Australian herb nerd

[Fey]

IVE LEFT THIS FORUM DUE TO DISHONEST ALTERATIONS AND DELETIONS OF MY POSTS

G’day everyone; I’m from Australia and I’ve been a herb nerd ever since I was a child watching TV when I saw Tarzan put some black goo from a tree on a wound which then miraculously healed. Now in my 50s, I live in the ranges of Queensland, on the escarpment, where rain is plentiful, the creek always flows and the soil grows everything. I have koalas in the trees and kangaroos in my yard, and every sunrise I wake to a ruckus of birdsong.

My patch of paradise is complete with a small herd of goats, bee hives, off grid power, 37 varieties of fruit trees, chooks, guinea fowls and my lovely pack of dogs. I have never seen snow in my life, but drought, floods and fire can be horrendous.

I find it difficult to buy certain herbs in Australia so I resort to raising most from seed that I’ve bought from overseas. There are a lot of herbs growing wild, either native or escaped introduced weeds, 48 at my last count. These are just the ones I recognise and I’m sure there’s many more. I’ve planted a lot more and over the years I’ve opened up a whole new area of interest of learning how to coax difficult or shy seeds to germinate. The things I’ve done to wake them up…….. I grow herbs from all over the world and some take a little convincing and nurturing to have them believe they can call Australia home. Others just flourish and decide straight away that they like it here.

I walk around my gardens every day; I recite the plants’ names, then their botanical names, then what they give as medicine. Then I go to the shade house to say hello to any little surprises that have poked their tiny noses out of the soil overnight. Like I said, I’m a herb nerd.

I’m a prepper so I also grow food plants on a permaculture scale, and I can walk down a suburban street and find a filling, nutritious meal for a dozen people from plants that people are growing as ornaments in their yards.

The one thing on my bucket list…. I have to make an alchemical elixir and Red Root (Ceanothus americanus) is calling to me for that one. They are only four inches high at the moment, so it won’t be for a while yet.

I save the best for last of course. I’m been married to the most amazing man for 33years and we are blessed to have two beautiful, loving, awesome daughters.

I’m looking forward to sharing information about herbs. America is so rich in the herblore knowledge of their native plants.

[IdahoHerbalist]

Welcome to our world!

It sounds like we could trade places and be very comfortable. We are trying to establish an herbal food forest on our 1.6 acres too. :yahoo:

I believe I have well over 100 medicinal plants here. Many were here when we moved in and Patrick helped us discover them. We were shooting for a park like setting with a pump fed live stream, walking trails and pretty plants. Then Patrick introduced us to our plants. Well, we have most of that but the pretty plants are, well, weeds mostly.

I am personally trying to discover how to grow some of the more important eastern US medicinal plants here in the desert of southern Idaho. Things I am currently working with are golden seal, black cohosh and a new one, panax ginseng! False Unicorn is on my list as well. Had some germinated but they all perished for one reason or another, usually lack of care on our part.

[Fey]

Your place sounds wonderful; I’d love to hear about what you’re growing in the food forest. So many edible plants and fruit trees have a medicinal side to them. I’ve grown guavas, loquats and mulberries for decades and then found out that parts of the trees are medicinal.

It’s so exciting to learn I have a plant already growing that can be used as medicine.

I’m growing goldenseal next to the bloodroot in the shade house. I had bloodroot under the khat tree for a while but such a delicate plant can disappear so fast if forgotten in the spring, which is a dry season for us here. So now I have shade-loving herbs in the one place; Blue Cohosh in the deep shade, Bloodroot, Solomon’s Seal, and Goldenseal in dappled shade, Black Cohosh, Culver’s Root and Spikenard out further with just the shade cloth for protection. Every place is different though. What will grow in full sun in one place needs shade in another part of the country. I think whenever someone decides to grow Black Cohosh, it should always come with a warning though….to label it clearly if they are also growing Red Baneberry. They are so very similar. I look at one, look at the other, and feel the leaves for a difference; I’m glad they flower differently or it could end up a dangerous mistake.

I was lucky when I started growing some of the more delicate American herbs. I was in touch with a man in Melbourne who had been growing Goldenseal for years. His advice was invaluable! His emphasis on soil type was very clear, that I had to mix hardwood leaf litter into the soil. Sometimes I dig out an area and replace the soil to suit the plant, a small effort for the reward.

I’d like to grow panax ginseng too. I can’t buy rootlets here so I’d have to buy seeds. They’re horribly expensive. I just looked up False Unicorn and doesn’t that one look spectacular! I just read that they are difficult to transplant because of fine hair roots and they like heavy shade and acid soil (I always keep a pot of Azalea fertiliser for plants like that). You’ve got me intrigued with this one.

