Have you ever said to yourself or others, “My garden is my therapy?” If you have noticed that you feel more relaxed and even rejuvenated after imbibing the beauty, fragrance, and even hard work in your garden, you are not alone! Gardening provides physical exercise, as well as a rewarding intellectual and emotional connection. When recognized on a personal level, it is not a stretch to see how people in a wide variety of care environments who are facing diverse personal challenges can benefit from professionally facilitated horticultural experiences as well.
The profession of horticultural therapy (HT) was formalized in the early 1970s, though people have sought out gardens and gardening activities for respite and health recovery well before then. The practice of horticultural therapy involves a plant-based activity, a horticultural therapist, client(s), and identified treatment goals and objectives. Either in a group or as individuals, clients participate in outdoor or indoor plant-based activities designed to address their particular health or wellness needs. For example, patients in a rehabilitation hospital can work on standing tolerance, dynamic balance, and coordination by transplanting tea herbs into a planter raised to a comfortable standing height. Later in the season, the patients are rewarded with familiar fragrances as they harvest the herbs to make herb teas and learn about the roles relaxation and stress management play in their recovery.
In another example, adults with brain injuries focus on pre-vocational skills, such as following increasingly complex directions, organizing their work space, and social skills needed for interacting appropriately with coworkers and supervisors, all while growing plants for a sale. They could be growing any plants for sale, but the sensory stimulation from herb plants increases motivation and inspires conversation with customers during the plant sale. I have noticed that HT sessions are often so enjoyable, even with focus and hard work, that participants can feel like they are taking a break from therapy. Yet, they realized real progress towards their goals and objectives.
HT programs are found in diverse organizations addressing a wide range of physical, social, emotional, vocational, and wellness needs for people of all ages. I’ve always said, “If you have seen one horticultural therapy program, you have seen ONE horticultural therapy program!” The flexibility of this field means that programs are unique and creatively designed to fit lots of different organizations–and not all are health care. Most focus on some type of improvement, recovery, or function maintenance ultimately for improved independence and quality of life. Quite often, horticultural therapists co-treat with other clinicians, such as recreation or occupational therapists, speech and language pathologists, social workers, and vocational rehabilitation counselors.
The other by-product of horticultural therapy programs is an environment with lots of plants! Imagine the impact plants have on senior living facilities, psychiatric hospitals, correction and juvenile detention facilities, veterans hospitals, and community support programs for people coping with grief, chronic illness, or cancer. When walking by a “lemon” garden, filled with lemon verbena, lemongrass, lemon basil, lemon thyme, lemon Pelargoniums (scented geraniums), lemon balm, and ‘Lemon Gem’ marigolds, you can hear people talking about all of the different qualities of plants that are all lemon scented. Lemon has long been associated with uplifted feelings, good moods, refreshment, and even more alertness. These plants, and their fragrant qualities, can compliment treatment programs, as well as add appeal to the overall garden. It is safe to say, these plant-rich environments provide benefits to clients, families, visitors, and staff as well! Some programs also sell plants to staff or the public to practice social and vocational skills and raise funds for their programs at the same time.
I learned about horticultural therapy as a profession from my high school guidance counselor who had read about the field in a book. I never learned what book that was, but I have enjoyed a rewarding career of watching people discover the joy of growing and harvesting plants, making food, or other products from the fruits of their labor, while they have focused, struggled, delighted, and triumphed in their pursuit of self improvement. To learn more about horticultural therapy and how herbs are incorporated into the practice, join our webinar on February 14th, 2023, at 1pm Eastern. It is free for members and $7.50 for non members https://www.herbsociety.org/hsa-learn/herb-education/hsa-webinars/
Photo Credits: 1) Planting an herb garden; 2) Gardening in a raised bed; 3) Potting up plants; 4) Mint cuttings in a baggie; 5) Lemon herbs in a small “container” garden. All photos courtesy of the author.
Karen Kennedy has been the Education Coordinator for the Herb Society of America since 2012. She coordinates and moderates monthly educational webinars, gives presentations, manages digital education programs, including three herbal fiction book clubs, and produces educational materials, such as the Herb of the Month program. Karen is a registered horticultural therapist (HT) with over 35 years of HT and wellness programming experience in health care, social service organizations, and public gardens. She has been a faculty member at the Horticultural Therapy Institute since 2002 and served on the board of The American Horticultural Therapy Association. Karen received the AHTA Rhea McCandliss Professional Service Award (1994) and the American Horticultural Society Horticultural Therapy Award (2009). She co-wrote/edited the foundational text, The Profession and Practice of Horticultural Therapy, published in 2019. Karen loves to garden, knit, drink tea, and is a big fan of her daughter’s soccer teams.
