Delightful Herbs: Local organization enthusiastic about sharing knowledge of the useful plants

View larger image Sondra Johnson removes dead stems at the herb garden. Dennis Grundman/Daily View larger image From left, Phoebe Reeve and Sondra Johnson clean the herb garden at Sunflower Cottage. Dennis Grundman/Daily View larger image Evie Moreman trims the herb garden. Dennis Grundman/Daily View larger image Phoebe Reeve looks over a rosemary bush at the herb garden at Sunflower Cottage. Dennis Grundman/Daily View larger image Some of the tools for work on the herb garden. Dennis Grundman/Daily

By Josette Keelor - jkeelor@nvdaily.com

MIDDLETOWN - Last spring, the horticulture committee of the Shenandoah Herb Society started an herb teaching garden at Sunflower Cottage, on Reliance Road in Middletown, in hopes of teaching others about herbs.

Now that the garden is flourishing, committee members hope to offer monthly herb walks, said the committee's chairwoman, Phoebe Reeve of Winchester.

On a recent spring morning, she and two other members were preparing the garden for the season, weeding and beginning to harvest early herbs.

"We educated each other about the actual horticultural aspect of it" when first planning out the garden, Reeve said of the five-member committee. Other members of the herb society also help keep the garden going through the growing season, she said.

Though they have not set up a schedule yet for garden walks, their upcoming schedule is pretty packed, with the Virginia Herb Festival just around the corner on the second weekend of June.

"We are a chapter of the Herb Society of America, which is a national organization," said Billie Clifton, founding president of the horticulture committee and owner of Sunflower Cottage, where the herb society meets.

"There are five chapters in Virginia, and we are the Shenandoah chapter," she said.
"We have all the perks and benefits of being in the national group," she said, and though the membership meeting has already passed for this year, she hopes to encourage others to join.

One local benefit of belonging to the Herb Society of America is receiving discounts at the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley, Blandy Experimental Farm at the Virginia State Arboretum in Boyce and at Sunflower Cottage. Members also receive discounts to national catalogs and garden stores.

The local chapter meets eight times a year, Clifton said -- once a month, March through June and September through December.

Membership is $75 a year and includes all eight meetings and club programs, $50 of which goes to the national organization.

"It's a real good group of people," she said. Members are not required to have experience in gardening, she said. They need only have an interest.

"They don't know much, but they want to learn," she said of some members.

Other members, though, have built their careers around gardening, and some even are Master Gardeners.

"The horticultural society has been going for two years," said Reeve, who has a master's degree in herbal horticulture and degrees in therapeutic herbalism and aromatherapy. She has trained at the National Herb Garden in Washington.

Committee member Sondra Johnson, of Warren County, has been an herbalist for more than 30 years. She began working with skin issues and making plant products when her son developed psoriasis about 10 years ago.

The herbs didn't cure his psoriasis, since topical solutions don't solve the problem, she said, "But you can take them to look and feel better."

Johnson used borage from the garden last year to make what Reeve calls a "fabulous borage balm with lovely oils." The society sells the borage balm at $5 for a 1-ounce tin and $8 for a 2-ounce tin.

"And we intend this year to do more projects like that," Reeve said.
A pesto event is also in the works.

"We grow a ton of basil here at Sunflower Cottage," Clifton said. "It's an extra party we're planning," where they will make pesto from fresh basil "and eat and drink and play and take it home with them," she said.

The garden, meanwhile, is divided into four sections, the learning garden offers mints and thyme, culinary herbs, healing herbs and scented herbs.

Reeve pointed out herbs like chamomile, whose white flowers are used in making tea, and sage, "which we all know and love, especially around the holidays."

Sage, chives and rosemary are some herbs she indicated as being culinary herbs.

The uses of rosemary are something "we of European extraction know well," she said of the herb that spread across Europe and is used with eggs, meat, candies, cakes and pies. It's used very potently and therapeutically, she said, and formerly was used with salt and pepper to cure meats so they would keep longer.

"It affects the hypothalamus," she said, explaining that rosemary sends a message to the brain to halt sweating and also can be used as an alternative to caffeine.

Horseradish, the designated herb of the year for 2011, is an ancient plant used around the Middle East, she said. One of the five sacred herbs of Passover, it's a bitter herb, whose root is mixed with cream and vinegar and used with meat like beef, she said.

"Rue is a very highly therapeutic plant ... It's actually tonic to the female reproductive system," Reeve said, but she cautions never to touch it with bare hands. "It actually causes the cells of your skin to become sensitive to sun."

A 32-page book the Shenandoah Herb Society published this year could help those interested in learning about the uses of herbs. Simply called "Herbs," the 32-page book is $7.50 at Sunflower Cottage or online at the society's website, www.sunflowercottage.net/shenandoah_herb_society.

The society currently has about 25 members, but they always hope for more.
"It's an opportunity to meet people who love to garden, who love to cook, who love that the plants are healing for us, who love to craft with them," Reeve said.

For more information about the Shenandoah Herb Society, call Sunflower Cottage at 869-8482.