One plant/seeds I can never get….Rehmannia glutinosa. I’ve searched on the internet everywhere for many years and only one company sells seeds for $200 kg. I only want a few. I won’t give up. It took over thirty years to find fo-ti (Polygonum multiflorum), but I still managed to get it in the end.

It’s so wonderful to finally find people who talk about medicinal herbs. This Herb course is unique in that people aren’t scared to use the herbs they grow, and so, the experiences learned from others is just what everyone so desperately needs. I’ll be using lobelia with confidence now instead of always reading; “too dangerous to use”. Nothing is dangerous if the preparation and dosage is known and adhered to, and so many medicinal herb books have shied away from that information. Even qualified herbalists in Australia will only use “safe” herbs.

I’d love to know which ones you have growing. Do you grow non-American herbs too? Do you ever intend to say you have enough?

[IdahoHerbalist]

Fey wrote: Nothing is dangerous if the preparation and dosage is known and adhered to, and so many medicinal herb books have shied away from that information. Even qualified herbalists in Australia will only use “safe” herbs.

This is because GOVERNMENTS (nanny statists) think they know more than people do. Like our discussion on ephedra. The WHOLE PLANT is not dangerous at all. The over reaction to the CONCENTRATED form makes everything about the plant “dangerous” in their view. Isn’t that just ridiculous?

Please comment on my goldenseal thread: Let me know what I should be doing differently. I got a bunch of black on the leaves this year. Actually my first growth year. I am thinking it might be too much direct Sun, but am not sure. Maybe a fungus too?

[Fey]

By the way, anyone who has the patience and perseverance to go the two years necessary to germinate False Unicorn Root, should be called “the seed whisperer”. I’d love to learn about the process you used. Have you written about it somewhere on the forum?

[IdahoHerbalist]

Two years? Nope. Less than one year.

There is a thread in the cultivation forum someplace. Let me know if you cannot find it. That will get you digging around some more too! :LOL:

[Fey]

I did a search eventually when I couldn’t find how you germinated False Unicorn Root but the only place it’s mention is in this thread and a pregnancy thread. Did you mean the paper towel method? I thought that couldn’t be it because False Unicorn Root – like Blue Cohosh – sends a root down in the first year and the shoot up in the second year. However, then I thought did you use the paper towel method until the root started and then planted the seeds for them to shoot the following year? Yes?

I’ve had mixed outcomes with using paper towelling for germinating, probably because of questionable seed quality.

[IdahoHerbalist]

BINGO. I watched for just the barely started root and then transferred to dirt.

I have had mixed results as well. Mine were from being TOO WET I think.

[Dr. Patrick JonesHomestead Instructor]

Fey wrote: By the way, anyone who has the patience and perseverance to go the two years necessary to germinate False Unicorn Root, should be called “the seed whisperer”. I’d love to learn about the process you used. Have you written about it somewhere on the forum?

I bought some False Unicorn seed from a company online. I planted them and said nice things to them for two years. When they came up, they were Echinacea!

Apparently I was whispering the wrong things. :confused:

Doc

Don't use herbs or combine herbs with medications or use them during lactation or pregnancy without talking with your healthcare provider.

[Dr. Patrick JonesHomestead Instructor]

IdahoHerbalist wrote: BINGO. I watched for just the barely started root and then transferred to dirt.

I have had mixed results as well. Mine were from being TOO WET I think.

Yeah, I think “too wet” is usually the problem when mine don’t work.

Doc

Don't use herbs or combine herbs with medications or use them during lactation or pregnancy without talking with your healthcare provider.

[Fey]

I’m getting a bit of a medicinal botanical garden going on here. I’ve just counted the varieties of herbs I have growing. Apart from the 48 wild grown ones, I’ve planted 147 others. Strange, because I still don’t have any culinary herbs. There’s still easily another 100 I’d like to get. My latest is Schisandra. Because it can’t be bought anywhere in Australia, I had to grow it from seed. I managed to get 27 seedlings up. Once they’re up out of the ground, they’re very tough. Everywhere on the Net there’s people saying they can’t get the seeds to germinate, and with Schisandra, I could only get it to send out a root but not a stem every time I tried to grow it. There’s definitely methods to use for individual seeds that some people would never think to use.

[Dr. Patrick JonesHomestead Instructor]

So did you use the paper towel trick with the Schizandra or something else?

Don't use herbs or combine herbs with medications or use them during lactation or pregnancy without talking with your healthcare provider.

