From HerbMentor.com, this is Herb Mentor Radio.
You are listening to Herb Mentor Radio on HerbMentor.com. I'm John Gallagher. My guest today is Emily Ruff. Emily is a community herbalist and health educator who has practiced the art and science of plant healing for over a decade. Her studies have taken her to three continents where she has studied under indigenous healers of many traditions. Emily founded Orinda Herbals and is director of the Florida School of the School of Holistic Living.
Through the school she founded, the Community Herbal Clinic and the Florida Herbal Conference. The Florida Herbal Conference is coming up, February fifteenth to the seventeenth two thousand thirteen in Orlando, and you can find out about it at floridaherbalconference.org. We'll talk about that a bit later. You can visit Emily at emily ruff, r u f f, dot com. Emily, welcome.
Thanks, John. Thanks for having me.
You know, many of, y'all listening know Emily from her mentoring in the Rosemary's Remedies course with Rosemary Gladstar that Learning Herbs did fairly recently.
And, so that's where I met Emily up at Sage Mountain.
And you were apprentice you've apprenticed with Rosemary Gladstone for years. So what's that like? Tell us about that experience.
Pretty much a dream come true, I would say, for anyone that has a love of plants and healing.
Rosemary, for many of us, has been a mentor through her books for many decades and through her correspondence course. And so any of you that have had the chance to meet her at a conference or the international, the women's conference maybe, know that she just has such wisdom, but also such a presence about her, such a spirit. And I think that as much as she shares this really deep knowledge of the plant, she also shares that sort of spiritual wisdom, that life wisdom with many of us just by being around her. So, for being able to study with her, apprentice with her for the past eight or nine years has really been a gift, but, especially this past summer to get to share a home with her at Sage Mountain. It's truly a blessing.
It's it was and it was really amazing just to see how you're able to work in the gardens there and help with the with the, you know, take care of the apothecary and all the different things there and just a really a lifestyle thing. Is that what it's, you you know, I've kind of noticed that a lot of people think herbalism is about, you know, fixing a health problem. It really is a life style and that's kind of something that Rosemary really encourages. Right?
Absolutely. It's about the day to day choices. So like she says in her herbal recipes book, you can't get good health from a cup of tea. It's about the choices that you make, the lifestyle choices that you make day in and day out. And that's more than a commitment to taking your herbs consistently, though that's certainly a big part of it. But the food choices that we make, the ability to get outside and have some fresh air, to exercise, commune with the plants, find joy in our life, all of those aspects are an important part of our daily medicine too.
So let's go back in time a bit.
You you come from a family of botanists and gardeners, so and your dad was a botany professor. So this is kinda like something that that you were just kind of, you know, it was it's almost hereditary.
Right?
In a sense, absolutely. I was you know, I always remark that I was learning Latin names, like, at the age of three with my dad walking around in the forest behind my house and taking plant walks, and we'd come upon the camphor tree and, you know, we wouldn't leave until I would recite Cinnamomum camphor a three or four times. And, so certainly having an introduction to the plant world, in that really intimate way. And then with my grandfather, who's an urban farmer, you know, around that same age, he set aside some garden beds that were my bed.
So as a child, it was my responsibility to tend to the pepper plants and tend to the tomatoes. And, so that early relationship with the plants really opened the door for me to then, as an adult, learn more about their healing benefits and healing properties because that wasn't necessarily a part of the teachings of my parents or grandparents. That was something sort of new that I got to add and introduce to them later on in life. But, certainly, any of you that have had a family member, a relative that's been a gardener, worked on the land knows how important that early introduction to nature and to the plant world really is.
And so, those of you that are adults listening that have children in your lives, even if it's a neighbor or a niece or a nephew, the more that we can really bring kids away from the the Xbox and the Wii and the Facebook and out into nature, it the earlier we can do that, the more that that instills that love for them.
I agree. You know, I I, I have a thirteen year old boy, and and it's, though we haven't had the Xbox yet, he's still you know, he he loves being on the screen. And and we are people that early on, we were doing as much as we could with plants with the kids and stuff. And but what I do see is even though he, you know, is doing does these things that the other kids do, he definitely has that sense of wanting to be outdoors and wanting to learn and spend, like, he actually really enjoys it, looks forward to the days that he has. So it actually works and as you see with Emily folks, look what happens when you do this with your children.
And so this led you to traveling. I'm really interested in hearing about, so you so basically, you're you're you had that instilled in you at an early age, and then you it's at some point, you you you took this on as your own in your own path. And was that about the time you started traveling? Or Mhmm.
It certainly was. In fact, when I was eighteen, I traveled down to Guatemala, and more to appease a travel bug than to really realize I was gonna set out on my life's journey. But, I traveled to Guatemala, and I happened into a position where, I was able to apprentice with a doctor in the village where I was staying. And, it really changed everything that I knew about wellness, about health, about medicine.
It was, you know, the doctors that practice in more traditional ways aren't like the five minute quick in and out doctor visit that we're used to in the United States. You know, the doctor visit there, the first thing we would do is we would burn some incense and smudge, and then we would sing and we would pray, and then we would spend thirty or forty minutes catching up about a person's family. So, you know, right there, we've spent more time in person getting to know them than most people get out of, you know, six or seven visits combined to get to see their doctor.
