Grass Roots Herbal Foundations is aimed at anyone with an interest in connecting plants with people and will offer additional insights to current or aspiring home herbalists. From a professional perspective, we think that the course will be of particular interest to people working in or wanting to work in community education particularly in the outdoors. That could be a community garden or other growing project, home-schooling or outdoor nursery, herbalist or other holistic practitioner. If you have professional or personal networks in these areas, please do share Grass Roots Herbal Foundations with them or get in touch to let us know of potential avenues where we could share about the course.
We have developed Grass Roots Herbal Foundations based on feedback over the years that folk feel that the practicalities of community herbalism is a missing element in a lot of herbal education. We are working with other course leaders and partners to identify how Grass Roots Herbal Foundations can best complement other course offerings across the UK. We see this course as contributing to a robust training environment for herbalists, adding another dimension to the magic and science of working with plants and people.
We have lovingly crafted 7 different areas of study that we feel as integral to community herbalism. The 45 medicinal plants covered over the year have been selected for their medical value and accessibility: the plants are all either easy to grow, easy to find in your local supermarket or common wild plants that are easy to forage, forming an accessible medicine chest for the community.
The 7 modules are:
What is community herbalism
Structural vs individual factors relating to health
Community herbalism as a means to address structural health inequalities
Practical herbalism in your family and community
Setting up a community herbalism project
Accessibility, intersectionality & barriers to involvement
Enhancing financial accessibility
Working with & supporting volunteers
Delivering & evaluating workshops
Sensing into the earth: land connection & cycles of nature
Sensing into the herbs: why take a sensory approach
Sensing into the body: mindfulness & somatic approaches to meeting a herb
45 medicinal plants covering botanical naming, actions, energetics, constituents, uses, methods of preparation, safety information, our personal uses as a Co-op and more.
Plant classification & basic botany
Permaculture principles & ecological, wildlife friendly garden design
Ethical sourcing seeds and plants & Endangered plants
Soil health & organic pest management
Herb cultivation
How, Why & When to make and use 10 different herbal preparations including just eating it and lacto-fermentation, infusions and decoctions, infused vinegars, herbal syrups, tinctures, herbal glycerites, infused oils, balms and creams.
Inter-relation of herbal actions, energetics and constituents of 45 plants
Foundational, Primary & Secondary Actions
Energetic principles of hot / cold, dry / moist, tense / lax
Chemistry of a range of plant constituents, including their actions and energetics
Herbal therapeutics for the digestive, respiratory, musculoskeletal and immune systems, including the impact of stress.
Relevant common ailments in these 5 areas and herbs to use with appropriate actions and energetics.
Grass Roots Herbal Foundations is delivered over 3 semesters from Autumn to late Spring. With all of our deep-delve courses, we offer a combination of online learning tools, discussion space and in-person options along with curated plant profiles and comprehensive additional resources. Students will also gain access to our Community Apothecary where you can purchase your own blends of small batch tea mixes and tincture simples.
We are offering Grass Roots Herbal Foundations as two different modes of study - Online only or Blended which is the online course plus additional in person elements. Both formats of the course have a further option to add an assessed element for students who are interested in more formal study. This is extra to the self-led testing that all students will have access to in order to chart their progress.
Course Content: over three, 10 week semesters, you'll get access to new content every 3-4 weeks with three content drops per semester to allow bite sized chunks of the course content.
Self-led Testing: throughout the course there will be exercises, case histories and quizzes to help you to assess your ongoing learning.
Teaching Zooms: nine live 2 hour long Zoom lessons, roughly corresponding to each content drop.
Full Online Course: Nine course content drops with ongoing self-led testing and nine teaching Zooms, plus:
8 Additional Teaching Days:
6 Saturdays 10am - 4pm at Lauriston Farm in North West Edinburgh, further exploring the course content.
2 days on Zoom in December & February: 10-4pm including an extended lunch and homework break
Fromal Assessment: in addition to the self-led assessment, you will also have access to more formal assessment with feedback from our tutors.
