Tucked away within the tranquil greenery of Doddington Hall’s historic gardens lies Catkin Flowers, founded in 2006 by botanical artist and therapist Dr Rachel Petheram. Here, creativity blooms alongside nature. Rachel’s workshops offer a gentle invitation to pause, breathe, and reconnect – not only with the natural world, but with yourself.
Blending botanical artistry, mindful practice, and reiki energy, these restorative sessions are designed to calm the mind, lift the spirit, and bring clarity to anyone feeling overwhelmed, anxious, or simply in need of space.
What follows is a first-hand reflection from someone who attended a year-long programme of these workshops – a glimpse into the magic, mindfulness, and quiet transformation that can unfold among the flowers.
Nature Cure, told by Lincolnshire-based Charity Worker
Over the past year or so, I have been working for the Lincolnshire-based charity, Every-One, in supporting a series of workshops that were developed by Rachel Petheram of Catkin Flowers to provide a creative escape for local unpaid carers. These took place within the beautiful walled garden at Doddington Hall, where Rachel is based. They aimed to give carers the freedom and support to develop new creative skills and to give them a chance to connect with art and nature.
More importantly still, the workshops allowed carers some time to themselves, and to get involved in activities that they might otherwise struggle to engage with because of their caring responsibilities.
As such, I had the pleasure to be able to attend the monthly workshops there, and as they unfolded I couldn’t help but to join in with the activities, where we used natural materials – flowers, leaves, branches, moss, all gleaned from the garden and the surrounding landscape – to make prints, sketches, bark rubbings, and so much more. For me, the beauty of these workshops lay in watching the carers getting lost in the moment as they worked. Fuelled by the natural world around them, and by Rachel’s serene guidance, they became totally absorbed in what they were doing. For an hour or two, their cares seemed to vanish in the air. The name for this is ‘reverie’, which can be defined as a form of absentminded, dreamlike, yet active state. A carer’s life is marked out by so many time constraints, where memories of the past and thoughts of the future can weigh heavily on the present as they look after their loved ones. But here, as they wandered happily into the gardens to glean materials from the natural world, and then as they became absorbed in the task at hand, all of time was suspended.
Other moments spring to mind now. Best of all, we witnessed the slow turn of the seasons, from the falling back of autumn to the return of the snowdrops and cyclamen in the early days of the new year. A bit of snow in February; the appearance of the barn swallows in April. One day, Rachel asked us to close our eyes and press a palm against the trunk of one of the giant, ancient sweet chestnut trees. I’m no tree-hugger but I swear that the tree responded in kind, pressing back, warming to my touch. The counter-intuitive but magical idea of taking delicate flower petals, laying them under watercolour paper and then bashing them with a hammer to produce colourful imprints. Using moss for flower arranging instead of that awful stuff called ‘oasis’. At the beginning of each workshop, I would wonder if Tiger Lily, Rachel’s royally aloof cat, would show up (mostly she didn’t and if she did she’d sit on the edge of things, evaluate it all for a few seconds then walk away, having decided that it was of no interest to her whatsoever). These are my moments. I’m sure there are more, and sure the carers could add many of their own. It would be lovely to hear about them.
