- 9 minutes ago
Monty Don visits the world's 80 most inspiring gardens. In Mexico, Monty visits the ancient water gardens of Mexico City and a surrealist fantasy garden hidden in the rainforest. In Cuba, he discovers a green revolution sprouting out of crumbling colonial lawns.
蒙蒂（Monty）造访墨西哥，行程始于“水上花园”——这是阿兹特克都城特诺奇蒂特兰（Tenochtitlan）及更早期的前哥伦布时期文明所留下的遗产。随后，他参观了路易斯·巴拉甘（Luis Barragan）设计的非传统种植、带有部分垂直绿化特色的花园，以及古怪的英国人詹姆斯·爱德华（James Edward）在丛林中打造的那座规模宏大、充满奇思妙想的超现实主义花园。在古巴，蒙蒂将目光投向哈瓦那那些生产型的社区城市花园，探寻这种源自后苏联时代的、在保障食物与药物自给自足方面成效惊人的模式。
蒙蒂（Monty）造访墨西哥，行程始于“水上花园”——这是阿兹特克都城特诺奇蒂特兰（Tenochtitlan）及更早期的前哥伦布时期文明所留下的遗产。随后，他参观了路易斯·巴拉甘（Luis Barragan）设计的非传统种植、带有部分垂直绿化特色的花园，以及古怪的英国人詹姆斯·爱德华（James Edward）在丛林中打造的那座规模宏大、充满奇思妙想的超现实主义花园。在古巴，蒙蒂将目光投向哈瓦那那些生产型的社区城市花园，探寻这种源自后苏联时代的、在保障食物与药物自给自足方面成效惊人的模式。
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00:02I believe that a really good way to understand a culture is through its gardens.
00:07This is an extraordinary journey to visit 80 inspiring gardens from all over the world.
00:12Some are very well known, like the Taj Mahal or the Alhambra.
00:16And I'm also challenging my idea of what a garden actually is.
00:21So I'm visiting gardens that float on the Amazon, a strange fantasy in the jungle,
00:27as well as the private homes of great designers, and the desert flowering in a garden.
00:32And wherever I go, I shall be meeting people that share my own passion for gardens
00:37and my epic quest to see the world through 80 of its most fascinating and beautiful gardens.
01:02This week, I'll be visiting two countries.
01:05One is Cuba, a Caribbean island where, in the middle of the crumbling colonial grandeur of its urban landscape,
01:13a green revolution is taking place.
01:19The other is Mexico, a country that has one of the widest range of flora in the world,
01:25and where a rich and ancient civilisation is deeply entwined with its plant life,
01:30and where that relationship has been transformed into art through its gardens.
01:38I begin my journey in one of the world's most populous cities, Mexico City.
01:44Then I'll head south to Oaxaca, which has the most diverse flora in Mexico.
01:50Next, I'll travel north to the jungle, a small town of Jalitla.
01:54And finally, I'll cross the Gulf of Mexico to end up in Havana, the capital of Cuba.
02:13I'm in a cemetery in the middle of the night, where a vigil is being kept as part of the
02:19celebrations for the Day of the Dead.
02:23On the Day of the Dead, every grave and home is decked in a blaze of orange marigolds,
02:29orange being the colour that the Aztecs believe the dead most easily recognise,
02:33to guide and welcome the returning deceased,
02:36so that the whole family, living and dead alike, are reunited again for just one day of the year.
02:43This strange fusion of Catholicism and pre-Hispanic ritual has its roots in one of the richest and oldest gardening
02:50civilisations of the world.
02:52500 years ago, what has now become modern Mexico City was the epicentre of the Aztec civilisation.
03:02The Aztecs built their huge city on a great saltwater lake.
03:08But, via a sophisticated drainage system that removed the saltwater and channelled in freshwater, transformed the landscape.
03:16But even before the arrival of the Aztecs, the Suchamilca people had built islands or floating gardens,
03:22which became one of the most productive methods of cultivation known to mankind,
03:27and the earliest perennially flowering gardens.
03:39Just an hour's slow drive from the centre of Mexico City are the floating gardens of Suchamilca.
03:54I first heard about these about 15 years ago, and I actually came to Mexico intending to see them and
04:00didn't manage to get them.
04:01So I've wanted to see them for a long time, partly because the idea of floating gardens discovered by the
04:08Spaniards,
04:08this incredible civilisation that had made gardens for agriculture and flowers on a lake, is such an interesting idea.
04:18But also, because I feel I start here and get a grip on these ancient, ancient gardens and the history
04:26of the place,
04:26then that's the right way to begin this journey.
04:31The original floating gardens are at least 2,000 years old,
04:35and at the peak of the Aztec Empire, there were some 50,000 acres under production.
04:41They became the agricultural hub of the great Aztec civilisation of Tenochtitlan,
04:46which was a city of over 200,000 people and, at the time, the largest conurbation in the world.
04:55They're called floating gardens, but they're not floating at all,
04:58because they go down to the bottom of the lake,
05:02but they're built up in layers of vegetation and mud, like a cake,
05:06and then they're fixed to a degree.
