James Wong (ethnobotanist)

Last updated

James Wong
Born (1981-05-26) 26 May 1981 (age 43)
Occupation(s) Ethnobotanist, television presenter, garden designer

James Alexander L. S. Wong (born 26 May 1981) is a British ethnobotanist, television presenter and garden designer. [1] He is best known for presenting the award-winning series Grow Your Own Drugs and the BBC and PBS series Secrets of Your Food, as well as being a panelist on the Radio 4 series Gardeners' Question Time .

Contents

Early life

Born at St Bartholomew's Hospital [2] in the City of London to a Bornean father and a Welsh mother from Newport, Wong was brought up in Singapore and Malaysia. Upon being awarded an academic scholarship, he returned to the UK in 1999 to study at the University of Bath, where he took a BSc in Business Administration. [3] He then trained at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and the University of Kent, [4] gaining a Master of Science degree in ethnobotany, graduating with distinction.

Career

At the age of 27, Wong became the presenter of his own television series Grow Your Own Drugs. The award-winning BBC Two series demonstrates a number of natural remedies sourced from plants, [5] and soon became the highest-rated gardening series on UK television. The show ran for two series, as well as a one-off Christmas special, Grow Your Own Christmas. Wong's first two books that tied-in with each series of the television show became international best-sellers, with his third title Homegrown Revolution becoming the fastest selling gardening book in UK history. [6]

Wong is also a regular reporter on the hit BBC One rural affairs series Countryfile since its reformatting in April 2009, as well as being a regular panellist on BBC Radio 4's Gardeners' Question Time, and presenter of the Channel NewsAsia series Expensive Eats.

In his capacity as a garden designer, he has become a four-time Royal Horticultural Society medal winner [7] for gardens he co-designed through the design studio he co-founded, Amphibian Designs, at the Chelsea Flower Show and the Hampton Court Palace Flower Show. In his first garden at the 2004 Hampton Court Palace Flower Show, he became the youngest-ever medal-winning designer at the event, and is currently the youngest five-time RHS medal winner. [8]

Wong has designed an Ethnobotanical Garden for the University of Kent, where he is a guest lecturer. [5]

His research has taken him to highland Ecuador, as well as to China and Java.

In 2013 and 2014, he presented several episodes of Great British Garden Revival , winning Best Television Programme of the Year at the 2014 Garden Media Awards.

In September 2015, Wong started writing a weekly column in The Observer ; [9] in February 2023 he announced that he had resigned from the column, after writing to the editorial department and tweeting to describe as "completely unacceptable" [10] a column by Catherine Bennett whose headline likened politicians who support trans rights to alleged sex trafficker Andrew Tate in the context of the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill and which mentioned Rosie Duffield, Joanna Cherry and Miriam Cates by name, criticising comments by Lloyd Russell-Moyle and Ben Bradshaw. [11]

Personal life

Wong lives in central London. [12] Wong retains a slight southern Welsh accent from his mother. [13]

Filmography

YearTitleRoleEpisodes
2008 Fossil Detectives Co-presenter
Gardeners' World Guest presenter
2009–2013 Grow Your Own Drugs Presenter2 series plus a Christmas special
2009–2015CountryfileCo-presenter
2010James Wong and the Malaysian GardenPresenter
2011The Fabulous Mrs Beeton Co-Presenter
2012Our FoodCo-presenter
The People's RainforestCo-Presenter
2013Expensive EatsCo-presenter
2014–2015Great British Garden RevivalCo-presenter
2015BBC Chelsea Flower Show CoverageCo-presenter
2017The Secrets of Your FoodCo-presenter
Springwatch Co-presenter"Springwatch in Japan: Cherry Blossom Time"
2019 Heston's Marvellous Menu: Back to the NoughtiesGuest
2021Nature and Us: A History through ArtCo-presenter

Bibliography

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Royal Horticultural Society</span> Registered charity in the UK

The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS), founded in 1804 as the Horticultural Society of London, is the UK's leading gardening charity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chelsea Flower Show</span> UKs leading annual garden show (Royal Horticultural Society)

The RHS Chelsea Flower Show, formally known as the Great Spring Show, is a garden show held for five days in May by the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) in the grounds of the Royal Hospital Chelsea in Chelsea, London. Held at Chelsea since 1912, the show is attended by members of the British royal family.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alan Titchmarsh</span> British gardener, broadcaster, and writer (born 1949)

Alan Fred Titchmarsh HonFSE is an English gardener and broadcaster. After working as a professional gardener and a gardening journalist, he became a writer, and a radio and television presenter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ethnobotany</span> Study of traditional plant use

Ethnobotany is an interdisciplinary field at the interface of natural and social sciences that studies the relationships between humans and plants. It focuses on traditional knowledge of how plants are used, managed, and perceived in human societies.Ethnobotany integrates knowledge from botany, anthropology, ecology, and chemistry to study plant-related customs across cultures. Researchers in this field document and analyze how different societies use local flora for various purposes, including medicine, food, religious use, intoxicants, building materials, fuels and clothing. Richard Evans Schultes, often referred to as the "father of ethnobotany", provided an early definition of the discipline:

Ethnobotany simply means investigating plants used by primitive societies in various parts of the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hampton Court Garden Festival</span> Annual British flower show

The Hampton Court Garden Festival is an annual British flower show, held in early July of each year. The show is run by the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) at Hampton Court Palace in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. The show features show gardens, floral marquees and pavilions, talks, and demonstrations. Erected on the north and south sides of the Long Water in Hampton Court Park, it is the second major national show after the Chelsea Flower Show, but has a different character, focusing more on environmental issues, growing your own food, vegetables and cookery, as well as selling gardening accessories, plants and flowers.