[IdahoHerbalist]

I have started to really like WebMD for research. Here is their page on Schisandra:

Probably should break this out into the Med Herb forum.

And an article I found from someone that went to China to research it:

This thing sounds like something we should be trying to grow Patrick! Think we could keep your goats out of it?

Just made an interesting find. Typically they are male and female plants. I guess some smart guy in Russia has developed a selfing variety called Eastern Prince!

One source of plants:

[Fey]

I’ve read on other forums where people aren’t happy with the Eastern Prince hybrid.

It took me nine months to germinate the seeds to actual baby plants. I tried a few times over the past 15 years and, using extensive research from the Net, only got the seeds to a rooting stage. I used to use the paper towel method years ago, and it’s good for some seeds but I haven’t used that method now for about two years for any seed raising at all.

I’ve read where Schisandra is even becoming rare in the wild. Only half the germination details are available on the Net with one crucial point in the beginning not mentioned at all and a whole process at the end that nobody seems to have even thought of. I stumbled across it when I accidentally, but very easily, germinated Yerba Mansa. It made me look at seeds from an alchemical stand point.

I don’t have a blanket method for seeds anymore. I treat every type of plant like they are a puzzle to be worked out. I look at where they come from, the conditions they grow in, and the natural process they would experience to germinate in the wild. I don’t just scarify, stratify and bung in the dirt and hope for the best.

[Fey]

I’ve tried posting photos but it seems the iPad isn’t compatible with this feature. I can email photos to myself from the phone and save to images and , of course, send them by email. But, I can’t put them into Notes or paste them into this forum.

The Tapatalk Ap isn’t getting good reviews, in fact, it’s getting very bad reviews, so I’ll wait for its next update before mucking around with that. I might have to dig out the laptop….. 😥 it burns up all my gigerage (what do you think of THAT word?)

Is there a different way to post a photo? I have so many herbs flowering at the moment and they are always such a good identifying feature.

I’ve taken photos of the massive barberry covered in berries, and this year, for the first time, the Oregon Grape has fruit on it (it’s easily 10 feet tall). I’ve got a little 4 inch statue that I put beside the plants in all my photos to put things into perspective and to show my photos as uniquely mine.

[Dr. Patrick JonesHomestead Instructor]

Fey wrote: I’ve tried posting photos but it seems the iPad isn’t compatible with this feature. I can email photos to myself from the phone and save to images and , of course, send them by email. But, I can’t put them into Notes or paste them into this forum.

The Tapatalk Ap isn’t getting good reviews, in fact, it’s getting very bad reviews, so I’ll wait for its next update before mucking around with that. I might have to dig out the laptop….. 😥 it burns up all my gigerage (what do you think of THAT word?)

Is there a different way to post a photo? I have so many herbs flowering at the moment and they are always such a good identifying feature.

I’ve taken photos of the massive barberry covered in berries, and this year, for the first time, the Oregon Grape has fruit on it (it’s easily 10 feet tall). I’ve got a little 4 inch statue that I put beside the plants in all my photos to put things into perspective and to show my photos as uniquely mine.

I think you’d have to use a real computer to upload photos. Tapatalk is pretty basic. I don’t think it can do photos even from an iPad.

I’m happy to post some photos for you in the mean time if you’ll email them to me. Send to doc(at)homegrownherbalist.net

Doc

Don't use herbs or combine herbs with medications or use them during lactation or pregnancy without talking with your healthcare provider.

[Fey]

I just saw this; thank you.

I take all my photos with the iPhone but I was talking to a friend who does storm chasing and he has a camera that he can photograph the tiniest details on an insect. Of course I straight away thought it would be good to have a photographic record of my herbs from seed to flower. That’s what I’ll be aiming for down the track.

I’ll get some photos to you soon.

[IdahoHerbalist]

Thanks for the reminder that I needed to test your theory about the iPad. Go to this thread:

That was done with my iPad. It is NOT the iPad, it is Tap A Talk that is the limiting feature. That is one reason I do not use that app. I always log on through a URL and a regular browser.

[Dr. Patrick JonesHomestead Instructor]

IdahoHerbalist wrote: Thanks for the reminder that I needed to test your theory about the iPad. Go to this thread:

That was done with my iPad. It is NOT the iPad, it is Tap A Talk that is the limiting feature. That is one reason I do not use that app. I always log on through a URL and a regular browser.

Good to know. Thanks Steven.

Doc

Don't use herbs or combine herbs with medications or use them during lactation or pregnancy without talking with your healthcare provider.

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