There’s much that can bloom from a garden

LIKE the Emerald Isle, Edinburgh is a very green place. Though this is on the more local scale of a city, just how many green spaces and gardening initiatives, both large and small are present within the city has always impressed me. Scotland as a whole, like Ireland, also has a rich botanical cultural history.

As a gardening writer with Irish and Scottish heritage, I have always been fascinated by local plant names and folk stories and traditions. In my travels over the years in the Highlands I have often noted Gaelic place names and their links to the land. Botanical heritage can go right to the heart of cultural identity, often in conjunction with a nation’s language.

An excellent book that I read recently, Healing Threads: Traditional Medicines of the Highlands and Islands provides a wonderful exploration of Highland folk medicine by Mary Beath. In her work, she draws heavily on medieval Gaelic sources, the survival of records of which have greatly enhanced our understanding of the culture in the original local language.

A similarly fantastic work, is Rosarie Kingston’s book, Ireland’s Hidden Medicine: An Exploration of Irish Indigenous Medicine from Legend and Myth to the Present Day. As an enthusiastic novice learner of Irish, attending the Ciorcal Comhrá Dún Éideann, I am hoping to gain a greater depth of understanding in this regard too and we can all enjoy the connection that learning a language can bring in understanding of a nation’s heritage, botanical or otherwise.

This may of course just sound interesting in an abstract way but connecting people to their local botanical heritage, the art of growing and where some of their food comes from has a range of practical benefits. This can range from enjoying gardening as a relaxing activity after a busy week at work to growing some veggies in the back garden to help save on the grocery bills. It can also be a matter of fundamental need, as increasingly extreme weather caused by human-induced climate change starts to affect crop yields around the world, it would certainly be helpful if most people at least know how to grow some of their own backyard veg to help ensure local food security in uncertain times.

Cultural heritage

Though gardening is a practical activity it is also inextricably linked to cultural heritage. For example, literally saving seed can help communities and entire nations from hunger and cultural erasure. Wonderful initiatives such as the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, where local seed banks from around the world send samples of their stock to be safely stored as a back-up in Norway has already helped Syrian farmers adapt to climate change and have their seed varieties safeguarded and restored after conflict. Amazing work has also been undertaken on a local level by groups such as the Palestinian Heirloom Seed Library, founded by the inspirational Vivian Sansour (above), helping to preserve culture in the face of atrocity.

On July 31, 2025, a Palestinian seed bank in Hebron in the West Bank, the last of its kind, was destroyed by the Israeli Defense Forces. This forms part of a wider campaign to marginalise and erase the Palestinian people, with access to farmland denied and crops intentionally destroyed to undermine their food sovereignty alongside the physical displacement of people from their homes through intimidation and violence.

Whilst crop failures are a risk in growing any crop, famines are typically human-caused disasters. In most parts of the world over the past few centuries there has been enough to go round internationally if people are willing to share what is available, but tragedy has unfolded when selfishness and malice won out over empathy.

Connections

As food, or its absence, can be used as a weapon, initiatives that promote food sovereignty of marginalised groups and help safeguard their resources can be a powerful tool in countering this. For example, before its destruction in October of last year, the seed bank in Hebron had made donations to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault and the work of the Palestinian Heirloom Seed Library is ongoing. Raising awareness of the work of such institutions and supporting them where we are an important part of wider efforts to help fight such injustices.

In our own lives we can also get involved in connecting with where our food comes from, whether it be by learning a language that links you to your landscape, helping in a local community garden or simply growing some lovely flowers to brighten your day, we can all get involved and help build connection.

PIC: SAMAR HAZBOUN