About The Serge Hill Project
The Serge Hill Project for Gardening, Creativity and Health was founded as a Community Interest Company (CIC) in 2023 by Tom and Sue Stuart-Smith. The Project draws on Sue’s work as a psychiatrist, psychotherapist and author of the bestselling book, The Well Gardened Mind, which investigates the power of gardening to transform lives, as well as Tom’s horticultural expertise as an internationally renowned Landscape Architect.
Based in an old orchard in Bedmond, Hertfordshire, with The Apple House at its centre and a unique Plant Library, the Serge Hill Project offers resources to local schools, youth organisations, charities, GP surgeries and community groups who want to connect with nature and learn about gardening.
As well as public-facing talks, workshops, garden openings and events, our community programme engages with children and adults who have least access to green space, or are in need in some other way, so they can benefit from time spent in nature and feel part of a supportive and welcoming community.
The Serge Hill Project CIC is generously supported by grants from The Julia Rausing Trust and the Rockcliffe Charitable Trust. The growth of the Project has also been enabled by additional grants from Hertfordshire Community Foundation's Quercus Fund, Prism The Gift Fund, the Azzi Agnelli and John Frieda Charitable Fund, the Robert Gavron Charitable Trust and the National Garden Scheme Community Garden Grant. We are also grateful to the private donors who have kindly supported our work.
'Through the rhythmical activities of weeding, hoeing and sowing, gardening is intrinsically a mindful activity. When you make an intervention in the garden, you have to wait to see what happens. You have to notice and you have to respond. In the frenetic world we live in, gardening forces us to slow down and the earthiness is a great antidote to looking at a screen. Above all, it is a living relationship in which we’re not completely in control and through which we become part of something much larger than ourselves.'
- Sue Stuart-Smith
Our Directors
Sue Stuart-Smith is a psychiatrist and psychotherapist who worked in the NHS for many years, becoming the lead clinician for psychotherapy in Hertfordshire. Until recently, she worked as a consultant clinician at DocHealth, a not-for-profit service that helps doctors suffering from stress and burnout. Her bestselling book, The Well Gardened Mind, analyses the relationship between gardening, nature connection and mental health and has been translated into eighteen languages.
Tom Stuart-Smith is a landscape architect whose work combines naturalism with modernity and built forms with romantic planting. He read Zoology at the University of Cambridge before completing a postgraduate degree in Landscape Design. Tom has since designed gardens, parks and landscapes throughout the world. Recent projects in the public domain include several projects at Chatsworth, a public garden at the Hepworth Gallery, Wakefield and a new garden for Tate Britain, London.
Head Gardener of Horatio's Garden London & South East, Ashley Edwards is a RBG Kew graduate whose profession has taken him to beautiful gardens across the world, including Longwood Gardens in the USA and the Anna Tasca Lanza Cooking School in Sicily and Strawberry Hill House & Garden. He is a regular panellist on BBC Radio 4’s Gardeners’ Question Time and contributor to Gardener's World Magazine.
Caroline brings 25 years teaching experience in mainstream and special schools as headteacher, SENCO, outreach teacher and class teacher. She uses an endlessly positive approach in order to increase pupils' confidence to help them make progress and flourish as learners. Caroline now provides a tutoring service to reach out to pupils with a learning need or who are unable to attend school.
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