Dr Jane Gleeson

I have always loved biology and being outdoors. My day feels odd and incomplete if I am not outside and engaging with plants and natural life. Growing and tending the earth give me great joy and satisfaction.

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I graduated in Medical Sciences from Cambridge Univeristy and went into Psychiatry as a specialty. I took a career break to study pastoral Theology at Heythrop College before returning to medicine as part of a specialist HIV mental health team . I eventually gave up medicine to begin a career in horticulture, wanting to follow my love of outdoor life.

It was a move that yielded great satisfaction and allowed me to be in the outdoors smelling soil and seeing things grow.

I went on to train at the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew on the Kew Diploma and then into teaching horticulture at Hadlow College in Kent.

Later I moved to Schumacher College near Totnes in Devon  where I was programme lead for a residential course in Sustainable horticulture and food growing, and set up a 5 acre agroforestry field. It was at this time that my interest in food growing and soil life took off. 

I find this field of enquiry has brought together the strands of biology, outdoor life, health and mental well being as well as spiritual well being.

I now work as a private gardener and as a therapeutic horticulture practitioner and horticulture teacher in West Sussex.

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