05:08Partly, you can see the revetments along the side, there's a paling,
05:11but also the trees along the edge.
05:14The roots go down into the lake and hold the whole thing like a basket.
05:18The trees also provide a little sort of microclimate.
05:23But the scale of it, when you think there are tens of thousands of hectares,
05:28to do all that by hand, beyond imagination.
05:46These beautiful white herons or egrets, I'm not quite sure which they are.
05:52Standing sentinel on the side of the banks.
05:57Books.
06:11During the period leading up to the Day of the Dead,
06:13tangerine fields of African marigolds dominate many of the gardens.
06:21Many of the floating gardens, or chinampas, are still cultivated using traditional methods,
06:26and Dr. Erwin Stefanotto is the director of a special ecology park
06:30that aims to preserve this unique and endangered ecosystem.
06:34We have here about 1,400 hectares of chinampas.
06:39Each of the chinampas are quite small, aren't they?
06:41Quite small.
06:41So thousands and thousands of them?
06:43Thousands of them.
06:45So these canals that we see are actually just the remnants of the lake?
06:50Sure.
06:51And they say that in 1850 there were about 70,000 boats going every day to the centre of the
07:01city
07:02with the products of the area of Chalco and such people.
07:11Is everything always grown on these raised beds?
07:14Yes, this is the original way of growing in chinampas.
07:18Okay.
07:19First they bring a special mud from some parts of the lake, of the canal.
07:24They leave it one day, they dry it out, and then they make the little squares.
07:29If it's a big plant, you have to make bigger squares.
07:32These are small squares, and with a finger you put a nut.
07:36And then you put a seed.
07:38Then you put the vegetation on top.
07:40In three weeks you have the plant already grown.
07:43In 12 weeks you have about 25 to 30 centimeters.
07:48And you transplant it to other warm beds.
07:51Right.
07:51In this warm bed that's called almacigo in Spanish, you can have 18,000 plants.
08:00This mud looks beautiful.
08:03Well, the nutrients are so high that we don't use any kind of chemicals for this.
08:11This is organic, everything.
08:12Everything is organic.
08:13Everything is organic.
08:14That's good.
08:15Why?
08:16Because you can have six harvests a year.
08:19The chinampa is, by osmosis, always wet.
08:25You don't need the water.
08:27Whenever it rains, it's okay.
08:28Otherwise you take it from the canal.
08:31How fantastic.
08:36I think that these floating gardens are not just beautiful, but they also have a truly potent atmosphere.
08:42There's a kind of psychic energy that's stored in the place like a battery that comes from one, 2,000
08:49years of people tending it in the same way across century up to century.
08:54And I'm sure that works.
08:56I'm sure it's a really powerful thing there.
08:59And it's all part of my understanding, not just of the ancient Aztec civilisation, but also the modern Mexican culture
09:05that coexists with it.
09:10Mexico City is a vast urban sprawl inhabited by some 20 million people.
09:15It's a polluted and chaotic place, full of colour and energy.
09:22The floating gardens were absolutely fundamental to the old city.
09:27But modern Mexico City is a vast place.
09:30It's unruly, noisy and seemingly unregulated.
09:34And one of the truly great architects of the 20th century lived right in its middle.
09:39His name was Luis Barragan.
09:41And he made thoroughly modern houses and gardens, but he believed that all of them should reflect the true spirit
09:49of Mexico,
09:50which is why I'm on my way to visit his home.
09:58Luis Barragan is recognised as one of the 20th century's most influential architects.
10:03But he's less known for his gardens, which are also modern, but rooted deep in Mexican culture.
10:10And I consider his gardens to be so significant that whilst I'm here in Mexico City, I'm taking the opportunity
10:17to visit three different ones.
10:25He lived here at Casa Barragan until his death in 1988.
10:30The garden now seems very overgrown and probably doesn't resemble Barragan's original vision for the space.
10:40I've seen pictures of gardens and buildings by Barragan, but this is the first time I've ever been in one.
10:47And I remember reading that he said that a garden should be a refuge.
10:51It should be a place of stillness.
10:54This is completely enclosed.
10:55In fact, the walls are so high, it's like being in a shower.
11:06The roof terrace is a revelation.
11:09It is dramatically filled by shimmering colour, sunlight and crisp shade.
11:15To discover more about Barragan, I've met up with Mario Shetman, a fellow landscape architect and friend of Barragan's for
11:22over 20 years.
11:24There have been discussions, whole discussions, seminars, and saying, Barragan is not a landscape architect because it doesn't work with
11:30plants, no?
11:31It works with, with, no, it's nonsense.
11:34Yeah.
11:34It's about sky, it's about light.
11:37And it's about the notion of connecting the sky with the horizontal, with the ground.
11:44That's landscape architecture.
11:45There's one element missing and that is the human.
11:48Yes, the human aspect.
11:49You do need the human aspect.
11:51Absolutely.
11:51That's why landscape architecture and gardening are an art.