Assessment will include plant profiles, case histories and submitting additional quizzes and tests.
This option is available to both online and blended students so can be added from anywhere in the UK.
The online course dates are for online only and also blended course students.
Grass Roots Herbal Foundations runs over 3 semesters of 9-10 weeks with a break of 4-5 weeks between them. Each semester includes 3 live zooms with the course facilitators and all zooms are on Thursday evenings 6.15-8.15pm.
Semester 1:
9th Oct - 19th Dec 2025
Live Zoom sessions: 9th Oct, 6th Nov, 27th Nov 2025
Semester 2:
16th Jan - 21st March 2026
Live Zoom sessions: 22nd Jan, 19th Feb, 12th March 2026
Semester 3:
24th April - 19th June 2026
Live Zoom sessions: 30th April, 21st May, 11th June
The blended element of the course consists of the full online only course dates above (all online teaching material plus the 9 live zooms) plus 8 additional teaching days on Saturdays.
6 of these are in-person at Lauriston Farm in North West Edinburgh 10-4pm.
We will hold the winter sessions 3 & 4 on zoom 10-4pm with an extended lunch and homework break in the middle.
25th October
15th November
6th December (zoom)
7th February (zoom)
28th February
21st March
9th May
30th May
We are offering the course on a sliding scale and are able to offer 2 spaces at the subsidised price of the scale on each version of the course. Please note that while the 2 spaces at the bottom of the scale are eligible to be paid in 6 instalments in May and June, they are not eligible for the £50 off for current and former students.
Online Only Course: £600 (2 spaces); £800; £1000
Blended Course (online + in person element): £800 (2 spaces); £1250; £1500
Optional Formal Assessment: an additional £150 to the online or blended course fee.
Read on for our early bird offer...
Special Offer: May & June 2025
We appreciate that this course is a significant investment for most people so have been working to make it as financially accessible as possible. As with our other deep-delve courses, we will be offering the course on a sliding scale, with the option to pay in 3 monthly installments. We would also like to offer the chance to spread the cost even further, so in May and June only, we'll be offering the course payments in 6 monthly installments so that folk can spread the cost over a longer period.
In recognition that many folk have already studied with us and made a financial investment in the co-op, in May and June, we'd also like to offer former and current Wild Things and Plant Medicine School Scotland students an additional £50 off Grass Roots Herbal Foundations.
Why this offer?
We take pride in the fact that our courses are very thoroughly researched and we get lots of feedback from students that we over-deliver on content, resources and the teaching experience. We want to keep doing this and to do so we need to earn a certain amount to contribute to the cost of our time. This is particularly true of courses like Grass Roots Herbal Foundations which are time-limited and even more so to the Blended in-person elements which are limited in numbers.
As a small workers’ co-op we need to be mindful of having some guarantees on our income. We've learnt from running online courses for a few years now, that it is vital to our financial sustainability to take the majority of payments from students before a course starts. We’ve also had a number of requests in recent years for extended payment plans - we know people value our work and also that many folk don’t have much in the way of spare funds each month. We think that offering a longer payment plan could present a fair way for us to increase the financial accessibility of our courses, whilst also ensuring the future of the co-op. We have also decided to keep the total admin charge for paying in instalments the same whether you pay in 3 or 6 instalments. Folk paying in 3 instalments pay £10 per instalment and those paying in 6 pay £5 per instalment giving a total additional charge of £30.
We are always evolving how we offer courses and would welcome any ideas you have on offering high-quality courses in as financially accessible a way as we can. We are also aware that our supporters are mainly in Scotland and that this course may be of interest to folk across the UK, so please do share Grass Roots Herbal Foundations with your friends and family and help to extend our message of Folk Medicine for All Folk. We continue to offer a wide range of free resources on our website and free learning opportunities through volunteering in Edinburgh and Glasgow.
We achieve being able to offer our course on a sliding scale by allowing you to deduct part of the price off your booking in the checkout. Decide which price you are able to pay from the options below. If you will be choosing the standard or subsidised price, copy the coupon code to enter in the checkout.
