Hildegard of Bingen, Medieval Herbalist
By Shanon Sterringer
Photo taken from an herb garden along the Hildegard Trail in Germany, 2019
The works of Hildegard of Bingen have become quite popular in the last few decades after they were unearthed by musicians and scholars following centuries of dormancy. Who was this 12th century German Benedictine nun and why is she emerging as one of history’s most interesting and brilliant women?
The extent of her genius stretches beyond her skills as an herbalist to include musician, artist, preacher, healer, politician, philosopher, theologian, storyteller, and creative leader, to name a few of her gifts. She was deeply rooted in the Benedictine tradition of ora et labora (prayer and work) which included working in the monastery gardens and infirmary.
Hildegard of Bingen has been credited with creating the term, “viriditas” which translated from the Latin means, “greening power” because of the way she used it in her writings to describe the primordial energy that not only created this earth but sustains and enlivens it. The term actually predated Hildegard (she picked it up from earlier writers), but she gave it a much deeper and profound meaning. The sacred greenness referred to by Hildegard exists not only in the material form, but spiritually and intellectually. It is the very essence of life and the energy that draws so many to find peace and healing in nature, especially in our gardens.
Photo taken from the ruins at Disibodenberg, Germany in 2015. This is believed to have been the infirmary at the male Benedictine monastery where Hildegard was tithed as a young child. She lived here for almost forty years, so it may be the space where she learned how to use herbs for healing.
Hildegard’s two works on herbs and healing include Physica and Causae et Curae, but her use of natural images including gardens, bees/honey, and viriditas permeate many of her other writings. She used natural images as metaphors, at times even parables, to teach and preach. For example, she wrote the following in a letter to Philip, Archbishop of Cologne, offering what we would refer to today as spiritual direction:
In a vision, I saw as it were, the sun shining with excessive heat upon mud filled with worms, and these creatures stretched themselves out in joy of the heat, but, eventually, not being able to bear the excessive heat, they hid themselves away, and the mud sent forth a noisome stench. I saw also that the sun shone in a garden, in which roses and lilies and all kinds of herbs grew, and the flowers grew abundantly by the heat of the sun, and the herbs sent forth innumerable roots and gave forth an exceedingly delightful odor, so that many people, suffused with this lovely fragrance, rejoiced in the garden as if it were paradise. And I heard a voice from above saying to you: Make your decision, O human, whether you wish to remain in this garden of delights or to lie with the worms in their stinking excrement.
The photo of the apothecary is an example of how Hildegard’s herbal remedies are still being used in Germany today.
As gardeners, we have all experienced the beautiful fragrance, as well as the noisome stench, of our gardens, so this image resonates. Hildegard lived close to the earth, and therefore, was able to weave into her spiritual, political, and theological writings these powerful and relevant metaphors that speak to us on a soul level.
Her work, Physica, is a practical guide to using herbs for holistic health. It consists of nine books describing the benefits and cautions of certain herbs, trees, precious gemstones, and so on. The work has been translated into English by Priscilla Throop (1998) and is available at most online bookstores. There is an abbreviated version of it, which includes only the chapter on plants published by Beacon Press (2001).
Today, many are finding creative ways to bring Hildegard’s work on herbs and the natural world back into use. Hildegardens (Hildegard-inspired herb gardens) are sprouting up across Germany, and even in the U.S., for example, we are developing one here at the Hildegard Haus in Fairport Harbor!
Photo from a Hildegarden in Germany, 2019
The works of Hildegard of Bingen, including her love for the natural world, blossomed in her day. For centuries, the seeds of her genius lay dormant, buried deep within the earth, until the conditions were right for new sprouts to emerge. Today, these seeds are blowing far and wide producing rich and abundant fruit as her charism and wisdom speak boldly to our contemporary context.
Photo from the Hildegarden in Fairport Harbor, Ohio, 2022
How can you bring a bit of Hildegard into your daily experience? Of course, you can plant some of the herbs she refers to in her works, thus creating a Hildegarden of your own! You can also bring her into your life in simpler ways. For example, you could keep a jar of her “Spices of Joy” (equal parts cinnamon and nutmeg, with clove to taste) on your counter to mix into your oatmeal, coffee, or maybe even into your next apple cake! You could mix up a batch of her “Cookies of Joy” (recipe to follow) or simply brew a cup of fennel tea (fennel for Hildegard is a super-herb) to sip while listening to one of her mesmerizing chants. Personally, I love to create beeswax balms and salves infused with the herbs she grew.