11:56And yet, it's the most human of all arts because you inhabit it.
12:02It's not a picture.
12:05It's not a sculpture.
12:06You are completely surrounded.
12:09For instance, this marvellous terrace in his house is not a single pot or even a single furniture.
12:16It's about the space itself.
12:19It's about the void and the connection with the sky.
12:23And then you can only barely see the tops of trees.
12:27And once I asked him, you talk very much about mystery in your work.
12:32And he said, well, mystery is very simple.
12:35Mystery is a tree behind a wall because it intensifies the notion of what's behind that wall.
12:43Is there a beautiful woman or is there a beautiful patio?
12:49Is there water in that patio?
12:51So the beginning and the end of high art is in the garden.
12:56In many ways, Barragan was a maverick.
12:58And his work was widely denigrated by the Mexican architectural establishment at the time.
13:03His desire to break the convention certainly led him to build houses and gardens in improbable situations.
13:13El Pedrigal de San Angel is a volcanic area which was formed when the Hippley volcano erupted 2,500 years
13:21ago.
13:21The remains of some of the landscape has been used here to create land art on a giant scale.
13:29This boiling, smeared landscape at El Pedrigal inspired Barragan to buy land for, amounted to, a housing estate in the
13:42mid-1940s.
13:43Now, at the time, the Mexicans thought he was crazy.
13:47And it didn't make him any money.
13:49But there was a sort of inspired artistic craziness that Barragan tapped into, that he needed to break the mould
13:58to move forward.
14:00And it was on this landscape that he developed a new style of house and garden.
14:10He created a series of extraordinary gardens here, like surreal volcanic orchards, using the quality of the rock and its
14:18textures to contrast with strategically placed trees and shrubs.
14:25Today, the area has changed dramatically, with only a few of Barragan's gardens remaining.
14:31I've come to Casa Pareto to meet Eduardo Pareto, the grandson of the original owner.
14:38And the same family has lived here ever since it was built in 1950.
14:41And really what I want to see is what's it been like to grow up in and still to live
14:46in a Barragan house and garden, rather than just visit one as a work of art.
15:03It took Barragan two and a half years to build Casa Pareto.
15:09But he designed the garden first.
15:18Does it work as a house to live in?
15:20It works because I'm used to it.
15:23I don't know if the scale is something that other people can live with.
15:29The house itself has a very open plan.
15:32And then there's these huge windows that make it seem like you don't know where the house ends and where
15:38the garden starts.
15:39I suppose that the house was pretty revolutionary when it was built.
15:43It was breaking new ground.
15:45It was for city life, but it also has a lot of Mexican tradition in its proportions and in how
15:54people live in it.
15:55It's sort of very solid to the outside, but to the garden it's very open.
16:00And this is how people live in the, sort of, in the countryside in Mexico.
16:08At Casa Prieto, Barragan drew his inspiration from the traditional Mexican hacienda.
16:15Rural pots, sculptures and his obsession with horses were all integrated into the architecture and landscape.
16:25Across the city is my third Barragan garden, where he continued to develop his style of balancing massive volumes of
16:32colour, light and shade, fused with very Mexican motifs.
16:43This is Casa Galvez, the last of the Barragan houses I'll be visiting.
16:48And immediately you come in, you've got a trademark Barragan pink leading you to the front door, but he's lowered
16:52the ceiling, sort of confining the space.
16:55And then the courtyard, you've got the Barragan pots and the colours, but it is quite formal in these massive
17:03walls.
17:04And I guess in summer this fig tree would be a very shady, bulky green.
17:11And you come round the corner and immediately, brilliantly, it's transformed because the white becomes pink.
17:18It's a private space, and this great wall, you realise, exists to block off access to the window.
17:24And so the pool and the pink landscape is primarily designed to be viewed from the inside of the house.
17:44But when you come through the house into what is the completely private space, everything just explodes up and you
17:51get these vast walls of colour.
17:55The walls, of course, which create the privacy, but the effect is one of complete generosity of light and colour
18:03and space.
18:16This garden at Casa Galvez does pull together all the elements of Barragan's work and put it into a domestic
18:24setting.
18:25And I guess, for most people, that's how they see gardens are attached to homes.
18:29But it actually doesn't lessen my opinion that the distillation of his work, the essence of it, is to be
18:37found at Casa Barragan, on that roof terrace.
18:42Where you just have light, volume, colour in its purest form.
18:57Barragan chose to live in the middle of Mexico City, but he drew much of his inspiration from the Mexican
19:03countryside and its traditions and folklore.
19:06So I'm now leaving the city to learn more about the landscape, culture and history of this huge country through
19:14the medium of its gardens.
19:15I'm going south to Oaxaca, the historic home of the Zapotec and Mixtec peoples, which contain 157 indigenous languages and
19:25has more than a thousand species of plants native to the region.
19:32The landscape here is dominated by the fluted stems of organ pipe cactus.
19:38And these cacti form an integral part of the local culture.