Solidarity price: £1000
Standard price: £800. Enter the coupon code GRHF800 to deduct £200
Subsidised price: £600 Enter the coupon code GRHF600 to deduct £400 (We offer two subsidised spaces for each version of the course, we are only able to do this through selling other spaces at the solidarity level. See 'why do we use a sliding scale?' below)
If you would like to add the optional assessed route to the online course you can add this on in the checkout. The option will pop up after you have purchased the online course (you won't need to add your card details twice). If you miss it we will provide the option to book on in the welcome lesson too.
Enrolment fee: Please note 1/3 of your full course price is non-refundable. Read more in the FAQs.
Early bird deal! Booking in May & June will allow you to spread your instalment payments over 6 monthly instalments rather than 3. From July 1st a booking of one single payment or 3 monthly instalments are available.
£50 off for our supporters: If you are a current or past student of our Wild Things or Plant Medicine School Scotland courses and would like a further £50 off your booking email soraya@grassrootsremedies.co.uk stating the price you are able to pay on the sliding scale to receive your coupon to add in the checkout.
Our blended course includes the full online course plus 8 additional teaching days - 6 in person in Edinburgh and 2 online all on Saturdays throughout the year (see above).
Solidarity price: £1500
Standard price: £1250
Subsidised price: £800
We have a separate booking page for the blended course and its optional assessed route. Click the button below to book on if you would like to join us in person too:
Our core aim in Grass Roots Remedies Co-operative is to try & make herbal knowledge, skills & consultations accessible to everyone. As well as running herb walks, courses & workshops we also provide a community herbal clinic in Wester Hailes, South West Edinburgh which runs by donation to local people (as far as we know the only one of its kind in Scotland). We also run a free programme of community workshops in the neighbourhood.
We use a sliding scale in our workshops and courses: a sliding scale is a mechanism where people pay different fees according to their income & access to resources, so that services can be made accessible to as many people as possible, & folk are less financially excluded. A sliding scale means that everyone pays a similar proportion of their income for the same service.
This increases access for people who are systemically excluded from participating in community activities such as people of colour, people with disabilities or health conditions, LGBTQ* & working class communities, immigrants & women-led groups.
By paying a higher rate on the scale if you can afford it, you are enabling us to carry out our core work of providing free and low cost education & herbal consultations in areas of deprivation. We really appreciate your continuing support.
Grass Roots Herbal Foundations has been created & will be facilitated by the Grass Roots Remedies co-op members.
From left to right: Rhona Donaldson, Catriona Gibson (& Bear the wee Jack Russel), Ally Hurcikova & Soraya Bishop.
This course has been created by Grass Roots Remedies Co-op. We are an Edinburgh & Glasgow based workers’ cooperative whose central philosophy is that herbal medicine is the medicine of the people and should be accessible to everyone. We offer a series of practical courses and workshops, run the Wester Hailes Community Herbal Medicine Clinic, and the North Edinburgh Community Herbal Clinic in Granton, support student herbalists with their clinical hours, grow herbs in our garden at the Lauriston Agroecology Farm, and produce simple resources to enable folks to practice herbalism at home.
Find out more about us all on our website - www.grassrootsremedies.co.uk
The course is open to people with no prior herbal knowledge or experience. If you do have experience personally or from other herbal courses, we think that the broad reach of this course will offer new learning for many people. For example, compared with our Wild Things course, over 80% of the plants in Grass Roots Herbal Foundations are new and not included in Wild Things - of course we’ve included a few wild favourites like Nettle & Hawthorn who we couldn’t bear to leave out. Grass Roots Herbal Foundations also focuses on herb cultivation rather than foraging.
