ANTHONY HUNTE opens his luxuriant gardens to the world seven days of the week, “including Sundays”, to show off his part of the Barbados he “absolutely loves”.
A visit to Hunte’s Gardens at Castle Grant, St Joseph, is not only a horticultural treat but also an experience in old-time Bajan hospitality.
Asked “Who is Anthony Hunte”, amidst a hive of visitor activity all around the spacious patio of his home last week, he replied in typical Anthony Hunte fashion: “First of all I was delivered on the 18th December 1942, five minutes to 11 and the midwife who was with my mother one week before I was born, and one week after I was born, she slapped me on the behind very hard and said I had to be a good gardener.”
The midwife may have been intuitive in her pronouncement. She had delivered a baby boy at Balls Plantation, who would grow up to be recognised by his country with the presentation of a Centennial Award for his outstanding contribution to horticulture; a garden-lover whose private gardens continue to attract the interest of a global travelling public for whom Hunte’s Gardens are a must-stop when visiting Barbados.
Last week the large iron bell sitting on a chair at the entrance to the gardens was rung constantly, announcing the arrival of more visitors wanting to tour the imaginatively-landscaped section of Castle Grant Plantation, where Hunte has transformed a sinkhole-like gully formed by the collapse of a large limestone cave centuries ago, into a haven of local and imported exotic flora and fauna with majestic palms and other trees towering above. The garden descends from terraces, with sculpted steps meandering through a maze all the way down to the floor.
Here is Hunte’s pride and joy. “My garden has been my biggest challenge and I hope it will go on after I am long dead, because I took a really high rainfall area with a piece of land that was worth absolutely nothing and created a garden in it,” he said.
Sitting on the patio of the rustic old stables he has converted into a cosy home and museum of sorts, he constantly exchanged pleasantries with visitors milling around the house, and occasionally called out to others walking through the gardens below. “This garden is now not only the number one garden in Barbados but it is also rated as the number one garden in the entire Caribbean by TripAdvisor,” Hunte said.
His horticulture experience comes out of an agricultural background. Hunte said his father “was in sugar” managing Balls Plantation where he grew up, both his grandfathers were involved with sugar plantations; one uncle went to Guyana and was in sugar cultivation while another uncle in Barbados was also active in sugar cultivation.
At 73, Hunte looks back on his younger days as a 16-year-old starting work with another uncle, the late Sir Kenneth Hunte, at the Bridgetown business KR Hunte.
“That was where I learnt how to do business and conduct myself,” he said.
“Every day I used to walk to my grandmother in Belmont Road for lunch and my grandmother was the one that got me involved in gardening, big time.
“As a boy I used to go down and spend time with her and she taught me how to sift coal dust, collect cow cakes and mix up and do all the gardening, and I used to grow plants for her church fair at James Street Methodist Church and help her decorate the church. That is where my interest in horticulture started – Abbeville, Belmont Road.”
His life as a “country boy” spending time with a grandmother in “town” enables him to paint an interesting picture of a Barbados of yesterday when life appeared less complicated without the modern conveniences.
There was no electricity where his parents lived on Balls Plantation, but at his grandmother’s there was electricity and Rediffusion radio service. The donkey-drawn Purity bread cart with its glass case steaming with freshly-baked bread was an attraction and he said: “The big excitement for me was when the man came to light the gas street lamps. All in Belmont Road and Belleville, they put the ladder up and lit the lamps and every morning they had to come and turn them out.”
His fond memories of “Cookie”, the black woman who worked for his grandmother, and the stick she carried when escorting the Hunte children to an outing in nearby Queen’s Park are precious. The Hunte children enjoyed the park’s swings, slides, spent time admiring the crocodile, peacock and monkeys, while taking care not to misbehave because Cookie, bedecked in her white dress and white head tie, was always looking on, ready “to give you a lash with it if you got out of hand”.
From early Hunte became a member of the Barbados Horticultural Society. He is a founder member of the Cactus Society, a member of the Orchid Circle and founded the Barbados Flower Arranging Society. He sold his first plants at the Women’s Self Help on Broad Street.
He was also one of the lead arrangers mounting an Independence flower show in Queen’s Park, in honour of the Duke and Duchess of Kent who represented Queen Elizabeth at Barbados’ Independence celebrations in 1966. That group did all floral arrangements for all the Independence functions.
When Hunte says, “I just love people”, he is expressing a passion fostered by parents whom he grew up observing helping people.
“In Hurricane Janet (1955) our roof blew off so we had to go and stay at a plantation called Newton, but we had buildings that could still house people whose houses were totally demolished. My mother and father looked after the distribution of food and made sure everybody was all right.
“You know, back then there was more of a communication than now, because you knew everybody by their name; the people that worked as the washer or the cook in the house you knew them, you knew their children, and you used to play football and cricket with them.
“The caring and knowing about the person next door no matter whatever level they are at is not like how it used to be because you knew every single body.
“We were brought up as Methodists and my mother and father would never join a place like the Royal Barbados Yacht Club because it was segregated up to the time of Independence, so they never joined.”
Over the years the affable horticulturist has endeared himself to Barbadians, his friendly exchange of trivial banter with customers being the hallmark of all his businesses – first Hunte’s Tropical Landscaping, next Hunte’s Nurseries and today’s Hunte’s Tropical Garden.
It saddens this committed Barbadian that “we are not taking care about the entire island and each other”.
