Guest lecture on therapeutic horticulture for UHI students

Staff and students from UHI Argyll & UHI Moray recently received a guest lecture from Fiona Thackeray, Head of Operations and Development at Trellis.

A group of thirty NC, HNC and HND Horticulture students and some of the teaching team at UHI Argyll and UHI Moray enjoyed a fascinating guest lecture from Fiona Thackeray, Head of Operations and Development at Trellis on Monday 17 of April.

Trellis provides training, information, specialist advice and good practice sharing for therapeutic gardening projects. Their services sustain projects that in turn help thousands of individuals affected by illness, disability, poverty, homelessness and crime.

Fiona was kind enough to give up some of her valuable time to engage the students in an informative look at therapeutic horticulture and its benefits. Students learnt about what therapeutic horticulture involves, the sorts of places it is carried out (including prisons, hospitals, rehabilitation centres, schools, community gardens and more), who benefits from it and what a typical day of therapeutic horticulture involves.

With plans for a therapeutic horticulture national professional body and PDA course progressing, many of our students are interested in this area of the horticulture industry for their future careers.

Fiona also talked about the inaugural World Day for Therapeutic Horticulture on the 18 May that she’s organising, so look out for this on social media and get involved.