Elisa Biondi, horticulturist in Kew Gardens' Princess of Wales Conservatory, Londoner #82

Elisa, a horticulturist at Kew Gardens, is one of the only Londoners to work in 10 different climates on a daily basis: from tropical rainforest to savanna desert. She loves nature and is especially happy around cacti...

1000 LONDONERS

This film is part of 1000 Londoners, a five-year digital project which aims to create a digital portrait of a city through 1000 of the people who identify themselves with it. The profile contains a 3 minute film that gives an insight into the life of the Londoner, as well as their personal photos of London and some answers to crucial questions about their views on London life. Over the course of the project we aim to reveal as many facets of the capital as possible, seeing city life from 1000 points of view.

www.1000londoners.com
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Twitter: @1000_londoners

1000 Londoners is produced by South London based film production company and social enterprise, Chocolate Films. The filmmakers from Chocolate Films will be both producing the films and providing opportunities to young people and community groups to make their own short documentaries, which will contribute to the 1000 films. Visit www.chocolatefilms.com

Transcript:

I come from the north east of Italy, where there aren't many big cities around. My dad used to take me to the woods in the mountain quite often. So I've always seen trees and nature and I've always thought that was normality. And then obviously I came to London, and it's an extremely green city, it's just so different.

When you choose to get a career in horticulture, You do know that you won't earn a lot of money but you do know that you will do what you do because you love it.

My connection with cacti is quite strange because where I come from there are obviously not cacti. I'm not sure exactly what it is, the first time I saw them, I started to really like them, I guess because they are somehow quite human, I don't know. And also the fact they're usually kind of green and maybe not necessarily beautiful. When they flower they're just completely different and it's a bit like some people. You don't get to really like them until you properly meet them.

This one has got hair as well. They look like grandpas.

So that little water lily there is a Nymphaea thermarum. It comes from Rwanda but unfortunately it's extinct in the wild.

Having a good relationship with nature is important because everything starts from nature, everything we've got thanks to nature. And making sure that you understand that and you are kind of thankful to nature for what you've got. I think it's really important and everybody in my opinion should worship nature and be proud to live in this world and respect nature mainly.