Meet Hamid, our new Horticulture & Landscape Consultant
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.
Meet some of our other team members
- Meet Ismail and Shalal, our gardeners in the Azadi Community Garden
- Meet our community gardeners Ahin, Khadija, Nasreen and Fatima
- Meet Rody Sher, Country Director – Iraq
Gardener stories
- Meet Khanki camp resident Hajar
- Meet Domiz 2 camp resident Salih
- Watch our short films about why displaced people garden
Aveen Ibrahem is Operations Manager at Lemon Tree Trust, overseeing our community gardening and cooking programmes across the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. Her work supports activities in Azadî Community Garden in Domiz 1 camp, as well as outreach and coordination across the nine camps where Lemon Tree Trust currently operates. Having lived in Domiz 1 … Continued
Inside the polytunnels at the Hêvî Community Garden in Gawilan refugee camp, Garden Manager Othman Qewas carefully selects fruit trees and flowering plants grown from seed. Joined by Hamid Abdullah, Lemon Tree Trust’s Horticulture and Landscape Consultant, the plants are loaded into the car before setting off to visit families across the camp. As part of our ongoing children’s outreach programme in Gawilan camp, … Continued
Bringing together residents to celebrate the home gardens they have grown, tended and transformed over the past year, Lemon Tree Trust’s 2026 Annual Garden Competitions have taken place across nine refugee and IDP (internally displaced people) camps in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. This year’s competitions introduced a greater emphasis on welcoming new participants alongside … Continued