Quentin Martin

Overt expressions of control over the plant world has had a tumultuous past and has recently fallen out of popularity in favour of more naturalistic forms of gardening. However, one could argue that through a more direct and physical interaction with the plant world, stronger relationships and respects can be formed between the human and the plant.

These overt expressions manifest themselves in a wide range of forms which could all be considered to be some form of topiary (as far as understanding it as the manipulation of a plant into a desired form).

This is my back garden. Quite similar to most London back garden typologies, in that it is a bordered enclosure, adjacent to other identically demarcated plots hosting practices of cultivation. The boundary is the first instance of spatial control in gardening. I’ve come to recognise my own relationship to plants in this space are predominantly rooted in productive control. i.e. the physical manipulation of plants for the benefit of produce and aesthetic value. For example I’ve been tying back these invasive Ailanthus trees since they were obscuring light from the beans and other plants in the garden.

The garden boundary is a layered composition of fences, plants and retaining elements. The fruit tree, a productive component of the garden, has historically been trained across similar boundaries in espaliered fashions, like this one. What if we were able to imagine the possibility of a more open garden where the boundary has become dissolved and the elements of productive and spatial control are now re-appropriated as a new composition? New relationships created which are still explicit in their use of controlling elements but more ambiguous in their dictation of how one should use the space. In this sense, the bordered place of control can become more like individual points of control, operating more as a network of dispersed locations. 

The second garden belongs to my friend Kamal Yusuf, who acts as my example of covert gardening. He uses gardening as a tool of control to add greater stability to his otherwise turbulent lifestyle.

It could be said that Kamal gardens the environment of his vivariums which subsequently controls the plant-life contained within. How would his relationship to plants change if roles were reversed and the plant were released from the boundaries of the glass tank and began to effect the new environment of the bedroom? The bedroom garden would now become the subject of Kamal’s interests, and a more direct relationship to the plant itself would have to occur. A different balance of care and control, curated and wild, would potentially foster less constrained forms of therapy for Kamal. 

The final example is more an approach to gardening, and involves a topiarist called Darren Lerigo. Our conversations, among other things, were centred around the social aspect of making topiary, In that there is a joy in the discussion between the gardener and plant life.

Darren’s topiary is contained within a back garden however, I speculate that by placing a topiary, with all its surreal potential for shape-shifting, in the midst of an urban environment, new ways of reading the city could happen. As eluded to before, topiary has a magnetic effect of bringing people together around one social spectacle. Both the bizarreness of its form and ritualistic maintenance, along with being located in a place perhaps where it shouldn’t be, can potentially have positive consequences on how we chose to read the city and our collective relationship to plants. The spectacle of one public facing topiary, set free from its usual locations in prescribed spaces for flora, could behave as an alternative social epicentre whilst making dramatic spatial interventions.