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Roots and roses: growing global connections   

BlogsClimate changeINTO Projects• February 25, 2025

Garden heritage connections

As part of INTO’s Withstanding Change project, Heritage Watch Ethiopia has been twinned with two National Trust sites, Mottisfont and Hinton Ampner, both in Hampshire, England. Gardeners Jen Harbrow and Michael Harvey travelled out to Ethiopia in 2024, to connect with the Heritage Watch team and learn together about caring for roses in the context of climate change. Here are some of their impressions of the visit.

Michael

Day 1

We arrived super early at 6.30am. After breakfast and a few hours’ sleep, we met up with Esther Selassie Antohin, the director of Heritage Watch Ethiopia (HWE). It was so nice to finally meet her after several online video calls. We talked about all sorts and learnt as much as we could about gardens and heritage in Ethiopia, before we headed out to see the city.

Day 2

For the first time after seeing so many photos we finally saw the Tsegereda Garden first hand. Tucked away in the heart of the Addis Ababa University campus is this rescued garden, restored and looked after by HWE. At the time of Ethiopia’s Royal family Prince Asfaw Wossen lived here, and the garden was part of the palace grounds. The old palace buildings are currently abandoned and unused by the university. HWE are using the garden to showcase the story of the Ethiopian Royal Family – hopefully the garden is the first stage of the restoration of the whole site.

The garden had so many plants that people in the UK would either relate to as house plants or tropical plants such as Cannas, Monstera and Black Ethiopian Bananas. But the most important part for me – and this is mainly what brought us to Ethiopia – was the roses. HWE have planted 14 different varieties that relate to the Ethiopian Royal Family. Sadly, roses are quickly going out of fashion in Ethiopia and becoming rare, so the HWE are trying to conserve this plant genus in Addis Ababa.

After being shown around the garden we saw the plant nursery created by master gardener Lema – it’s incredible to see the hard work he has put in to propagate all these plants himself and grow them successfully, with relatively poor soil and no compost at all!

 

The Withstanding Change project

Supported by the INTO project team and funded by the British Council's Cultural Protection Fund, our partner organisations in the Middle East and Africa are restoring historic sites threatened by climate change.

Withstanding Change

A meeting with 'Rosa Abyssinia'

Day 3

Having been driven to Addis University we walked in (a bit late!) to a whole room filled with people who have some passion for heritage and horticulture in Ethiopia. Jen and I presented on what we do in our respective gardens and how we are making them more resilient to climate change. We heard about Guele Botanical Garden and later visited the Herbarium. I asked to see ‘Rosa Abyssinia’, which is a species rose native to Ethiopia. It really was amazing.

National Trust climate adaptation guidance

This ever-increasing library of resources has been co-created with UK heritage regulators and INTO project partners.

Read the guidance

Jen

Day 4

We met with the British Ambassador, accompanied by Esther. Esther talked a lot about the changes that are being made in Addis Ababa, and in other cities in Ethiopia. She and the Ambassador said that many historic buildings, streets and communities are being demolished to make room for modern, high-rise buildings, and wide, pavemented roads. It feels really sad that so much of the country’s rich history is being lost. It feels really motivating to be able to support HWE’s project, which aims to safeguard heritage in the face of rampant development.

After lunch we headed to Meskel Square for the Meskel event. The festival is an Orthodox Christian celebration of the discovery in Ethiopia of a shard of the cross that Christ was crucified on. The festival was incredible. The sheer number of people who attended and participated was staggering. It was fantastic to see in person one of the most important cultural and religious events in Ethiopia.

These few days spent with the HWE team and their stakeholders in Addis have really cemented the relationships and the connections that we’ve made over gardens and heritage.

It feels really motivating to be able to support HWE’s project - these few days spent with the HWE team and their stakeholders in Addis have really cemented the relationships and the connections that we’ve made over gardens and heritage
- Jen Harbrow, Gardener at Hinton Ampner, National Trust
a man and a woman conversing in a garden - the man is gesturing with his hands
a woman presenting slide on a large screen
two women and a man talking in a garden
a group of people in a shady garden with dappled sunlight coming through the trees

Listen to the podcast!

Hear Jen, Michael and Esther in a National Trust podcast on the connections between Ethiopian heritage and England, including this special horticultural link.

Want to know more about the Withstanding Change project twinning? Check out our articles and blogs here:

Listen again: A brilliant podcast episode from 2024, on the climate connections between Cairo, Egypt and Norfolk, England.