Biennial Conference on Restoring Southern Gardens and Landscapes Comes to a Close
We regret to report that changing times and shifting museum objectives have resulted in the decision to no longer offer this conference. It was from this Winston-Salem-based event that in 1982 the Southern Garden History Society (SGHS) came into being, and we view its end with sorrow. The conference was one of the pillars of our educational mission and objectives, and we will miss working with our co-sponsors, including Old Salem Museums & Gardens and Reynolda House Museum of American Art.
Upcoming issues of our journal, Magnolia, will examine some of the Restoring Southern Gardens and Landscapes (RSGL) programs, beginning in 1979. The SGHS website also offers visitors a look at three of the proceedings that were published after the conferences.
1995 – The Influence of Women on the Southern Landscape
1997 – Breaking Ground: Examining the Vision and Practice of Historic Landscape Restoration
2001 – Cultivating History: Exploring Horticultural Practices of the Southern Gardener
Below you will find information on the final RSGL conference, held in 2019, along with a link to a remarkable World War II film on the Tuskegee Airmen, showing the work of landscape architect David Augustus Williston. Also, each RSGL conference is listed beginning in 1979. Click on the date to see a program for that year and topic, each of which reviews speakers, topics, and activities covered during that conference.
The 22nd Biennial Conference on Southern Gardens & Landscapes, sponsored by Old Salem Museums & Gardens, Southern Garden History Society, and Wake Forest University Department of History, was held September 26-28, 2019, in Winston-Salem, NC. In Saturday’s session, Dreck Spurlock Wilson, ASLA, NOMA, presented “Closer than Botanists to Landscape Architects: George Washington Carver and David Augustus Williston.”
