Our in-depth community herbalism offering running from Ocotber to June. Read on for more information & get in touch if you have any questions - we can't wait to hear from you.
The blended version of the course includes in-person elements in Edinburgh
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 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.
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 3, 10 week semesters, you'll get access to new content every 3-4 weeks with 3 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: 9 live 2 hour long Zoom lessons, roughly corresponding to each content drop.
Full Online Course: 9 course content drops with ongoing self-led testing and nine teaching Zooms, plus:
8 Additional Teaching Days:
6 Saturdays 10am - 4pm in Edinburgh (venue TBC), 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.
Zooms are all held on Thursdays 6.15-8.15pm
Semester 1:
October 8th 2026 - December 18th
Zoom 1: October 8th, Zoom 2: November 5th, Zoom 3: November 26th
Semester 2:
January 15th 2027 - March 19th
Zoom 4: January 21st, Zoom 5: February 18th, Zoom 6: March 11th
Semester 3:
April 23rd - June 18th
Zoom 7: April 29th, Zoom 8: May 20th, Zoom 9: June 10th
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 in a Venue TBC in 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.
Dates for 2026-27 student group all Saturdays 10-4pm:
October 24th, November 14th, December 5th (zoom), February 6th (zoom) February 27th, March 20th
The blended version of the course includes in-person elements in Edinburgh
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); £1000; £1250
Blended Course (online + in person element): £800 (2 spaces); £1500; £1750
Optional Formal Assessment: an additional £200 to the online or blended course fee.
Enrolment fee: Please note 1/3 of your full course price is non-refundable. Read more in the FAQs.
The blended version of the course includes in-person elements in Edinburgh
Interested in joining us?
We achieve providing a sliding scale to our students by seting up coupon codes that you can copy and paste into the check out to deduct part of the course fees. You can read more about why we offer sliding scales below.
First decide which price you are able to pay from the options below. If you are paying the Standard price or Subsidised price copy the coupon code to paste into the check out. This will reduce the course fee to your chosen level. Get in touch if you have any questions about this.
If you want to book onto our blended course see the button above.
Solidarity price: £1250
Standard price: £1000. Enter the coupon code GRHF1000 to deduct £250
Subsidised price: £600. Enter the coupon code GRHF600 to deduct £650 (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). Don't worry if you miss it as we will provide the option to book on in the course welcome lesson too.
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.
Special Offer: May & June 2026:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
You can read more about what a community herbalist is in our blog post here: https://grassrootsremedies.co.uk/2025/09/11/what-is-a-community-herbalist/
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 at least:
10-15 hours a week. This includes the weeks in between semesters to complete all the lessons.
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 a venue in Edinburgh TBC. If you have any accessibility queries 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.