What is a Healing Herb Garden?

A Japanese garden heals through providing a calming sensory experience.

A healing herb garden provides stress relief and relaxation through sensory stimulation or by providing herbs for use in medicinal teas, tinctures and external compresses. You can organize herbs in a healing garden by effect or appearance.

History

Prior to the monastic gardens begun in medieval Europe to provide healing herbs for monks in secluded residence, knowledgeable individuals collected healing herbs growing wild. The monk's cloister gardens included scent and sight gardens as well as apothecary herb healing gardens for residents. Japanese Zen gardens, dating from around 1000 A.D., offered healing through arrangement of plants -- including herbs -- to create a multi-sensory spiritual experience.

Types

Apothecary gardens contain medicinal herbs. An example apothecary garden -- the Drug Museum in Oklahoma -- grows medicinal herbs including thyme, rosemary, St, John's Wort and coneflower. Simplicity, harmony and balance characterize Zen or Japanese gardens, which often contain fixed structures such as ponds or walkways in additional to plants.

Effects

The separate visual area of a Zen garden filled with plants and calming water provides serenity and calm appreciated by walking slowly through or sitting quietly. Alternatively, apothecary gardens grow medicinal plants whose leaves, bark or roots provide relief for mental stress, digestive problems and specific illnesses through their consumption. Follow the advice of your healthcare professional before consuming teas, tinctures or compresses made from healing herbs.

References

• University of Minnesota: Sustainable Urban Landscape Information Series: Healing Gardens
• The Herb Companion: Herb Garden Design Plans: A 21st Century Healing Garden
• Drug Museum: Plants