Lisa interviews Nat Mady, the founder of Hackney Herbal, a social enterprise promoting well-being through herbs in East London. Through workshops and community projects which connect people to plants, she’s on a mission to grow bonds between communities and the land they share. Here she explores childhood memories, inspiring activists, and the power of having hands in the soil…
LISA: Could you introduce yourself in your own words, what you do?
Sure – I run Hackney Herbal which is a social enterprise based in East London. A lot of the work I do is around bringing people together to share knowledge about plants and our landscapes – helping to create really strong bonds between the people in our communities and the nature we share.
As well as supporting people’s wellbeing we’re showing them that when we nurture nature and wildlife we’re nurturing ourselves, and creating a lovely exchange between us and the land we live on, and rely on.
Where is your garden and how did you end up there?
So the garden is in Hackney Wick.. It sits within Trowbridge Gardens - a lovely creative community with a gallery space, cafe and lots of artists’ studios. Before this we were growing in shared and borrowed spaces so it’s been great to have a dedicated space to grow our work.
What’s your earliest memory of a garden?
I’m not sure if this memory is a real memory or inspired by a photo. They start to blur after a while, don’t they? But I was maybe six or seven and on holiday with my family in Tunisia, staying with a really good friend of my father’s. And they had this jasmine on a trellis in the garden. I think I must’ve been exploring on my own and I remember finding this plant and smelling it and just being in total awe of it. Whenever I smell jasmine now my mind goes straight back to there.
Did you grow up in the countryside?
No, I grew up in South London. But I was lucky in that we spent a lot of time as a family in nature spaces. We took our summer holidays in the Kent countryside where I went on long walks with my mum. She was a biology teacher who studied botany. So she’d be rambling on about all the plants. And I think, at the time, my mind was probably wandering elsewhere. But I'm thankful that a lot of what she said somehow stuck. Both my parents are keen gardeners.
How has your relationship with nature changed throughout your life?
As I got older I became quite interested in sustainability. I started to learn more about how humans are destroying nature. It just became really clear to me that we’re part of nature – and we’re not meant to fence it off or treat it as a “conservation project”. That's not the way to conserve it.
If we can interact with it and nurture plants and our land in a way that creates more balance, that’s great. I also think nature access is such an important issue. Because unless we’re able to spend time with nature – whether foraging or growing – then we won’t develop the strong values or skills we need to look after it.
I know you’re passionate about making gardening accessible. How are you achieving that?
We have a broad and diverse mix of people who interact with our different projects and workshops. As well as having a big focus on free community work organised for Hackney residents, we work with mental health networks, charities and social prescribers to help people experience the well-being benefits of being around plants. Many of the courses we run aim to support to people who are living with a long-term health condition.
Our broader goal is to increase nature access for all, which is why we recently put on training courses for people of colour. A lot of people like me who work in horticulture start out volunteering. But that in itself is a privilege. So anything we can do to make things more equitable feels important.
Who are your heroes? Is there anyone who inspired you to do what you do?
Vandana Shiva is an incredible activist. I think maybe my first experience of seeing her was in an environmental documentary. I used to watch lots of them when I first got involved with community gardening
What are you working on right now and what are your ambitions?
Although much of our community work is focused in Hackney we also work with businesses, charities, institutions, galleries and museums. Which means we get to share our mission far and wide. Long term, we'd like to do more of this work to help us grow a little as a social enterprise.. I'm the only full-time person in the team, but we could do so much more if everyone else had more capacity.
What impact do you hope Hackney Herbal has on individuals?
I hope that people leave us with a new idea about how they might change the way they interact with nature. It might just be “Oh, I didn't realise we should be using peat-free compost at home”. But that alone is great.
We advocate for change but in a very gentle way. I wouldn't say we're activists telling people not to do certain things. Instead, we show people what they could be doing, and leave them to make up their own minds about the impact they are having.
Follow Nat at Hackney Herbal. She wears the Planting tshirt.
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