19:55I've just taken a few minutes off on the road to Oaxaca to stretch my legs here in the Cuicatlan
20:00Valley, which is apparently the place that holds the biggest range of cacti anywhere in the world.
20:07And they're everywhere, tiny ones to these beautiful, vast ones.
20:10And it's a strange, sort of surreal landscape.
20:17Very beautiful.
20:24The scale of these gnarled and scarred plants is truly breathtaking.
20:36But I'm carrying on further south to the magnificent mountain top ruins of Monte Alban.
20:43It is an astonishing, awesome site.
20:47This was the Zapotec capital between 200 and 900 AD.
20:51And for over 700 years, this was the centre of a sophisticated, powerful culture.
20:57But then it was abandoned by 1000 AD.
21:00And no one knows why.
21:03The levelling of the mountain top to create this plateau is an astonishing feat of engineering.
21:10The ruins here are on a scale as monumental as Rome or Athens.
21:15And it doesn't seem fanciful to me to see the shapes and scale of Baragon's work in these ruins.
21:21The reason that I've come here in particular, as if the beauty wasn't enough, it is staggeringly beautiful, is to
21:30get this sense of an ancient culture.
21:34A culture that was as sophisticated as practically anything that's happened in the West thousands of years ago.
21:41A culture that understood gardens, understood plants, and applied it to their lives.
21:47And you get this mix of plants in a landscape and humanity and history all coming together.
21:56And if you get that feeling in a place, then you're really armed and informed and can get much closer
22:03to the modern gardens.
22:06Although the conquistadors plundered and pillaged their way across Mexico, it seems that the Spanish never discovered Monte Hava.
22:13And so, thankfully, it has remained relatively intact.
22:17And it's not just historical landscapes that are part of the culture.
22:21In the small town of Chile, just outside Oaxaca City, is an ancient botanical monument I've always wanted to see.
22:28I've stopped off to see this, which is the Chula tree, which is a Montezuma cypress.
22:33And it's reckoned to be the biggest tree in the world and certainly one of the oldest.
22:38Now, I have seen photographs of it.
22:40And it's certainly worth a detour if not coming just to Mexico to see.
22:44It's very, very famous.
22:45But nothing, nothing prepares you for the scale of it.
22:50And also, the thing which I haven't expected, that it is staggeringly beautiful.
22:59It is truly colossal.
23:03It's 150 feet tall, and at 190 feet in circumference, would take 30 people linking arms to hug its girth.
23:12And it's also ancient, being at least 1,500 years old.
23:20This tree was ancient when the conquistadors came, and it was old when the Aztecs' culture began.
23:32It's seen them, and no doubt it will see our civilisation pass and fade away.
23:48The Chula tree, dwarfing the church of Santa Maria, is one of the wonders of the world.
23:55The conquistadors didn't just bring their colonial style of architecture to Oaxaca.
24:00They also brought with them something that would affect the local people even more, their religion.
24:08Very soon after the conquistadors took control, the church came in and exerted just as strong a control in its
24:17own way,
24:17converting the Indians and imposing themselves by building churches, some of them vast.
24:24And this is one of them.
24:27The Church of Santo Domingo is one of the finest examples of Baroque architecture in Latin America.
24:33It is dazzling in its magnificence.
24:57You walk in and immediately, immediately, you have this sense of incredible riches, this astonishment.
25:06It is a beautiful and astonishing wall of gold.
25:09And what it says is, this is the house of the one true God, and He is a powerful and
25:17rich God.
25:19It seems that the display of sacrificial death appealed to the duality of the Indian culture,
25:25where life and death were present in everything.
25:28Next to the church is a complex of courtyards and cloisters that was a Dominican convent from 1608 until 1857,
25:35when it fell into neglect.
25:37And it has just recently been restored.
25:46The building is, of course, wonderful, but for all its glories, it's not the reason I'm here, because attached to
25:53it was a garden.
25:55And when they restored the convent in the early 90s, they decided to do the garden as well, and there's
25:59lots of archaeological evidence for it.
26:00But rather than recreate a monastic garden, what they've done is make a modern botanic garden, using the plants of
26:08the Wakako region.
26:26The garden is a celebration of the incredibly diverse flora of the area, taking the visitor through thousands of years
26:33of Oaxaca's natural history.
26:40But it's more than just a collection of plants.
26:44It's also very beautiful and skillfully designed, and very different from most botanical gardens.
26:50I've seen cacti used as a hedge like this in villages as we've driven through.
26:56But used like this on this scale is magnificently beautiful.
27:02And it creates a sort of wonderful cathedral-like volume of space.
27:17There's something niggling at me. I mean, it's almost irritating me.
27:21It's like walking around an art gallery rather than a garden.
27:24And it feels, to be honest, a little bit cold.
27:29The fact that this feels a bit more like a gallery than a garden may be because it's designed by
27:34a painter called Luis Zarate.
27:35And this is his first garden ever.
27:39What really interests me is how you, as an artist, creating a work of art relate to all the problems
27:48of a garden, a garden that grows and changes.
