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A day of connecting with nature and each other

Last month, the Climate Springboard team visited Inveresk Lodge Garden in East Lothian for our annual away day.

The site is the former grounds of a 17th Century mansion, owned for much of its history by the slaver Wedderburn family. Today, the National Trust for Scotland looks after the site, which has a formal garden full of colourful flowerbeds; a Victorian glasshouse used for growing vegetables; and an area of meadow, pond and woodland that is left to grow wilder.

Although just a 30-minute journey from our office in Edinburgh’s old town, it felt a world away. The hillside garden, virtually empty of people, was buzzing with insect and bird life.

The day was kindly put together by Mandy from the The Green Team, a local charity that runs nature connection and conservation activities for young people in Edinburgh and, occasionally, groups like ours.

We started the day reflecting on our personal relationship to nature. A common theme that came out in the conversation was how much we value childhood memories of time spent outdoors, such as rock pooling at Robin Hood’s Bay or foraging for mushrooms in the forests of Germany. Even though we spend much of our working days thinking about the environment in one way or another, it’s easy to lose sight of how much it means to us personally.

After, we learned about the history of Inveresk Lodge, what goes on today and how the grounds are cared for. We had some hands-on learning with the head gardener, who showed us how to propagate different plant varieties, including pelargoniums, in the glasshouse.

Inveresk Lodge Garden in East Lothian. Reconnecting with nature, and passing this practice onto future generations, is one way people can help tackle the ecological crisis

For a team of people who deliver workshops, this was a good lesson in the effectiveness of ‘learning by doing’ and face-to-face interactions when it comes to teaching.

We continued our activities in the afternoon with a visit to the medicine garden and another session facilitated by Mandy, in which we were invited to voice our gratitude for one another’s hard work over the last year.

We particularly enjoyed our lunch (perhaps no surprises there!), which we cooked outside over an open fire. The head gardener, Gary, was kind enough to offer us some fresh cucumbers, tomatoes and peppers harvested from the vegetable garden. Like many of the other activities we did, the simple joy of collectively preparing then sharing a meal brought us closer to the land and the web of life humans depend on for almost everything – especially food!

Recent research suggests that our connection to nature has declined precipitously over the last 200 years. It is now widely acknowledged to be one of the root causes of our current climate and ecological crisis.

If you’re inspired to learn more or organise something similar, we've put together some useful links below: