Lanning Roper, Gardener Extraordinaire
(www.roperld.com)

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanning_roper .

Lanning Roper (b 4 Feb1912 West Orange, New Jersey d 1983 22 Mar 1983 Paddington, London, England) was a well known garden designer in England. He is an 8th great-grandson of John Roper (c 1577 Hoxne, Suffolk, England - c 1653 Dedham, Massachusetts) who came to the United States in 1637. He is a member of the northern USA branch of the England/Majority USA Roper family (EMUR) .

Lanning Roper received an honors degree in Fine Arts from Harvard University in 1933.

He served in the U.S. Navy in World War II, and was in charge of Division 67 on D-Day.

Lanning authored seven books and many magazine articles about designing gardens. A book about his work is Lanning Roper and his Gardens by Jane Brown, 1987.

He had many garden commissions all over England and some in Ireland, France, Italy, Switzerland and the United States. He was commissioned as Prince Charles' landscape gardener in 1981 to do the grounds at Highgrove House in the Cotswolds.

The Lanning Roper Memorial Garden at the Trinity Hospice in Clapham Common, London was originally designed by Lanning and constructed after his death. The woodland walk at the Farnsworth House in Plano, Illinois now bears Lanning's name, and at Scotney Castle, Lamberhurst, Kent, England a streamside walk is dedicated to Lanning's memory.

His ashes were scattered over the gardens at Scotney Castle.

He married but had no children.

Pictures of Lanning Roper (From Lanning Roper and his Gardens by Jane Brown)

There is a memorial garden for Lanning Roper at the Trinity Hospice at 30 Clapham Common North Side, London SW4 ORN. The pictures below are from that garden:

L. David Roper sitting in the Lanning Roper Memorial Garden, March 2005

From Lanning Roper and His Gardens by Jane Brown: "The memorial service for Lanning was held at St. Mary's Church on Paddington Green on Thursday, 21 April 1983. The church was crowded, with a very English congregation,who heard the music of Handel and Orlando Gibbons and the comforting, quiet words of Bunyan, Donne and Cardinal Newman. But they sang 'The Battle Hymn of the Republic'. And the gardener who had no real garden of his own now finds himself with three. The garden at the Trinity Hospice is finished and flowers because of the donation of his friends; it has been named the Lanning Roper Memorial Garden, and it will be regularly open each summer for the National Gardens Scheme. The woodland walk at the Farnsworth House now bears Lanning's name; and at Scotney Castle a streamside walk to a chalybeate spring has been added to the garden for Lanning, at the request of Mrs Hussey and with the help of the eminent landscape architect, Dame Sylvia Crowe."

Garden Commissions of Lanning Roper from Lanning Roper and His Gardens by Jane Brown.

Gardening books by Lanning Roper

Web sites about Lanning Roper: http://www.gardenvisit.com/b/roper.htm http://www.sisley.co.uk/gardners.htm#repton http://www.sisley.co.uk/scotney.htm http://www.sisley.co.uk/wisley.htm http://www.sisley.co.uk/fairfld.htm