Healing Gardens

One of our main accomplishments was getting to know the medicinal plants that were in each of medicinal plant beds. By harvesting and cutting back the herbs for winter we learned how to better identify the plants. By harvesting the plants we were able to experiment using them in medicine. By better understanding each of the herbs we felt more confident in making tinctures and decoctions.Doing academic research (based on plant monographs) for the plants in our beds strengthened our relationship/knowledge with the plants in a scientific/botanical way. As our knowledge of the habitats surrounding the Longhouse grew stronger, we were able to create a cohesive design plan that we think would work for the sayuyay garden space. We did individual research on other medicinal gardens/pathways (such as Traditional Chinese Medicine and Medieval European herb gardens). Also through our research we were able to find alternative ways to build raised beds without the use of treated wood.