A garden of healing traditions
The Medicinal Garden brings together plants that have been valued for generations for their traditional uses. Rather than growing them simply as a collection, the garden has been arranged to show the different ways herbs have formed part of everyday health and wellbeing.
Ten individual beds each explore a different theme, from digestive and respiratory herbs to traditional roots, flowering plants and herbs once familiar in the home. Together they offer a chance to see these plants growing, to appreciate them as garden plants and to discover some of the traditions and stories associated with them.
Explore the ten beds
Each of the ten beds brings together herbs around a particular theme, reflecting some of the many ways plants have traditionally been used and valued. Some herbs appear in more than one bed, showing how their traditional uses often overlap rather than fitting neatly into a single category.
Digestive Herbs
This bed brings together herbs traditionally associated with digestive wellbeing. A mixture of foliage, flowers, fragrance and different growing forms creates a varied planting that changes as the season progresses.
Skin & Healing Herbs
This bed explores plants traditionally associated with skin care, healing and everyday herbal preparations. Many are also attractive garden plants, bringing flowers, texture and interest throughout the growing season.
Calming Herbs
This bed brings together herbs traditionally valued for their calming and soothing qualities. Fragrance is an important part of the planting, alongside flowers and foliage that create a gentle and restful character.
Women’s Wellbeing Herbs
This bed reflects the long tradition of herbs associated with women’s health and wellbeing. The planting brings together contrasting foliage, flowers, heights and forms to create an attractive and varied part of the garden.
Traditional Household Herbs
Herbs were once an everyday part of household life, valued for far more than their medicinal uses. This bed reflects some of the many practical ways plants were traditionally grown and used around the home.
Body Balancing Herbs
This bed brings together herbs traditionally valued for supporting the body in different ways. The varied forms, foliage and flowers reflect the diversity of plants that have found a place in traditional herbal practice.
Soothing Herbs
This bed brings together herbs traditionally valued for their soothing qualities. The planting combines different textures, fragrances and growing forms, reflecting the gentle character associated with many of these traditional herbs.
Traditional Root Herbs
Some of the most valued parts of a medicinal plant grow beneath the soil. This bed celebrates herbs traditionally grown for their roots, bringing another dimension to a garden where much of what we usually notice is above ground.
Flowering Healing Herbs
This bed celebrates medicinal herbs that are also grown for their flowers. Their colour and form bring beauty to the garden while reflecting the long tradition of flowering plants within herbal practice.
Respiratory Herbs
This bed brings together herbs traditionally associated with respiratory wellbeing. Fragrance, foliage and flowers combine to create a varied planting while reflecting the long history of herbs used in this area of traditional herbal practice.
A garden through the seasons
The Medicinal Garden is never quite the same from one visit to the next. Some herbs are at their best in flower, others are valued for their foliage, seeds or roots, and each has its own growing season. As plants emerge, flower, set seed and die back, the character of the beds changes naturally throughout the year.
This is very much a working garden rather than a formal display, so plants may be moved, divided, replaced or allowed to spread as the garden develops.
More than medicinal plants
Medicinal herbs can be beautiful garden plants in their own right. Their flowers, foliage, fragrance and different growing forms bring colour and interest to the beds, while many are also valuable to bees and other pollinators.
Allowing some plants to flower and set seed is part of the way the garden is managed, so their value extends well beyond their traditional herbal uses.
Discover the Medicinal Garden
The Medicinal Garden is part of a visit to The Herbal Garden, where you can wander among the beds and see how these plants grow as part of the wider garden. As the seasons change, there will always be something different to discover.