But that was really where I was awakened to the plants because we would see a patient, and then instead of sending them to a pharmacy, which, you know, you'd have to travel five or six villages over to get to one of those, we would take them out to the gardens and the forest behind the house, and we would teach them about the plants, introduce them to the plants, show them how to harvest them, bring them inside, show them how to prepare them, and really empower them with sort of the goal of, hopefully, we wouldn't have to see them very much in the future because they would have the experience and the knowledge they needed to care for themselves.
And that was sort of what what started it out. I returned to the states and, honestly, a part of it was I returned to the states, with a bit of a stomach bug, from my travels, which isn't uncommon, but I unfortunately or fortunately managed to get it at the very tail end of my trip as I was flying home. And so after a few days of, great discomfort, I went and saw my family physician, and I received a round of pharmaceuticals that made the condition a lot worse. And I was sort of bouncing for several weeks between different cocktails of drugs and different specialists.
And finally, it was through a courier message down to that doctor I had apprenticed with that I was given the suggestion of some herbs to take. And within a few days, my symptoms cleared up after weeks and weeks of being really desperately ill. And that was a big awakening for me to really have this personal experience, seeing how the modern medical system isn't always serving our needs and in a lot of times it's making them worse.
I was gonna ask you if there was any specific experience that was the turnaround point, you know, when you're traveling and you had that, you know, like, this is what I wanna do, and it sounds like that was it, That was it.
Absolutely.
Do you remember one of the herbs or what was I mean, were there were there Guatemala herbs or were there ones you could see?
Were, but, you know, I live in Florida, and so something really unique to the collection of medicinal plants that our ecology, thrives here is that many of our medicinal plants are, sort of travelers themselves from other countries. We have the good fortune of having an environment where plants from India and Africa five. And so one of the plants that he had recommended was a plant that's often known as worm seed or Mexican tea, And one of its names is also epazote. And epazote is an herb that's used very traditionally for parasites, amoeba, bacteria, fungal infections, and just so happened to be a very common weed here in Central Florida. So a lot of good crossover there.
Oh, wow. And then at that point, you're like, okay. I wanna learn learn a little more more I wanna, you know, get into this. And did is that why you traveled more to learn more about plants?
Absolutely. Yeah. I did do a lot of traveling. I, continued to go back down to Central America, Mexico, Guatemala, and travel and study there, and then also States, that was around the time that I was introduced to Rosemary's work, and I began to sort of study through her correspondence and her books and then had the good fortune of completing her apprentice program a few years after that.
And so just really spent several years just with a voracious appetite for learning about the plants.
And especially in traveling, that was really important for me because the plants that backyard medicine here are not the plants that we, find in Rosemary's books necessarily. And so I really had to travel, to other places to learn about them a little bit more.
Such as the distant and foreign northeast Right.
To to visit some of the plants that you don't have during our We don't have.
There in Florida.
Let's see.
Oh, wow.
So let's see here, you know, you since you are in Florida there and you have a lot of herbs growing around you that a lot of us have heard of but don't have, you know, access to or the fortune to to study up close. I thought what we would do would be fun for folks listening is, like, you know, get a little bit of a do a little bit of virtual, plant walk, if you will. Because you're, also thinking about maybe putting together a a book in the future or so on on on on the plants of at the botanical uses of the plants of Florida?
That in the works. So maybe sometime next year, we'll, be back on to talk about that.
But I hope so.
So let's see. So let's let's do that. Let's let's let's go on a little plant walk here and, let's start with, probably one of your more popular Florida herbs and herbal medicine used, saw palmetto.
Mhmm. Saw palmetto berry, seranoirepin, is such a amazing anti inflammatory.
It's really been used, both in a very clinical setting and also with full history for prostate enlargement, prostate cancer, even used a lot for the urinary tract.
These huge, huge, huge saw palmetto bushes are, really, they get their name for a reason. If you walk through a patch of them, I advise you to be very well protected because they do have little saw teeth all up and down their front. So, they can be quite vicious if you're, not prepared for that. And the berries fruit in the fall, September time, October time. So we get about three or four weeks, one shot every year. But we're one of the few states that, does cultivate sal palmetto, and it really is an essential part of the ecology, supports over, sixty one animals and reptiles, amphibians, a whole bunch of birds and insects rely on it. And one of those animals is actually the Florida black bear, who in the months of September and October, the saw palmetto berries are one of its main sources of food for those two months.
And unfortunately, what we have seen in the past three or four decades due to a lot of development of different communities, housing, commercial development in the state of Florida, and especially in my area in central Florida. We've seen, the bears really being affected by the loss of that food source due to the development of the habitat of the saw palmetto.
So it's something that I try to encourage my students to be really mindful when they're using it, try to find a really good sustainable source for it.
And another issue with the saw palmetto is that it is a lot of work to harvest. And so oftentimes, migrant workers are, solicited for the harvesting process because it's not very glamorous work. You get really chewed up out there. You're doing it in September and October, which in other states you may be starting to feel the fall weather, but that's still very much late summer for us in Florida.
So you're hot, you're sweaty, you're getting all cut up. There's, you know, snakes that are supported by the environment that are kind of a risk. And so, there's a lot of social justice issues too to the harvest of this plant. So I always encourage folks within the state, but especially from outside of the state to try to find a really good company to work with, the source your saw palmetto, so that you know that it's being sustainably harvested and mindful of those Florida black bears especially and also mindful of, the good folks that are harvesting that medicine for us.
