Far East and the Eastern shores of North America. For details contact me
Consultant Designer … past green worlds
Consultant Designer … past green worlds
Consultant Designer … past green worlds
Apart from the Calais project above, I have undertaken commissions specialising in evoking historical, artistic and symbolic references. Currently advising on creating a sense of place around a dramatic housing project in Norfolk which includes several acres which will be part of the Queens Green Canopy celebrations. On a more modest scale the gloriously Arts and Crafts decorated All Saints church in Cambridge is creating a garden setting.
Site Content
Lectures and talks into other worlds …
I am happy to tailor my subjects to suit you - an academic but not dry lecture or an entertaining talk - with or without illustrations running from 45-90 minutes. There is also plenty of scope for making a half or full day exploring many of the subjects in greater detail. My books, consultancies, research and travel all feed into the narrative.
Any distance, fees negotiable, for details please email caroline.holmes.gmm@btinternet.com
Titles are listed in order of popularity:
A symphony in blue - the artist, the couturier and Atlas the most fabulous mountaine of
all Africke
Painter and plantsman: Cedric Morris, irises and beyond
Permission to Poison – the Alnwick Garden
The Memphis before Elvis – plants and gardens in Ancient Egypt
Australia’s Impressionists – The Heidelberg School, Fontainebleau and the zenith landscape
Impressionists in their gardens – living light and colour
Messenger or missile - Angels with glad tidings, doom, gloom or perdition
Monet at Giverny
Artists’ Views of Australia – Aboriginal, Pioneer, Botanical and Impressionist
Engraved on my heart – Mary Tudor, the Cloth of the Field of Gold and Notre- Dame-de- Calais
Sheer Folly – weird and wonderful Garden buildings
Bory Latour-Marliac, the genius behind Monet’s Water Lilies
Step into the Christmas Card
The Folly and the Ivy
The Edwardian Garden - golden and delicious
Flowers of Impressionist Youth: World War One and their Remembrance
Herbs for Gourmet gardeners
Sheer Folly – garden history and its architectural extravaganzas
Around the world in three years with Captain James Cook and Joseph Banks
– an overview of the people, plants and places
Gainsborough and Brown – eighteenth century landscapes from wider perspectives
A Royal country house estate - Sandringham
Design and diversity – the University Botanical Gardens, Cambridge
Medieval Gardens fit for use or delight
Motifs and motivators - water lilies, irises and sea shells
William Robinson, Gravetye Manor and Bory Latour-Marliac, a story of water lilies,
prunes and wine
How does your garden grow Mr. Shakespeare?
Historic Gardens of East Anglia
Cruise lectures include:
Still Waters Run Deep – the magic of Dutch Still Life Paintings
Artists’ views of the life of Christ and the cryptic messages
Monet Normandy and the birth of the Impressionist movement
Pre Raphaelite paintings in Liverpool – reading the symbols
Gothic to Gaudi – history in stones, architecture and Catalan identity
Castles, Palaces and Houses of Queen Elizabeth II
Innovation and romance, Osborne House, Isle of Wight
Serving King and country - Gallipoli and the lost Sandringham Company
A taste for the exotic – global plants naturalised
Georgian landscape capabilities – Gainsborough and Brown
Around the world in three years – James Cook and Joseph Banks
Carl Linnaeus and horticultural exchanges across the high seas
Ruhleben - Berlin's racecourse to WW1 internment camp
Sunlight on snow - Monet in Norway
Water as power and pomp - Peterhof, a Baroque masterpiece
A not so cool history - Sea Island Cotton
Can you eat buccaneers? Unzip a banana and other Caribbean food stories
Fatal attraction the darker side of plants
Is Coral suffering from tooth decay?
It's a rum solution to industrial waste
Take your Turk's cap off to cactus
A palette of adaptation - Mediterranean garden plants
Oranges and lemons - the many zests of Mediterranean citrus
Shellshocker – Venus, goddess of love and gardens with Flora
The Italian Garden template – the spectacular, theatrical Villa d’Este
An overview of French garden history with special reference to the Abbaye Saint-Andre
Fit for purpose - the Medieval Garden from Charlemagne to the Benedictines
Lifting the Bamboo curtain – nineteenth century new shoots to contemporary waves
Roman Gardens – architecture, illusion and plantsmanship
Seasoned landscapes – olives, vines, fruit and herbs along the Rhone
Aphorisms of Hippocrates unbound
Behind the label - Greeks immortalised in plants
Other people's odysseys - Homer to Leigh Fermor
Vines, wines and Have some Madeira, m’dear
A Floral Mosaic – Madeira and the Canaries
A more propitious clime - glass in the garden
A right royal setting - Kew
A world resource for 200 years - the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
A walk through domestic English garden history
A walk through grandee garden history
Fit for use of delight - Medieval Gardens
Keats and the Regency Garden
Lancelot 'Capability' Brown - moving heaven and earth
Order, Power and Conceit - Tudor Gardens
The Chelsea Gardener and Philadelphia's Plant Hunter
Carbon trading in Mozambique
Charles Darwin, the Beagle and other observations
Hidden histories – the Lotus and the blue water lily
Joseph Hooker - plant hunter and Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
Linnaeus, his plant hunters and the 18th century botanical w.w.w.
Marianne North – a remarkable Victorian traveller and painter
People, Plants and Places - Darwin to Dylan
A Floral kingdom – plants of the Cape
Reunion - a little French history spiced with vanilla and cloves
Seychelles - land and sea
Sir Samuel Baker, the Bawa brothers and landscaping Sri Lanka