January 20th, 2020: Royann Petrell, ‘Gardens of China’

January 20th, 2020

We take the months of November and December off, so we hope to see you for our first meeting of the new year, January 20th, 2020!

The ancient and modern gardens of China look nothing like Western gardens. Dr. Royann Petrell spent 6 months in China in 2007/2008 while on sabbatical from the University of British Columbia’s Chemical and Biological Engineering department. She has a long love of gardening, and was pleased when several of her Chinese graduate students and friends offered to help her locate and then visit some of the ancient gardens of China, as well as one very unusual modern one. How the Chinese interact with their gardens was also a surprise. The southern and northern ancient gardens differ greatly in style and grandeur largely because the southern ones were developed by private citizens while the northern ones were imperial. Royann in her presentation will illustrate how clearly Chinese gardens differ from our gardens as well as reflect on how we may incorporate some of the design elements into our own gardens. She hopes you will find these ancient gardens as amazing as she did.