And do you have any suggestions of a good source for I'm also asking personally, as a male in his in his early forties, it's an herb that I he take regularly.
Absolutely. Well, my my standard answer, especially for folks outside of Florida, you know, there's a few smaller companies, independent companies that have a pretty limited supply and mostly sell it out around here just to locals. But Mountain Rose Herbs, as you know, John, is always being really, really mindful about where they're sourcing their products from, and have such an incredibly high standard of ethics, both for sustainability and social justice. So they're always a really good place to start.
Where where where else besides, the for the most of the industry in South Palmetto, where are most of where where is it mostly coming from? Has it come from other countries or is further south or how is it mostly coming from Florida?
I know that a good bit of it is from Florida. The last, record that I saw was somewhere around seventy to eighty percent is coming from the state of Florida. I believe that some of it may be coming from further south. I know that it's also being cultivated right now in the Yucatan, so I know some folks are getting it from Mexico as well.
And we, and for those who don't know about saw palmetto, it's a it's it's a common herb used, for prostate issues. But, what oh, like, I'm curious. What other things? I mean, because, of course, you know, to get out of the mindset, which so many of our herbal teachers do, of like this herb for this equals this, this herb is that, you know, you kind of basically are are, removing yourself from from from really experiencing the wholeness of herbs and what they can offer us. So what else would you could you use this, this herb for, the berry for?
In Mexico, throughout Central Mexico, they consider it a tonic. It's really supportive to the endocrine system. Mhmm. And I wouldn't necessarily classify it as an adaptogen, but I do know that, in the south, they they use it for a lot of stress related conditions.
It is also a specific for the urinary tract. And it's also an antiseptic. So here in Florida, the Seminole Indians would use it to treat infections of the urinary tract. They would also use it with the respiratory system as an expectorant.
You see it, in the King's Dispensatory that really, the book from, like, the eighteen hundreds. They list a lot of, respiratory conditions for saw palmetto.
So bronchitis, coughs, they would even use it for whooping cough and laryngitis.
So really connected to the respiratory system, but certainly the reproductive system is where we see it used the most in Western herbalism, both for men and women as a hormone balancer in some cases, but especially for prostate health.
And, I don't know if you know about this too, but I I, or, but, I was hearing a lecturer, Susan Wheaton. It might even be in her book too, the down there book. But, she was saying how, it's it's much better to use a tincture extract than it is capsules for for for prostate issues.
I could see that to be the case, for a number of reasons, the least of which would be the the flavor of the saw palmetto berry, especially when you're pick picking it right straight off the plant does leave a lot to be desired.
But, yeah, I I, you know, I personally, I agree with Susan for, almost all of her wise wisdom, but a lot of times I do lean towards tinctures, over capsules Exactly.
Simply because it's you know, you get a connection to the medicine. So you're tasting it versus that sort of mindless popping of the pill that still leaves us disconnected to that source of the medicine.
So Yeah.
It's an interesting flavor. I just started taking it recently, so I it's like, oh, wow.
Alright. So let's move on to, another, local herb there for you, hibiscus.
Yeah, and with hibiscus, you know, a lot of times we say hibiscus when we think about the ornamental, hibiscus, sort of that, it's been sort of idolized on, like, surfboards and bathing suits, and you think about, like, Hawaiian ladies and hibiscus. And this is in the same family, but, when we think about hibiscus medicinally, we're thinking about the Caribbean variety, sometimes called cranberry hibiscus, sometimes called rosel.
Hibiscus sabdariffa is the Latin name. And with this plant, we're using the calyx, which is the collection of sepals, which I sometimes think of as sub petals. So it's not technically the flower, but it's those little sub petals or sepals where the flower is connecting to the stem of the plant.
They'll be bright, bright red or dark, dark red, depending on the variety. And that's where the plant stores just this powerhouse of vitamin c.
Vitamin c being one of the main nutrients that we call upon this plant for. This is a tropical, there's annual and there's perennial varieties.
The ones that are annual, the seeds self sow very readily. So once you grow it in your garden one time, you'll have it come up year after year. The leaves of the varieties we grow in Florida are also edible. So we use them a lot in salads. I'll mix them with some different greens, maybe in a stir fry or a vegetable saute.
The vitamin C of the calyxes is one of the first herbs that I was introduced to when I moved to Guatemala And throughout Central America, they actually call this plant Jamaica, which is spelled like Jamaica and is a to the Caribbean where this plant is native to. And the calyxes, when brewed in water, make it this really, really deep, beautiful, bright red color. I've actually dyed some clothes with it before and it comes out quite lovely.
And that redness, is also kind of got a a tartness to it, kind of reminiscent of a cranberry. So that's why it gets the name cranberry hibiscus. If you add a little bit of honey or maybe a pinch of stevia to it, I kind of think of it as an herbal Kool Aid. It's sort of this tea that you can brew that really adds a beautiful flavor to just about any blends that you can think of. So it's nice to mix with herbs that might not be so palatable to make a beverage that you're more likely to drink often. But, the vitamin c is also a really great nutrient to add to your herbal blends because it'll help you with the absorption and the assimilation of the the whole blend in synergy.
Most of us know about vitamin c and it also being really of course, this time of year when there's so much colds and flu viruses being passed around.
Certainly, that's a helpful extra support for you.
And another reason that I use hibiscus regularly is that it's a blood purifier.
