Nature Preacher
Ever since she was little, Lara Cowan has been passionate about gardening and its potential to make people happy. So it wasn’t a surprise that she found herself working on a flower, fruit and vegetable farm in St Vincent in the Caribbean after school. Her path towards living her life’s purpose, though obvious to many, was curtailed by her mislaid need, as the eldest child, to succeed in the mainstream world of luxury travel and property. After she built a yacht charter and villa rental agency that became an estate agency and featured in global titles including FT HTSI, she came back to the UK and worked for various property companies but it was just a matter of time for her to quit her job in property and pursue her passion.
Photograph: Venetia Dearden, Wasing Park
Lara studied horticulture with the RHS at Capel Manor, Regents Park and kept her fingers green throughout her career. Back in her native Oxfordshire she decided to launch The Botanic Shed, School of Nature. We spoke to Lara not long ago, about her journey to becoming a therapeutic horticulturalist and Nature Preacher, and find out how nature has the power to heal.
LARA, TELL US A BIT ABOUT YOURSELF AND YOURSELF AND YOUR BACKGROUND AS A HORTICULTURIST AND NATURE PREACHER ?
I have always been an ‘outdoors girl’, always looking for the next opportunity to put on my coat and boots and connect to nature. I have a beautiful and wonderfully grounded daughter who is following the same path and is working with plants, I can see how happy and free that makes her. She and I have we spent so much precious time together gardening and walking, often when she was younger it wasn’t her first choice of pastimes but now, if you want to find her she’ll be at the back of the border caring for plants. I think it’s what I am most proud of guiding her connection to her inner world and nature.
Biophilia meaning love of nature is my leading language and I am continually learning about nature and the healing power of plants. It’s particularly powerful not just because of the direct biological and chemical healing reactions but for the development of balance and harmonious relationships both with ourselves and others.
HOW DO YOU FEEL YOUR UPBRINGING IN OXFORDSHIRE HAS SHAPED THE WAY YOU LOOK AT NATURE ?
A lot of my childhood was spent gardening with my dad and my maternal granny really supported my love of the garden, I was outdoors all year round and as I got older I kept being drawn back to the plants, to wonderful rock formations around the world and always to water.
At home I saw first-hand how gardening and being outdoors helped those around me cope with illness and dis-ease. My father had dementia and I was able to see how being in nature helped him to stave off depression, and I realise too that nature was propping me up during numerous challenging times in my own life. Being outdoors is very therapeutic, seeing natures processes and observing them can strengthen our knowing that we have an ability to regenerate and renew.
WAS THERE A LIGHTBULB MOMENT WHERE YOU DECIDED TO FOCUS ON BOTANIC SHED ?
Everything came together in 2020, it was supposed to be the year for nature with the G20 Summit and then the Covid pandemic arrived and everything was put on hold. Nature told us to stop the wheel and think of her while she supports us 24/7. I had been in Nashville in the USA and found myself quarantining in a log cabin on a farm alone in the countryside. My family spend lots of time together so lock down for them was spent at our childhood home. The cabin I rented was not far from my family and I could reach them by walking a mile, but it was the first time in a very long time that I had days and weeks, and it ended up being 5 months alone in the mornings and evenings.
I spent so much time outdoors, upped my meditations to three times daily. I read a lot, took walks to see my daughter and family and during that time of slowing down I decided to follow my heart and created the Botanic Shed School of Nature. Starting as a blog it has evolved and is now a growing community giving people a natural health experience and education hub that focuses on nature as a balm for the soul and society.
Photograph: Venetia Dearden, Wasing Park
WHAT ARE SOME OF THE MOST IMPORTANT THINGS YOU’VE LEARNED FROM NATURE ?
Nature is essential for living a healthy life. Being outdoors, gardening, growing plants and observing the process of nature has taught me that I am not alone, that I am connected to mother nature and that everything is cyclical. Nature can give us confidence and empowers us, the best thing is that it doesn’t have any judgement it’s there for you when you need it.
Nature doesn’t know about grief or other human emotions, so it helps you let go of all trauma and awakens all parts of your body to heal. My nature connection helped me give me back my sanity and I know it can help many others too.
WHAT ARE THE LANDSCAPES THAT INSPIRE YOU AND MAKE YOU FEEL MOST ALIVE ?
My favourite landscape is a pine tree forest next to a lake its where I feel most energetic and energised. I recently hosted a woodland retreat and it was very special. Walking through the forest is so calming, so green… we are hard wired to love nature and all things green. It’s our home and our mother and it has been for millions of years.
In the forest with all its sounds and shades of green all your senses are stimulated. Sights of birds create awe, and that stimulates the production of dopamine. When you see fractals that are the shapes formed in leaves and trees the production or another happy hormone, serotonin is stimulated. So being outdoors and particularly in the forest for me truly is a happy place!
WHAT ARE YOUR HOPES FOR THE FUTURE ?
That we can all get back to nature wherever we are in the world, and see the beauty in the simplest of things. I’d love people to wake up and think I love nature & nature loves me, I think that is a beautiful affirmation. I am busy planting a medicine garden so that I can continue to heal people through plants.