Hildegard died in 1179 at the age of 81 years old. Her sisters recorded a vision of a brilliant cross-shaped light in the sky as her soul departed her physical body. Almost nine-hundred years later, she continues to invite us into her garden. I believe she would rejoice at being invited into ours!
Recipe from the Healthy Hildegard website:
- 12 Tablespoon Butter for mixture
- + 1 T Butter to grease cookie sheet
- ¾ cup brown sugar
- 1/3 cup honey
- 4 egg yolks
- 2 ½ cups spelt flour
- 1 tsp sea salt
- 2 rounded T Spices of Joy
Melt butter under low heat, add sugar, honey, egg yolks, beating lightly. Add flour, salt, and combine gently. Refrigerate dough after mixing for 1 hour. Remove, roll out on floured surface, cut with cookie cutter. Bake on sheet 400 degrees F for 10-15 minutes.
You might enjoy scrolling through the Healthy Hildegard website (www.healthyhildegard.com) based in Colorado and founded by Josh Cashman. It is filled with information on Hildegard’s use of herbs and recipes.
Join Shanon on Tuesday, May 16, at 1pm Eastern for her webinar: Hildegard of Bingen: Medieval Herbalist. Our webinars are free to The Herb Society of America members and $7.50 for guests. Become a member today, and enjoy all of our webinars for free along with access to the webinar library with over fifty program titles. To register, visit https://www.herbsociety.org/hsa-learn/herb-education/hsa-webinars/
Medicinal Disclaimer: It is the policy of The Herb Society of America, Inc. not to advise or recommend herbs for medicinal or health use. The information in this presentation is intended for educational purposes only and should not be considered as a recommendation or an endorsement of any particular medical or health treatment. Please consult a health care provider before pursuing any herbal treatments.
Photo credits: All photos courtesy of the author.
Shanon Sterringer holds a PhD in Ethical and Creative Leadership (focused on the model of St. Hildegard of Bingen); a DMin, two master’s degrees (MA in theology and MA in ministry), and a BA in Medieval History. She is the founding pastor of the Hildegard Haus in Fairport Harbor, OH, and the owner of The Green Shepherdess Fair-Trade shop and local art studio, also in Fairport Harbor. She has traveled to the Rhine Valley several times since 2015 (most recently in January 2023) to walk in the footsteps of St. Hildegard. She has dedicated the last ten years of her life to studying Hildegard’s charism, most particularly as it relates to holistic health and spirituality. While on sabbatical in 2019, Shanon spent most of the year learning about herbs while working for a local herbalist, Lynn Abbey, at Blue Lake Botanicals in Willoughby, Ohio. Shanon is married and the mother of three adult daughters and has published two books on the topic of Hildegard (Forbidden Grace and 30 Day Journey with St. Hildegard). A third book (focused on the material recorded in Physica) is in process. Shanon has offered many retreats and educational presentations on the topic of Hildegard and Herbs, including a variety of online classes/seminars and a presentation at the Cleveland Botanical Gardens for the Western Reserve Herb Society.
Though declared the most widespread of juniper species and appearing widely across the United States, there are eighteen states in which Juniperus communis does not grow as a native: NJ, DE, MD, WV, KY, MO, IA, NE, KS, OK, AR, TN, AL, MS, LA, TX, or HI. Those states may have other juniper species, or cultivated plants, but Juniperus communis is not native to their soil (Flora of North America)
Well-known to us as the flavoring in gin, juniper species have been known in this country for many years for a multitude of purposes, from culinary, medicinal, and insect control to ceremonial and utility uses. 
There are many recipes for using juniper berries, which can now be found in the spice section of many grocery stores. While some may find the taste a bit strong or resinous, others find it adds wonderful flavor to meat dishes, vegetables, and even baked goods. 
We learned from Indigenous Peoples to dry, then powder, the fruits, using the powder much as we do black pepper. Others teach burning the leaves, pouring boiling water over the ashes, straining the liquid, and using it as a flavoring.
