Celia Hardy in one of her nurseries at Plants Galore
By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted 26 March 2018)
Plants
Galore has only been up and running in Runda since 2009. But Celia Hardy has been
propagating plants practically all her life. And while she doesn’t consider
herself a ‘green thumb’, she is definitely an ‘outdoor woman’.
“I studied
interior design in college [in UK], but I wasn’t happy with that line of work.
So the moment I came home to Kenya, I got a job working outdoors as a landscape
gardener [at the Roselyn River Garden Centre]. And I’ve been working outdoors
ever since,” says Celia.
Coming from
a long line of farmers and fine artists, Celia is actually a third generation
Kenyan. “My great, great-grandfather was the president of the Royal Academy of
Arts [in London]. It was his son, my great grandfather who first came to Kenya
in 1908,” she recalls.
But he didn’t
come to farm; he came to paint the landscape and the animals. “It was his son,
my grandfather who decided to remain behind and buy land in Nanyuki, which is
where I was born,” she adds.
It was Celia’s
mother who taught her to love watching plants grow. “She grew everything in her
garden. And from the time I could walk I was there watching the way she grew
vegetables, herbs and lots of fruits,” she recalls. “She grew peaches, apples
and raspberries which I’d come help her harvest over school holidays.”
Her mother
was also a small scale business woman, selling her fresh fruits and vegetables
which she’d personally deliver to Nanyuki town. So early on, Celia was also
seeing how a woman could be both a farmer and successful business woman.
(Incidentally, her 87 year old mum is still tending her garden and taking her
fresh foods to town.)
But the
logistics of landscape gardening is something Celia says she learned on-the-job
with Paul Mackenzie who owned the Roselyn River Garden Centre.
“I worked
for Paul for 10 years,” says Celia who then spent time with her family in
Tanzania.
But once she
returned to Kenya, she opened Roses Galore, which became the precursor to
Plants Galore.
“Roses
Galore still exists, but originally I operated it out of the flat where I lived
in Muthaiga,” says Celia whose gardening service was employing over 100
gardeners at its peak. Currently, she’s down to around 45 who work on a day by day
basis. Mostly their activities involve maintaining people’s gardens, doing
everything from weeding and watering to tending private nurseries and cleaning
people’s pools and ponds.
Celia says
that even now, a portion of her own time is involved with maintaining people’s
gardens. But there’s a whole lot more that she does since she set up Plants
Galore with her partner Barry Cameron.
“Barry and I
met through the Kenya Horticultural Society, and since we shared so many common
interests, we decided to start our own plant centre,” says Celia.
Recalling
how they used to drive up and down Limuru Road hoping to find land in the
vicinity, they eventually did. And now, their Garden Centre is just behind the
Roselyn Riviera Mall.
Describing
herself as Garden Galore’s ‘Chief Shamba Girl’ and Barry as a retired Engineer
and Gardener-hobbyist, Celia is actually the Centre’s Managing Director.
Celia beside her succulent garden next to the terraced wall she built for her daughter's cottage
It’s just
that sort of humility and down-to-earth style of horticultural expertise that
makes Celia and Barry’s business so successful. For Plants Galore is not only a
magical marketplace for a vast variety of plants. It’s also a place where
people from all walks of life – all classes, colors and creeds – come for counseling
about what’s best to plant in their garden.
Nonetheless,
Celia has gotten slightly cautious about sharing her knowledge freely with
visitors who come to the Centre simply to chat. “We’ve even had to put up a
sign that says ‘no photographs’ since some people take our ideas, but then go out and get their plants from
roadside gardeners whose prices are often higher than our own,” Celia says.
Nonetheless,
both Celia and Barry’s knowledge of plants can’t be compared to just about
anyone else in Kenya. For not only has she been in the business of gardening
practically all her life. Her partner Barry Cameron is the one who actually
compiled the encyclopedic ‘Gardening in East Africa’ for Kenya Horticultural Society.
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