Gratitude, privilege and responsibility
with Ann-Marie Powell
This post contains affiliate links
Lockdown made me grateful for my garden. Aware of the privilege of having a space outside the house into which to escape, to grow, to flex muscles both physical and creative. Of a responsibility to make the most of the hand I’ve been dealt, because even while work was in an almighty state of flux thanks to the pandemic, I was able to pivot, able to wander out the back door and find peace, and solace among the plants. Lockdown was making me appreciative, but then Black Lives Matter was catapulted up the news agenda courtesy of the murders of Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and George Floyd in the US, and a whole additional layer of privilege I’d been unconsciously walking about with began to reveal itself. The privilege to move about in public spaces unchallenged – to go for a run in safety #irunwithmaud. The privilege to wander through nature and feel an affinity to the landscape.
In some ways this episode of the podcast has been the most difficult to write because there’s no way all of this be shoehorned into one fifty minute audio piece ostensibly about gardening. I had a great, fun interview with Ann-Marie Powell talking about her design practice, her work with the charity Greenfingers building gardens for children’s hospices, the relevance of the RHS and her lockdown side-project @myrealgarden on Instagram, and I loved how Ann-Marie’s mantra of Plants, People, Place rubbed along with my own thoughts for the episode, centring on notions of gratitude, privilege, and responsibility. But as I said back in episode 1 of the first season of the Gardens, Weeds & Words podcast, there are no answers here – only questions.
I’m starting to wonder if that position I’d taken up is a cop out. Maybe only having questions was good enough for 2018. But in 2020, I think we need to begin to find answers for a more equitable world. Which sounds like a grandiose notion, but we can start here, with gardening. We can begin by learning about the history of the plants in our beds and borders, we can listen to the stories of people with less privileged access and a more complex relationship than we might have to things like land, and property, and careers in the horticultural industry. There’s a reading in this episode from a paper by Lucile H. Brockway which tells of the part played by the British botanical gardens in the manipulation and relocation of plants and people across the colonies in order to bring wealth back to the European powers – and it says something that I’ve had to go back to a journal article that’s almost as old as I am to begin to tell these stories. Our horticultural institutions need to do more to ensure the full narrative behind the plants in their collections are told, and it’s on us to hold them to the promises they’re tentatively beginning to make.
I’m so grateful to Ann-Marie for making time to talk to me about her life and work, and to Sui Searle for lending her voice to the reading from Brockway’s Science and Colonial Expansion. I do hope you enjoy this final episode of Season 2 of the podcast, and look forward to your joining me for many conversations ahead in the next season.
Please do continue to share the podcast on social media, and if you’d really like to brighten my day, leave a review on iTunes or your podcast app of choice. Or drop me a note in the comments section below, having listened on the embedded player on this page.
Gardens, weeds and words podcast, S02E10 show notes
A blend of slow radio, gardening advice and conversation, and readings from the best garden and wildlife writing.
These notes may contain affiliate links.
Garden soundtrack
Back after a break for the last episode in the series
Dogs and gardening
Lockdown and #BlackLivesMatter – did these change how you felt about your garden?
Privilege in the gardening world
Telling the stories of plants
Reading 05:30
Extract from 'Science and Colonial Expansion. The role of the British Royal Botanical Gardens' by Lucile H. Brockway in American Ethnologist, Journal of the American Ethnological Society, Volume 6 Issue 3, 1979, read by Sui Searle. https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1525/ae.1979.6.3.02a00030
The book of the same name, available here: https://amzn.to/2PbSC4z
Gardening should be political – more of this in series three.
Gratitude, privilege and responsibility – what that’s meant to me in lockdown
Interview with the Ann Marie Powell 11:20
11:48 What's behind @myrealgarden?
15:22 Plants, People, Place
18:37 Living in a horticultural household, and how it effects domestic gardening
22:12 How Ann-Marie became a garden designer
23:16 Horticulture within the education system – being given the choice
25:18 Andrew talking absolute rubbish about "gardening with your ears"
27:10 Ann-Marie Powell Gardens – the vital importance of a great team
31:17 The effect of the Hampshire landscape on AMPG's design work
33:47 Is there anything the RHS needs to learn when it comes to reaching new people with shows like Chelsea?
38:56 Ann-Marie's gardens at RHS Wisley in Surrey
42:43 Pro-bono work for Greenfingers charity https://www.greenfingerscharity.org.uk/
46:03 Quickfire EITHER/OR questions!
Fatsia japonica https://www.shootgardening.co.uk/plant/fatsia-japonica
Schefflera rhododendrifolia https://www.shootgardening.co.uk/plant/schefflera-rhododendrifolia
Crûg Farm Nursery https://www.crug-farm.co.uk/
***
Gratitude, privilege and responsibility vs Plants, People, Place. Pick your mantra!
Thank you to Ann-Marie for joining me on this episode. You can find Ann-Marie online here:
AMPG website: https://www.ann-mariepowell.com/
Ann Marie’s Instagram https://www.instagram.com/ann_mariepowell/
The @myrealgarden Instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/myrealgarden/
And also to Sui Searle for reading from the Lucile H. Brockway paper. You can find Sui on Instagram here https://www.instagram.com/thetemperategardener/ and here https://www.instagram.com/decolonisethegarden/
I’m ever grateful to all my listeners for your continued support and reviews, I really do appreciate them. You can support the podcast by buying its producer a virtual cup of coffee for three quid, at https://ko-fi.com/andrewtimothyOB. Proceeds will go towards equipment, software and the monthly podcast hosting fees.
website: gardensweedsandwords.com
email: gardensweedsandwords@gmail.com
Instagram: instagram.com/AndrewTimothyOB
Twitter: twitter.com/AndrewTimothyOB
You can hear find the podcast trailer and the first four episodes here, either on iTunes or on Switcher.
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Hello! I’m Andrew, gardener, writer, photographer, and owner of a too-loud laugh, and I’m so pleased you’ve found your way to Gardens, weeds & words. You can read a more in-depth profile of me on the About page, or by clicking this image.