27:57First of all, I had to resist my own artistic ego and concentrate on bringing out the intrinsic beauty of
28:04the plants instead.
28:10I want to say more about the plants than simply botanical facts.
28:16I try to communicate poetically with the visitor to try to give the architecture and the layout of the plants
28:22a poetical feeling.
28:27The artistic challenge was not the only struggle Luis faced in creating the garden.
28:35The government wanted to turn this into a hotel and the old botanical garden into a car park.
28:42At the same time, we, the penters of Oaxaca, started to work out what we could do with it.
28:50Then we started to fight against the government to stop this place being turned into a car park.
28:56So, the reclaiming of Santa Domingo is an achievement of the people of Oaxaca.
29:01There is a way of working called El Tecchio, meaning working for free, working for the community.
29:19I said earlier that I found the garden a bit cold, beautiful, but I wasn't really connecting to it.
29:25And I now realise that I was completely wrong about that.
29:30That this garden is just bursting with humanity.
29:34I was very moved by the way that, in the teeth of sort of corporate brutality,
29:39that the local people wanted to make in a garden something for the public to appreciate their culture, their history,
29:47and indeed their future.
29:55But I'm now leaving the mountains and deserts of Oaxaca to find a garden lost in the Mexican jungle.
30:09Hilitla is north of Mexico City.
30:13It is a straggling mountain town, with the jungle leaning in on it.
30:19It is a strange place.
30:21But it's not nearly as bizarre as the garden that was made here, by someone who is no more a
30:26local than I am.
30:28I'm about to go into a garden which I think could only have been made here in the jungle in
30:34Mexico, given the timing and the circumstances of its creation.
30:38However, its creator was a very English eccentric.
30:53This garden is some 50 acres of tamed jungle, and contains over 200 whimsical and weird concrete structures, and all
31:03other creation of Edward James.
31:09Edward James first came to Mexico in 1947, and he chose to settle in this spot, because he came with
31:17a friend and walked up this ravine, and they found these natural pools.
31:22The friend stripped off, had a swim, and then lay on the rocks sunbathing.
31:28And as he did so, apparently a cloud of blue butterflies descended on the body and just smothered him with
31:35these blue butterflies.
31:36And Edward James thought this was such a fantastically surreal image, that he saw this as a sign that this
31:43was where he had to make his surreal garden.
31:51Edward James was born into great wealth.
31:55His family owned the huge West Dean estate in Sussex.
31:59However, James made his name and another fortune in the 1920s and 30s, when he began collecting surrealist art.
32:07The initial plans for Last Process seemed to have been relatively modest, at least in the terms of an eccentric
32:14multimillionaire.
32:15More like a private zoo than a jungle fantasy.
32:18And he did ship a menagerie of caged animals to Hill Hitler.
32:22But by 1960, James began to talk about creating his extraordinary dreamlike constructions.
32:28He said he decided to build them simply because he liked to see something nice.
32:33And casually at first, and later obsessively, his subconscious began to take literal concrete form in the middle of the
32:40jungle.
32:42So, look at that.
32:46It's extraordinary.
32:47It doesn't rationalise, but is it beautiful?
32:51And does it need to be beautiful?
32:53I don't know. I don't know.
32:58This place just plunges you under the water of irrationality and the subconscious and says, swim.
33:09Having a clue, I'm going, I'm completely, totally lost.
33:17You can see pieces of James's cultural history almost glued to the surface of this, the fleur-de-lis in
33:28the middle of the Mexican jungle.
33:29And, of course, if this was in Europe, the health and safety police would have closed it down.
33:35What they'd be saying, unsafe, and what they'd really be saying is not just unsafe for your body, but unsafe
33:39for your mind.
33:40You shouldn't be having these thoughts.
33:43But James could do what he liked in Hill Hitler.
33:47Mexico wasn't judgmental about personal behaviour in the way that Europe and America were.
33:52It was also without building regulation of any kind, and there was a local and very cheap labour force only
33:57too glad of the work.
34:01I'm bedevilled and struggling with this idea of beauty as a pure thing.
34:08And this place, which is chaos, in a sense.
34:11Ugly things next to beautiful things. I mean, look at that. Look at that thing.
34:16To me, it's not doing anything other than being kitsch and naff, and it's absolutely no better or worse than
34:23a garden gnome.
34:24Now, this, I think, is fantastic. It's where you have plant-like forms encrusted with moss and lichen and ferns,
34:32with trees of vaguely similar form growing up around them.
34:36You don't quite know which is which.
34:39So, cheek by jowl, with the most wonderful, exotic, beautiful, fabulous stuff, is a bit of complete kitsch.
34:50And it's upsetting me. I don't know what to think.
35:02I mean, there is a fact. I could just be a boring old fart who likes the vaguely familiar.
35:11And finds aspects of the sort of surrealistic way of doing things in a garden as too unsettling.
35:20It rattles my cage a bit too much.
35:30The weather changes from hot and steamy to rainy and surprisingly cool.
35:35To find out more about James, I'm meeting the current owner, James' godson, Plutarco Gastelon.
