OLD LYME — We are delighted to announce that Maureen Haseley-Jones, known professionally as, ‘The English Lady,’ has joined the swelling ranks of LymeLine columnists. Maureen will be contributing a monthly gardening column with tips for that specific month of the year, We may divide the column into two on some months depending on its length. Her first column will be published tomorrow.
Maureen is a member of a family of renowned horticultural artisans, whose landscaping heritage dates back to the 17th century. She is one of the founders, together with her son Ian, of the The English Lady Landscape and Home Company. Maureen and Ian are landscape designers and garden experts, who believe that everyone deserves to live in an eco-conscious environment and enjoy the pleasure that it brings.
Not only has Maureen lectured throughout New England on a broad range of landscape design- and environmentally holistic-related topics, but she also writes provocative columns for newspapers and magazines. She hopes to have her book detailing her adventurous life in and out of the garden published soon.
Beginning in 1648, Maureen’s family were tenants at Powys Castle in Wales and worked to develop the castle gardens for William Herbert, the first Marquess of Powys and thereafter for the Herbert family into the early 1900s. The family refined their craft on all areas of the castle landscape including the terrace and formal gardens, the Orangery Terrace, and the Water Garden The gardens at Powys are considered by many landscape experts to be the best example of 17th century gardens in Britain today.
Maureen learned her design skills from her mother and grandmother and honed her horticultural and construction skills while working in the family nursery and landscape business in the U.K. Her formal horticultural training was undertaken at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew in Surrey, England, where she was one of the first women to join the program.