Soothing Herbals Botanical Sanctuary
Stewards: Chin Velasquez and Raleigh Mason
We are deeply grateful to United Plant Savers for giving us the opportunity to create a medicine trail on our recently established botanical sanctuary in Goshen, VA. It’s been an inspiring and amazing experience so far, and we are excited for it to keep on growing.
We received $250 this past summer, and bought blue cohosh, American ginseng, goldenseal, wild yam and wild ginger from Jeff McCormick’s Garden Medicinals in Earlysville, VA. We also drove 2 hours to Peter Heus’ Enchanter’s Garden in Hinton, WV and purchased helonias root, sundew, trillium, true unicorn, venus fly trap, gentian, partridge berry, pink root, spikenard, stone root, turkey corn, Jack in the pulpit, wild indigo and Solomon’s seal.
We started getting the trail ready for planting in mid-September, mainly clearing brush and moving fallen logs to guide the path. We brought in a truckload of leaf mulch and wood chips and mixed them into the beds along the trail. Soon after, we received our plant giveaway roots from John Lentz, and the next day I planted 3 American Ginseng, 3 Goldenseal and 3 Pink Root. We also received 4 Wild Yam rhizomes in the mail from Jeff McCormick, which I planted the following day. After they nestled in to their new spots, I sat with them and silently said a prayer for their healthy new growth next spring.
On October 11 we had our first planting workshop with the city of Lexington’s Montessori Kindergarteners. 13 children, their 2 teachers and 4 volunteer parents came on an afternoon after days of heavy rain, which was much needed. We started with and opening circle at our Medicine Wheel Garden, smudging white sage around the circle and singing a song. Then we proceeded to the woods where the Medicine Trail is, and planted helonias root, partridge berry, pink root, spikenard, stone root, turkey corn and trillium. We said a prayer of blessing for the plants and talked about native “at risk” plants and how the children were helping restore these wonderful plants back into their natural habitat. Finally, we had a tea making demonstration for the kids and drank some Lemon Balm Peppermint Tea before it was time for them to go.
As I write this, the cool, crisp autumn air surrounds our place, and the feeling of settling in for the winter comes over me. We are still waiting for Jeff to dig up the rest of our order, and when we receive it in a couple of weeks, I’ll take my husband Raleigh and our 2 sons, Evan and Aiden out to the trail and we’ll finish up the rest of the fall planting, giving new homes to blue cohosh, wild ginger, and more American ginseng and goldenseal.
Again, we thank all of you at UpS for having faith in our project and granting the funds to help us make it happen. Blessings to all of you!