Healing Gardens

This quarter we both had the chance to really familarize ourselves with a plot of land. Getting to know the plants and observing their change was the main basis of our learning. However, we both felt that given more time we would hope to establish a more visable trail, including a foot bridge over the creek, take out the dead salmonberries, and plant devils club, maidenhair fern and various other plants that favor a wetland habitat.  With a little extra help it would also be wonderful to build a small bridge over the creek. 

Our goals for this quarter were to build a connection to our Longhouse Garden site and I feel as though we both achieved that by journaling, photographing, and researching our site and the plant life found there.  

Above all I have learned many new and alternative methods of appreciating and absorbing information through studying the nature and plants of my site at the Longhouse Garden. I found myself becoming a much more patient person throughout this learning process and developed a system of actively going out and finding plants and information about them and more passively understanding their medicine. Instead of turning directly to reasearch and facts I started allowing myself to take all of the information gathered from books and other people into consideration, storing that in a more passive part of my brain and waiting to form my own understanding of the plant until I had visited it physically and established a connection with it. Working to learn and understand how the plants at my site can be used as medicine on a weekly basis has inspired me more to follow along the path of herbolism and healing that I have already started.

Plants that inhabit the Shady Seasonal Creek

Pacific Northwest Creek

WETLANDS are typically a narrow, vegetated strip occupying many coastal areas and estuaries worldwide;

highly productive ecosystems with an ability to trap organic matter, nutrients and sediment.

They usually occur on poorly drained soils, along coasts, as northern bogs, swamps, prairie "potholes",

Site Description

The shady seasonal creek is located on the left hand side of the sidewalk leading to the Longhouse entrance. Turning left onto the trail one would notice that there is a slight dip in elevation, however no overall elevation loss or gain. The bottom perimeter [along the sidewalk] is the area with the densest vegetation, including Western Coltsfoot, Touch Me Not, Nootka Rose, Sword Ferns, Salmon Berry, possible Blackberry and Rushes. Sword ferns line the entire right hand side of the site. The left hand perimeter is marked by the trail, as well as large patches of salal. The rest of the site is fairly open, with a variety of plants scattered about, such as Coltsfoot, Skunk Cabbage, Elderberry, Pacific Willow, Alder, moss, Bracken ferns, Horsetail, and a few unidentified plants. As seen on the map the trail seems to die out towards the center of the site and recovers on the opposite side of the stream bank. What is not shown on the map is the number of large rocks near the outside edges of the site.