In this offshoot episode of Our Plant Stories, we step into Garden Futures - Designing with Nature — an imaginative new exhibition at the V&A Dundee.

With help from one of the curators, Francesca Bibby, and one of the exhibitors. Andrew Flynn, we hear about garden design from both historical and futuristic perspectives; from knitted sculptures embedded with seeds by Alice Marie Archer to flat pack plant pots by Potr.

Our Plant Stories is presented and produced by Sally Flatman

The music is Fade to Black by Howard Levy

Every month I will make a plant story but stories often lead to more stories and I end up publishing Offshoot episodes. So if you 'Follow' the podcast on your podcast app you will never miss an episode.

It also makes a real difference if you can spare the time to rate and/or review an episode after you have listened. Spotify and Apple look at these ratings and it helps to get the podcast promoted to other plant lovers.

Independent podcasts like Our Plant Stories depend on their listeners for help with the costs of making the podcast such as the hosting platform and the editing programme.

Using the Buy Me A Coffee platform you can make a one off online donation of £5 and that money will go towards making more episodes. Everyone who buys a 'virtual coffee' will get a shout out on the podcast.

The support of listeners means a lot to me.

Buy Me A Coffee

Welcome to our Plant Stories and an offshoot episode. We're going to be thinking outside the box, or perhaps more accurately, outside the plant pot, in this episode, origami and knitting will feature alongside plants because we're at the Garden Futures Designing with Nature exhibition at the VA in Dundee.

Now we're looking at a room kind of inundated with different tools, different gardening tools. There's really historical objects and it takes you right up through to kind of present day, very contemporary gardening tools.

You can see that some of them, like the spade, for instance, haven't changed at all. And then others have really developed and been kind of engineered over time and become a lot more innovative.

Potr, I guess, is, you know, we've created a little bit of a name for ourselves as kind of disrupting some of the traditional products in the gardening industry.

So the plant pot is something that hasn't changed, I'd say in form factor, for about 5,000 years since the ancient Egyptians first invented it to move plants around.

So meet Andrew Flynn, an inventor, innovator who with two colleagues has designed and developed self watering flat pack planters made from waste. Yep. Plant pots and vases which fit through the letterbox and feature in the VA exhibition.

And Francesca Bibby, who's one of the curators of the exhibition in Dundee.

So we're coming into the second room now and this is called Paradise.

And it's been designed in the image of a kind of Persian, like an ancient Persian garden with a pavilion in the centre and then around the edges, this is supposed to look like a kind of botanical glass house.

And this room, really, it's different constellations of ideas and examples of art and design that show how gardens have typically represented this idea of paradise or Utopia.

How long has it taken to put the exhibition together?

Probably about 18 months from start to finish.

We started out, obviously going to see the exhibition at VITRA Design Museum in its kind of first iteration, and then we did a lot of work to dig into the existing themes of the show and think about how we could amplify some of the stories that we really liked and also introduce a lot more Scottish and British stories that I think our audiences will really resonate with.

What have you most enjoyed about working on it?

I think my favourite thing or my favorite part of the job is always working with living designers where possible.

So I've met some really inspiring people who are creating incredible work that kind of straddles art and ecology and design and I think it's exciting to see what designers are doing today. And how they're thinking about gardening, looking into the future and expanding our ideas of what a garden can be.

And also I've been really interested in how a lot of designers who are looking at gardens or looking at kind of ecology more broadly, are sort of cherry picking from very traditional knowledge that a lot of indigenous cultures have used for thousands of years, and then either kind of drawing on that or even combining that with, you know, new technology and science and just coming up with incredible solutions for some of the crises that we face, like the climate crisis and food insecurity. And it feels quite hopeful.

I was actually gifted three plant pots during COVID and I had a houseplant collection, or I was trying to grow up my houseplant collection. And I actually wasn't particularly good at keeping my plants alive, as I think a lot of people that will resonate with them.

But anyway, I had been gifted these pots. They arrived to my door in a big, oversized box.