35:43Plutarco's father was in charge of the day-to-day building work in the garden, and James would often stay
35:48with the family on his visits to Mexico.
35:49So Plutarco knew James since he was a small child.
35:55You grew up here, didn't you?
35:57Yes.
35:58What was it like being a child in this garden?
36:01It was magical. It was magical because it was like a different country.
36:07I mean, now it's different. It's fantastic but kind of ghostly or melancholic.
36:16But at that time it was very vivid because we had more than a hundred workers.
36:23They were all my friends.
36:25And Edward James used to have a lot of animals too.
36:29At that point the place looked like a private zoo or something like that, so it was an incredible place
36:35for a child.
36:36What was he like as a man? Describe to me your memories of him.
36:43Yeah, that's something because I have a different perception I could see because for my sisters and I, it was
36:52our private Santa.
36:54But I could see with my parents it was more difficult, especially my father because my father was in charge
37:03of all the mundane matters about building a place like this, no?
37:09Paying bills, keep the records.
37:15And I could see that he was difficult because he didn't have schedules, not even to eat or to sleep.
37:23He didn't realize very well about the mundane world.
37:29So my father complained a lot about that but at the same time he was laughing all the time about
37:36the adventures of Edward James here in Mexico.
37:42The last process is unedited, unfettered, unbalanced and completely unworldly and its future is uncertain.
37:51Plutarcho told me he employs 50 people whose sole job is to cut back the jungle.
37:56Perhaps James could afford his follies to be so extreme because he knew the jungle would one day consume them
38:02just as it has consumed the lost Aztec cities.
38:10We use words cheaply when we're describing gardens and I know I'm as guilty as anybody but this, more than
38:16any other garden in the world, can truly be described as fantastic.
38:20It is like no other.
38:24And yet again and again as I walk round it, I'm reminded of an 18th century milord, touring Europe, buying
38:32extraordinary things and using them to create a series of follies in a landscape park
38:38with ruined chapels and temples and re-rooted rivers and villages swept away so a ha-ha can be built.
38:47And that the result is this extraordinary creation in the middle of the Mexican jungle just makes it even more
38:55extraordinary and unlike anything else.
39:00What I have seen in Mexico has been inspiring and fascinating from the ancient history of the floating gardens to
39:06Barragans great volumes of colour and light and the cool clean lines of the cactus garden built upon its sense
39:14of local identity.
39:15But now I'm moving on to a very different world, albeit geographically close to Mexico, where the gardens are a
39:23product of political necessity and social will.
39:28My journey takes me to the largest island in the Caribbean.
39:33Cuba lies just 140 miles to the east of Mexico and I'm heading to the capital, Havana.
39:43I've been wanting to visit Havana for ages.
39:46It doesn't take long to see that it is beautiful, ruined and the sexiest place on this earth.
39:53Now that's all rather good, but I've come to find out about an organic revolution that's taking place right across
39:59the country that could be a model for the climate-changed post-oil world.
40:04Around a fifth of Cuba's population live in Havana.
40:07It's a city that's undoubtedly seductive and exhilarating, but suffering from decades of neglect.
40:14It's a very beautiful city because it's not what I call facelift beauty, manicured and tweaked.
40:21It's like a wonderful face on a 70-year-old woman.
40:27A lifetime's worth of beauty. It's accumulating.
40:32As you travel around the city, you do get a sense of a place frozen in time.
40:37Most of the vehicles are pre-1959, lovingly maintained and they add hugely to the city's charm.
40:48But among the decrepit buildings of the old city, there is a strange pairing of decay and healthy growth.
41:05This might seem an unlikely place for a gardener, but actually it's both incredibly interesting and also very typical of
41:13what's going on here in Cuba.
41:15After the Russians withdrew their economic support at the end of the 80s and the collapse of the Soviet Empire,
41:19Cuba was found in a situation where they had no food.
41:22They absolutely had to start growing food without oil, without fertilisers, pesticides.
41:27And so all across the city, with a communal effort, they turned bits of wasteland into highly productive areas for
41:35food and medicine.
41:36They had no medicines.
41:37And so what you have now is not just a population growing its own food in the middle of a
41:42city,
41:42but actually one of the most sophisticated, sustainable means of organic growing, of gardening, medicine on every level in the
41:50world.
41:57Right in the middle of the crumbling colonial grandeur, a genuine green revolution is taking place,
42:03in the form of small productive gardens called huertas.
42:09These are the equivalent of our allotments, but built on derelict land,
42:13and they are the basis of a new gardening culture that is sprouting up all over the city.
42:25Alberto's huerta is typical of many in Havana.
42:28The building that stood here collapsed, so Alberto and his brother-in-law cleared the site
42:33and brought in the soil in wheelbarrows to build the raised beds, even though they didn't own the land.
42:42We took the huerta because we came from a family of farmers.
42:45So, when we saw the empty space here, we agreed to grow plants.
42:52It was for a hobby, and to give produce back to the community.
43:12When the special period began, did that change the way that you gardened?
