How gardening ‘saved’ Hamzah
DESIGNER SAYS GROWING PLANTS AND BEING OUTDOORS HELPED HIM COMBAT MOOD SWINGS
THIS year’s RHS Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival has an entry by Asian designer Hamzah-Adam Desai who told Eastern Eye his priority is to get young Asians into gardening.
“I want to inspire young Asian people to come into horticulture because it’s really fun,” he said. “It’s a great industry to work in. Everyone is so friendly and helpful.”
Desai hopes his appearance on Thursday (7) on BBC Gardeners’ World will help.
His garden at Hampton Court is a “get started garden”, “designed for the owner of a new-build home who wants to create a garden, but is a complete beginner. This garden explores simple, costeffective options for low-maintenance gardening.”
Gardening was a saviour for Desai – literally – as he was suffering from damaging mood swings dependent on the weather. His condition was diagnosed as SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder), which is sometimes known as “winter depression” because the symptoms are usually more apparent and severe during the winter.
Desai, who is from Lancashire, was frank with Eastern Eye: “I was a graphic designer for 20 years. And I got to a point where I started suffering from SAD really badly.
“It’s like depression, but it’s not depression. Basically, the winter months are hard because of the grey and you feel more alive in the summer when it’s sunny. But not always. It’s just your mood is affected by the weather. You have good days and bad days. And some days you don’t want to get out of bed.
“So I took up gardening 13 years ago because my doctor advised me that it would be beneficial for me to do some sort of outdoor activity. I started off with a small balcony where I live. We have extensive grounds, so I started gardening there – in the communal gardens – and got them to a stage where they’re now part of ‘open gardens’.
“I really enjoyed it. And I thought, well, why don’t I start doing this as a career? So three and a half years ago, I went back to college and retrained as a garden designer. And now I’m doing garden design. I do installations for restaurants and hotels. I had a career change in the process. The important thing is that if I can do it, anyone can do it.”
And did gardening help with his mental condition?
Desai replied with alacrity: “Hugely. I still have bad days. With Asian skin, we don’t produce enough melatonin (a hormone that the brain produces in response to darkness). A lot of Asian people suffer from that, but we don’t really talk about it.” Being outdoors helped Desai. He pointed out: “It was proved during the pandemic it’s good to be outdoors. Go out in some landscape, go for a walk in the park, be among nature. We’re talking about it more now because the pandemic has changed all that for everyone.”
As a designer, he despairs of Asian home owners concreting or paving their front gardens, which exacerbates flooding. “That’s a very big problem in the Asian community,” he said. “I know because people contact me, and that’s what they want to do. I try and discourage them. They don’t seem to budge, and so I don’t do those jobs.”
The low maintenance garden he had designed relied more on rain than frequent watering.
Desai recalled: “When I started gardening 13 years ago, we didn’t really talk about climate change and sustainability and water use, and now, especially with new build homes, it’s all water metered. So you’re paying lots of money to water a lawn.”
Next to his entry is another “get started garden” for beginners, but this time it’s designed to offer peace and tranquillity to people working from home.
According to the RHS show guide, “it provides a sanctuary from work, a place to unwind, to improve positive mental wellbeing, becoming immersed in the nurturing of plants”. In other words, it provides relief from the newly diagnosed medical condition, Zoom fatigue.
Compared with the Chelsea Flower Show, the Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival is spacious and the atmosphere much more relaxed. Trolleys plus sensible walking shoes are a good idea for people who want to engage in binge buying. Incidentally, there are boat trips (£3.50 each way) for those who want to avoid the trek from Hampton Court station to the festival entrance.
The RHS has an allotment, where, in a relatively small space, it has managed to grow onions (pretty large ones, at that), different types of cabbage, peppers, chillies, tomatoes, leeks, butternut squash, lettuce, artichoke, chard, French beans and kohlrabi.
The guide says that “with a growing focus on food poverty, mental and physical wellbeing and sustainable living, allotments make important contributions to their neighbourhoods”. That said, home ownership among Asians is higher than in the rest of the population – except that the very rich are tending to buy Mayfair apartments. Lord Swraj Paul saw the light and bought a country estate in Buckinghamshire.
Eastern Eye interviewed Mark Gregory, one of the country’s best known landscape designers, whose “RHS planet friendly garden” shows individuals can make a difference. His advice is simple: “Go and plant a tree.” He stood by a Hornbeam tree which “can capture six tonnes of carbon in its lifetime”.
Ukraine features at Hampton Court this year. A burnt cottage, with barley planted in the foreground, suggests farming and gardening will revive a country once the war is over.