By: Deb Soule I


fell in love with gardening while growing up in the small town of South Paris, Maine, home to the McLaughlin Garden and Homestead. As a young woman I would quietly enter the gate to Bernard McLaughlin’s garden, which he left open for visitors. Too shy to speak with Bernard directly, I would observe this old and wise gardener at work, carefully bent over a patch of bloodroot or primroses or hauling a wheelbarrow full of weeds. It was in Ber- nard’s garden that I first began touching plants and paying attention to color, texture, and fragrance. As a young gardener, touch became one of my most important gardening tools, one that with years of daily practice shaped my development as a gardener.


I didn’t come to gardening by way of reading books. Like many gardeners, I fell in love with the tasks and patience required planting seeds, waiting, watching, watering, listening, and praying. I learned and kept learning by working and being in the garden - day after day, season after season, and year after year.


My friendship with Steven Foster, the herb gardener at a Shaker


Village in Maine (1975), and my time spent living in Nepal observ- ing and interacting with traditional herbalists (1980), inspired me to found the medicinal herb farm and herbal apothecary Avena Botani- cals. For thirty years I have been planting and tending an apothecary garden, which contains over 100 different medicinal herbs, flowers for pollinators, hedgerows for birds, and numerous benches for visi- tors and students to sit upon to enjoy the beauty of the garden.


18 Essential Living Maine ~ April 2015


There are many herbs that can be easily grown in Maine and New England and safely prepared into nutritive teas, tonics, tinc- tures, and oils and salves. Listed below are 7 easy to grow herbs for people who wish to start a medicinal herb garden or who wish to expand their herb garden. I have included the common and Latin name, simple growing techniques and basic herbal uses. Refer to the resources at the end of the article for seed and plant sources, books and herb classes. Have fun finding herbalists in your commu- nity to visit and learn from.


Healing herbs lend themselves to be grown in their own spe- cial garden or on the edge of a vegetable garden, away from the busyness of growing food. The old European monastic apothecary gardens tended by nuns and monks were often protected by brick walls or fences, allowing the tasks of gathering and preparing herbal medicine to be done with reverence and prayer. In the midst of today’s fast-paced world, the creation of herb gardens in backyards, community gardens and public spaces offers much needed healing sanctuaries for people, pollinators, and songbirds.


The flavors and fragrances of herbs play an important role in the healing process, as does the respect and care the gardener uses when tending, collecting and preparing the herbs into medicine. I tell my students that each plant embodies its own personality and spirit, just like a human or animal. Create quiet time on a regular basis to sit near an herb or tree. Perhaps keep a notebook with you to jot down your feelings and impressions about each herb. Let this meditative time nourish and inspire you.


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