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| Everything in the garden is political – even at Hampton Court Palace | Everything in the garden is political – even at Hampton Court Palace |
| (7 months later) | |
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| Sat 8 Jul 2017 06.00 BST | |
| Last modified on Mon 27 Nov 2017 20.30 GMT | |
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| Following a thicket of panama-hatted garden lovers through the gates of the Hampton Court Palace Flower Show, I’m greeted by a desolate circle of 80 pairs of tusks, symbolising the daily slaughter of elephants for their ivory. | Following a thicket of panama-hatted garden lovers through the gates of the Hampton Court Palace Flower Show, I’m greeted by a desolate circle of 80 pairs of tusks, symbolising the daily slaughter of elephants for their ivory. |
| Beyond is a garden of water and alder, showing how trees – not concrete – can hold back a flood. Then there’s Brownfield Metamorphosis, a beautiful creation of rusted metal, birch, fennel, buddleia and wild grasses that celebrates the wildlife potential of post-industrial spaces. Further on, gardens for blind people, autistic children and people with mental health problems demonstrate the natural world’s therapeutic power. | Beyond is a garden of water and alder, showing how trees – not concrete – can hold back a flood. Then there’s Brownfield Metamorphosis, a beautiful creation of rusted metal, birch, fennel, buddleia and wild grasses that celebrates the wildlife potential of post-industrial spaces. Further on, gardens for blind people, autistic children and people with mental health problems demonstrate the natural world’s therapeutic power. |
| Some gardeners don’t dig this. Bunny Guinness, a panellist on BBC Radio 4’s Gardeners’ Question Time, recently criticised the proliferation of “statement” gardens at shows such as Chelsea and Hampton Court. “I think people would prefer gardens that you might want to walk around – to actually enjoy,” she said. A gardener in the Daily Telegraph hear-heared: “Where are the proper gardens? We don’t want supposedly meaningful concrete and metal.” | Some gardeners don’t dig this. Bunny Guinness, a panellist on BBC Radio 4’s Gardeners’ Question Time, recently criticised the proliferation of “statement” gardens at shows such as Chelsea and Hampton Court. “I think people would prefer gardens that you might want to walk around – to actually enjoy,” she said. A gardener in the Daily Telegraph hear-heared: “Where are the proper gardens? We don’t want supposedly meaningful concrete and metal.” |
| Radicals might suspect that these shows’ well-heeled visitors are discombobulated by stark messages about ecocide, but people of all political persuasions cleave to gardening as anti-political escapism. When I potter about on these glorious summer evenings, reviving my runner beans with water from my children’s bath, I’m simply an individual winding down from daily stress. This doesn’t seem political. I’m not debating the division of scarce resources or how a society arranges itself. Or am I? | Radicals might suspect that these shows’ well-heeled visitors are discombobulated by stark messages about ecocide, but people of all political persuasions cleave to gardening as anti-political escapism. When I potter about on these glorious summer evenings, reviving my runner beans with water from my children’s bath, I’m simply an individual winding down from daily stress. This doesn’t seem political. I’m not debating the division of scarce resources or how a society arranges itself. Or am I? |
| Gardening can be a progressive act, or a regressive or even oppressive one. But, whether we like it or not, it is deeply political – and it always has been. | Gardening can be a progressive act, or a regressive or even oppressive one. But, whether we like it or not, it is deeply political – and it always has been. |
| Going back to ancient civilisations including Egypt and Persia, gardens have reflected the power relations and priorities of each new era. Tom Stoppard’s dazzling play Arcadia depicts the shift from Enlightenment to Romantic thinking through the changing garden of a fictional English country house. Like many real gardens, Sidley Park’s geometrical classical garden is demolished in the early 19th century and replaced with a Romantic vista of gloomy forests, crashing water and ruined follies. Stoppard’s academic heroine, Hannah, explains: “It’s what happened to the Enlightenment, isn’t it? A century of intellectual rigour turned in on itself ... The decline from thinking to feeling.” | Going back to ancient civilisations including Egypt and Persia, gardens have reflected the power relations and priorities of each new era. Tom Stoppard’s dazzling play Arcadia depicts the shift from Enlightenment to Romantic thinking through the changing garden of a fictional English country house. Like many real gardens, Sidley Park’s geometrical classical garden is demolished in the early 19th century and replaced with a Romantic vista of gloomy forests, crashing water and ruined follies. Stoppard’s academic heroine, Hannah, explains: “It’s what happened to the Enlightenment, isn’t it? A century of intellectual rigour turned in on itself ... The decline from thinking to feeling.” |
