A centerpiece garden at this year’s Chelsea flower show was built with the help of a group of asylum seekers with a design that recreates European migration routes and uses materials found in refugee camps.
The Choose Love garden, named after a charity that works with displaced people, uses the sustainable “superadobe” construction technique found in camp architecture.
Featuring plants native to northern Africa and Europe, it includes materials such as corrugated iron. A stone path resembling a dry stream reflects the migration of the waterway, while the large stones recall those used by the authorities to control temporary refugee camps in France.
The garden is one of the most political of the grace of the annual event and comes at a time when the home secretary has been accused of using dehumanizing language to describe people trying to reach the UK. Its creators say they want its “message of hope” to reach the millions who will watch TV coverage of the event, which King Charles is expected to visit.
“It feels more and more like we live in a polarized society, and in polarized spaces online, so finding ways for us to connect and have conversations is really important,” said Josie Naughton, co-founder and CEO of Choose Love, which provides refugees with everything from life-saving search-and-rescue boats to food and legal advice.
After the show, which takes place on May 22-27, the garden will be transferred to Good Food Matters in Croydon – a community food learning center and garden that works with people including those forced to flee their homes. house
Among the volunteers who helped build the garden was a man from a Central American country who told the Guardian that the charity helped with his mental problems, which worsened during the two years he lived there. in a hotel waiting for. his asylum application to be processed.
“Honestly, this is one of the lights of this journey that helped my wife and I cope,” said the man, who declined to be identified while their application was still alive. The couple said they were forced to flee their country because of the threat of gang violence after finding themselves “in the wrong place at the wrong time”.
The garden initiative and Good Food Matters brought them into contact with others in a similar state of limbo. Frustrated by the waste of their various professional skills, the volunteers talked about how the garden changed their sense of purpose.
The garden was created in collaboration with designer Jane Porter – a gold medal winner at last year’s show, organized by the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) – who visited a refugee camp in Samos, Greece, as part of his research.
He said he was inspired by the achievements of Choose Love, which was founded by his sister Dawn. He added: “In this garden we see the linear drifts of plants that can be found along the now established migration routes and find out what people have grown when they didn’t know when. or when they return home – when the act of planting becomes an act. of hope.”