I'm really conscious of that living in a city. You know, I step outside and I'm breathing in all the exhaust from the the busy intersection that our environment of a city, is a little bit different than, you know, there's rural farms where we have a little bit of a city, is a little bit different than, you know, there's rural farms where we have a little bit cleaner air and cleaner water. So, having a little bit of blood purification every day is just a gentle form of detox in a way to help, balance and restore the body from the effects of living in an urban area. So that's another reason why I call upon that pretty regularly.
And, what a wonderful and tasty way to do that with something using hibiscus. Now, you know, and of course, you don't have to live right there in Florida. I mean, I think Mountain Rose sells hibiscus flowers. I'm fairly certain.
You could just, get some. And and and are you supporting sustainable sources when you when you when you do that? Is that an you know what I mean? Is that a is that one that we don't have to worry too much about?
Right. Because it's an annual, and it is a prolific self sower. So most people that are farming it are, you know, doing it in a it's not necessarily something that's being wildcrafted, in an unsustainable way, at least at this point.
Okay. So we can go get our hibiscus organic or or, you know, well harvested hibiscus flowers from places like Mountain Rose or and and, feel good about it And, add that, little bit of vitamin c to this, especially, yes, with the flu going around. I had my elderberry syrup this morning. That's for sure.
Good.
Alright. So, another one of, my our favorites are are passion flower, and that grows they're native. Right?
Yeah. We have a few different species, Pascia flora incarnata being one of the most common here in Central Florida, and it is, I just have to say it's one of my favorite plant flies. In fact, the, Florida herbal conference, the passion flower is sort of our our mascot, if you will, a part of our logo, because we really are so proud to have it growing. Now passion passion flower does grow up into the Appalachia, so we're not, necessarily alone in growing it, but we do have it in, probably I'd say ten to eleven months out of the year.
It is cold sensitive, so in our very short winters, it does tend to die back, though. It's probably about eighty five degrees outside here today. We're, recording this in mid January, so being a very usual winter this year. And I may very well have my passion flower for twelve months this year, just because it hasn't gotten very cold yet.
But the leaves and the vine of the plant, many of your listeners will be familiar with for its nervine properties.
It's a nerve that I call upon a lot for the treatment of anxiety and headaches, especially those that are tension related, insomnia and even some depressive conditions.
Oftentimes I'll tincture this up, maybe with a few other herbs and prepare kind of a happy potion, if you will. Something that'll be blissing and also stress relieving.
I could use I think I might I think, some folks in Mountain Rose actually sent me some of that tincture. It's right behind me here.
Sometimes they send me, nervines in the mail when when they know things are getting stressful. It's very nice of it. I love passion flower.
And also, in a great sustainable one too for folks?
In the state of Florida absolutely, you know, this is something that currently, is very prolifically found in the wild and very easy to cultivate, so I wouldn't consider this something on an at risk list.
It's something that you're very common to find when you take a weed walk out in the wild. So I would say, you know, definitely sourcing from Mountain Rose or maybe some of the local folks, the Florida companies, is a great way to get a good sustainable product.
Is there a kind of a specialized Florida herbal company? Oh, that would would that be your would that be Orenda Herbals?
I don't know.
We, primarily, offer blends of herbs that are grown locally, with some that we source from some farms we work within the Appalachian region and then also other folks like Mountain Rose if we're out of season on a product.
We specifically focus on using local plants, in blends of formulas more than necessarily single herbs.
And, you know, we're really not yet that I'm aware of, do we have a herbal company, sourcing those single dried herbs for folks. So there's certainly a lot of product companies that are selling them, when they can and where they can. We do that a little bit with Passionflower. We have a relationship with some folks up in Vermont, actually. And, when we grow our Passionflower, we dry it and send it up to them, and then we they send us down some of the stuff that they're growing in the mountains that we can't grow down here. So that's been a positive relationship of getting those southerly herbs more North.
And we also do that with called Sida, s I d a, which is sometimes called ironweed or wireweed.
And some of your listeners may be familiar with Steven Buener and his book on Lyme disease and ironweed or cedar is one of the herbs that he's been using in the past several years, for the treatment of the co infections of Lyme. And Florida is one of the only places in the continental United States that it's growing in abundance. It's got some species that are native to South America and also many species that are native to Africa, which is where most commercial companies source the product from. But when you're purchasing an herb from another continent, in addition to quality control issues, there's all sorts of timing issues that, can be a challenge to work with. So we're now working, through a render with that herb as well with some different herbalists up north.
I just had this, I don't know. Maybe there is this already, but I was I was just had this idea of, like, gosh. When you said you were trading with people in Vermont, like, people, I mean, even on a personal level could probably come up with some kind of like wildcrafting exchange program or something, right, where we can meet people in different parts of the country and, you know, you send me a pound of this, I'll send you a pound of that type of thing. Might be a pretty cool idea.
I don't know. Maybe. Someone listening to this will go, oh, I like that and I'll start that. So never know.
Let us know when you heard it, please.
Yeah.
Anyone out there go on Herb Mentor and let us know. Alright so so let's see and again before we move on here since we mentioned Orenda Herbals, that is Orenda, o r e n d a, Herbals dot com. Would that be the place?
Well, yep. Herbal single dot com.
Orrenda with an o, herbal dot com to see what Emily and her friends have brewed up in their kitchens.
So you have listed here tropical chickweed. Is that related to Arcellaria?