| Gardening may make us feel good, but it is not a thoughtless act. Gardeners are politicians, and politicians are gardeners, splendidly proved by Jeremy Corbyn. Growing plants gives you time to think, Corbyn observed in the election campaign. “It gives you a connection with the natural world and makes you stronger in everything else you do.” | Gardening may make us feel good, but it is not a thoughtless act. Gardeners are politicians, and politicians are gardeners, splendidly proved by Jeremy Corbyn. Growing plants gives you time to think, Corbyn observed in the election campaign. “It gives you a connection with the natural world and makes you stronger in everything else you do.” |
| A garden is more than a space to recharge, though. As George McKay points out in his book Radical Gardening, the collective endeavour that gardening can often be is evinced by everyone from Gerrard Winstanley’s 17th-century Levellers to today’s guerrilla gardeners. It isn’t always progressive – plenty of fascists revere gardening – but when enlightened gardening meets political power, it can rearrange the way we live. Ebenezer Howard’s reimagining of urban life in the 1890s led to garden cities such as Letchworth, and they continue to inform urban planning today. | A garden is more than a space to recharge, though. As George McKay points out in his book Radical Gardening, the collective endeavour that gardening can often be is evinced by everyone from Gerrard Winstanley’s 17th-century Levellers to today’s guerrilla gardeners. It isn’t always progressive – plenty of fascists revere gardening – but when enlightened gardening meets political power, it can rearrange the way we live. Ebenezer Howard’s reimagining of urban life in the 1890s led to garden cities such as Letchworth, and they continue to inform urban planning today. |
| McKay argues that allotments are “profoundly anti-capitalist” spaces. Modest council rents never reflect the true land value or what councils could earn from allotment land. Produce grown on allotments is consumed locally, and often swapped. Through allotments, we reject today’s dominant ideology of allocating resources via money and globalised markets. Hampton Court’s countless stalls selling tasteful garden tat could be said to belie this, but time spent gardening is time not spent shopping. That alone is pretty radical today. The Scottish land artist and gardener Ian Hamilton Finlay once wrote: “Certain gardens are described as retreats when they are really attacks.” | McKay argues that allotments are “profoundly anti-capitalist” spaces. Modest council rents never reflect the true land value or what councils could earn from allotment land. Produce grown on allotments is consumed locally, and often swapped. Through allotments, we reject today’s dominant ideology of allocating resources via money and globalised markets. Hampton Court’s countless stalls selling tasteful garden tat could be said to belie this, but time spent gardening is time not spent shopping. That alone is pretty radical today. The Scottish land artist and gardener Ian Hamilton Finlay once wrote: “Certain gardens are described as retreats when they are really attacks.” |
| The challenging show gardens at Hampton Court are there only because the Royal Horticultural Society is not burying its head in the begonias. Is the gardening establishment newly radicalised? Not quite – I didn’t spot any campaigning against pesticides at the show – but the RHS’s championing of wild planting and pollinators is welcome. Britain’s gardens cover a bigger area than its nature reserves; gardens must be bread basket and sanctuary for species other than ourselves in the coming century. | The challenging show gardens at Hampton Court are there only because the Royal Horticultural Society is not burying its head in the begonias. Is the gardening establishment newly radicalised? Not quite – I didn’t spot any campaigning against pesticides at the show – but the RHS’s championing of wild planting and pollinators is welcome. Britain’s gardens cover a bigger area than its nature reserves; gardens must be bread basket and sanctuary for species other than ourselves in the coming century. |
| Everything we make comes out of the ground. Everything we eat depends on soil and pollinating insects. Yet our society is uniquely unplugged from the plants and animals we depend on; and switched off from what makes us healthy, calm and kind. Political gardening is required more urgently than ever to plug us back in. | Everything we make comes out of the ground. Everything we eat depends on soil and pollinating insects. Yet our society is uniquely unplugged from the plants and animals we depend on; and switched off from what makes us healthy, calm and kind. Political gardening is required more urgently than ever to plug us back in. |
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| Hampton Court Palace flower show | |
| Jeremy Corbyn | |
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