There are few people in the world who can talk about the UAE's gardening scene with as much authority as Deena Motiwalla. Involved with the Dubai Gardening Group for 46 years, she has organised and judged flower shows across the region, run gardening workshops, overseen talks and garden visits, and won countless awards for her efforts and expertise.
During her time in Dubai, she has observed many changes: flowers have come in and out of fashion, and sustainability has become increasingly important, as has the cultivation of indigenous and adaptive species. But perhaps the most notable evolution is a wider willingness to be more hands-on in the garden, to engage with the process and the pleasure of planting and soil, rather than seeing it as something to be outsourced and delegated.
Motiwalla and her husband, Bomi, are now in the process of leaving the UAE and moving back to Mumbai. As the packers work around us at her Jumeirah 1 villa, boxing and wrapping 46 years of married life and memorabilia, we look through Motiwalla’s fascinating horticultural archive of newspaper clippings, thank-you letters, notes for speakers at embassy horticultural meetings, flower-show records and gardening tips, and discuss her favourite plant (the periwinkle) and how to best make your garden grow in the desert.
Motiwalla arrived in Dubai as a young bride in 1970, joining her husband a month after their Mumbai wedding. At the time, friends and family wondered how a young woman from India, who had been to college in England, would survive in a place that was so different. “Everyone who expressed those thoughts to me are living here now,” she says, laughing.
“When I first arrived, all I could see was desert and sand, but on the weekends we used to go to the desert proper for picnics, where we would see the hyacinths and desert tulips that would come out. There were also small trailing plants that spread across the sand, but if you brought them home and put them in a pot, they wouldn’t survive. I feel that the natural element of ‘leave me alone’ is what they wanted. ‘Don’t give me such water and richness, I can find my own.’ I learnt from that.”
Recognising his new wife’s love of greenery, Bomi built steps for plant pots on the two terraces of their first apartment in Al Mulla building in Dubai. “I used to go across to the InterContinental Hotel [now Radisson] and see what plants they had in the flower shop there, often taking on those that were leftover, which is how my first little collection grew, until I had about 45 to 50 plants on each balcony,” Motiwalla recalls.
“Some months later, we went to Al Dhaid where I saw this rich soil, so we asked a farmer to fill up the car for us to take some home. It smelt a bit – I was still very naive. I found some plastic bags and threw away the few pots I had with Al Khawaneej soil and repotted all my plants. Overnight everything died; it was rich manure. So I learnt that you have to mix it and can’t just plant it. It was all so very different to the soil in Mumbai. So, literally, I was a quack doctor of gardening. I learnt through trial and error, year after year. Something was always different and you needed to go with the weather and observe it. It’s always good to see what the municipality are planting, and go with that; they do such a good job for Dubai in making it beautiful.”
She does, however, recall that in the early days of public planting in the UAE, the municipality tried anything and everything, even planting Christmas trees, which didn’t fare too well. There was then a move towards adaptive species, so bougainvilleas were brought over from South Africa, as well as avenues of oleander, planted near Port Rashid, and hibiscus (which was to become the emblem for her gardening group).
“The UAE is doing so well because the more you irrigate, the more greenery you have, and the better air quality you have. The avenues of neem trees are the very best for this as they filter pollution.”
Motiwalla credits both her grandmother and mother as horticultural influences, as well as their wonderful mali (gardener), who looked after the family garden and also made flower arrangements. “His style, his colour combinations – he would go from light to dark, putting little ferns in between – it was unheard of, and the arrangements were beautiful at a time when we didn’t have outside flower arrangers and things like that.”
Much experience was also gleaned from her involvement with the Dubai Gardening Group, which has been running for the best part of five decades and is as much about friendship and sharing as it is about learning, she says. The difference now, as compared to the early days, is that as property legislation has changed, many of the members now own their own homes and gardens, so there is a greater incentive to cultivate.
The group is also much more international than it was in the beginning, when the majority of the membership was British. “English people love their gardens, wherever they are; you take that from them.”
Motiwalla was invited to join the group, and, ultimately, went on to lead it for many years, a role that she resigned from only last month. “People came from Europe to the Middle East to see us and give talks. Today, there are no dedicated horticulturalists at the embassies, but back then we used to get people from such places as Ceylon [now Sri Lanka] and South Africa, giving us talks on lawn-growing and cut flowers. A lot of the meetings used to take place in the grounds of embassies as there were so many plants there, which was always a special draw for the membership.”
The Dubai Gardening Group holds meetings from October, when it gets together to plant up seed trays and pot up seedlings. From January onwards, there are talks or visits to see other people’s gardens, through to the end of the season in May or June. In addition to workshops and demonstrations, Motiwalla and the group were also involved in organising and judging various flower shows across the region – hotbeds of horticultural competitiveness and one-upmanship.
“Competitors had to bring in three examples of a species of flower they had grown and display it in a glass pot. There were petunias, dahlias and categories for whatever else was in season at that time. It was stipulated that the plants had to have been in the care of the person submitting them for a minimum of three months. Awards were also made for vegetables, flower-arranging and other plant specimens.”
There was controversy at a Bahrain Flower Show, where Motiwalla was a judge of the ordinary category and gave the prize to a simple periwinkle. “That little flower was so perfect, no blemishes. Everybody jumped at me for that and wanted to know why I’d done it. I had to explain what a judge looks for, and why we ask for three specimens; it makes it difficult.” The periwinkle remains one of Motiwalla’s favourite flowers because of its versatility and its range of varieties, which include yellow and red centres, and pointed and round petals.
Packed trophy cases at Motiwalla’s home are a testament to her expertise, and her group once begged her not to enter their next show as she was winning so many of the prizes. Sadly, such shows have now fallen from vogue and it has been some years since one was run locally.
In 2011, Motiwalla earned the Mother of Gardens title at the 10th International Women’s Day Excellence Awards, held under the patronage of the Lions Club. Recognition indeed, for the many seeds she has sowed in both soil and minds over her years of service to the local and regional horticultural community.
As she prepares to leave her Dubai home, Motiwalla reflects on what she sees as the constant challenges for gardeners in the UAE. “The weather and the storms are some of the biggest challenges to gardeners here. I used to say before the flower shows: ‘Please, no bad weather.’ It was always a nervous time as we used to have our shows early in the year.
“In my gardening group, as I’ve said, nobody is lonely. You have to make friends – a garden is a place where people join and meet. The hardest part is to do it yourself and mess around with your hands in the soil.
“Plants enjoy being pruned,” she continues, reflecting on the wisdom gained after decades toiling in the UAE’s soil. “I have had desert roses here that are still going strong after 40 years. You cannot hurry plants to grow. Gardening shows patience and forbearance – it is restorative and it is a hobby for peaceful moments. Go patiently and see everything is laid out. It is like cooking: you get your ingredients and utensils together, and when you’ve got that, get your seeds and go systematically. Don’t deputise. You have got to see what is happening, turn your plants, make sure they don’t get leggy. Every step of the way is important.”
Motiwalla’s influence and legacy will continue on in the green fingers and thumbs of all those she has encountered in the region over the years. But Dubai’s loss will be Mumbai’s gain, as the Mother of Gardens sets about cultivating a new garden in her new home, “I will create something,” she says. “I won’t sit around and play cards; I just couldn’t do it.”
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