Nikki Darrell MBS BSc (Hons) Dip Phyt MIRH MNIMH MCPP MIFA is a Herbalist, Aromatherapist, Botanist, A Bean Luighis on the Bean Feasa path. From an early age Nikki was fascinated with plants; how to grow them, their therapeutic uses, their perfumes, and the food they provide. She started growing herbs at the age of 8, bought her first herbal at the age of 11 and has not looked back since.

Nikki works as a practitioner of herbal medicine, aromatherapy, and aromatic medicine. She attended the Sutton Bonnington campus of Nottingham University to study Horticulture and Plant Science (because she could not find anywhere to train as a herbalist) and after graduating spent 5 years as a research scientist researching into phytochemistry and plant tissue culture. Having discovered the School of Phytotherapy she decided to move back to her first love of working with medicinal plants and so studied massage, aromatherapy and fitness instruction as a way of paying her way through herbal school.

 In 1999 she graduated with a diploma in Herbal Medicine from the School of Phytotherapy. In 2008 she completed a Masters in Social and Co-operative Enterprise with her minor thesis researching the potential for co-operatives to help develop a Medicinal and Aromatic Plant growing sector in Ireland.

 Nikki runs introductory courses about herbs and their uses, as well as forage walks and has groups of students visit the garden here to learn more about identifying and using the 250 plus species that grow in the Grá Nádúr fields and gardens.

Nikki runs introductory courses about herbs and their uses, as well as forage walks and has groups of students visit the garden here to learn more about identifying and using the 200 plus species that grow here.

Nikki has set up a 2-year Apprenticeship course in Herbal and Botanical Medicine for people who wish to learn community herbalism.

She also designed the Clinical Practitioner training and is the course coordinator and one of the teachers on this program. She teaches on the Nature Resonance programme with her partner Alex Duffy and is passionate about helping people reconnect with their inner nature and the wider community of nature without.

She has lectured for 3rd level institutions and also has presented at various conferences including Herbfeast, Herbfest and Plant Consciousness. She is a campaigner, a writer (her books include Conversations with Plants volumes 1+2, At Home with Herbs, the Essential Oil Manual and Conversations with Plants, the Path Back to  Nature) and spends as much time as possible in her garden and walking in nature.