Wild medicine belongs to everyone
Healing Weeds runs foraging walks, herbal workshops and nature learning sessions across Bristol. We exist to uncover plant knowledge; once hidden but not anymore.
Partnerships
Our mission
A message from our founder
Hi, I’m Maria
I'm an outdoor educator, trainee medical herbalist and founder of Healing Weeds CIC.
I started this project back in 2017 when I began to realise that access to wild plants, and the medicinal knowledge surrounding them, is deeply unequal.
Wild plant knowledge has been systematically removed from public life. We used to know which plants eased a fever, healed a wound or relieved eczema. This knowledge has become isolated and almost secretive; completely taken out of modern medicine education and no where to be seen in our GP practices.
So I created Healing Weeds to put this knowledge back in the hands of everyday people, to guide our health professionals bac to nature and train a new generation of young people to spread this learning far and wide.
About Healing Weeds
Our values
Access over exclusivity. Our walks are priced at £36 with a bursary fund for anyone who needs it, our community sessions are low-cost
Relationship over extraction. We teach foraging as a relationship; with land, plants and your body's own capacity to heal.
Community over individualism. Accessibility and inclusivity are at our core, people share their knowledge as we learn plant names (and each other’s)
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After studying Biology at University and many years teaching in alternative education settings, Maria saw a gap in our collective education.
Access to nature and local plant knowledge is not evenly shared between us.
Healing Weeds CIC exists to close to this gap by returning practical wild plant education into the hands of all of us.
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Our aims are to reconnect people with medicinal plants, teaching people of all abilities how to find and use local wild remedies.
Our work includes:
Community herb walks and workshops
Free or low‑cost sessions prioritising access and building confidence.Seasonal wellbeing programmes
Nature connection sessions supporting mental, emotional and physical health.Education and training
Ethical herbalism, foraging and ways to include wild plants in every day life for community groups and organisations.All of our work is founded in values of equity and inclusivity. We practice decolonial and anti-racist ways of working, guided by respect for land, lineage and consent.
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Our programmes prioritise:
people experiencing economic or social exclusion
communities with limited access to green space
those seeking grounded approaches to healing
We also connect with local schools, universities and healthcare practitioners to embed herbal healthcare into public knowledge, as well as alongside councils, charities and grassroots organisations in a way that feels accessible for everyone.