Abby, Growing Communities & Thoughtful Gardening

Conversations with Plants 1.7

Where is home and how do plants fit into your life?

Well perhaps plants are a kind of home for me. Because I was raised abroad and have lived in many countries, ‘Where is home for you?’ was a perennial question growing up, and typically my answer has always been ‘Home is where my friends and family are’.

Somewhere in my mid-twenties I realised how living in rhythm with nature (i.e. plants at a vast scale) allowed me to feel rooted in place and community, and that is maybe because I grew up in very rural, remote parts of the world.

Tending plants is in many ways an act of homemaking, you are making a home for a plant to root itself in its environment; and designing gardens is also a form of homemaking, because if you get it right, you are creating a space which people will be a part of, and ultimately belong.

This is probably what led me to garden and landscape design, and why it has become my profession.

Do you have a digital presence?

I do-ish, I have a website that I have not updated almost since I built it, and an instagram page - @abbyjoydesigns

What do plants mean to you?

On an individual level, I love the everyday observation of what is happening: why such and such thrives growing next to x, y, z, what colour the leaf goes at sunset after the rains, working out why it has not done well or why it is thriving, etc.

Working with plants you are constantly observing and evaluating, because they are alive and responsive to all of life’s vagaries, a little like us.

Are you growing anything at the moment / growing anything new?

One of my roles is head of biodiversity and food growing at the Paradise Cooperative, a community garden in Wandsworth, where we experiment a bit – and I am proud to say the liquorice seeds I sowed in late Autumn are showing despite the frosts! 

 Do you dream of growing anything?

This is not exactly an answer, but after renting for a long time I now have a garden of my own and I am looking forward to some carefree growing, raising plants from seed and not being in a worry for things to ‘perform'.

 Where do you buy plants/get your plants?

I buy from a really wide range of nurseries, some are trade, some open to the public and some are specialists and they’re really fun - I’ve had some excellent varieties from The Lavender Garden in the Cotswolds, who have the national collection of lavenders and budlejas, and I’m visiting Arvensis Perennials next week.

 Earliest memory of being in a garden?

My paternal grandmother had a deep rose bed beside her dining room, I remember hiding amongst it on a hot Sunday afternoon when I didn’t want to go home, hearing everyone calling for me and instead enjoying watching the big tropical spiders at work.

 Pick a plant

Rosa mutabilis.

 Pick a garden

The national arboretum of Accra, Ghana.

Last one... Any thoughts on sustainability and gardening and / or ecological gardening?

Many, many thoughts! The first is that maybe sustainability is an evolving practice, not a standard per se. Horticulture is a vast field, and represents a sizeable economy, so its ecological impact and influence is significant.

Certainly the professional side of horticulture must, and over the past years has, made efforts to engage with this impact, not just in how things are done (single-use of plastics, pesticides, etc.) but also to open the debate around the culture of gardening.

What a garden is, what gardening means, why we garden; why we have houseplants, why we grow our own food, what is a weed? - all of these thoughts and aspirations shape our choices when we look for plants, pots, soil, pergolas...

Because there is so much to know when it comes to plants, my experience has been the simplest way to engage with these big abstract imperatives is to join a growing community - an allotment, a cooperative, or even to have a garden chat with a neighbour who also likes plants. Even through small ways of engaging, you will learn and be encouraged along the way of thoughtful gardening.