Talbot County Garden Club invites you to its final free public winter lecture at the Talbot County Free Library (Easton) on Tuesday, April 28. At the 11 am event, esteemed landscape architect CECE HAYDOCK will introduce us to American Pulitzer Prize-winning author Edith Wharton (1862-1937) and her influence on garden design.
Wharton’s prolific career as a fiction writer is well known. But her unusual ability both to write and to observe puts her at the forefront of Italian garden critics as well. Her book Italian Villas and Their Gardens (1904) remains a scholarly resource on the subject today.
Haydock promises to spotlight Wharton and the eight Roman villas and gardens that she described in her influential book. During her colorfully illustrated presentation, Haydock will also tackle the influence of these villas on Wharton’s own houses and novels.
Haydock graduated from Princeton University as an English major, then received a master’s degree in landscape architecture from the SUNY School of Environmental Science and Forestry. After working for the New York City Parks Department, she joined the firm of Innocenti and Webel in Locust Valley, NY.
In 2007, she did research on Edith Wharton and Italian villas as a visiting scholar at the American Academy in Rome. She has lectured and written on historic Italian, French and American gardens for Old Westbury Gardens, Maryland’s Ladew Topiary Gardens, Princeton University, and others. A member of the International Council of The Preservation Society of Newport County (RI), she is also a visiting lecturer at the New York Botanic Garden and an adjunct professor at Long Island University.
In private practice today, she is currently trending toward landscape sustainability.
Questions about this program should be directed to camille.massie501@gmail.com
About the Talbot County Garden Club
The Talbot County Garden Club is known for its “good and green works” that benefit the Talbot County community. The club was established in 1917 to enhance the natural beauty of the local environment by sharing knowledge of gardening, designing and maintaining civic gardens, supporting civic greening projects, encouraging the conservation of natural resources, and fostering the art of flower arranging. Noteworthy projects include grounds maintenance at the Talbot Historical Society, Talbot County Free Library (Easton), and the Fountain and Children’s Gardens in Idlewild Park; greenery installations for Easton’s Rails-to-Trails, U.S. Post Office, Christ Church and Talbot County Free Library St. Michaels Branch; plus an ever-growing number of horticultural outreach activities. There are currently 115 active, associate and honorary members.
