Historic Gardens Foundation Grants

The Historic Gardens Foundation (HGF) will offer grants towards publication of material relating to historic parks, gardens, and designed landscapes. Grants are available to charities, other public interest organisations and, in exceptional cases, individuals, who are pursuing aims similar to those of the HGF. Preference will be given to projects with an international dimension and to applicants who have worked with the HGF in the past. The grants are not confined to the UK and applicants can be from any country.

The HGF’s resources are modest: preference will therefore be given to helping smaller organisations which often find it difficult to raise funds. In general, the trustees will only consider applications up to £1,000. What the HGF is looking for are projects, preferably linking two or more countries, to support garden heritage by means of a publication, including in hard copy form.
A fuller statement of the rules and objectives of the HGF Grant Scheme can be found in the application form together with instructions as to how to complete and submit the form.
To download the form click here

Ukraine – when the war is over

The war in Ukraine has cost thousands of lives and caused enormous damage to buildings and infrastructure. One day, though – we hope soon – the war will end, and the work of repair and reconstruction will begin. Clearly hospitals, schools, roads and people’s homes will rightly take priority but Ukraine’s rich heritage of parks and gardens has also been seriously damaged and will need restoration.
                                               
Shavika, Ukraine before the war                                                               Shavika, Ukraine bombed in March 2022

The Historic Gardens Foundation has been drawing attention to the plight of Ukraine’s historic parks and gardens since the outset of the war and included a long article on the subject in the final issue of Historic Gardens Review. Restoration of her garden heritage is obviously going to be low on the list of priorities for Ukraine’s Government and the foreign nations who will be helping Ukraine with its recovery. Garden restoration, therefore, is going to depend on initiatives by Ukrainians who value this heritage but may lack the funds and the expertise to go about it.

The Historic Gardens Foundation is working with the Conservation Foundation to secure international help for Ukraine’s garden heritage. Both organisations feel that restoring one park or garden, however small, will not only emphasise the importance of historic landscapes as an aspect of the country’s identity but will also be good for the physical and mental well-being of her people. The first task is to identify one or more historic parks or gardens which have been damaged by the war and to assess what would be needed to restore it. The HGF is a very small charity and will welcome any help that can be offered. For obvious reasons we shall be confining ourselves to territory which remains Ukrainian after the peace settlement.

Help can also be given to parks and gardens in Ukraine by setting up a twinning operation, through which individual gardens in Europe can support individual gardens in Ukraine. And we plan to encourage research into the history of gardens in Ukraine, viewing them from a Ukrainian standpoint and not, as in the past, a Russian one.
If you have information about a damaged Ukrainian park or garden or have any relevant experience which might contribute to the project, do please contact us .  

Museums of Gardening

The HGF’s other project is to set up an international network of museums of gardening. Our research to date has revealed that there is a surprising number of such museums worldwide but most of them do not know about the others or don’t communicate with them. Almost all other types of museum have an international network which exchanges information and sometimes exhibits, and gardening museums would benefit from the same resource. Working with the Eduard Petzold Foundation, which is establishing a garden museum in Poland, we are engaged in creating the most comprehensive database possible before moving to the second stage of putting them in touch with each other.

We are interested in museums which contain tools, seed catalogues and packets, archives of influential garden designers, plant lists etc.
Watering pots: Garden Museum, London   

If you know of a museum like this, why not let us know about it using contact us.