Our plants in focus include:
Vervain, Motherwort, Elecampane, Wormwood, Artichoke, Milk Thistle, Chamomile, Lemonbalm, Skullcap, California Poppy, Passionflower, Garlic, Chilli, Horseradish, Ginger, Elder, Cinnamon, Rose, Raspberry Leaf, Nettle, Hawthorn, Sage, Oats, Calendula, Comfrey, Borage, Solomon’s Seal, Flax, Marshmallow, Couchgrass, Cornsilk, Sweet Violet, Peppermint, Rosemary, Thyme, Angelica, Hyssop, Fennel, Lavender, Basil, Black Cohosh, Golden Seal, Basque Flower, Echinacea & Arnica.
Completing the course will give you the skills and confidence to share your herbal knowledge with your community - spreading the message of Folk Medicine for All Folk:
Identifying communities with resonance for you and creating, delivering and evaluating workshops with your community.
Growing, preparing and crafting remedies for you and your local community
The potential for links to clinical practitioner training: whilst developing the course, we have kept in mind and tried to map against entry requirements to UK-based Herbal Medicine Practitioner Courses. Examples include, the range and number of plants covered on the course, the depth and breadth of the course, reflected in the time required to complete it and the types of assessment and self-assessment we have used
While we acknowledge that different folk will take more or less time to work through a course, we have included the below as a guideline:
Online Only Course:
If you have chosen to study the online only version of the course we suggest:
10-15 hours a week during each semester.
Blended In-person element:
If you have chosen the blended In-person element, this will require an additional 8 sessions of 6 hours each (all on Saturday throughout the year).
Assessed route:
If you have chosen the formal assessed route for either the online or the blended course, expect an additional 20-25 hours per semester.
Yes! Check out the blended course information above. The blended course consists of the online course plus 8 additional teaching days. This means you will work through online content in our lessons which are released in bite sized chunks over the course that consist of videos, handouts, quizzes and more, as well as attending the live zooms too. As a blended student you will then have the opportunity to put all this learning into practice with fellow students at the 8 additional teaching days.
You can book onto the blended course by following the purple 'book onto the blended course here' button above.
The 6 in person teaching days will be held at the Lauriston Agroecology Farm in North West Edinburgh. You can find public transport, bike and parking info here: https://www.lauristonfarm.scot/get-involved/visit/
A note about accessibility - our in person days will include a mix of teaching inside and being outside in the GRR herb garden. The classroom has a step up to it and the GRR herb garden is mostly made up of grass paths around growing beds. There is a 10-15 minute walk across the farm from the classroom to the garden with stunning views across the Firth of Forth and to the hills of Fife. There is the option for folk to drive to the herb garden if walking is not an option for you. At this time the farm is not wheelchair accessible. If you have any accessibility query please get in touch at hello@grassrootsremedies.co.uk
If you book onto the blended version of the course we will be in touch with more details about our in person sessions.
The course has its own dedicated Discussion Space where students can ask question, share ideas and reflections with each other and the tutors. We also meet on a live zoom 9 times over the course.
There is also the opportunity to coming to an additional 8 teaching days (6 in Edinburgh and 2 online). If you are interesting in this then book the 'blended' course.
We will be available to answer any questions via the discussions space of the online course. If you have a private question you can email us at hello@grassrootsremedies.co.uk
You do not need to have your own garden to study this course (though we whole heartedly encourage everyone to get involved in their local community growing space!). You will be encouraged to sow some seeds as part of our Ecological Herb Gardening module, and if you don't have access to an outdoor growing space can sow seeds on your windowsill.
We understand that students may have a change in circumstances resulting in the course fee needing to be used in a different way and not pursue the course at this time. In order to honour this, whilst also maintaining a sustainable business model, we have decided to set the following parameters:
Enrolment Fee: The enrolment fee is non-refundable – this is ⅓ of the complete cost of your course booking (or the 1st payment of 3 instalments or the 1st & 2nd payment of 6 instalments).
Before September 1st: On request, we can refund any additional payments over the enrolment fee, less £20 administrative charge.
From September 1st: We are not able to offer any refunds this close to the course start date. We also expect students to honour any unpaid instalments of the course fee.
If you can't find an answer to your question above, email hello@grassrootsremedies your query.