The Herb Almanac: A seasonal guide to medicinal plants

Description

A beautiful and accessible seasonal guide to herbalism from the historic botanic garden. Discover the best times of the year for growing specific healing herbs and also when and how to forage for wild medicine, such as water mint, St John's Wort, hawthorn berries and rosehips. Recipes are included for how to use these herbs, along with folklore stories from herb wives and hedge witches, the meanings behind their names and the history of how these natural medicines were discovered. There are plenty of tips for how to create your own medicinal herb garden, even with just a few pots, along with a biodynamic guide for sowing, planting and harvesting. Including detailed hand-drawn line illustrations to help deepen your understanding, The Herb Almanac is the perfect gift for any nature lover. CONTENTS INCLUDES: Introduction Including using herbs as seasonally appropriate remedies and tonics, an overview of herbs in folklore, wild medicine, magic, superstition, ritual, tradition and literature and herbs in religion and floriography (the language of flowers) Gathering and Using Herbs Including safe, legal and successful foraging, a brief introduction to growing your own herbs and preparing, drying and preserving herbs Witches' Brews: Poisonous Plants Including an overview of herbs with interesting stories that cannot be easily used, e.g. wormwood, hemlock and mandrake Herb Encyclopedia Including detailed information on over 50 different herbs

Tucked away beside the River Thames, Chelsea Physic Garden is the oldest botanic garden in London and houses around 5,000 different medicinal, herbal, edible and useful plants - a living library dedicated to healing with plants. Medicinal plants have been grown at the Garden since the 17th century, a tradition continued in the present day with displays of medicinal and herbal species used globally in the past, present and potentially in the future. Chelseaphysicgarden.co.uk Instagram.com/chelsea_physic_garden Twitter.com/ChelsPhysicGdn