It seems that as I continue my career in horticulture, there are plants that I come back to over time. With my recent move to Wyoming, I have come back to a lot of plants that are familiar from my childhood in western South Dakota. One of those is rubber rabbitbrush, Ericameria nauseosa. When I first learned it, it was Chrysothamnus nauseosus, but taxonomists assigned it to a different genus. I first knew it from visits to Badlands National Park where it grew as a low, billowy shrub among the desolation of nearly white decomposed Pierre Shale. 
Fast forward to last fall when I arrived in Cheyenne to look for a new home. It had been a dry year, as they often are here, and anything that was not watered frequently was dormant and brown. Rubber rabbitbrush, however, had burst into bloom with its golden flowers covering each defiantly green shrub. I passed by one home with much of its front yard devoted to the shrub, and upon close inspection, I discovered that the stems were an attractive shade of green. The ones I knew from South Dakota had gray stems. It turns out there are two subspecies—Ericameria nauseosa ssp. consimilis has green stems and is more western in its distribution, while Ericameria nauseosa ssp. nauseosa has gray stems and is more eastern.
The species name refers to the smell of the foliage when crushed. It is described as pineapple-like by some and as foul and rubbery by others. While the scent may depend on the sniffer, the fact that the whole plant contains rubber in high amounts is beyond doubt. As early as World War II, it was studied as a potential domestic source of rubber when much of the world’s rubber production fell into Japanese hands. It is a small source of industrial rubber today. Perhaps one of the factors limiting its use as a source of rubber is the long time of six years that it takes for the plant to reach a stage of maximum rubber content. Curiously, the rubber found in rubber rabbitbrush is not in the form of latex; it is rather in the form of solids in the inner bark and outer ring of xylem just inside the bark. Ericameria nauseosa ssp. consimilis may have up to 4% rubber by dry weight, double the amount for Ericameria nauseosa ssp. nauseosa. The rubber from rubber rabbitbrush is also free of the proteins that cause problems for those with allergies. 
I was interested to learn why rubber rabbitbrush is only of minor commercial importance. It turns out that guayule, Parthenium argentatum, was designated as “the official crop for domestic production of rubber” (Bowers, 1990) even though it is not as cold hardy as rubber rabbitbrush. Even plants cannot escape politics. Perhaps it is the six years needed to reach peak rubber production. It may also be the quality of the rubber, which is judged by the molecular weight of each carbon chain; longer chains and higher molecular weight are desired. Rubber rabbitbrush does not have the highest molecular weight (Ma, 2019), and that may be why it is not widely grown or harvested for commercial rubber.
The leaves and trichomes also contain about 35 percent resin by dry weight. The resin contains aromatic (in the hydrocarbon ring sense, not in the olfactory sense) terpenoid compounds that could be used in manufacturing plastics. Some of the terpenoids may be used as nematicides and insecticides (Finley and Neiland, 2013).
There is a wide median just outside the Cheyenne Botanic Gardens in the middle of Carey Avenue. Upon arriving in my position as Director, I was told that the City of Cheyenne had a thought that this expanse of turf should become a water-wise landscape with native plants. Of course, rubber rabbitbrush is one of the plants that comes to mind. Its deep root system and ability to withstand high pH and salinity make it one of the few plants that might succeed in this tough spot. The soft, billowy texture created by the fine branching habit and tiny leaves in summer, the stunning and bright yellow flowers that cover the shrub in late summer and early fall, the fluffy seed heads that follow and persist well into winter, and the stunning green stems make it lovely in every season. It is heavily used as a pollen and nectar source by native bee species, because it produces so many flowers when very few plants are in bloom.
Rubber rabbitbrush may grow as tall as six feet. Plant Select® has selected a compact cultivar called Baby Blue that tops out at 28 inches if the species is too tall for you. Because it can recover quickly from hard pruning and blooms on new growth, you can also cut it back nearly to the ground in late winter or early spring to keep it in bounds.
I have a bumper sticker on my car that reads: “I’d rather be lost in the Sods than found in the city.” A friend introduced me to the Dolly Sods Wilderness Area in West Virginia back when I was in college (and back when few people ever ventured that far outside of Washington, DC), and I have been hiking in the West Virginia mountains ever since. They are truly special in so many respects.
