The Central Coast Herbal Association (CCHA) will debut “Herbal Bazaar: Growing Health” for the first time on the Central Coast next Saturday.
The event will be held at the San Luis Obispo Botanical Garden (SLOBG) and includes a medical-herb walk through, hands-on herbal preparations and guest speakers from the California School of Herbal Studies (CSHS).
The CCHA felt the 150 acre Garden would be a great place to host its Herbal Bazaar because of the venue’s specialty in Mediterranean ecosystems and the history of medical plants in those regions, according to education coordinator Lindsey Collinsworth. She said there is enough community interest in medical plants to make this event a success.
Collinsworth plans educational events at the Garden along with other agencies to make the community more aware of the events going on in the area. She said she hopes the Herbal Bazaar will bring people to the Garden, especially people who didn’t know it existed before. She said the CCHA felt the Garden would be “advantageous” in showing how easy it is to incorporate medicinal plants into one’s life.
“Personally, I feel that many of the ‘weeds’ that grow around us are unknown in our society as ancient healing plants,” Collinsworth said.
She mentioned dandelions specifically, which according to the University of Maryland Medical Center, have been used to treat liver and gallbladder problems.
The two CSHS guest speakers at the event are herbalists Leslie Gardener and Gail Julian.
Gardener is the garden manager of CSHS, coordinates the Garden Apprentice program and is the Director of the Sonoma Co. Herb Exchange. She worked as an herbal practitioner and is a professional member of the American Herbalists Guild.
Julian’s title is more specifically a clinical herbalist and medicine maker. Her experience includes 20 years of teaching and working in the clinic. At CSHS, Julian teaches Western Herbalism but has training in other areas, such as native plant use and Chinese and plant energetic systems.
“I’m a constitutional herbalist,” Julian said. “I look at people as a whole and try to balance the whole rather than just cure the disease.”
Julian said her inspiration to become an herbalist was her own sickness and seeing the limited response medicine had.
“Herbs helped me recover from a serious illness,” Julian said. “I was so impressed with the quality of the recovery that I made a career change in my 40s.”
Julian will be leading the Seasonal Herbal Incorporation where she will discuss medical herbs she sees in the Garden. She will describe what the plants are, what they do and when their peak growing season is. If attendees are worried about being an expert, don’t worry: Julian said she will be responsive to the audience and flexible to their understanding of medical plants.
After the presentations and the walk, the Garden will show the movie “Numen,” a film about the healing power of plants, in the Oak Glen Pavilion. Herbal tea and other refreshments will be served and food from Bliss Cafe will be available for purchase.
The Garden is currently undergoing multiple renovation projects. According to Executive Director Mike Bush, they began grading for the Fireside Landscape and are preparing for a bid for construction. Once they’ve hired a contractor, the project surrounding the building complex will be underway. Collinsworth also said they are revitalizing the Preview Garden.
“Our projects are making progress, just not much of the visual kind,” Bush said. “Surely by late March or early April, we will have some notable work underway.”
By the end of the event, the Garden’s master plan is to be the only garden in the U.S. exclusively devoted to not only the plants, but the entire ecosystems of the five Mediterranean climate regions of the world.
The event costs $10 per person and will be held from 1 to 7 p.m.