Fall and winter are the perfect “thyme” to enjoy some new seasonal herbal libations. As we move away from the oppressive heat of summer with our icy and light drinks enjoyed by the pool or lakeside, we can curate our offerings with the stronger, more flavorful herbs. Herbal cocktails and mocktails continue to be very popular and have the perfect flavor profile for wowing our guests as we entertain for the holidays.
Start with the classics and embellish them with herbs. One of the very first cocktails I enjoyed was a classic Bloody Mary. I loved tomato juice, and I was totally infatuated and intrigued with the celery stick garnish. (It didn’t take much to impress me at that early age!) Now, I have so much fun with a Bloody Mary, and it doesn’t taste anything like that Plain Jane Bloody Mary of years past. There are so many herbs that pair nicely with tomatoes. With a high-powered blender, add a few Mediterranean herbs to the juice. There will be a wonderful flavor without the flecks of herbs floating in the glass. Then, to top it off, add a salted rim around the top. Not just any plain salt will do. Make your own finishing salt with chile and a little lime. Yum!
Now it’s time to party! Invite a few friends over, serve some appetizers and your wonderful new herbal creations, and enjoy the accolades. Salut!
As a Virginia home gardener and herb enthusiast, I grow many of my culinary herbs from seed at the beginning of the summer and I purchase a few tropicals. I have my staples, simple names such as pineapple sage, lemongrass, lemon verbena, basil, dill, cilantro, and parsley. Of course, the garden is littered with the perennials: sage, lavender, rosemary, oregano, knot marjoram, thyme, germander, yarrow, chives, and lovage. All of them have stories; their useful properties have been known for generations.
Some of the well-known stories involve better rosemary plants. The cold-hardy ‘Arp’ cultivar was discovered by Madalene Hill, who managed Hilltop Herb Farm in Texas. While visiting family in Arp, Texas, she noticed a robust rosemary plant blooming in January and took cuttings. Years later, Cyrus Hyde, owner of New Jersey herb nursery Well-Sweep Herb Farm, noticed a sport, a naturally occurring mutation, on one of his ‘Arp’ plants. He propagated the sport, which was more compact with greener foliage, and named it ‘Madelene Hill’. Today, ‘Arp’ and ‘Madelene Hill’, also known as ‘Hill Hardy’, are some of the most cold hardy rosemary plants on the market. 
Jim Westerfield, owner of an Illinois bed and breakfast, was an amateur breeder who loved mints. By cross pollinating mint varieties, he produced more than 50 hybrids with interesting names and flavors such as ‘Iced Hazelnut’,‘Jessie’s Sweet Pear’,‘Marshmallow Mint’, and ‘Cotton Candy’. It took Jim seven years to produce one of the only patented mints, ‘Hillary’s Sweet Lemon Mint’, named after Hillary Rodham Clinton. His mints live on through trademarks and patents and are only available at Richters in Canada and Fragrant Fields in Missouri. 
Now, instead of serendipity playing a role, companies are intentionally breeding for “better” traits. Driving this is consumer demand of course, but in the world of culinary herbs, consumers can be just about anyone from field growers, hydroponic growers, grocery stores, nurseries, seed companies, gardeners, and non-gardeners who just want to buy a fresh basil plant for the kitchen counter. I talked with many seed companies, university researchers, and growers to learn what traits they were interested in and why. I learned who was focusing on certain herbs, which herbs have a lot of possibilities for our market, and new herb cultivars that will be available to the public. Join me in this behind-the-scenes look at efforts to improve your herb garden as well as expand your staples of plants. 
Peggy Riccio is the owner of 
Sherlock Holmes said it best in the 1945 movie, 
Arguably the most well-known historical female poisoner is Giulia Tofana, an Italian woman who lived in the mid-17
Still, there’s a reason I was drawn to the idea of women poisoners and, more importantly, the ways that women sought agency in a historical sense. 
Join Sarah Tuesday, May 10 at 1pm Eastern for her webinar: Unburying the Secrets of The Lost Apothecary. Our webinars are free to 
Many gardeners are surprised to learn that 
In 2005, we started our first tea garden here in the Piedmont region of North Carolina—including our Camellia Forest favorites—varieties that grow well and are proven to be cold hardy (having survived -15°
Any long-term relationship takes effort, and sometimes I have to ask myself, Why do I love growing tea? One of my favorite reasons is that tea gardening requires slowing down to meet the rhythm of the plant over the years and seasons. Fourteen hundred years ago, tea traveled alongside Buddhism to Japan and Korea—a perfect pairing. The relaxing qualities imparted by L-theanine, together with the stimulating effects of caffeine, support focused attention. Harvesting and processing tea by hand can be a timeless and meditative activity. Tea aroma is especially pleasurable, even intoxicating, as the leaves travel from garden to teacup—plants in the sunshine, freshly plucked leaf, and the aromas that develop with processing. Last, but not least, bees love tea (flowers)! 
