Photo courtesy of Navot Naor (Madrid brain vat, 2017)

I am a professional gardener, award-winning author and lecturer, and researcher in plant humanities.

After a period of illness following Covid-19 left me viscerally aware of the disconnect between body (right) and mind (left) in academia, I (the youngest woman to be awarded tenure in the UK in my male-dominated field at the time) quit my tenured university job and spent a year working the land. This experience changed my relationship with what Clarissa Pinkola Estés calls the “body consort” and now informs my writing and teaching practice.

Research Expertise: (1) The nature and value of emotions in political / legal decision-making, in art and creativity, and in social well-being. (2) Ancient Greek Philosophy, esp. Plato.

Current Work

My book project—Style & Stigma: A horti(counter)cultural compost heap on bodies, shame, and the well-soiled soul—explores the manufactured and monetised tension between body and mind, through the lens of gardening. It is a book for garden witches, interdisciplinary / compost feminists, and gardeners who also love books.

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 be a Trump supporter 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 am also exceptionally lucky to be a Trainee in Garden Design at the impossibly beautiful Great Dixter, where I now volunteer alongside volunteering at Canterbury Cathedral Gardens. When I’m not in other peoples’ gardens, I tend my own cottage garden in Canterbury, and curate an Arts & Crafts botanical kitchen garden at my local allotment, specialising in heritage and perennial veg. When it’s raining, I build theremins and practice aerial gymnastics.

Why not join me…?
Collaboration between subjects and within communities is a central part of my research and teaching activity, and contributes vitally to the intellectual compost heap! I am always keen to chat and work with anyone at all interested in the kinds of topics and questions this site documents, and love collaborating on public and policy projects. I have performed my research at the Bradford Literature Festival and the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, in philosophical cafés, pubs, and salons, and am a keen contributor to radio and podcast programmes and other popular media engaging with questions about what it’s like to be human. Prior to my PhD research, I worked for the Canadian Government on public policy and judicial appointments, and for the Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform.

You can find my plant-related #content on Instagram @laurensgardennotebook, my published work and recent media appearances at the tabs above, and are invited to get in touch via email for questions, collaborations, or to join the waitlist for one my virtual Forest Philosophy courses.