Renowned landscape designer, Phillip Watson, comes to Greenwich for an inspiring gardening lecture.
Growing up in Lexington, Mississippi, and living
between his great aunts, Eloise and Julia, Phillip
developed his love of beautiful gardens. Aunt Julia
had “Perle d’Or” roses and Eloise was famous for her
dried catalpa leaf arrangements. Any time Phillip had,
he was always in their gardens exploring.
Graduating from Mississippi State with a degree in horticulture, Phillip moved to Atlanta to attend graduate school at the University of Georgia in Athens. While there, he went to New York City for a weekend vacation and the rest they say is history. Phillip worked at the Essex House installing their rooftop gardens, became a model part time and continued with his interior plant maintenance business.
After briefly living in Washington D.C., Phillip moved to Fredericksburg, Virginia, where he purchased a home with four big glass greenhouses. He was open to the public for four years but decided that he wanted to grow plants for his garden design clients. Soon he was travelling from the D.C. area down to Mississippi and everything in between.
Rosemary Verey was very influential on Phillip’s career. She was his mentor. Over the years their friendship grew as did her introductions to experts in the gardening
field. Rosemary told him that “if a garden couldn’t be properly photographed, then it would never be published. And if it were never published, its designer would
never be famous.” With this, Phillip began to design gardens with points of interest.
In 1994 he received calls from women in Greenwich who read his article in Southern Accents Magazine. Both women wanted consultations. This was the beginning of garden design in Greenwich, CT. Phillip has exhibited at the Philadelphia, New York, New England and Royal Chelsea flower shows. He has been featured in Veranda, Horticulture, Southern Accents, Traditional Home, the Washington Post, The New York Times, and The Times of London. Pleasure Gardens has a nostalgic flavor with new ideas presented in a cheeky fashion. This lecture will be more of a “garden party” than a “garden seminar” Phillip Watson said. |
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