Distantly, but it's a different genus. Oh. So most of your listeners are gonna be familiar with Stellaria media, chickweed, and that, we do have growing in Florida. I just saw it last week poking its head above the ground. And because the winter has been so warm, I don't expect it to stick around for more than a few weeks. When we have a cold winter, we get lucky and we maybe have it for two and a half to three months. But the rest of the year, we have a very similar plant, that's known throughout the Caribbean as dry mary or sometimes it's called heart leaf dry mary.
And a lot of us herbalists who work with it fondly call it tropical chickweed, or island chickweed.
And it has many of the same properties as our temperate chickweed. It's a lymphatic tonic, a gentle lymphatic cleanser.
It's a respiratory tonic, so it strengthens and supports the respiratory system. Any of you that have a weakness in that area would certainly benefit from using it regularly to just strengthen and support your lungs and your breathing.
And then it's also very, very nutritive.
So it has a really broad spectrum, especially of minerals, also has some vitamin a and some vitamin c.
I love throwing it into salads, using it as a base for salads.
I throw it in my smoothies most mornings.
Also, I use it just as an herb and tea has a delightful flavor. I make a pesto with it. Now the tropical variety is a little bit different of a taste and texture than the temperate variety. The temperate variety, to me seems a little bit more buttery, if you will, has a little bit more water in its stems.
The tropical variety is sort of acclimated to the heat, down here. And so it grows a little bit, thinner, a little bit less water to it, slightly more stringent in its flavor. But the growth habit is very similar. So, without having a trained eye to know the difference, if you see them all growing around near each other, you may mistake it for temperate chickweed because it does look very similar. And it has that same, sort of benchmark, that little white flower, that star shaped flower. They carry that same mark on them, so good way to identify them.
Oh, wow. That's really cool. Now what about, Florida pennyroyal?
Saint John's mint, Micromeria browniae, the Latin name, and sometimes that's called Brown's Savory as well, as a nod to the botanist, mister Brown, who sort of discovered or named it. It's called Saint John's Mint oftentimes because it grows along the banks of the St. John's River, one of the major here in Birria, and it is in the mint family.
And, if you were to smell it or taste it, you would realize why it's sometimes called Florida pennyroyal because it has a very similar taste, similar flavor, very similar chemical constitution to the European penio roya, the mentholguium, I believe is how you pronounce it. Very similar chemical profile and you see them used, a lot in the same types of applications.
Both are really good for the digestive system. Both have been used for women's, reproductive health.
Though, also, both of them are contraindicated in times of pregnancy and breastfeeding.
K. And, and is that how would that be used generally?
Generally, I prepare it as a teeny.
Had a lot of colds and sniffles going around these parts in the past few weeks.
So many of my colleagues have been just picking a small handful, brewing an infusion, and sipping on it to create their sinus congestion.
And it also has those, properties similar to peppermint that can really help to settle the stomach and settle, you know, indigestion, upset stomach. So I generally sip on it as a tea, just kind of a mild to medium steep.
Now something that's really cool about living in Florida too is you can cultivate, some very popular or commonly used herbs. And, you you listed a few that you use or grow there. And, actually, what what I was gonna ask about first is when we happen to be featuring on herbmentor dot com. On herbmentor dot com, we feature a we feature a different herb every couple of months where people can do all kinds of different things with and report back and kind of all study it together and just kinda get into one one herb deep at a time if people so choose to do that. And, what we're doing right now is cayenne. So I was wondering if you could tell us a bit about that.
Absolutely. Capsicum annuum, one of our favorites. One of the herbalists that the herbalists that actually of rosemary's, but also was a student of, doctor Christopher.
And many of your listeners may recall that doctor Christopher had quite a fondness for Cayenne. If you read the book, The School of Natural Healing, you'll see most of his formulas included, if nothing else to act as a catalyst to help the body assimilate the nutrients and properties of the other herbs in the formula.
But doctor Christopher also had a proclivity to use it, as a simple herb by itself for everything from ulcers to an eyewash. So, it's one that, you know, we sort of have a ancestral herbal lineage of having a fondness for cayenne.
And we're so fortunate that we can grow it here in this tropical climate.
Most cayennes are annuals and, you can harvest the seeds from them and plant those plants again next year. There are a few varieties that are perennial. So as long as we throw a frost cloth over them, when the temperature drops down, those two or three times a year we get a frost. Usually, we get those, twelve months out of the year.
And they're so delightful. The birds actually love them. The bees love to pollinate the flowers, and they just shoot this bright red color into your landscape, into your garden.
Really, really stunning.
Wow. And you can and it's a great example, here, especially getting into, is just food as medicine. So just kind of putting a few in your whatever you're eating. Right? And it's a great way just to kinda get the benefits.
Before I studied herbalism, and before I went down to the south, I really couldn't take spicy food at all. It's really boring when I would eat. I didn't like hot stuff one bit. But you know, the more that you work with an herb and a spice like cayenne, and the more that you introduce it slowly, but consistently continue to use it and gradually increase it as your tolerance allows, the more you find you can tolerate.
So nowadays, you know, I have my cayenne shaker and my hot sauce out on the dining room table at all times and add a little bit of spice to pretty much everything. And it's kind of interesting. I know a lot of folks up north right now might be calling upon Cayenne, to sprinkle into their snowshoes and their boots as a way to keep your toes warm. I know I've heard of that a lot.
