I am a gardener, award-winning author and lecturer, and researcher in plant humanities: a vibrant interdisciplinary field investigating the relationships between plants and people.

After illness following Covid-19 left me viscerally aware of the disconnect between body (right) and mind (left) in certain areas of academia, I—the youngest woman awarded tenure in the U.K. in my male-dominated field at the time—quit my tenured university job and spent a year working the land. This experience radically changed my relationship with what Clarissa Pinkola Estés calls “the body consort” and now informs my writing and teaching practice. I spend most of my time outside in beautiful places, and regularly give public talks and educational comedy performances on all things plants, philosophy, and people.

Areas of Research Expertise

(1) The nature and value of emotions in political / legal decision-making, in learning and educational assessment (e.g., exams), and in risk analysis
(2) Ancient Greek Philosophy, esp. Plato, and the history and philosophy of taxonomy
(3) How gardens, garden design, and foraging impact the gut microbiome and emotional well-being

Questions

Why public philosophy…?
Rather than writing esoterically behind paywalls, and teaching-to-the-test within toppling towers of tuition debt, I write accessibly for public platforms and facilitate real-world forums open to everyone who wants to engage in meaningful dialogue on questions of genuine human concern and curiosity. Like, is a tweet philosophy? are emotions rational? …is love? can I be a Trump supporter, or a sex worker, or a Karen and a good feminist? should people in prison pay through pain?

Why gardening…?
Soil heals. The joy I get when I see my seeds have germinated, or when I check my camera trap in the morning and see a fox has visited my garden, or when I smell an intoxicatingly beautiful Viburnum in the dead of winter, or when I rub the cool velvet leaves of Pelargonium tomentosum between my fingertips—breathe in—and feel the mist of mint cascade down my neck and spine and clear my head of everything for that moment, or when I use my whole body to crouch down and gently turn up the China-silk of a new Hellebore flower to be met by the startling gaze of its utterly unique and mesmerising mosaic (or a resting bee!)…is better than the joy I got from checking emails.

Realising this, I enrolled on the Royal Horticultural Society Level 2 Certificate in Practical Horticulture at Walmer Castle & Gardens (awarded with Distinction), and am now working towards my Level 3 Diploma in Horticulture, with a research award on soil microorganisms and the emotions. I have also completed professional training in garden design at the impossibly beautiful Great Dixter, where I now volunteer alongside volunteering at the 23-acre UNESCO World Heritage Canterbury Cathedral Gardens. I work on a 5000sqf Arts & Crafts kitchen garden, focussing on perennial heritage vegetables and permaculture design, and in 2024 began a year-long expedition in sustainable wild food identification and processing, following the narrative ceremony of the Ju/’hoansi bushmen of Namibia, led by Michael Wachter. When it’s raining, I build theremins and practice aerial gymnastics.