<i>Countryfile</i> British television news programme

Countryfile is a British television programme which airs weekly on BBC One and reports on rural, agricultural, and environmental issues.

Chris Baines is an English naturalist, one of the UK's leading independent environmentalists. He is a horticulturalist, landscape architect, naturalist, television presenter and author.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Monty Don</span> British writer, broadcaster, horticulturist

Montagu Denis Wyatt Don is a British horticulturist, broadcaster, and writer who is best known as the lead presenter of the BBC gardening television series Gardeners' World.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anita Rani</span> British broadcaster and journalist (born 1977)

Anita Rani Nazran, better known as Anita Rani, is a British radio and television presenter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joe Swift</span> British television presenter (b. 1965)

Joseph Samuel Swift is an English garden designer, journalist and television presenter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carol Klein</span> English gardening expert and TV presenter

Carol Ann Klein is an English gardening expert, who also works as a television presenter and newspaper columnist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rachel de Thame</span> British gardener and television presenter

Rachel de Thame is an English gardener, television presenter and actress.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Helen Skelton</span> English TV presenter (born 1983)

Helen Elizabeth Skelton is an English television presenter. She co-presented the BBC children's programme Blue Peter from 2008 until 2013, and since 2014 has been a presenter on Countryfile. She co-presented two series of the BBC One programme Holiday Hit Squad alongside Angela Rippon and Joe Crowley. She also presented the daytime series The Instant Gardener that ran for two series.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ellie Harrison (journalist)</span> English TV host

Eleanor Harrison is an English television presenter, best known for co-presenting Countryfile since 2009.

Christopher Paul Beardshaw is a British garden designer, plantsman, author, speaker, and broadcaster.

<i>Grow Your Own Drugs</i> 2009 British TV series or programme

Grow Your Own Drugs is a British television documentary series, first broadcast on BBC Two, exploring the many remedies which can be provided by plants. James Wong, an ethnobotanist, presents the series and takes the view that people should start making their own remedies in order to save money and feel healthier plus providing simple remedies to everyday ailments. Wong tries out his remedies on members of the public in order to demonstrate the beneficial effects of natural remedies, adding appropriate safety warnings. He is careful to stress that viewers should always seek medical advice before trying natural medicines, and in discussing the outcomes of treatment always states "It's not a clinical trial..." and acknowledges that results might be attributed to a placebo effect.

Paul Hervey-Brookes is an multi-award-winning garden designer broadcaster, lecturer and plantsman who lives in England near Stroud, Gloucestershire and in the Loire Valley in France where his garden is occasionally open to the public. Hervey-Brookes is known for a "plants first" approach to garden design and creates highly evocative landscapes. Hervey-Brookes is a well known Royal Horticultural Society Gardens Judge and speaker having lectured in the United Kingdom, Canada and Russia alongside working with a host of companies who share his values and passion for exchanging knowledge.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Domoney</span> Horticulturist and TV gardening presenter

David Martin Domoney, C Hort. FCI Hort is an English Chartered Horticulturist and celebrity gardener. He co-presents the TV gardening programme Love Your Garden, alongside Alan Titchmarsh, and is the resident gardener on ITV1's This Morning.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mark Lane (broadcaster)</span> TV gardening presenter and designer

Mark Lane is a British television presenter, landscape designer, columnist, radio broadcaster and writer.

Nick Bailey is a freelance horticulturalist, author, UK television gardening presenter and garden designer. He is a former head gardener at The Wicken. In 2010, he became head gardener at the Chelsea Physic Garden.

References

  1. "New Survey Reveals Three Quarters of Britons Eat Sprouts - LONDON, December 15 /PR Newswire UK/". LONDON: Prnewswire.co.uk. 14 December 2006. Retrieved 20 May 2015.
  2. James Wong (16 March 2021). "Q 'Which hospital?' A 'St Barts'" . Retrieved 3 June 2022 via Twitter.
  3. "Interview: James Wong, ethnobotanist and TV presenter, Countryfile and Grow Your Own Drugs".
  4. "Ethnobotany - MSC".
  5. 1 2 Kavanagh, Marianne (27 February 2009). "Grow your own drugs with James Wong". The Daily Telegraph . London. Archived from the original on 28 February 2009. Retrieved 5 May 2010.
  6. Neill, Graeme (2 November 2009). "Amazon.co.uk reveals top 100 titles for 2009". The Bookseller . Archived from the original on 20 June 2010. Retrieved 25 February 2023.
  7. "'The Burgbad Sanctuary' at The RHS Hampton Court Palace Flower Show 2008" . Retrieved 16 March 2009.
  8. "Chelsea Flower show winners announced". Country Life . 25 May 2010. Retrieved 20 May 2015.
  9. "James Wong". The Guardian . Retrieved 25 February 2023.
  10. Wong, James [@BotanyGeek] (29 January 2023). "As a columnist at the Observer, I have written to them to express my shock. This is completely unacceptable" (Tweet). Archived from the original on 25 February 2023. Retrieved 25 February 2023 via Twitter.
  11. Bennett, Catherine (28 January 2023). "Forget Andrew Tate – what about the host of misogynists in Labour's ranks?". The Observer . Retrieved 25 February 2023.
  12. "Gardens: James Wong – ripe for a change". TheGuardian.com . 25 October 2013.
  13. "Grow Your Own Drugs". Lynne Allbutt. 8 January 2010. Retrieved 20 May 2015.