Going Back to Our Roots: Plants as Medicine

I’ve always been fascinated by plants and credit my Mom with the interest. She is a very savvy gardener, and I remember fondly both the soil remediation we used to be dragged into doing as well as going out to the garden to harvest herbs to add flavor to her home-cooked meals.

When I was younger, we visited the Florissant Fossil Beds in Colorado, and one of the park rangers was giving a talk about the different trees that grow in that area, including the aspens. During that talk, he mentioned that the Native Americans used to peel the bark and boil it in water to create a tonic to relieve headaches and that the white “dust” that comes off of the bark could be used as sunscreen.

Why that has stuck with me, I’ll never know. But it has come in handy when hiking in that area.

One cool product that I recently stumbled across is a medicinal garden kit created by Dr. Nicole Apelian. Her story is inspiring! After living in pain with MS, she decided to seek out alternatives to Western remedies and rediscovered plants as medicine. The kit contains 10 different flowers that are sought after for everything from treating wounds to helping move things along in your gut. If you try it out, let me know what you think!