The WeeCAIR Medicinal Garden features in Dundee Women’s Festival.

We are delighted to be collaborating with Dundee Botanic Garden to host a virtual discussion event during Dundee Women’s Festival on March 9th at 7pm. The event will be run by the team behind ‘The WeeCAIR Medicinal Garden’, including WCAIR scientist Irene Hallyburton, and Clare Reany from the Dundee Botanic Garden. They will be joined by Kate Robinson, the head gardener at Hospitalfield, Arbroath, who will bring her plant expertise alongside her knowledge of creating a monastic garden at Hospitalfield.    

As part of Dundee Women’s Festival, we will have a focus on women’s health. The panel will discuss the history of plants used in the past to treat medical issues for women and will explore how these plants have been used to create medicines. This will include, Lady’s mantle which has been shown to have value in fighting oestrogen related cancers. They will also discuss how even today the active ingredients in plants are still being used to create modern medical treatments and how they impact on drug discovery.  

This event will be hosted using Teams Live giving the audience the opportunity to post questions for the panel to answer within the event. It is free for all to attend. If you are unable to attend at the time of the event a recording will be posted online to the new WCAIR YouTube channel.  

We also have a range of online activities for festival-goers to enjoy. These are aimed at all ages and can be enjoyed solo or with your family. We will have colouring sheets about the plants that will be going into our garden as well as other fun activities such as a word search and scavenger hunt. 

The event and online activities have also been wonderfully illustrated in the festival programme by Hayley Wells – @hwillustrator. 

Once you’ve followed her on Instagram don’t forget to follow ours at @wcair_sci_garden.  

Explore the fun activities we have available during the festival here.