Inside the box, copious amounts of bubble wrap inside because they need to be protected during transit. And then inside the bubble wrap, two out of the three were smashed to a thousand pieces. So my background's in product design and engineering.

And this is what really kind of this was the light bulb moment of going, oh, that's crazy how much waste there is with this very simple product. And we asked the question, I wonder what the carbon footprint is associated with the humble plant pot.

Not sure how many people have actually taken time to look at that, but we decided it'd be a fun activity.

And I say we, me and my wife Eilidh, who's co founder of Potr, so we looked at the carbon footprint of a traditional pot, and what we found was quite incredible, that up to 25% of the carbon footprint of that very, very simple item comes from simply shipping them from A to B.

Because if you think about it, essentially what you're sending is a large, heavy, fragile volume of air, which requires bubble wrap, all its packaging to keep it safe. So basically our first insight in our thought process was, what if you could flat pack a plant pot? What would that do to the carbon footprint?

We re-ran the numbers. Turns out it cuts the carbon footprint over 100 times during transit by that one design change alone.

So this was the kind of like, oh, my goodness, wouldn't this be cool? We now had a design brief, and what's lovely about it is that you inversely make something that's really a wonderful thing for people to share.

And part of our mission now is to get more people into gardening, more people into growing at home, particularly in urban environments where you maybe don't have much space and you don't have as much access to gardens per se.

So that was kind of became our aim was we created this more sustainable product and now we can utilise kind of gifting and sharing as a mechanism and tool to actually get more people into gardening. And on top of that, the product self waters your plants.

So yeah, how does it self water? That sounds like bliss.

No, no, it's good, it's magic. No, it's all, it's all down to wonderful simple science. So we use the magic of capillary action. So really simple.

Most people will be familiar with like a candle wick and a candle, basically the same principle. We have a length of cord which runs from a reservoir in the base of our pot, basically about 300ml of water which lasts up to two weeks.

One end of the cord goes in there, the other end goes into the soil and actually enables your plant to self regulate its own water intake and essentially like a straw. So yeah, you leave your plant, it will happily sip ever after, basically.

So this section is probably the one that speaks the most to those ideas I was talking about earlier. It's called the World as a Garden. It's the final section of the exhibition and it's very contemporary and quite kind of future focused.

There's a lot of works in here by living designers who are thinking about how we can use gardens or the kind of gardening as a practice to deal with a lot of the issues that we currently face in a very kind of hopeful and innovative way. And it's quite a nice kind of,

it's a nod back to that first section of the exhibition paradise where you know, historically people were drawing on nature and gardens to think about these utopian worlds that we might create.

And actually the World as a Garden brings it right back to the present day and thinks about how still using gardening we can hopefully move towards a kind of fairer, greener planet.

Is there one thing you'd like to pick out and talk about?

These are a series of sculptures by the British artist Alice Marie Archer. And they're essentially hanging baskets created from willow that's been woven together and then a knitted skin has been created and sort of attached around the surfaces of the basket and they've been embedded with different seeds and beans. And essentially Alice has created this incredible knitted hydroponic system.

So whereas traditional hydroponics, which are, you know, touted as being very sustainable because you grow plants in water without soil, they take up less space, plants grow a lot faster and you can grow a lot more using hydroponic systems. But typically hydroponics use a lot of plastics.

And so what Alice found from her previous life as an environmental scientist, but then her kind of new career as a knitter and an artist, she realised that you could actually knit these kind of patterns that provided the perfect seed bed to germinate plants from. So in the galleries we won't have them germinating just because for environmental reasons we can't bring live organisms into the galleries but actually if these are wet, if they're left out in the rain, these seeds start to shoot and they start to grow and you get these big green sculptures.

And I think it's just a fascinating blend thinking about our role as a design museum showcasing someone who's taking traditional craft and combining it with this really innovative kind of scientific approach as well, I think it's a perfect example of how you can look to the past, but then also use that to look forwards as well and create really exciting solutions.

So we've got two different types of recycled plastic that we work with. The first is recycled polypropylene which we which source from both post industrial and post consumer sources.

So these are like off cuts or consumer products that would otherwise be going to landfill. A lot of the time it's single use items which is the problem.