But something that is really interesting to think about with spicy herbs like cayenne is that when you take those herbs in during the warm months of the year, like the hot, hot summer of Florida, if you were to take some cayenne in July, it actually helps you cool down. What happens is that it helps you to circulate, your blood through your circulatory system more efficiently. And in a sense, it can raise your internal temperature a bit, but what that does is it makes the external temperature feel a little bit cooler. So you'll notice that these spicy plants like cayenne tend to grow only in tropical regions and are used in these tropical types of, you know, Mexican, Spanish cooking, Asian cooking, around the equator, around the tropical zones.
And it's because when you eat these foods, it helps you acclimate to the hot temperatures outside. It's kind of interesting.
Wow. That is so cool.
So for those, yeah, studying your honor mentor now, there's some even more, some different information for you. Thanks. And, what about lemongrass?
That's one of my favorites. You know, my office is near an area of Orlando that we call Little Vietnam, and we have probably at least a half a dozen Vietnamese restaurants. And, most of them use lemongrass very predominantly in their cooking, but they also use it for their medicine. It's one of the first herbs that they go to at the first sign of a cold or the flu or fever.
It's incredible fever reducer, incredible at shortening the duration of a cold, and it's also so tasty. So this is one of those medicines that I love to work with.
It's something that we grow all year round here and, makes this big beautiful grass that's very stunning in the landscape. In fact, I know several of my neighbors have planted it sort of like a hedge in the front of their house.
Gets to be several feet tall, probably at least six feet tall. And, it's so tasty. So it's sort of one of those gateway herbs, I like to say. Something that to your neighbor or your uncle or your father-in-law, the people that aren't necessarily going to otherwise take herbal medicine, you can introduce them to something like lemongrass. And because it has such a nice flavor and it's a little bit more commonly known, it's also really effective. So they'll be more likely to take it. And because it works, they'll be more likely to take it again in the future or be willing to be adventurous and try some of the other, less common herbs.
And and what are some of the effects of, you know, actions of lemongrass?
Well, it's one of my favorite herbs to use, at the first sign of a cold, and all the way through it. A lot of times, I'll prepare a big batch of soup, maybe a miso soup that I add a lot of lemongrass to or just prepare it by the quart or even the half gallon as a tea as an infusion.
It's also great for fevers. I've used it as a tea in this fashion and also, with children and infants especially, adding lemongrass to a bath and letting them soak in the benefits of it.
It's also been shown to be really beneficial to the circulatory system. It's been used in different formulas to help balance cholesterol and high blood pressure.
It's also an antiseptic. So I've used it on a first aid scenario at wound wash before when I was sort of limited to what my options were.
And it's used to treat respiratory infections too, coughs, bronchitis, chest colds.
So You know, I just I just realized that, because I I was wondering because you mentioned about it being, you know, especially where lemongrass grows as well as you're saying for colds and flusiness, that one of the foods I always crave when I have a especially when I get to the fever part or a cold is like the Tom Yum soup from the Thai restaurant not too far away. And then I was just like, I wonder and I'm like, just Googled the recipe and then of course there's lemongrass as a big part of it.
Absolutely.
So so I was like, oh, because I swear like of all sometimes people will will, you know, will ask me, John, what do you do when you have a cold herbally? I'm like, I just get that Tom Yum soup from from the entire restaurant, you know, because it has lemongrass and cayenne in it.
So perfect and ginger and everything else, right?
Yeah. Oh perfect.
Yeah. So that's really cool. So I guess I do take lemongrass as well when I have a cold.
Let's see here.
That that thank you so much for that tour. I have a little herb walk of of Florida, and, I'm sure there's lots more plants there. Right?
We kinda have to tie it together. So, you know, y'all listening to us right now, especially if when we're when we're first putting it up in in February or thinking or, you know, January, actually, we are in right now. And, we'd like to go down to Florida. And a lot of times, it's this time of year when people go on and go down to the Orlando area and, they go down with their families and they and they maybe go to one of the many, many theme parks that are there. But I think what Emily's come up here for you is sort of like an alternative. So you can get away into Florida in the wintertime and you can go to an herbal theme park.
You should have that as your byline, Florida Herbal Conference, your herbal theme park.
Yeah.
It might work.
So let's talk a bit about that. What, what what what what what, had you start this idea of the Florida Herbal Conference?
Rosemary planted it in my head, to be quite honest. Years and years ago, she said, you know, there's a a thriving community of herbalists in Florida, and I must have probably laughed back at her because at the time, many of us did feel very isolated. We did not have a lot of networking. We didn't have a lot of community building at the time.
So I knew of two or three herbalists, but by and large, it was a very isolated scene. And Rosemary said, no, no. There's more of you there. I know there are.
You should have a conference and you should bring everybody together. And I think I kind of laughed at her again. And, then I said, okay, Rosemary. Well, we'll do it if you come and be the keynote speaker.
And, last year, I guess we kinda decided that maybe she was right and that there were more of these herbalists around and, that it was time for us to realize that our community was here and start to build, those connections and weave that web. And, so I called Rosemary up. I said, okay, it's time. And she came down and was keynote speaker for our first annual conference last March.
And we I think we're all very much surprised at the fact that we had over three hundred people out for our first and I would say ninety eight percent of those folks were from within the state of Florida. A few folks joined us from other places, but we had really focused last year efforts on marketing to the Florida region.