43:20Well, I had to start more or less inventing, because the climate here changed a lot.
43:27And because of the need, we have to grow quick-growing plants so the community could benefit.
43:38After leaving Alberto, I realised that much of his passion for gardening
43:42is driven by his desire to work with and for his local community.
43:47His huerta is open and part of the street,
43:50which is very different from the private sanctuaries we like to create in our own gardens.
43:57The urgent challenge of feeding its 11 million people during the special period
44:01meant that the Cuban regime needed to do something on a much larger scale than Alberto's huerta.
44:07So, kitchen gardens, or organiponicos, were set up in the heart of urban communities.
44:14One of the largest of these is in the suburb of Alamar, on the outskirts of the city.
44:29To me, this is a sort of vision of heaven.
44:34Wonderful vegetables, grown organically.
44:37It looks beautiful.
44:39People all working together from the community,
44:42growing them, earning a living, eating them,
44:48caring about it. That's the key.
44:50If you want to do something well, you've really got to mean it.
44:53And this place means it.
44:58Now, you might argue that this is not a garden.
45:01But there's nothing that goes on here that doesn't happen in every garden or allotment back home.
45:06It's just expanded out to meet a dire social need.
45:11It's the resourcefulness of the Cuban people that have made this organic revolution work.
45:16Engineers and bureaucrats going back to the land.
45:20Dr Funes is an agronomist and a key figure in Cuba's Green Revolution.
45:25He's agreed to introduce me to some of the people here.
45:28Emilio, how are you?
45:30How are you?
45:31How are you?
45:31Montidón, of the BBC.
45:33And Emilio is an engineer.
45:34He's in charge of the pest and diseases control.
45:37And what's he spraying?
45:38Applying humus liquid and smoke...
45:41Smoke liquid?
45:43Yes, to control pests.
45:45Right, so natural pest control.
45:51Miguel Sassines was one of the four men that set up the Organiponico ten years ago.
45:55He used to work in an office, but now runs this incredibly successful garden.
46:00He's agreed to show me some of the plants and organic methods that they use here.
46:06This is where we made the compost.
46:11The raised beds guarantee drainage.
46:16Ah, the husk from rice.
46:19What do you use this for?
46:22We use this to produce compost for seedlings.
46:28These beds are where we made the worm humus.
46:32Mmm.
46:34Beautiful.
46:36Now, I don't recognise this tree, or fruit. What is it?
46:41This tree is called the Noni.
46:44It's a plant from Central Asia, and its Latin name is Morindacitrifolia.
46:49It's been used as a medicinal plant for 2,000 years.
46:53According to studies at the University of Honolulu in Hawaii,
46:56it improved the quality of life of more than 100 illnesses.
47:01Does it taste good?
47:02No, muy mala.
47:03No?
47:04Not so good.
47:04Is this a ripe fruit?
47:06Sabe a queso rancio.
47:08The ripe fruit tastes as a very old cheese, I mean, rot cheese.
47:14It...
47:16It's like Stilton or Roquefort.
47:19It is, believe you me, this smells 100% of a ripe blue cheese.
47:27Which I happen to like.
47:30But there we are, I can see the breeze everywhere.
47:32And it tastes the same?
47:33Yes.
47:34There are people here who eat it alone.
47:36Some people used to eat directly.
47:39You eat it?
47:39Yes.
47:40But most of the people used to drink the juice.
47:45The flavour, and you can reduce the flavour,
47:48because sometimes it's not so well accepted.
47:51Maybe for the French people it's excellent.
47:59One of the most fascinating aspects about Alamo is that it's for city dwellers,
48:04and run by local people, which has huge social benefits.
48:09This has had great social impact.
48:11It's created jobs with relatively little investment.
48:15And on the spiritual side, the city is more beautiful.
48:19Many young people used to think agriculture is not cool.
48:24And originally, not many people wanted to get involved.
48:27Now, most of the people coming to us are young.
48:31Meanwhile, in other countries, there is an exodus from the field to the cities.
48:36But here is the other way around.
48:47All the produce from the garden is sold locally, so it's fresh and wonderfully nutritious.
48:53And because the transportation in all directions is measured in metres, not miles,
48:57the carbon trail is minimal.
49:04It's beautiful.
49:05I think this place is a model.
49:07I think everything about it is completely wonderful.
49:11If we could bring this same attitude to our back gardens back at home,
49:15our millions of back gardens and allotments producing wonderful vegetables,
49:20just think what that could do to change the whole structure of our approach to food.
49:26So it's an inspiration. It's beautiful.
49:29And, OK, I'm biased, but it's a fabulous garden.
49:41There are thousands of organopolicos throughout Cuba.
49:45In Havana, you'll find them in the most unlikely settings,
49:48right in the heart of inner-city communities.
49:55Another of the factors that has made this green revolution work is the system of support that's provided
50:01through a network of horticultural advice centres to anyone who wants to garden.
50:09This is just one of 60 CTA kiosks in Havana alone.
