Denise Wyllie and Clare
O Hagan welcome you to Spring into
the Garden in this, The Royal Horticultural
Society’s 200th Anniversary Year.
We can all share the joy of a garden
- as an active participant or as an
observer - from an informal window box
to an enormous formal landscape.
Denise Wyllie's paintings
of RHS Fellow, Edward Augustus Bowles’
renowned garden at Myddelton House displays
a vision of depth and vitality encountered
within his landscape.
“Being alone with nature allows
me to connect with private thoughts
and memories. As a child I explored
my grandmother’s wild garden, which
was abundant with thorny roses and fallen
hollyhocks, and I developed an admiration
for garden plants allowed to escape
and become unruly and rampant.”
Denise Wyllie
In contrast Clare O Hagan’s
suburban garden, observed in vibrant
detail, illustrates a passion for rich
colour, texture and pattern.
“As a child growing up in the
Irish countryside, garden boundaries
blur with wild ferns, blossom, leaf
and rock. A secret ritual of Spring
was gathering flowers (from other people’s
gardens) and hiding them in a mossy
green hollow at the foot of a tall tree.”
