Plants of the Prairie are powerful. Plants that possess such great health benefits also have high value within the herbal/natural medicine industry...this is why we must be diligent and understand the importance of species used, as well as monitor the specie's population and source our herbs from cultivated resources, rather than wild-crafted.
In past weeks, we’ve talked about our practices for wild-crafting, or harvesting plants in their wild habitat. That’s one of the ways that we bring plants into our lab for producing our products. This week we’re talking about our efforts to bring bio-regional plants into our educational garden, our residential landscapes, and public education projects.
We at Prairie Star are very grateful for Lance and the Golden Hills RC&D and their partners for the wonderful effort made in Prairie restoration and conservation. As Ralph Waldo Emerson so accurately describes in Nature and selected Essays: " In the wilderness, I find something more dear and connate than in streets or villages. In the tranquil landscape, and especially in the distant line of the horizon, man beholds somewhat as beautiful as his own nature.”, we encourage you to go outside, become involved with conservation projects in your area.
Learn 5 important things about harvesting prairie seeds and tips on how to properly store them in our newest installment of the Prairie Plant Conservation series!
We at Prairie Star often write and speak about the magical plants that are part of our bioregion, which we fondly refer to as the Golden Prairie. Our posts share the traditional uses of these valuable plant allies, how to identify them, how to propagate them, and the many ways to prepare them. Even with our devotion to the natural world around us, we can sometimes take our native plants for granted. It is a necessary and useful ritual to stop and remind ourselves of the impact of our harvesting decisions. My friend, Rebecca Altman, shared her guidelines for wild harvesting in one of her Kings Road Apothecary newsletters. I paraphrase her guidelines, which include the following steps: Pick...