Gaultheria procumbens (American wintergreen; Eastern teaberry) dotting the forest floor. As heretical as this may sound, I actually dislike the taste of wintergreen, but I find the scent uplifting and enjoy crushing a leaf to release its heavy perfume. The leaves’ fall color is also some of the most beautiful I have seen. Historically, American wintergreen has been used as a flavoring for teas and even chewing gum. According to Foster and Duke (1990), “Traditionally, leaf tea [was] used for colds, headaches, stomachaches, fevers, kidney ailments; externally, wash [was used] for rheumatism, sore muscles, lumbago.” But, care must be taken when consuming Gaultheria. Its essential oils are very toxic when ingested internally.
Downy rattlesnake-plantain (Goodyeara pubescens) is a member of the Orchidaceae family and a native herb that I have encountered only once, despite it being a common species of orchid in the mountains of the eastern United States. I spotted it during my recent foray into the southern WV mountains, where it was sparsely distributed amongst the leaf duff under a stand of varying oak (Quercus) species. It is a rather unique-looking plant that I might have missed had I not been tuned into the forest floor. Goodyeara
has dark green leaves with pronounced light-green to white venation arranged in a basal rosette, and the white flowers are born on tall, slender stalks.
Medicinal Disclaimer: 
One of the enchanting things about working in the National Herb Garden is the myriad people I meet from around the world. Ne’er a week goes by that I don’t see or get to speak with someone personally from another country. I’m often brazen enough to confront people directly and, figuratively speaking, “pat them down” for herbal information from their homeland!
Papaya is a small tree, relatively speaking, growing to about 30 feet tall. Interestingly, it only lives for five to ten years, which is pretty short in tree years. It has deeply lobed leaves reminiscent of fig leaves (Ficus carica), hence the obvious relationship with fig’s specific epithet. Generally, Carica is dioecious, meaning the male and female flowers are on separate trees, and the tree will start bearing fruit in one year to 18 months from seed. The resulting fruit can be anywhere from three to 20 inches long and can weigh in at a hefty 20 – 25 lbs! The fruit’s skin turns from green to yellow when ripe, and the flesh is a lovely tropical yellow to orange and is filled with hundreds of wrinkly black seeds (Britannica, 2022). While most people consume just the papaya flesh or juice, there’s no need to throw those seeds away; they have a strong, pepper-like flavor and can be used as a spice in various culinary preparations.
The juice can be found in numerous commercial brands, particularly those from Latin and South America. In fact, papaya is native to Central and South America, not Southeast Asia, which may seem odd given this article is about Thai herbs. Let’s just say that papaya is well-traveled (unlike me). It has a long history of being moved from one country to another, then to another, each time being propagated, and then shipped off again to yet another tropical part of the world. The Spanish chronicler, Oviedo, first described Carica papaya in 1526 A.D. In the early 1600s, Spanish explorers to the New World carried the seed to Panama and the Dominican Republic. From the Caribbean, Spanish and Portuguese sailors carried the seeds to Southeast Asia and India, to Australia and even to Italy. Between 1800 – 1820, papaya was sent on to Hawaii, and by 1900, papaya had come all the way back to the New World, landing in Florida. In all of these locations, it was introduced as a plantation, or agricultural, crop (TFNetwork, 2016). “Papaya has become an important agricultural export for developing countries, where export revenues of the fruit provide a livelihood for thousands of people, especially in Asia and Latin America” (Evans and Ballen, 2018).
Today, Mexico has moved into first place as the number one exporter of papaya, with virtually all of its exports going to the United States, which “ranks as the largest importer of papayas globally” (FAO, 2021). Who knew?! So, I guess it isn’t that surprising that it was here in the United States–not Thailand–that I met Dao who shared with me about one of the most popular tropical plants in her home country, as well as mine.
According to Dao, the green (unripe) fruit is used as a vegetable to make papaya salad, and it can also be fried with meat. If boiled with meat, it makes the meat softer and more moist. The leaves, she explained, are eaten in Cambodia, Thailand, and Laos, where they are cut and fried or eaten raw. Medicinally, papaya is considered by many Thai as an old-fashioned remedy good for the body, diabetes, and cancer. The leaf juice was/is used to treat intestinal cancer, and the ripe fruit is good for relieving constipation (personal communication).
Both the papaya leaves and the fruit’s skin produce a latex substance from which a digestive enzyme called papain can be obtained. Papain is similar to the human digestive enzyme pepsin, and thus, is an effective plant-based meat tenderizer, “useful in digesting or coagulating, clotting, and converting proteins into smaller parts” (Tyler et al., 1988). (Bromelain, an enzyme from pineapples, is used similarly.) Hence, the Thai method of mixing papaya with meat effectively tenderizes the meat during the cooking process. (Note: If one has a latex allergy, caution should be used.)