And, and, you know, I think folks are really hungry for it. I think it was definitely, the right time. People were sort of feeling that sense of isolation and and seeking that community, that support, that networking, sharing of resources.
And, so we had a beautiful weekend.
We had over thirty classes, music, you know, very much of a similar model to the conferences that Rosemary herself has been hosting for several decades up in New England.
We really those of us that had traveled to those events really appreciated the experiences that we had there, both in the academic learning of the herbs and the sharing of knowledge, but also of the sort of spiritual and personal growth that we all experience when we're gathered at those beautiful conferences. So we really wanted to, try to replicate that, but with a Southern twist, of course. And, we, hope that we, did a great job. We had some really great feedback last year and participants seemed to really, enjoy the experience and get a lot out of it.
So much so that we were able to put together another event. So that's what we'll be having in just a month from now, our second annual Florida conference, which will be happening February fifteenth through the seventeenth in Central Florida. It's about a forty minute or so drive, thirty, forty minutes, outside of the Orlando area. So those of you that wanna have a winter vacation for your family, you can ship them off to the theme for the weekend, and then you drive yourself over to the herb conference and eat up with them on Sunday evening.
It's a great time of year for us to show off the beauty of the southern state.
A lot of our tropical plants will sort of be hiding away and dormant for the winter, but, most of our plants will still be out in full force. And of course the weather, like I said today, it's a little bit unseasonably warm. It's eighty five out, but, we still have a very mild and temperate winter compared to those of you in parts further north. So it's a great opportunity to come down and soak in a little bit of vitamin d and maybe the lake if you're feeling adventurous and, just get a little break from the winter and, come meet the Florida herbal community. We'll have forty classes this year, in tracks such as meeting the plants, which includes plant walks. We have a kitchen and garden track about growing and making medicine from plants. We have a clinical track for folks that are practicing or studying to practice with their community.
We have a mind, body, spirit track, which we feel is really important to help us get out of our heads and into our hearts a little bit more and explore some of the complimentary modalities like yoga and breath work, while we have the weekend off together in retreat. And then we also have a traditions track.
Really a big part of our work is to reclaim the traditions of our ancestors and find ways to integrate those into the modern world. And so that's one of our tracks. And then we're especially fortunate this year to have two keynote speakers, Phyllis Layt and Matthew Wood, and they are both herbalists that exemplify that aim of reclaiming our herbal heritage and finding ways to help it shine in our modern times. So they'll both be joining us from Minnesota and Alabama respectively to share their wisdom with us for the weekend.
That sounds fantastic. And learning herbs dot com is a proud sponsor, folks.
And, I will not be able to make it on two thousand thirteen, but for two thousand fourteen, it's surely on my calendar. I will not miss it.
And, that I just I can't wait. It's gonna be so much fun exploring a new environment and, checking out some of your cool plants down there. And, hey, I was thinking about taking, like you said, taking the kids with me. And after after it's over, I can take Rowan over to the Harry Potter thing that he's always wanted to go to.
Yep. And then a couple plant hikes. Sounds like a good me.
Yeah. So, hey, so you haven't come up with the roller coaster track yet, though.
We're working on it.
All right, so so that's very very exciting that's floridaherbalconference dot org and you have also connected with your community in bringing sustainable education to the area. So you actually have, like, a plant sanctuary in your own property, or is that the property of the, Florida School of Holistic Living? How does that work?
It's school's garden, actually.
I'd wager to say it's probably the smallest botanical sanctuary in the United Plant Savers network, but we're nonetheless proud of it.
We have a forty by forty garden space, that we built five years ago for the community to have an open space in downtown area for meditation and for learning about gardening and about herbs.
We've had the space growing now for five years.
There's a neem tree and a bodhi tree that are sort of the anchors of the garden. Then a lot of our medicinal herbs kind of sprinkled throughout. So lemongrass, cayenne, chaste tree berry, you know, hibiscus, a lot of the ones we just talked about, some ginger and, it's just kind of a space that, we've committed to protecting medicinal plants at really sort of a little green oasis in the middle of the concrete jungle.
There's not so many opportunities when you live in a city to step out of the sort of psychic energy, the chaos and the hustle and the bustle and find that connection to nature, without working really, really hard. And so we wanted to have a space where people could come and enjoy it. And we're fortunate to have neighbors, in our neighborhood surrounding the garden, that are some really like minded businesses. There's an organic vegetarian tea house right next to the garden.
There's a yoga studio across the street, massage therapy and acupuncture on the block. So, so it's a little enclave of healing and wellness and, the garden is sort of a centerpiece for all of that. And we do a lot of our classes out in the garden. We have some student interns and volunteers that get to learn more about gardening through, the sanctuary here.
And then we also hold, music at vacation circles and full moon in the garden as a way for folks in the city to connect with those cycles of nature that even we can't, you know, always see them because of the light pollution, they're still there influencing us. And so gathering, in harmony and in meditation is a way for us to honor those cycles and attune ourselves with them more. So, yeah, we just received the honor this last summer from United Plant Savers as part of their botanical sanctuary. Now I'm really honored, you know, we're sort of doing a small piece of the work in the urban area, but there's so many, I think several hundred now, botanical sanctuaries throughout the country that have saved and set aside and preserved large swaths of land, to protect them and protect the medicinal species growing on them.
And we also do have a sanctuary outside of the city about a forty minute drive from our urban location. That's a five hundred acre botanical sanctuary, which we do take our students to as well when it's time to get us out of the city and to nature.
