About Anna
Anna has a Bachelor of Arts (Psychology) degree and full member of Therapeutic Horticulture Australia.
Anna is neurodivergent, a mother, loves to be outside and create anything and everything. She gets excited when she finds a new use for something old, finds someone who likes plants as much as her and the look of joy on people’s faces when they try something new and enjoy it!
For over 10 years now, Anna has been primarily working and managing teams who support people who have experienced high risk family violence, homelessness, mental health and trauma. This included running youth homelessness and family violence crisis refuges.
Anna has extensive training and education on trauma informed practice, mental health risk assessment/ management and family violence risk management and recovery.
I always feel better on the way home after attending this setting. It’s like a respite from life for a few hours.
– Client
Over the years, Anna observed how much safer people felt whilst using their hands and engaging in an activity.
People always seemed to open up more when they weren’t forced to make direct eye contact and were outside typical clinical settings.
Anna wanted to create a space that was safe, trauma informed, and person centred for individuals to spend time outdoors and thrive after being immersed in nature, creating and growing beautiful things.
Sessions are located on an idyllic one-acre property in Teesdale Waddawurrung Country bordered by native trees and mixed garden beds.
Anna renovated an old 1970’s caravan to be a client space and it sits alongside raised garden beds, a green house and orchard.
Anna is an advocate for sustainable gardening practices and reducing waste so you will see examples of whimsical themed upcycling featured around the block.
Regular clients are given the opportunity to have creative input on various projects in the making and see ideas come to life.
You can come and garden in the Raised Garden beds, grow some seedlings in the Greenhouse, sit by the campfire under the Pergola or on a rainy day create botanic art in the 1970’s caravan client space. There is also a toilet onsite for visitors to use.
Anna wanted to create a space that was safe, trauma informed, and person centred for individuals to spend time outdoors and thrive after being immersed in nature, creating and growing beautiful things.
Meet the animals
Rya:
A friendly German Shepherd who loves tummy rubs, sitting on people’s feet, chasing balls and eating sandwich leftovers that people feel pressured to give her after she sits and stares at them eating lunch!
She is curious and loves to be sprayed with the hose or run under the sprinkler.
She is currently working out how to be friends with the chickens without scaring them away.
Murphy:
One of our resident cats. She prefers to be inside most of the day but when tempted with a torch or plastic golf ball, she is jumping off walls and doing zoomies around the house.
She also likes to watch tennis and football on TV.
Stevie:
Stevie is our other resident cat, named after Steve from Minecraft!
She likes being outside and has a bad habit of laying right where I want to dig in the garden and squashing my seedlings.
You will often see her lounging around the place and sometimes you will see her and Rya playing a fun game of chase.
Chickens:
Not all our chickens have names yet as we have just added a few to the flock, but you will see them scratching about the yard free ranging and will randomly come up to say hello.
Sometimes they are open to a pat.
Fish:
Our fish are a recent addition and reside in the new bath pond beside the caravan.
Hopefully they will have some frog friends in there soon as well from the eggs we can see on the water lily!
