Meet Hamid, our new Horticulture & Landscape Consultant

February 22, 2021

Hamid Abdullah, Horticulture & Landscape Consultant, Lemon Tree Trust

We’re thrilled to welcome Hamid Abdullah to the Lemon Tree Trust as our Horticulture & Landscape Consultant. Based in Erbil, in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, Hamid will support Aveen and our team with horticulture training and landscape design for existing and new projects.

We asked him a few questions to get to know him better:

Which landscape designers are you influenced by and why?

Personally, l am influenced by Piet Oudolf, as he practices a naturalistic approach to gardening primarily throughout perennial plant species.

Furthermore, he prioritises the seasonal life cycle of plants over decorative considerations like flower or colour. This means a garden is exciting as it looks great throughout the year, rather than for just one particular season.

If you could visit any garden in the world, which would it be?

I would love to visit The High Line in New York City. Designed by Piet Oudolf, it’s a wonderful example of naturalistic planting in an unusual urban setting.

What is your earliest gardening memory?

I must have been about six years old when my family and I went out for a spring picnic. My younger sister asked me to make her a flower crown from wild chamomile flowers and I felt joy for the flowers and how they had a harmony with nature.

What are your favourite plants and why?

My favourite is chamomile, as it has beautiful petals and an amazing colour combination of white and yellow. Chamomile provides sustenance to pollinators through the supply of pollen and nectar, which are of course necessary for our food chain. It also has great health and medicinal benefits.

What would be your ideal landscape project in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq?

My ideal landscape project in the Kurdistan Region would be building a botanical garden. Its primary purpose would be collecting and studying plants, safeguarding the ecosystem, as well as conserving endangered habitats.

What is it about Lemon Tree Trust team that made you want to join our team? 

I really admire the organisation’s long-term vision of supporting a vulnerable group of people from different backgrounds to improve their wellbeing and environment, and how it has already taken great shape in the different refugee and IDP camp communities since the organisation was established in 2016.

What are you most looking forward to about your work with us? 

I am looking forward to working with the LTT team to further develop the community garden spaces in Domiz 1 and Bersive 1 camps and working on designs for new gardens. I am also looking forward to bringing my skills and experience as a lecturer to training the team and the gardening communities in camps in plant propagation, composting, efficient water use and small space growing.