I began my herbal journey as a young teenager, living with my grandmother in a small apartment on the edge of town, where the city’s manicured lawns met the uneven wildness of the forest. In this forest, I spent a great deal of my time growing up amongst the bracken fern and mighty willows, and it was here that I first encountered 
In the years since my first cup of wintergreen tea, I’ve come to understand that although Nature’s gifts are plenty, they surely are not inexhaustible. It is our responsibility as herbalists and stewards of the land to teach and to practice sustainable systems; systems that work in tandem with Nature’s cycles, systems that recognize Nature’s gifts not as commodities to be taken and consumed, but as partners, allies, with which we must learn to work together. The relationship between man and nature must be reciprocal because man and nature are, in fact, the same.
An artisan is a highly-skilled craftsman that produces something in limited quantities, often using traditional methods. Just as the artisan baker endeavors to procure the finest flours for their creations, and the artisan cheesemaker lovingly crafts high-quality cheeses from the freshest local kinds of milk, the artisan herbalist adheres to these same principles of quality craftsmanship and traditional methodology. The hands-on, small-batch philosophy of the artisan allows for responsible consumption, never taking more than is needed and always focusing on producing the best possible products with the materials readily available.
Join Bevin this 
Last winter the urgent care center diagnosed me with the flu, and I’ve never been quite as sick as I was for that month. I spent several days in bed and used all sorts of herbal remedies to support healing. Daquil/Nyquil just made me feel worse and went straight into the garbage.
Supposedly, four thieves from Marseilles were robbing plague-ridden corpses without getting sick. They are thought to have been perfumers with access to and knowledge of essential oils, herbs, and spices.
To learn about other herbs that can help keep you healthy during cold and flu season, join Nicole Telkes for her webinar, Supporting Immunity with Herbs, on 
The lazy days of summer quickly transition to the more scheduled and hurried days of autumn. While glorious hues are found in changing leaf color and late season blooms like goldenrod and Joe-Pye weed, the pace of our world undeniably quickens during this season. Add the additional stress and worry about the Covid-19 pandemic and the message is clear–take time to personally cultivate peace and manage stress.
One of the most enjoyable aspects of the garden is fragrance. The sense of smell is closely tied to our limbic system and can have a powerful impact on feelings of well-being. The fragrance of herbs such as lavender has a well-known association with relaxation and stress relief. Lavender also has a long history of having skin soothing properties, is a sleep aid, and can even relieve headaches. This favorite garden herb is now easily found in all sorts of self-care products from shampoo to body lotions. 
Maria will share other aspects of using peaceful herbs in The Herb Society’s upcoming webinar: 
The nightshade family of plants sounds ominous – how could it not with the use of the words night and shade? The official name of this family is Solanaceae, and these plants are characterized by the shape of the flower, which in some cases feature near perfect pentagrams of petals, sepals, and stamens, and in others the petals are fused to form long tubes.
Although many plants in this family are edible, others are recognized for their hallucinogenic properties, use in witchcraft, and/or some level of toxicity. The toxicity comes from the level of alkaloids the plant contains, and the effects of these alkaloids are what made them useful historically. For example, thornapple (
About Erin Holden: Erin Holden works at the U.S. National Arboretum as gardener for the National Herb Garden, where she started as an intern in 2013. She received a B.S. in biology from Radford University, an M.S. in herbal medicine from the Maryland University of Integrative Health, and recently completed a horticulture minor through Oregon State University. In 2018 she helped launch Herban Lifestyles, an herbal educational series at the Arboretum that teaches participants how to incorporate herbs into everyday life, from dyeing with plants to making herbal salves.
Chocolate: food or medicine? For centuries, chocolate was consumed primarily as medicine. Cacao, from which chocolate is derived, was the basis for prescriptions promising relief from such ailments as anemia, alopecia, fever, gout, heart disease, kidney and liver disease, along with tuberculosis. Prescriptions from the 16th and 17th centuries would combine cacao with cinnamon, sugar, pepper, cloves, vanilla, and/or anise to ease common complaints. Certainly modern day amoxicillin could benefit from such a delicious concoction. 
Join us on January 12th at 1pm EST when HSA’s guest speaker and author, Sarah Lohman, joins us for a “History of Chocolate.” During this program, we’ll uncover the history of chocolate, from its roots as an ancient Meso-American beverage to a contemporary melt-in-your-mouth chocolate bar. You’ll learn how a yellow, football-shaped tropical fruit transforms into high-end dark chocolate and what “Mexican Hot Chocolate” actually has in common with what Montezuma drank. We’ll cover botany, “Chocolate Wars,” and what makes Hershey’s distinctive flavor.
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