And we take that, we grind it down, turn it into sheets of material, cut those sheets with effectively a large cookie cutter and we turn them into planters that are going to last a lifetime.

Our latest range of product, which we're incredibly excited at and which actually we're showcasing here at the V&A we've just gone live is our range of potter ocean pots. And actually these are made entirely from discarded plastics that have washed up. A lot of plastic actually from the fishing industry which are washed up on beaches around the uk.

So we take that material, it then goes through a seven part supply chain which has been set up entirely by us in the UK, 70% of it in Scotland.

And that transforms, let's say things like old fishing nets into first of all pellets, little plastic pellets which are then a standard shape that can be used in extrusion to turn it into sheets of material. And then we then cut those sheets with our large cookie cutter tools which forms the origami design.

What's lovely about this new supply chain is it's a positive impact supply chain. So we're removing waste from these really fragile marine ecosystems.

And turning that into a product that is self watering your plants and helping actually cater to life in your home. There's a nice synergy there.

You mentioned origami.

I did mention origami. I love origami. I'm obsessed with origami. It's how I spend, I actually shared something on my Instagram stories last night, it just said my life and it was just a photo of all the origami I'm currently working on.

We're Product designers but we're now origami enthusiasts and basically the origami is a very functional mechanism for us because it's the mechanism that allows us to transform something from its flat pack state into something that is structural. So we use a lot of triangular tessellations in our designs because triangles are one of the strongest natural shapes in the kind of natural world.

So this allows us to create something that's structural from something that is very, very thin and flimsy sheet material before it's been formed. And actually, this is a really important point with our products.

A lot of people, when they think about sustainability, it's just about what material something is made from and what we're trying to do like I said, with the flat pack design, lowering the carbon footprint during transit, it's looking at the problem holistically.

So the other main aspect of what we try and do is before we even think about what material we're using, we're asking, how much material do you actually even need to use to make a product? You'll be familiar with the terms reduce, reuse, recycle.

So the reason reduce is obviously listed as number one is because if you don't need to make something in the first place, don't make it, because therefore no energy is expelled. Even recycling has a carbon footprint. So to put it into context, the material that we use is only 0.5 millimeters thick.

So when it's a sheet of material, it's very flimsy and flexible. The origami makes it structural. But if you were to measure the thickness of a traditional plant pot, typically they're about 10 millimeters thick.

So what you're looking at in our product is actually a 95% reduction in material altogether.

These have been displayed as a kind of sculptural installation.

But if you remove the skin from the baskets and plant it, then it will act as an agro textile to actually help the germinating seeds take root and embed in the ground. Alice has a really nice way of describing them as like a healing blanket for the ground.

And she likens it to, you know, how a lot of us will have knitwear that's created for us by like a grandma or a grandparent and it's kind of an act of care and an act of love to hand make something for someone and then gift it to them.

And she likens this to that as a kind of gift for the planet, essentially, that she's handcrafted.

Even in school, I was always quite fascinated with plants and things in the garden. My mother, actually, she was quite obsessed with origami when I was really young, so I think that's definitely clearly rubbed off.

But then in school I was fascinated in art and design, but also loved maths and engineering and didn't realize you could combine them until I kind of happened upon the course that I end up studying product design engineering. And yeah, basically I feel very lucky having done that course because I can't imagine doing anything, studying anything else than that, really.

And, yeah, I went into a career, worked at Dyson for seven years as head of product design, actually in the world of designing hair care devices, which was quite fascinating, and then worked in the electric vehicle industry in Barcelona for a few years and now it's plant pots.

So it's been quite a diverse range, but always with this idea of kind of taking something that hasn't changed in a long time and applying a kind of innovation mindset and trying to rethink and reinvent it for today's world, for tomorrow's world.

What's really interesting about that is I visited the Lady Loan School in Arbroath who are going to get the hospital field garden from Chelsea Project Giving Back, which is all about kind of art and creativity and how important it is to bring that together and to put creativity into the curriculum.

Yes.

And in a way, what you're talking about is exactly that, isn't it?

