Juliet Sargeant is a British garden designer, and won the Gold Medal for her Modern Slavery Garden at the 2016 RHS Chelsea Flower Show
Borrowing from other cultures is commonplace in garden and planting design and, despite a controversial past, I believe there is an important place for it, moving away from thoughtless cultural appropriation towards cultural collaboration – a consensual exchange for mutual benefit, which amplifies the donor culture, preserving its history and honouring its origins. RHS Bridgewater’s Chinese Streamside Garden, designed in collaboration with Manchester’s local Chinese community and horticultural experts from China, is a good case in point.
This doesn’t ignore how the UK’s enviable horticultural expertise and rich design style came about, whereby landed gentry, scientists and adventurers scoured the world for fresh ideas, relics, curiosities and exotic plants, often with little regard for the equity of trade – or, in the case of colonising empires, any trade taking place at all. This was cultural appropriation on an industrial scale, begging the question, “How do we move forward from here?”