Nature Studio has been quietly brewing a plan to relocate. For the last eleven years, the studio has facilitated over twelve thousand sessional places in horticultual therapy and supported landscape designs for scores of projects. However, although there is much sadness at lifting out our London roots, it is with excitement and anticipation we have Read more…
Nature Studio is recruiting Land Girls. Digging not for war, but for good health. Land Girls are welcome to the practice in Finsbury Park/Crouch End in a pioneering one-to-one horticultural therapy course running up to 25 weeks, for a weekly 60 or 75 minute session, on Wednesday afternoons from April to November. Rebecca will walk Read more…
Gardening is mainly experienced without words. Perhaps a grunt when heaving a load, or a cry of delight at the sight of a bird is as is much as a stint outdoors creates. A newly-arrived Eyptian gardener stopped in his tracks to take in a pepper plant, fruit and all. He smiled, lingered, and Read more…
‘Entering the polytunnel is like stepping into another world. Its like going through Mr. Ben’s dressing room door’. Thomas, community gardener. What is it about polytunnels? Or greenhouses, sheds and other-worldly outdoor dens? Traditionally the sanctuary of ’im outdoors, the hen-pecked hubbie in the 1970s mind-set of The Two Ronnies. But everyone enters the polytunnel Read more…
Inspired by the food pyramid, Tim Beatley’s team at the University of Virginia have synthesised the research on our current understanding of what dose of nature is effective for supporting mental health and well-being. It goes like this: On a daily basis, it is recommended to make moments of exposure to nature, from looking out Read more…
Nature often inspires strong helpful feelings. Sometimes too, we can do well to turn to gardening and nature when experiencing strong difficult feelings. Overwhelming emotions indoors can often swamp us and leave us unable to process thought and feelings, solve problems, feel light in spirit, or know what to ‘do’ with ourselves physically. Then, a Read more…
North London street ska beats announce Summer. The nearby urban wetland lakes tinkle. Parkland trees and grasses sway like heavy hips. The practice garden is busting out fullsomeness. There is an ease being outdoors, for many. However, have you ever unpacked how or what makes it so, in the microscopic? Sure, we are familiar with Read more…
I am collaborating for the first time with a team showing a garden at the Chelsea Flower Show. Come to your Senses Eco-Therapy Garden combats the detrimental technical overload children often experience today and reconnects them in a garden that plays on the five senses, to restore good mental health. The garden is sponsored by Read more…
Spring is potent for many. Shake open a little packet, seeds tumbling out, signals a powerful metaphor in gardening: an act of hope. Within each neat package lies a new life and a season or more of careful nurturing. With this comes joy and pride from ‘success’, or conversely, wistful learning from ‘failure’. This seems Read more…
The ground has just thawed but Michael Fish says a cold front is coming, bringing talcum-powder snow. Yesterday, the robin looped around the practice cat, the cat around the fox cub in the practice garden. Soon the shorn green roof will be covered in a snow duvet, and man and beast will seek warmth. It Read more…