BIOGRAPHY

Hannah is a passionate horticulturist and garden designer, combining her flair of design with solid knowledge, practical experience and an understanding of plants. Challenging the status quo, always doing her very best and caring passionately about plants and growing them, is Hannah’s raison d’etre and this attitude infuses every fibre of her being, her work, play and dreams.

Hannah’s gardening journey began with her Nanna, spending many hours learning the fine art of patient watering of the bedding plants, how best to pot-up seedlings and young plants, dead-head marigolds and the now blighted Busy Lizzie. Granddad was in charge of the vegetables and fruit and Hannah remembers the eager anticipation of the asparagus harvest and the ripening of the raspberries, which once picked, were straight to the kitchen for either succulent raspberries and cream, or steamed asparagus with lashings of butter.

Hannah continued growing plants and gardening throughout her childhood and teens but gradually the pressures of life and of no longer living with her loving Grandparents and falling prey to childhood abuse, gardening went to the back of her mind and she forbade herself the joy of growing garden plants, just as she was denied the enjoyment of life.

Subsequent to a “Breakdown” aged 17, someone gave Hannah a small pot of thyme which she planted in a neglected but totally secure garden at the Hospital and this small act suddenly re-awakened her deep rooted love of gardening. For the first time in many months, she actively made the choice to re-engage with what she loved the most, to the total exclusion of every other daily activity.

This was a life-saving pastime but it was only after trying-out a few other careers that Hannah decided to attempt gardening as a career and took a job at a local garden centre. Quickly realising that Gardening was her true vocation, she enrolled to study horticulture and with her passion for the subject, achieved university level of qualification, gaining solid scientific and horticultural knowledge.

Personal and professional experiences have made her acutely aware of the impact that a nurturing, well designed and maintained physical environment can have on a person’s wellbeing and it is her mission to deliver this profound message to anyone who cares to listen.

Hannah keeps up to date and at the cutting edge of horticultural knowledge, by attending innovative conferences and training events and she recently was a regional finalist in the Young Horticulturist of the Year Competition.

She has also entered a design at the Chelsea Flower Show, reaching the final stages at the age of 25. Hannah has worked at Garden Centres, as a private gardener, a manager of the herbaceous section of a Rare Plant Nursery, a consultant with Local Authorities and a landscape designer. She is CAD trained and is therefore able to design and work accurately in 3D modelling, giving clients a realistic view of their garden or landscape.

Project Nurture, Hannah’s own garden design company, is a Social Enterprise and the majority of the profit is given to Good Causes Gardens for children, young people and adults suffering from the effects of social exclusion, health difficulties, trauma, neglect or any form of abuse.

Hannah creates inspirational places of peace, healing and hope.