Originally a formal garden for 'the big house', Aros Walled Garden hasn't been formerly tended for many years but is rich with plant and animal life.
With ABCAN seed funds artist duo, Somewhere (Nina Pope and Karen Guthrie) invited community members to explore this special place with them and herbalist and forager, Clare Holohan (West Highland Herbal) and Argyll & Bute's Gaelic Officer, Mairi MacLennon. Clare revealed the fantastic medicinal properties of the plants and how to prepare them, whilst Mairi shared the plants' Gaelic names, often connected to their healing uses. We sniffed tubers, dug up burdock root and gathered comfrey leaves and lady's mantle. Comfrey’s Gaelic name is lus na gcánmh briste that translates back into English as ‘the flower of the broken bones’ - it produces compounds that support cell growth and tissue repair – fascinating, often forgotten connections between humans and plants.
This is Enough / Gàrradh Gu Leòr project began as part of Scotland's Covid Memorial project - REFLECT, Remembering Together, funded through CHARTS (Culture, Heritage & Arts, Argyll & Bute). Somewhere are working with the garden's existing Friends group and a newer collective of island creatives to tread gently in this place and ask as a community, 'What can we make with what we have here'?
Follow this link to Somewhere’s website to learn more and watch the poetic film that accompanies the project.