Catriona has acted as a consultant horticulturalist, planting designer and cross discipline participant in commercial, private, community and arts projects.

She has collaborated with architects needing planting designs to meet with local authority biodiversity action plans and planning consent. She has experience of landscape design projects with community consultation and participation elements, and has worked with artists, chefs, storytellers, schools and community groups on horticultural installations and arts projects.

Improving biodiversity, ecological planting and sustainable practices are central to all the work.

This project was a LIFT commission to produce a Feast, an alternative, celebratory school dinner involving collaboration between a primary school, an allotment association, a food grower, a chef, the project curators and a series of artists. Catriona worked for a year with school children to plant, grow and harvest the food for the feast. We explored plant provenance, varied methods of cultivation, plus the celebrations and festivals that mark the food growing seasons. The project culminated in a theatrical feast for 150 people over the beds on which the food was grown.

This project was lead by the London Wildlife Trust in conjunction with Mace and Lambeth council. Catriona provided planting advice and community liaison. We worked to decrease surface run off, replace a concrete forecourt with a permeable, vehicle accessible surface, plant nectar rich borders and improve both biodiversity and the streetscape.

The project won a Best Water Management Project award and the BIG Biodiversity award in 2015.

A project to redesign Peckham Station Square and a roof garden on an adjacent building was developed through a partnership with architects Landolt Brown and community group Peckham Codesign to provide new greened areas, planted with both ornamental and edible plants, to create a distinct sense of place.

The planting concept for Station Square is intended to conjure up a voluptuous, relaxed potager, with intense hot colours and connections to local food and culture, to include aromatic herbs and vibrant flowers. Climbers, both edible and colourful will twine up the corten steel wrapped pillars to the north of the square. Annuals, edibles and colourful or architectural tender plants will be included in the broad raised planters alongside the new seating.

A roof garden growing edibles and ornamentals will provide an opportunity to be used as a social and cultural venue, an educational and training space and or a local food growing enterprise attached to a café. Ingredients such as herbs, salads and fruits grown here could supply, the café itself, local restaurants or a box scheme. Food growing, cookery or a range of plant interest classes could be attached to the garden, delivered to local schools and community groups.

Catriona has been commissioned by local authorities, schools, parks and environmental projects to design wildlife activities, identification sheets, nature play, trails and information boards. These encourage participants to engage with nature and understand some of the issues facing the environment today.