Green Farmacy Garden carries on legacy of teaching healing through plants

For nearly three decades, the Green Farmacy Garden in Fulton, Maryland, has served as a sanctuary for those interested in learning how to use plants for healing.

Established by Jim Duke, a US Department of Agriculture botanist, and his wife, Peggy, the garden is home to more than 300 native and non-native species of plants that have been researched or traditionally used for medicinal purposes, according to its website.

Named after Duke’s book, “The Green Pharmacy,” the farm was created by the couple by turning part of their pasture into a teaching garden that highlights the plants in the book. Now the garden has four terraces with 80 plots dedicated to growing plants that can be used to cure a number of conditions and diseases such as diabetes. heart disease, high blood pressure and obesity.

Duke was deeply devoted to communities of people and plants throughout his life, according to a note written by his daughter, Celia Larsen. His knowledge and love of plants and the people who use them for food and medicine spanned the entire world, he said.

After his death on December 10, 2017, the garden became operated by the Community Ecological Institute, a non-profit whose mission is to cultivate communities where people and nature thrive together, according to the their website.

Since its opening, the garden has hosted a number of events that teach the public about the garden.

A recent event was a mushroom inoculation workshop, held in December, during which participants learned how to grow their own mushrooms. The garden also recently held a pop-up Caribbean herbal medicine workshop, a pop-up foraging walk and a pop-up sale of tropical plants.

Veri Tas serves as the event and communication coordinator at the garden and is also a gardener, medicine maker and workshop facilitator. Having recently completed his fifth season as a workshop facilitator, he said the workshops provide the public with a new perspective on gardening.

“Sometimes [gardening] it doesn’t mean [putting your plant] in a pot or in your garden or telling it to grow where you want,” he said. “Sometimes it means interacting with it or what is around it in a way that is conducive to its own prosperity.”

Annie-Sophie Simard serves as a garden director, a medicine maker and a workshop facilitator. She hosts tours, volunteer days and workshops at the garden, and said it means a lot to her to maintain Duke’s legacy.

“To continue his legacy is to maintain this connection with plants to the community,” he said. “We have to keep it [the garden] as a community space and teach people about plants and simple ways that they can build their connection with nature and their environment.”

Amy Boldt, 41, of Westminster, participated in a recent pop-up foraging walk and garden tour.

Working as an apothecary owner and clinical herbalist, she said she wanted to participate in the workshop to learn how to take better care of herself and others.

“Having the Green Pharmacy is incredibly crucial for the community just for the educational part and allowing people to know and pass on this knowledge and take care of themselves in the way they were meant to be with this ancient wisdom that it has been handed down for generations. in the world,” he said.