Judith Tankard, Edgartown, MA

“There is an awesome array of gardens and landscapes on Martha’s Vineyard: traditional town gardens filled with climbing roses and hydrangeas as well as striking contemporary gardens hidden on private lanes in rural farmlands.”

Judith Tankard is one of the most significant landscape historians in America today. Her ten books on late nineteenth and early twentieth-century American and British gardens and designers are considered definitive texts. She shares her passion and expertise with the Garden Conservancy in various capacities. For a decade, Judith has been serving as regional ambassador for our ever-popular Martha’s Vineyard Open Days. Occasionally on the roster is the charming cottage garden she and her husband, John, share in the center of historic Edgartown, MA. Surrounded by a fence draped in New Dawn roses, this garden features a stunning espalier of Viburnum plicatum ‘Mariesii’, a main garden just roomy enough for two Donald Wyman crabapples, a Viburnum sieboldii, various lilacs, and a garden shed covered with roses and Clematis montana ‘Rubens’. Judith has presented several lectures around the country for the Garden Conservancy, as well as Open Days Garden Extras programs. She is a long-time member of the Garden Conservancy Society of Fellows.