And we're just so proud and honored to be part of the work that United Plant Savers is doing with that network and that all those other botanical sanctuaries are doing. Each community is doing such really important work.
And how can people find out about starting an urban or a, you know, plant sanctuary, whether it be urban or in their in their, you know, yards or or out in their land?
Yeah. United plant savers, dot org. I hope you I hope you'll check that before your podcast goes live, but, Betsy Bancroft is the resource, manager for United Plant Savers. She's actually Rosemary's neighbor as well up in Vermont and just a delightful herbalist that I had the blessing and privilege to spend a lot of my summer with.
And she is the point person at United Plant Savers that coordinates the Botanical Sanctuary Network. So when you hop on their website, you'll get all sorts of information about why the network exists and its mission, as well as a directory of all of the plant sanctuaries to date in the country and information on how to start your own. Because, you know, you mentioned personal gardens and a lot of people, have taken their backyards or their swaths of personal land and have turned them into botanical sanctuaries as well. So it's not just schools or herbal companies or, you know, commercial ventures that have been a part of this work, but a lot of individuals as well.
That's that's great. And, again, United Plant Savers is united plant savers dot org. And, I also actually just posted, if you go to youtube dot com slash herb mentor, I just posted the video with Betsy and Rosemary, a little interview that was done for Rosemary's Remedies. It's available, right there on, for everyone to see if you wanna learn a little more about that. So you do quite a bit there and over there in Florida. And, basically, Emily, if someone's sitting here and they're listening to you and you're one of the first people that they're hearing out there who's an herbalist and doing all this wonderful stuff, What's a bit of advice on how to move forward in studying herbs?
Go outside.
Get your nose out of the book and get your eyes off the computer screen. And, my biggest piece of advice is really to learn the plants that are around you.
You know, in large part, I started my journey doing that, by traveling to other places where people knew more about the plants, the tropical plants.
But there in most communities are such, a great wealth of resources that can teach you about your native plants. More and more, we're seeing herbalists talk about the, importance of bioregionalism, and that is learning the plants that are growing in your plant community and working with those plants first.
United Plant Savers really addresses a lot of the issues of the, some of the less sustainable aspects of the herbal industry, where for instance, we're taking a bunch of saw palmetto and we're, you know, harvesting it away from the bears and using, you know, unfair labor practices. And then we're selling it commercially throughout the world. And, you know, if we're just focusing on getting medicine from our backyards or from our neighbors, from the areas that we're close with, we have a direct connection to that land and that medicine. And we know when the medicine is being harvested properly and sustainably, and we also know when it's not and can make, good decisions about what the right medicine is for us and our families.
So I always, especially, I'd say in the past five or six years, it's been really important to me to emphasize to my students to look in your backyards and find your medicine there first.
We're seeing more and more, like, shows like Doctor. Oz and as sort of natural health comes more into the mainstream, we see all these trends and fads come up.
And one of, you know, some of the ones that have been most alarming to me involves sourcing medicine from the Amazonian rainforest. It's an amazing collection of plants there. The biological diversity there is probably unparalleled to anywhere in the world And absolutely the plants that we're sourcing from there are making some incredible medicine for people. But if we're sourcing it at the cost of the, you know, health of the environment, the health of the plant community, or the rights of the indigenous people who first lived on that land, it may be helpful medicine for us in a short term scenario.
But in the long term, I don't really feel like it, supports the ethos of herbalism. And so by bringing that sort of scale and that reach closer to home, we're able to, you know, really support a better practice medicine from, from the harvesting through the time that we take that medicine. We're seeing the local food movement around the country, really blossom. And now in most communities, there's a food co op or a CSA or a farmer's market where you can connect your local farm.
And I think the same rules apply when it comes to our herbal medicine, the more local we can get our medicine.
I think that, you know, the fresher it is because fresh plants are always more potent. We haven't had to travel as far, but there's also a sort of spiritual environmental connection. We're growing in the same environment that these plants are growing in, and so we share a lot of commonalities. And, so I my first suggestion is to go outside and learn the plants that are in your backyard. If there's an herbalist in your community, that can help guide you through that, perhaps there is a native plant society in your community that can help introduce you to some of these plants. And then by learning what the plants are, you may be able to take that information to a resource like Herb Mentor and learn more about what the plants do from there. So I hope that that might be helpful guidance for some of you.
Thank you. And, again, everyone, you can visit the conference coming up soon at Florida at sorry. Florida herbal conference dot o r g. So that's Florida herbal conference dot o r g. And you can see everything Emily does, you know, her herbal company and the Florida School Holistic Living, the conference, everything, but just going to emily rough dot com. Emily, thank you so much for joining us today. It was a lot of fun.
It was so great. And I wanna, also just let your listeners know too that since many of you are coming from other places, if you are interested in the Florida Herbal Conference, if you enter the code learning herbs at your registration, you'll get a nice discount, thanks to, you know, John's support and the support of the community and wanting to honor that. So, don't forget to plug in LearningHerbs.com when you register and, take a little bit off that registration for you.
Oh, thank you. And just learning herbs. Right? Not LearningHerbs.com, just to clarify. Did you say Learning Herbs or which?
Learning Herbs.
Okay. Perfect. Once again, Emily, thanks so much, and thank you everyone out there for listening to Herb Mentor Radio today. Have a great day.
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