The award-winning landscape designer and horticulturist on her Kenyan childhood, feeling a strong connection with the land and her desire to beautify cities. Words: Paula McWaters, Portrait: Rachel Warne <\/p>
In 2021, Kenyan-born Wambui Ippolito was named by Veranda magazine as one of \u201811 revolutionary female landscape designers and architects everyone should know\u2019, an accolade she attributes to her roots. \u201cI believe it is because I have an optic outside of anything western European or American<\/a>,\u201d she says. \u201cThere is a long tradition of gardening in the UK \u2013 a certain template that is echoed in America too. But I take a very different approach; growing up in East Africa<\/a>, the landscape is so vast, it gives you a panoramic view.\u201d<\/p> You may also like: <\/strong><\/p> Based in New York, Wambui practises mostly on the East Coast and is currently working on large estates in the Westchester area, north of the city. She is also in demand on the lecture circuit and as a consultant helping institutions and museums to develop horticultural programming. \u201cThere is something in me that wants to continue to explore, to learn and to grow,\u201d she says.<\/p> Chairing the Society of Garden Designers\u2019 spring conference earlier this year, she was praised for her enquiring approach. \u201cI wanted answers from the audience: how are young people thinking? What effect is Instagram having on landscape design<\/a>? How can we work more sustainably in a real way? It became very inclusive and that\u2019s something I think I am good at: bringing people together.\u201d<\/p> I was trying to be what I\u2019d call \u2018a serious person\u2019, but really and truly, all I wanted to do was to be outside.<\/p> <\/blockquote> Nature was always part of Wambui\u2019s DNA. Much of her childhood was spent outside \u2013 born in Nairobi, she grew up in the Rift Valley, on her family farm in Uasin Gishu, where she had freedom to explore and felt a strong connection with the land. \u201cI loved that life \u2013 just walking around, looking at plants and picking fruit and berries,\u201d she says.<\/p> Her mother, a diplomat, is an avid gardener. \u201cShe would take me with her on plant-buying trips to visit an influential man called Peter Greensmith. He was a British ex-soldier who became an expert horticulturist, responsible for turning Nairobi into the green city it is. My mother would always encourage me to pick out a plant for myself. One of the last ones I chose as a child was a bougainvillea, which is still growing at my mother\u2019s property now.\u201d<\/p> When Wambui was 14, the family moved to Washington DC, where she went to high school. \u201cI also went to school in Costa Rica for a while \u2013 we did a lot of travelling.\u201d Later, she studied international development, and in her twenties worked as a democracy consultant in Washington. \u201cI was trying to be what I\u2019d call \u2018a serious person\u2019, but really and truly, all I wanted to do was to be outside.\u201d<\/p> Ten years ago, living in Staten Island, New York, with her American husband and new baby daughter, Wambui finally made the move. Returning to corporate life held zero appeal, so she began volunteering at Snug Harbor Botanical Garden and then enrolled at the New York Botanical Garden School of Professional Horticulture.<\/p> After finishing her studies, Wambui cut her teeth at Martha Stewart\u2019s garden in Bedford, New York. \u201cI couldn\u2019t have had a better start \u2013 she has great plant collections and we had to follow the highest standards of horticulture.\u201d Shortly afterwards, Wambui moved on to a work placement at David Letterman\u2019s estate. \u201cEqually wonderful but in a different way,\u201d she says. Focusing on native plants used ornamentally, it reminded Wambui of her home in Kenya and the plants that grew wild there.<\/p> I loved that life \u2013 just walking around, looking at plants and picking fruit and berries.<\/p> <\/blockquote> Wambui has since been making her mark. In 2021, she won a Gold Award and Best in Show at the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society\u2019s Philadelphia Flower Show, and a year later she was invited to design a courtyard garden at the Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden in Richmond, Virginia. \u201cI believe I was the first black woman in America to design a permanent garden for a major botanical institution,\u201d she says.<\/p> In Nairobi, Wambui has taken on the care of her mother\u2019s garden, one of the few remaining pockets of old, original forestland in a city that has seen huge change. \u201cWhen I was growing up, this was such a languid, quiet town, so beautiful and green. Then we had this population explosion and many trees were cut down to build housing. It\u2019s precious and I want to preserve it forever by caring for the native trees Much as Wambui enjoys creating gardens, she has wider ambitions. \u201cI would like to work with cities<\/a> and municipalities around the world to help beautify them, and to reforest large tracts of land that have been lost to deforestation. I believe the future is there. At the same time, we could create more jobs for young people \u2013 and particularly women \u2013 by setting up nurseries where native plants can be propagated. It could make a big, big difference.\u201d<\/p>