Gardening & Politics
Everything is political so the saying goes and gardening is no exception. Far from being a genteel exercise in tinkering with the delight of plants, gardening is arguably a front-line political endeavour. Its very undertaking either an act of rebellion, solidarity, or opting-in (or out of) a status-quo depending on what end of the horticultural spectrum you wander into. Then there’s the whole troublesome history of horticulture and its historical procurement/scientific study/gardening of plants primarily being the result of a murderous colonialist elite. Even still plant collectors are mostly happy to go to far flung places and fill their boots with nice things with seemingly scant regard for the plant’s cultural significance to the actual local inhabitants of the land (the lads usually carrying their kit). The plant’s story then becomes extracted from its literal roots and retold by fat white dudes; “I collected this on the Western slopes of ‘x’ and now it grows at ‘y’ and you can pay £100 to see me talk about the trip and buy seedlings of the plant grown by me”… and people who buy the seedlings then forevermore refer to it as; “I’ve got fat white dude’s “x” plant that grows at “y”and it’s the BEST!”…
And then there’s the class thing. Ireland has a more equitable history of horticulture than the UK just as long as you’re lucky enough to own land or a university education. Horticulture in Ireland has finally branched off from agriculture (almost) and “the flower boys” (I’m reliably told this is what horticultural students in the local land based college get called) can finally make a viable career in ornamental gardening. The other class related factor that influences Irish horticulture is education. The OPW (equivalent of The National Trust) requires job applicants in horticulture to have degrees. Professional positions in public sector gardens where the better pay and pensions are, are therefore essentially shut off to those of us with literal decades of on the ground experience and alternative training (like RHS), if we don’t have a horticultural degree. The few students I’ve worked with as part of their work experience placement had almost zero plant knowledge. One in their third year said they hadn’t done any work with taxonomy, nomenclature or general plant knowledge bar a brief bit of botanical science and that the majority of the degree was centred around production growing (chemical warfair and maximising profit margins), industrial scale nursery production (the same), marketing, management and statistical analysis. They were going to go on and go into teaching…. teaching horticulture… with barely any dirt-work and zero plant knowledge. Equally they could have walked into an OPW job for life on a starting rate of €600 a week, (with regular rises after this) and been embraced! Which is partly why OPW gardens are mostly shit.
The world is so contentious right now even working for or with “the wrong person” is enough to have our whole personality and ethics judged and scrutinised and even called out in some cases. As dirt gardeners just doing our best to tread lightly on the planet, find a niche to make our mark, satisfy our innate creativity, make an income to live on whilst simultaneously not getting dissillusioned or allowing our immense work-ethic to be abused by our employers (who by the very fact they have to employ a team of gardeners means they have wealth, insinuating at the very least they’re associated somehow with the nefarious exploitation of other humans or right-wing agendas) it’s hard to balance our own morals. Dirt gardeners mostly don’t have the means to pick and choose who our employers are, we need to be where the work is based on where we are! Where we’ve laid down connections, support networks and roots. Many of us are bound by life responsibilities and CANNOT just move to another employer if we find out the one we’re with bank-rolls Brexit (or whatever). It’s rare enough for those of us in the profession who have had zero legs-up and no velvet cushions to break our fall to find a position that gives agency, artistic control and allows us to curate a fulfilling professional career, which surely is a privilege everyone should be allowed to have a crack at if the opportunity presents itself. Being a horticulturist/gardener IS political and sometimes some of us are forced to hold our nose and just try and spread beauty from the shit.
Then there’s sex/gender/race/age/sexuality/ableism/menopause/feminism/greenwashing/ecocide/climate change/rewilding/sustainability/community/socialism/allotmenting/worklife balance/funding/sponsorship/accessibility/mental health/volunteers/pay scales/activism/childcare/ and the rest….
