I’ve always been fascinated with herbs. I grew up on a remote farm surrounded by bush, with gardening parents who used natural health and organic products as a matter of course.
My first herb garden was when I was about 7. It had tansy, peppermint and rosemary.
After that, I made my first forays into cosmetics, trying to make a perfume out of eau-de-cologne mint and rosemary…
I learnt to type as a teenager making lists of botanical names of common herbs.
My gap year was spent created a medicinal herb garden with heirloom roses.
Herb nerd? Definitely.
But then other things got to be fun, as they do in your 20s and 30s...
I did a degree in fashion, and went and lived in that world for a decade, surrounded by creative people and gorgeous fabrics and wonderful patterns…but in the end it wasn’t quite right anymore. I moved on to not-for-profit Management, which brought a new set of challenges.
Initially, I kept my passion for herbs alongside all this, spending four years studying part time towards a Complementary Health Science degree…but the final year required full time commitment to clinical practice, and I couldn’t bring myself to leave my lovely job and lifestyle to be a full-time student again. I kept gardening, but the herbs faded into the background.
And along the way, life.
I lost people very close to me. I got sick from my lifestyles, and I’ll always be dealing with thyroid and gut issues. There were some pre-cancerous cells, some other unpleasant events. So I get it when you talk about such things, and I won’t try to sell you a magic pill.
Finally, I remembered the herbs, and went back to study…this time I finished; my passion was deeper and my life experience so much greater. It was time.
Across the years, my view of herbs as phytotherapy (phyto = plant... plant therapy) to sort out health issues morphed into something more than I expected. Now I see them as holding energy; the right herb for a person creates a resonance to support healing. I could put this into biochemical and quantum physics language too...but then this page would just keep going!
So who am I? I’m a herbalist, naturopath and gardener. I use herbs to heal. Lets talk.
I’ve always been fascinated with herbs. I grew up on a remote farm surrounded by bush, with gardening parents who used natural health and organic products as a matter of course.