The Healing Garden: Herbal Plants for Health and Wellness

by Deb Soule, Molly Haley (Photographs)

An informative and instructional illustrated guide to herb gardening and crafting herbal remedies that promote wellness of spirit and body, from Avena Botanicals founder Deb Soule.

In The Healing Garden , Avena Botanicals founder Deb Soul combines her passion for plants, gardens, and healing with her extensive experience working with medicinal herbs, flowers, roots, and berries for Avena Botanicals to offer practical and spirit-nourishing advice   Photographer Molly Haley’s color photographs throughout showcase Avena Botanicals’ lush herb gardens in every season. The Healing Garden  is grounded in respect for the interconnectedness of all living beings, is an eloquent plea for spiritual awareness and the wholeness of individuals, communities, and our planet, and will appeal to anyone interested in holistic wellness, herbal healing, and naturopathic remedies and alternative medicines for common ailments, aches, and pains.

Genres: Gardening, Health, Nature, Nonfiction, Plants, Herbs, Environment

224 pages, Paperback

Published April 27, 2021

Reviews

[Leila · Rating 5 out of 5]

There's a really sweet spirit to this, a reverence for life, that raises growing and harvesting and healing with herbs to the spiritual plane. 💚

[Colleen Vanderlinden · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful, peaceful, and life-affirming, in addition to being a useful resource. I'll be referring to this book often for years to come.

[Jenny · Rating 1 out of 5]

I've just starting working on an indoor herb garden, so of course I've checked out every single book our local library has to offer on the subject. (Or that's remotely related to the subject.) The Healing Garden looked really promising (ie: it had a pretty cover). But as soon as I opened it, it became very apparent that I am the wrong reader for the book. Overly emotional, flowery language gives me hives. So when the author declared that, "During the writing process, my inner landscape was sculpted by water and wind, fear and courage, confusion and grief, forgiveness and love," I wanted to set the book down and back away slowly. And then, a couple pages later, when she urged her readers to introduce themselves their plants and to "open your heart and sincerely ask if they are willing to share their gifts with you," I decided that it was okay to close the book and not subject myself to the rest of it. However sincere and lovely the author may be and however helpful the practical advice (that surely is in there, somewhere?) may be, it's not worth the intense frustration the book would cause.

[Megan Chrisler · Rating 3 out of 5]

You should always expect some amount of hippy-speak when reading a book about medicinal herbs, but this is on a whole other level. I love hippies and am a bit of one myself, so no judgment, but if you despise people who drink moon tea or think plant harvesting should be consensual, maybe avoid this book. If, like me, you're just after information on what different herbs do medicinally, then this still has all that good information. It's easy enough to skip the parts on how rose petals heal emotional trauma if it isn't your thing. Also, the photos are gorgeous and make me want to abandon my life to live on a herb farm.

[Christine Barth · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a little out there for me. I don't think plants are sentient as the author believes. Also the organization was backwards, talking about cutting and drying before the plants. It was geared more toward large scale farming rather than my little containers. However, I did find out what to do with my lavender and rosemary so that was helpful.

[AtDanceCamp... · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gorgeously written book. I really enjoy Deb Soule’sheartfelt perspective and bio dynamic guidance. This is a book that connects gardening with the spiritual world in subtle ways. She shows you ways to give thanks and become part of the flow in the garden as opposed to going against it.

[Christine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent information on setting up your own herb garden/property, complete with drying room.

As usual, there’s a basic herbal dictionary at the back.

This book is visually lovely and approachable.
The value of this book comes in it careful explanations of setting up your drying room, apothecary, etc.

The two things the authors go over that I don’t remember seeing in print much, but were touched on in herbalism school include: 1) the food safety aspect of drying and/or processing herbs; and 2) appropriate emotional states for working with plants at any stage in the growing, processing, or sharing stages.

So, I feel that’s really valuable information and a good philosophy to approach working with plants.

Focus is really geared toward North American, 4-season weather. Review recommendations in the bol and then compare them to advice for your home region. Ie what works in the forest will not always work in the desert.

If I were going to use a book for myself, I’d still go to my favorite book on this topic first, James Green’s “The Herbal Medicine Maker’s Handbook.”

However, I’m looking forward to checking this bool out from the public library again—an excellent choice, even in the hot, humid south/SW.

[Ashlyn Cox · Rating 1 out of 5]

I picked this book up with the intent of getting a basic understanding of herbal remedies. That's......not this book.

This book tends to lean more towards following lunar cycles, meditation, and the life force of everything around you. While it did have some info on making teas/tinctures/etc with herbs, it didn't really mention anything about what herbs to use and why. There was also a weirdly long chapter about building a drying room, which you probably don't need if 1) you are only producing herbs for yourself or 2) live somewhere super humid like I do.

The photos were gorgeous and it was pretty quick to get through at least.

[Katherine · Rating 2 out of 5]

I picked up this book thinking it would be a good resource for learning herbal practices that are practical. While there a some practical information about preparations and some good basic information about various herbs, I’ve read other resources that are much better in those areas and so not contain the enormous amount of New Age spiritualism and ritualistic practices expressed in this book. It is clear that for this author the herbalism is a spiritual practice of magic and nature spirituality. Not for me.

[Sandie Graham · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel like Deb is very knowledgeable and loves gardening but I didn’t come away understanding as much as I had hoped

[Kelly · Rating 1 out of 5]

There was a land acknowledgement on the first page. Give me a break!

Zero stars.

[sadie]

love deb

[Katie Verrue · Rating 1 out of 5]

I’m not sure why she felt the need to include social and racial justice books in an herbal remedies book?? Sorry, I’m hear to read about herbalism, not be told I should read “white fragility” 🙄

[Juli Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I appreciated the very earth-centered perspective of this author, I found the organization of this book too scattered to be useful.