INTERVIEW
An industry we can all be proud of
Paul Foster meets Manoj Malde, Association Equity Ambassador
F
or nearly 350 years, Chelsea Physic Garden has occupied four acres of land on the edge of the River Thames in London. It has survived land-grabs, near financial collapse and narrowly missed the Great Fire of London and yet, despite such adversity, it has survived.
Not only have they survived, they are thriving with exciting plans for the future. They have just confirmed a new trainee recruit; a two-year position part funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund in conjunction with their Glasshouses Restoration Project. They were able to advertise the role to people who might find it difficult to enter the horticultural industry by conventional means. They were overwhelmed with applications.
This is music to Paul Foster’s ears. Paul is a British Association of Landscapes Industries member and owner of Accredited Contractor Allium Gardeners based in Suffolk. He has come here to Chelsea Physic Garden to meet Manoj Malde, garden designer, television presenter, and the RHS’s first Indian judge and now one of four Association Equity Ambassadors, to ask him about his new role and what he hopes to achieve around diversity in the industry, and to consider the importance of such traineeships and how to give support where it is most needed.
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LANDSCAPE NEWS SPRING 2022
They are happily sharing ideas and knowledge with each other and discussing their favourite plants and trees whilst standing in front of beautiful specimens of Bencomia moquiniana and Euphorbia atropurpurea in the Atlantic Islands glasshouse. Manoj sights Arbutus × andrachnoides as his tree of the moment - “I absolutely love it.” Manoj’s passion for plants and people shines through in equal measure and, as Paul proffers his current tree of choice, Pyrus calleryana ‘Chanticleer’, both find a simple connection through their love of plants. Paul moves the conversation to the new role and asks Manoj what he hopes to achieve. “Being an Equity Ambassador gives me a wider platform to encourage young people to enter the industry. If I can be an example to a more diverse group of people to come into horticulture, and I am not just talking about people of colour I am talking about women, LGBTQ+ community, people who are less able bodied, people who are hard of hearing or deaf. If I can be somebody to encourage them – that is what I would like to do.”
Paul has long felt that although horticulture has given him a wonderful career, sometimes he has found people have not always immediately seen
him as the business owner because of his skin colour. “It can be as simple as a delivery driver walking past me to a colleague, expecting them to be the boss, not me. I come from a diverse background and, with more people like you, Manoj, being in the public eye and with people like me being able to recognise ourselves – it is going to go a long way to helping – it really is.”
Manoj recalls growing up in the UK in the 1970s and 1980s. “I’ve experienced racism. I’ve experienced homophobia and bullying when I was at school. I could so easily have let that define me. I do not condone any of that contemptible behaviour. It has no place in our society. I have always been determined to fight against it with a positive approach. It’s worked for me but not everyone can find that emotional fight and, more importantly, shouldn’t need to. I hope we can make it a thing of the past, so they no longer have to. Skin colour and other less visible differences should not determine what people can achieve or the route to how they achieve.”
Paul feels that a change in attitudes is possible but has been a long time coming. “By giving more people an opportunity, they are only going to bring something more dynamic into the industry.” Paul uses the analogy of