Such uses transcend “old-fashioned” methods by including modern applications as well. Papain is used in some contact lens cleaning solutions (Tyler et al., 1988), as well as in the production of products like chewing gum, shampoo and soap, beer, in drug and anti-bacterial preparations for some digestive ailments, and in wound care. Papaya extracts are also effective in the textile industry for “degumming silk and softening of wool” (TFNetwork, 2016). In 2021, the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center also noted on their website that “papaya leaves and their extracts are sold as dietary supplements to improve the immune system and increase platelet counts….A few clinical studies found benefits of papaya leaf extract in treating dengue fever and in increasing platelet counts,” though they suggested that more studies were needed.
In my small world, papaya has always been “that fruit” (or juice) that I’ve never actually tried and for no particular reason. Fortunately for me, I learned something new that day–that papaya is not just a one-trick pony as I had previously thought; there are plenty of ways this plant is useful to humans, especially for people like Dao from Thailand. Having the opportunity to speak with people like her who have such personal relationships with many of the herbs we grow in the National Herb Garden never gets old!
Ginger, 
Ginger is a very old spice. The Indians and the Chinese used ginger as a medicine over 5000 years ago to treat a variety of ailments (Bode, 2011). It was also used to flavor foods long before history was even recorded. The Greeks and the Romans introduced ginger to Europe and the Mediterranean area by way of the Arab traders. It became an important spice in Europe until the fall of the Roman Empire. When the Arabs re-established trade routes after the fall, ginger found its way back into European apothecaries and kitchens. It is said that one pound of ginger cost the same as one sheep in the 13th and 14
Today, growing culinary ginger is not limited to the hot, humid areas of Southeast Asia and India as it was long ago. Anyone living in southern growing areas (USDA Hardiness Zones 8 – 12) can grow it as a perennial. In colder areas, it can be grown in pots and brought indoors for the winter or grown in the ground, but dug up before frost and potted up for overwintering indoors in a cool location. It prefers a rich, moist soil, good drainage, and shade in the south, but full sun in the north. If starting plants from store-bought ginger rhizomes, the rhizome should be first soaked in water to remove any growth retardant that may have been used. Each rhizome can be cut into sections with at least two eyes and planted in soil. Harvest the rhizomes when the leaves begin to fade. 
using ginger in some form: fresh, ground, crystallized, pickled, preserved, or dried. 
Unfortunately for ginger, there is a dark side to its history. 
Coffea arabica is certainly an interesting herbal plant. This simple, evergreen, small tree or shrub with white flowers is grown in tropical climates. It is native to southern Ethiopia and South Sudan and has been naturalized in Brazil and other South American and African countries. It takes three to four years for a tree to produce the red berries, sometimes called “cherries.” The fruit is hand-picked and the pulp removed to uncover the two seeds in each fruit. These seeds are dried, roasted, and ground to make the coffee that we drink. Scientists at Kew Gardens in England (Kew, 2019) say that the arabica species is now endangered due to deforestation and climate change. However, the less popular robusta species, which is already used in instant and decaffeinated coffees, grows well in Africa and other areas of the world and can fill the needs of the world’s coffee culture.
It is said that coffee was discovered around 850 CE in the Ethiopian highlands by a goat herder who noticed that his goats became lively after eating the berries from the coffee plant. The herder took this observation back to a monk in a nearby monastery. The monk thought it would be worth trying the bean to help him get through his all-night prayer vigils. It worked! Coffee beans then became a way for the religious to sustain their long nights of prayer. From there, the use of the bean spread to Yemen and Turkey, where the Arabs began using the bean both as a medicine and as a stimulating drink. 
The first coffeehouse in Constantinople (now called Istanbul) was established in 1475. There was debate within the Muslim religious community whether or not coffee was an inebriating drink prohibited by the Quran. It was finally decided that since the Quran did not specifically mention coffee, it was allowable for Muslims to drink it. Until 1690, Arabia monopolized the coffee supply. Foreign visitors were forbidden to visit coffee plantations, and only beans that had been roasted or boiled could be exported since the processing made them infertile. The coffee monopoly ended when a man named Sufi Baba Budan smuggled coffee beans taped to his stomach out of Yemen to his native India. The beans grew into coffee plants, plantations followed, and the rest is history.
