Cut Conversations - Anna Pavord

Cut Conversations with Anna Pavord, a live event at The Cut in the theatre.
Anna talked to journalist and writer Catherine Larner about her 20+ years as a gardening correspondent, writer of over 12 books, and gardener.
This was the first live performance in the series which started in November 2020.
While Anna Pavord is best known and greatly loved as a gardening writer, her internationally bestselling classic, The Tulip, is not a gardening book.
It is the story of a flower that has driven men mad. Greed, desire, anguish and devotion have all played their part in the development of the tulip from a wild flower on the Asian steppes to the worldwide phenomenon that it is today. No other flower carries so much baggage: it charts political upheavals, illuminates social behaviour, mirrors economic booms and busts and plots the ebb and flow of religious persecution. How could a simple flower influence so many, for so many centuries, in so many countries?
Anna Pavord, a self-confessed tulipomaniac, spent six years looking for answers, roaming through eastern Turkey and Central Asia to discover how this humble flower made its way along the Silk Road, eventually to take the whole of the Western world by storm.

[@owenwilberforce6138]

I'm here as a fan of Mrs. Pavord's book-The Naming of Names. This book I found as a giveaway in front of a random home in the posh community of Laguna Beach, California. Gradually as I read it I came to understand the deep knowledge Anna Pavord has of the history of botany and gardening. Now I am residing in Colorado near Boulder and find a true inspiration in her writing, particularly in The Naming of Names. We see a history influenced by the rambling botanical collectors and enthusiasts, scientists and florists. Her love of plants and their practical utilitarian and decorative aesthetics brings me joy. To see the world through this lens of what its varied soils, latitudes and environments produce is to see a boundless world, free of the limitations of territorial borders. This study and appreciation of plants unites people in the love of nature. We are somehow now curious to go to the far reaches of far off seemingly alien cultures for the sake of the beauty of that area's native flora. The world opens up and we forget human politics, divisions, and rivalries for the sake of the marvelous beauty of nature. She is an inspiration to see the world as a source of living artwork, and we rediscover we are lucky to inhabit such a miraculous planet, where such humble wonders never cease to inspire.

[@annfollows638]

I was so sorry to miss this in person, and what a great talk it is. Thank you so much for making it available.