The first ever Festival of writing about gardens will take place in the Barn Garden created by Tom and Sue Stuart-Smith at Serge Hill in Hertfordshire.

Tom and Sue will welcome the Garden Museum and guests for a two day celebration of garden writing on 29 and 30 June.

Spread over two days and acres of wildflower meadow, prairie planting and calm green rooms, Speakers will explore themes including gardens in biography and autobiography, and how Eden and Arcadia continue to haunt our imagination. Renowned garden writers, designers, journalists and historians to share their thoughts on these rich and fertile subjects.

Confirmed speakers include;

Lisa Jardine on Francis Bacon

Diana Athill on gardening in old age

Adam Nicolson on Arcadia

Sarah Raven on Vita Sackville-West

Nicola Shulman on Reginald Farrer's purple prose

Louisa Young on Raindrops on Roses

Katherine Swift on The Morville Hours

Penelope Hobhouse in conversation with Tom Stuart-Smith

Hugh Johnson on being Trad

Hugh Cavendish on a Time to Plant

To coincide with the festival we will be launching a competition for a literary memoir inspired by, or set in, a garden. Find out more about the competition and how to enter here.