The first coffeehouse in Europe was opened in Oxford, England, in 1650, and by 1700, there were 2,000 coffeehouses in London alone. The popularity of coffeehouses in Europe coincided with the Enlightenment period, and they became the place where writers, philosophers, and political activists exchanged ideas. British coffee shops became known as “penny universities,” because a cup of coffee cost one cent and you could learn a lot while drinking it and listening to the discussions. In 1675, King Charles II tried to abolish coffeehouses, because the open discussion that occurred in them was perceived to be a danger to the government. However, it was an unpopular decision and did not succeed. The coffeehouse movement continued to grow in England, and many coffeehouses even became specialized. Some became institutions that still exist today, such as the London Stock Exchange and Lloyds of London. 
In America, the American Revolution was plotted in the Green Dragon Tavern, a tavern/coffeehouse in Boston Massachusetts following the Boston Tea Party, which did much to unseat tea as the beverage of choice in the new world. Today, Americans drink 517 million cups of coffee per day (2 cups per day per person) (National Coffee Assoc., 2022) and spent $74.2 billion on coffee in 2015. Coffee is the second largest traded commodity in the world after oil. It battles beer for third place as the most popular drink in the world after water and tea. Starbucks, created in 1985 with just a few coffeeshops, has grown to over 9,000 shops worldwide.
According to Sampath Rarthasarathy, Ph.D., “Coffee is one of the richest sources of phenolics and polyphenols, which are antioxidants. Research shows that these compounds may help prevent or even repair some types of cell damage. A 2018 study found that those who drank coffee were less likely to die early than those who didn’t. And prior research suggests that coffee may reduce the risk of cancer, stroke, and diabetes” (Rockwood, 2019).
As if all of these qualities of coffee were not enough, scientists have also discovered that caffeine is a natural pesticide and speculate that caffeine developed along with the coffee plant as a protection for the plant against harmful insects. They have found that adding caffeine to other natural pesticides increased their effectiveness against insects such as mosquito larvae, hornworms, mealworms, and milkweed bugs.
I grow fennel, 
In the fall, I clip the seed heads and put them in a paper bag. I save some seeds for sowing next year and some for the kitchen. The seeds have medicinal qualities (the foliage does not) and are often served at the end of the meal in restaurants to help with digestion and to freshen the breath. Eating the seeds or making a tea from the seeds can relieve flatulence, bloating, gas, indigestion, cramps, and muscle spasms. Fennel seeds are also called “meeting seeds,” because when the Puritans had long church sermons, they chewed on the seeds to suppress hunger and fatigue.
In the kitchen, seed can be used whole or ground or toasted in a dry frying pan. They can be used as a spice for baking sweets, bread, and crackers, or in sausage or herbal vinegars and in pickling. The seeds have the same anise flavor but are so sweet, they taste like they are sugar-coated. For me, it is like eating small candies, especially tasty after drinking coffee. 
Fennel is easy to grow from seed and should be sowed directly in the garden. The plants have a tap root and do not like to be transplanted. The plants prefer full sun but can tolerate some shade, and they need well-drained soil. Treat them like summer annuals and sow seeds every year. 
Peggy Riccio is the owner of 
Lemon balm, that delightfully lemony herb, has been used medicinally for centuries. 
The marvelous reputations of lemon balm and Carmelite Water spread throughout Europe during the Renaissance, where the healing herb and its elixir were particularly admired by the great English herbalists.
“
Today, although we no longer use lemon balm for infections, numerous clinical studies have shown that lemon balm taken in a wide variety of ingested forms relieves chronic anxiety, reduces laboratory-induced psychological stress, and improves sleep quality (Cases, Ibarra, Feuillère, Roller, and Sukkar, 2011).
To continue my periodic series on 
Do you have formal training in horticulture and/or herb use? Did you have any mentors that particularly inspired or encouraged you? 
How did you go about establishing an organic herb farm?
Which herbs do you find the most challenging to work with and why?
For many business owners, they must sacrifice a lot in terms of personal time and preferences. But, there are also rewards in being the curator of your own products/services. What has been your driving philosophy as you’ve grown Four Elements Organic Herbals?
What advice would you give someone interested in starting their own herbal product line? 
The Herb Society of America Blog 