100%. Yeah. And it's something that I'm really passionate about.

And actually, you know, as I said, I graduated, I think 12 years ago now, but I'm actually now also lecturing in the same course that I studied product design engineering at Glasgow School of Art. I do that like a day a week. But, you know, if I wasn't doing Potr, I think that's probably what I'd be doing full time.

Something having worked in the design industry and kind of seen the benefits of combining creativity and science and all these subjects, something that I'm really passionate about.

And throughout my career, whether that was at Dyson or in Barcelona, working in the electric vehicle industry, I've done a lot with schools and getting kind of younger kids into and kind of basically just opening their eyes to the different types of careers you can go into with art and science. Because I think like in my school in Glasgow, I honestly didn't realise you could combine them.

And you know, it was either I was going off to become an engineer because that was the stable job, or it was going off to become an artist and maybe a not so stable job as I think my dad probably was worried about. And so yeah, when I realised you could combine these things, it was like absolute music to my ears.

And I think there's been a lot of, you know, groups of or like schools that I've visited and run workshops with.

And you do, you do see like kids light up when they realise they can actually combine these things and they can be inventing things because what's more fun than inventing something?

And also that kind of creativity needed to solve the problems that perhaps my generation are leaving behind for your generation.

Oh, 100%, I think, you know, problems are, you know, they pop up left, right and centre and are ever adapting as well. And technology also has a part to play in that. Like it solves problems and then it also creates new problems.

Like the explosion of AI, you know, is something that, you know, as I said, we design and manufacture plant pots but actually our longer term ambition is we're actually looking at, for example, how we can change the way we grow food in the home. That's actually part of our long term vision.

And so we're actually working a lot with like AI tools already in our day jobs to help us, you know, be more efficient in our to kind of design workflows, engineering applications. But at the same time things like AI also kind of is a bit of a Pandora's box. There's all sorts of other potential issues with that.

So yeah, I think absolutely training kind of young people and, or everyone at any age to kind of have a kind of problem solving mindset. And yeah, very much design and art is a huge part of that actually. You need to be able to think creatively to solve tricky problems. I think.

If you haven't yet heard the episode about the hospital field garden, then do take a listen because Rachel, the teacher at Lady Loan Primary School is passionate about getting creativity into the curriculum. And I think Andy's story illustrates why it's so important.

And finally, as I rounded a corner in the V&A I came face to face with a familiar photograph. And again, if you haven't heard the episode entitled Mint from series one, then do take a listen. Is this Lally's here?

Yeah, yeah.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, this is the Wall Gardens photography series.

So this. So we're. So we're standing in front of some incredible pictures which are from Lally Snow. And for the podcast, Lally was part of one of the episodes we did with Anya from Kyiv, talking about how people garden in the midst of war. And her images, her photographs, her book is just stunning, isn't it?

Yeah, I think it's a really inspiring project. She's essentially gone to different conflict zones, so Ukraine, Afghanistan. That's where these two photographs that we're looking at were taken.

And you can see how people are living through probably one of the hardest points in their lives, and yet they're still so invested in nurturing these gardens.

And I think it shows the kind of relationship that people have with gardens and with the natural world in that it kind of grounds you and it makes you feel like you're part of something bigger.

And so I think when you're facing particular struggles, being able to just go back to something that's so almost like inherent to, you know, what we are as a species, wanting to kind of nurture and grow things, wanting to survive. I think gardens, and in particular these war gardens, really represent that.

Yeah, they are incredible images. And her book is so, it's harrowing and very moving and beautiful, as you say that for her, I remember her saying that the thing about plants is they offer hope. They don't know there's a war going on. They just, it's the season and they grow, and for that, they offer hope.

Yeah, they provide an element of continuity, I think, for people and reassurance that, you know, you know, things will bloom in the spring and, you know, there's a there's a cyclical nature as well to the natural world, but especially to gardening.

As always, if you Visit the website ourplantstories.com you will find images of the things I've talked about in the podcast. Our Plant Stories is an independent production presented and produced by me, Sally Flatman.