‘Master greensmith’ makes life-like cannabis props for TV and film such as The Gentlemen and has even had police visit

A self-proclaimed “master greensmith” who creates life-like cannabis plant props for TV and films such as The Gentlemen, Top Boy and EastEnders has even had a visit from the police after being reported for having the artificial plants on his window sill when he ran out of office space.

Marko Washke, 56, the company director of Sugavision, suppliers of hyper-realistic, artificial cannabis plants and botanical props, who lives in Brixton, London, created cannabis props for the first time in 1999 for the 2000 comedy film Saving Grace starring Brenda Blethyn and Martin Clunes.

However, while he was producing the props using artificial leaves imported from the Netherlands, police turned up at his door thinking he had real cannabis plants on his windowsill.

Marko now has more than 4,000 ‘plants’ which have featured in television and film alike, with his creations’ most recent on-screen appearance being on The Gentlemen – the 2024 Netflix television show, and spin-off of the 2019 movie of the same name – which he said “fills (him) with pride.”

Marko now uses 3D printing to produce his props, because of “the detail for 4k shooting” but his staff have to sign non-disclosure agreements about the exact method as well as which projects they are working on.

Marko told PA Real Life: “The first thing your mates say is ‘How do you make them?’.

“I ask all my staff to sign NDAs (non-disclosure agreements) about how we make them and what we’re working on.

“Most people find it cool, interesting, weird, and very unique.

“And the word niche comes up a lot in terms of that there is a business to cater for exactly this very need.

“My storage unit honestly looks like a weed farm!”

Marko discovered his creative passion while growing up, as his father was a shop window dresser.

He said: “The house, the cellar and the garage were full of props like plastic palm trees for nightclubs, Christmas trees and fake flowers … so it was an environment that was conducive to me being creative, and I was always allowed to create things and play with things.”

Marko went on to complete undergraduate and masters degrees in Communication Design at the Saar College of Fine Arts in Germany from 1990 to 1995 as well as another masters degree in Design and Media Arts at the University of Westminster from 1996 to 1997.

After graduating, he was able to work his way up from art department assistant to production designer.

In 1999, he had his first artificial cannabis commission – he was asked to create cannabis plant props for the 2000 comedy film Saving Grace starring Brenda Blethyn and Martin Clunes, about an elderly woman growing cannabis to pay off her late husband’s debts.

“We found some incredible looking hemp leaves in Holland from all places, fake ones, so we bought them,” he explained.

“And then like in the fairy story, Rumpelstiltskin, when the king takes the daughter into a chamber full of straw which has to be turned into gold, I had to turn a box of leaves into cannabis.

“I’m the master greensmith!”

But this did not come without its challenges, Marko said: “I started working at Elstree Film Studios where Star Wars was made … and I ran out of space in this office where I made the plants (so I took some home).

“I placed the plants on the windowsill and then ‘knock knock’ – the police came upstairs … I said ‘Well, have a look, have a touch, have a sniff and they’re not real’.

“Someone must have thought, ‘What’s going on out there?’”

Once the film was finished, Marko asked to buy his hundreds of fake plants back, and since then, he has made props for television shows such as EastEnders, After Life, Vera, Top Boy and The Bill.

He soon decided to make it his speciality, and in 2020 he launched his company, Sugavision.

“When we get commissioned by a production company, the production needs the plants and shoots the plants, and they don’t need to hold on to them,” Marko said.

“So they manage storage costs – it’s a much better way of saying you commission us, we make the plants, we keep the plants, we add the plants to the hire stock.

“When the next project comes along, we have a bigger or a more refined stock of different items and they get hired forth and back and forth, and so that grew and grew.

“We now sell the plants to CBD and wellness brands too.”

Marko stores his 4,000 fake plants in an Access self-storage unit in West Norwood, London, but said that transporting them is not always straightforward.

Of one occasion, he said: “We’ve loaded them onto the truck which has gone from London to Paris through the Eurotunnel.

“But, when they got to Calais, the officers looked inside the van and it was decked out with weed plants and they’re scratching their heads.

“So they asked this poor driver to take all of these hundreds of plants off his truck, place them on the floor.

“Then the officers came out of the office (realising they were fake) and took lots of selfies with the fake plants. They were like, ‘OK, you can put it back in and go’.”

One of Marko’s favourite projects to date was in 2019, when he was commissioned to make artificial cannabis plants for the Guy Ritchie film The Gentlemen starring Matthew McConaughey and Hugh Grant.

He said: “I had a call saying, ‘We’re having a Guy Ritchie comedy coming up, a gangster movie, called The Gentlemen and it’s all about a massive weed plantation and I need 325 fully flowering state-of-the-art cannabis plants made’.

“And I said, ‘You are in the right place’ and we did it.”

In March 2024, a spin-off of The Gentlemen was released on Netflix, but this time as a television show, and Marko was asked to help with the cannabis ‘plants’ again.

He said: “At the beginning of episode three, you have a plant life-cycle where the seed is put in the pot, and then the plant grows and flourishes with flowers and is processed and goes into bags and it’s put in a truck.

“So this whole one-minute sequence was a request and a commission by that production, and we then made this happen.

“So we make directors’ dreams come true with our knowledge from conceptualisation, design, the know-how of what needs to happen, when to budget on time, and delivering those sorts of specifics.”

On how he feels seeing his props on the big screen, he said: “I go in with my critical eye and I’m still trying to set dress, although it’s too late, it’s all done, it’s there, it’s ready … I’m such a perfectionist who always wants to improve things and make things perfect and better and more real.

“It fills me with pride because I enabled a team of people – they’re happy, I’m happy, and we made something together.

“That’s actually really amazing and you just couldn’t do it with real plants in the same sort of way.

“Back in the day, we made the flowers by hand. Now we use 3D printing because you get the detail for 4k shooting.”

Looking to the future, he said: “We have series in Bulgaria, Iceland and Holland which are looking to rent or purchase our products.

“You get a phone call on a Sunday saying ‘I’m working with a grime rapper’ and we help provide 300 cannabis trees the next day for their music video.”

There are 59 Access Self Storage sites in the UK which support uncelebrated excellence on the high street, including vibrant businesses being built under the radar by innovative entrepreneurs, independent businesses from every sector, start-ups and high growth businesses.

For more information, visit – accessstorage.com and sugavision.com.