50:14And the idea is to get advice and information to people to help them to grow their own food in
50:19gardens dotted all over the city.
50:21And people come along, they bring problems, they buy feeds and fertilisers, all produced organically.
50:28And you have this network of information and support system that sustains the whole operation.
50:49I think it's wrong to think of all gardening and all growth in Cuba as being driven to produce food.
50:57Everywhere you go, there are plants on balconies, plants by the side of the road, there are parks.
51:02There are odd corners where you see that the need to nurture nature is expressed through growing ornamental plants.
51:14But you do have to look out for them. They're not that obvious.
51:20Gardening just for personal pleasure is clearly not that widespread.
51:23However, I do want to try and meet some gardeners who tend their plots just for the love of raising
51:28plants.
51:29Especially in this city that has so brilliantly tackled the desperate demands for physical sustenance.
51:41This is an unexpected sight.
51:43A mass of greenery in the ruins of a building.
51:47And, you know, funnily enough, this reminds me of Edward James's garden.
51:49But clearly, somebody has gone to a lot of trouble.
51:53Not just to put these here, but to look after them and keep them looking good.
52:03Chachi runs his rickshaw business right in the heart of this bustling part of Old Havana.
52:08And this is his little green oasis.
52:15Tell me, why are you growing so many plants in your workplace?
52:20I like plants. I like them very much.
52:24It's something I inherited from my mum.
52:29It's like you find peace with them.
52:33When you're watering and caring for them, their colours entertain your mind.
52:43It's as if you're having a conversation with them.
52:48You're alone in a world that's just you and them.
52:53Wherever I am, they have to be plants.
52:55Wherever I am, they have to be plants.
53:15This is the last garden that I'm going to be visiting.
53:18And it's still in Old Havana.
53:19It belongs to a woman called Maria de los Andenes.
53:22And she likes to grow plants that have ornamental and, I believe, spiritual value.
53:38The first thing I noticed about Maria's garden, apart from the flowers,
53:41is that she has an amazing array of containers.
53:50In the beginning, I started with little pots, which are very expensive.
53:58But then, I started recycling.
54:01Coffee pots, polystyrene tops, all the things you normally throw away, I recycle here.
54:10And little by little, my idea grew.
54:20Now, this is the first garden that I've been into in Havana,
54:23that isn't dominated by edible plants.
54:26Why is that?
54:27Well, initially, my project was to make a garden of ornamental plants.
54:38But, because of both the country's needs, and my spiritual needs, I said to myself,
54:46why not mix ornamental plants and fruit trees?
54:52I'd like to know more about how the plants fulfill your spiritual needs.
54:57Cuba is full of very beautiful places.
55:01But, the economy doesn't allow us the luxury of visiting them.
55:10So, we recreate the world at home, so we don't need to spend the money, and feel happy here instead.
55:18To use the money.
55:20But, here we go.
55:21To feel comfortable.
55:25And, among them, the plant also transmits me energy.
55:31Plants energize me.
55:32And, when I look at them, they tell me when they need water, when they need food.
55:40All this gives me life energy.
55:44Vitality for me and for my family.
55:48Important to me and to my family.
55:53Even though Maria's garden fulfills her spiritual needs,
55:56there are plants here that are a reminder of the crisis that Cuba still faces on a daily basis.
56:03This banana plant helped the family
56:07through the difficult times of the special period.
56:12It has fed the family.
56:15The little ones.
56:17Everybody.
56:19We have had very difficult moments and it has served for food for the little ones, for us and for
56:26us.
56:33What do your neighbours and friends think about this garden?
56:35Well, some people complain because it blocks the window.
56:40Others see it from above and say it is very beautiful and say hello every morning.
56:47Things like that encourage me.
56:51Attitudes are changing in our country.
56:53The culture of plants and gardening is reawakening our appreciation that the environment is as important to our health as
57:05any conventional therapy.
57:12Maria's garden is interesting because it is such an exception to the general rule here in Havana.
57:17I believe that the Cubans have created a working model for the future that we all face.
57:22In the middle of a large city with practically no money and no resources,
57:25they are producing fresh organic fruit and vegetables by and for local communities, not industrially, but in the garden.
57:35Well, with real regret, I got to leave Havana, which is the most seductive place I've ever visited in my
57:41life.
57:41And I've been here at a time of real change and I'm sure that it could go either way.
57:47Gardens could become more like Maria's, which is conventional, very beautiful, but westernised.
57:54Or we could learn from the extraordinary things that they've achieved and had to achieve over the last 15 years
58:01and develop a system of using our gardens to feed ourselves on a sustainable way.
58:09But I do know that I'll be back. I'll be back as soon as I can to see how those
58:14changes emerge.
58:19Join me next time on the beach at Botany Bay, where I'll be setting off to explore the unique flora
58:25and gardens of Australia and New Zealand.
58:40Home to 25% of Britain's threatened wildlife species, Ellie's off to the Cairngorne's National Park, hoping to spot some
58:48of them with Countryfile.
58:50Next.
59:01Next.
59:04Next.