Jill Pierce 'A French Garden Journey' illustrated lecture + 2024 AGM

Get ready! Viva la France!

Jill Pierce, GDSNZ National Executive member, perpetual gardener (small urban garden in Ponsonby and a larger native garden on the edge of the bush and sea in Coromandel) and lover of art, design & landscape is taking us to France with her. Jill went to France in 2023 and visited some breathtaking gardens and has invited us to share her journey with us, via an illustrated talk after our AGM this year.

Jill had always wanted to see the Kathryn Gustafson garden ever since she studied Contemporary Landscape Architecture whilst studying a BLA. ‘Gardens  of the Imagination’ is a 6 acre garden in 13 themed sections, organised around the five unchanging elements of a garden: vegetation, mineral, water, relationship with the wind, perspective and the path.

La Louve was designed by Nicole de Vesian; a Hermes designer, and is a beautiful deep green and immaculately maintained, on the side of a small hill town in the beautiful Luberon area in Provence.

Jill is going to show us the Côte d’Azur gardens - Villa Ephrussi a formal Rothschild garden at Cap Ferrat with musical fountains (!) and a fab succulent garden above a rocky hilltop ruined fortress and old village.

And if we're lucky, Jill might pop in Lawrence Johnson ( Hidcote) ‘s ruined Menton Italianate garden.

"My trip was all about the different landscapes, the architectural responses,  the art ancient and modern , the vegetation,  land forms; the way people lived".

Merci. We can't wait!

6:00pm | Arrive, bar open 

6:15pm | AGM proper (GDSNZ financial members only)

7:30pm | Supper, bar open ($5 cash per drink or prepaid voucher)  

8pm | Jill Pierce - illustrated talk 

8:45pm | Q&A,

9pm | Evening Ends

GDSNZ members can attend for FREE. Non-financial members are very welcome to the lecture; $20 to attend in person and $10 to watch the livestream.  First drink free. All attendees/viewers MUST have a ticket - get yours now.