By Martha Benedict, LAc, OMD

As published in the California Journal of Oriental Medicine, Summer, 1999

"You can take the girl out of the farm, but you can never take the farm out of the girl."

I remember being characterized this way since I was young. I grew up on a farm and having a garden has been an important part of grounding myself wherever I've lived.

We had recently moved to a place where an acre garden was in a very sad state of affairs. In addition it was clear that menopause had given me the call. I woke at three o'clock one morning, made a cup of chamomile tea, lit a fire in the fireplace, and sat with pen and paper to discuss with myself how I wanted to move through this chapter of my life. The outcome of this conversation was to put my lifetime love of the land to the rescue once again and create an environment where more oxygen is created than my family consumes; a place to act as a way station for migrating birds, as well as a home for songbirds and hummers. I planned to continue my custom of having an herbal display garden, to become part of the butterfly corridor by helping to reintroduce a native butterfly, the California Pipevine, into a county where it hadn't been seen in sixty years. No hot flashes, flooding, or dissolving into puddles of tears and depression for me.

Let me share some of where that decision would take me.

I've learned more about the nature of herbs from growing them in my garden than I ever did making individual formulas for people from dried bulk herbs in the clinic for the last twenty-some years. Take lycium chinensis, a yin tonic. I planted it in semi shade in rapidly draining soil and where it looked dull, listless, and puny. As I was walking around one morning observing and contemplating on life and the nature of all things important, I focused on the ailing shrub, when lightning struck. It's a yin tonic. Move it to a shady location near the streambed. I fetched a spade, moved the lycii to a nice spot near the stream. Within a week the plant was perky and saying, "Thank you" in 'plantese.'

As I collected Chinese herbal plants from around the world, I found surprisingly little information easily available about the growing conditions for many of them. Now instead of trying to place them randomly, I refer to the Chinese usage of the plant for guidance. Yang tonics get planted in plenty of sun in well-drained soil. Yin tonics are planted in shade or semi-shade with a higher degree of moisture. Give a delicate plant like clematis it's face in the sun, feet in the shade, and a solid structure upon which to climb, as it needs the support for the delicate joints of the plant. Most salvia are easy to propagate.

Salvia militiorrhiza, although hardy enough once it is established, is like the secret of a person's heart. It takes much patience and kindness to discover its propagation habits.

Wisteria seeds run rampant, and the plant needs to be pruned "ruthlessly" on a monthly basis or it will overwhelm the space it is designed to occupy, just like the parasites it is intended to purge.

Pinellia ternata (ban xia), designed for excess stomach heat, loves water and proliferates wantonly unless tended. And so it goes for agastache rugosa, (huo xiang), houttuyniae cordata (yu xing cao), vitex rotundafolia (man Jjng zi), magnolia (hou po, hou po hua, and xin yi), plantago (che qian cao), platycodon (jie geng), buddleia (mi meng hua), cornus (shan zhu xu) and a host of other Chinese herbs which do marvelously in a Bay Area garden. The descriptions about plant natures do indeed come from careful observation of nature, just as does the rest of our medicine.

When my family moved to this property five years ago, the trees were in an unhealthy state. The pines were all infected with pine pitch canker, the California live oaks and scrub oaks were infected with the viral-caused flux. Their crowns were buried two-feet deep in heavily compacted soil, many branches were exfoliated and all of them were covered in tons of strangulating Algerian ivy. The ivy covered most of the rest of the acre as well except where it competed with Vinca minor or poison oak trees with trunks as big as a man's wrist. Three different arborists suggested removing most of the trees, as they exfoliated, infected, dying or dead trees. Needless to say, this thought didn't sit well with me. As I walked around the property, I railed at the unfairness of the situation. If these were children, would we amputate at the neck because of a viral invasion?

I decided to approach the issue of the trees as though I were in the clinic. First, I got a bucket of hot water and soap, climbed a ladder with a scrub brush and began scouring the bleeding wounds of the trunks and branches of the trees. That helped, but not enough. Next I sprayed anti-viral and antibacterial herbal solutions such as tea tree, isatis tinctoria (da qing ye) and the like. That was better for most of the wounds that did not pierce the tree cambium. There was one wound that was in the crux of the tree contaminating both main trunks where the tree first bifurcates. It looked especially deep. I took a screwdriver and started digging into the black gooey worm-infested wound and cleaned it back to the healthy cambium. It felt like using a giant acupuncture needle. Then I thought of the role of fire in nature. So, I used a propane torch on the wounds, lightly on the superficial ones and a long time on the deep ones. It felt like moxibustion! We dug out the impacted soil around tree crowns, removed the ivy from trees and underneath them where it competed for soil nutrients and starved them. We fed and watered the nutrients into the soil and trimmed out dead branches to allow more sunlight and increase air circulation to decrease fungal growth.

Much to my delight, the trees responded very quickly. Within two weeks the deep wounds were producing new cambium over the deep wounds and the superficial oozy ones were history. Within six weeks the remaining "dead" branches were sprouting new green leaves.

The basis of a garden, as in the five phase theory of acupuncture, of course is EARTH. It was obvious from the fact that it took two years to find our first slug and three years to see our first snail, that heavy pesticides had previously been used. I am not a pesticide-style gardener. It's not that I can't see a use for it under the proper circumstances; I've just never seen the necessity of it. It would simply ruin anything I would want to happen in my garden, like an unnecessary use of concentrated antibiotics for a child's ear infection. I could not use any space for a vegetable garden for years or harvest any herbs in the formerly poisoned parts for the same length of time as well. I wanted butterflies in my garden. That meant ABSOLUTELY NO PESTICIDES. It was not an option. Besides, there are other things to do rather than use pesticide. Herbs do not attract a lot of predators and rotating plant placement helps. Being willing to "share" with other members of the biosphere, such as bugs, deer, rodents, owls, bats, mosquitoes, snakes, moths, caterpillars (including butterfly caterpillars), makes for a healthy environment in which to live, breathe and participate in the ebb and flow of the creation/destruction cycles and the chain of life.

I digress. The soil. My son tested the mineral content of the soil when we moved here. There was no measurable mineral content. The soil was either heavy clay or porous Santa Margarita sand with very little humus. The answer was soil enrichment and compost. I brought in worm bins, worm castings, dump trucks full of manure and wood chips, tons of newspaper and brown cardboard boxes, straw, alfalfa, clover, wheat grass, and other healthy biodegradable ingredients. In addition, I added tons of blood meal, potash, seaweed, sulfur, gypsum, and more.

I didn't want to feed and water plants. I wanted to create soil, a living life-giving organism. The fertile soil would be a resource and defense to the plants - as important as air, black sweet-smelling soil rich in humus content. It took a while. Doesn't this sound more and more like "Chinese medicine?"

I'm presently working on a project to extend the butterfly corridor for a specific butterfly, the Pipevine Swallowtail, an exquisite black butterfly with iridescent blue and orange markings. You can join the corridor by planting the California native, Aristolochia Californica, Dutchman's Pipe, in your garden. If you have this pupating plant, after a few years, the Pipevine Swallowtail butterfly might grace your garden as wondrously as it graces mine. I encourage you to join the corridor. It takes many gardeners creating a giant cooperative effort to reestablish this species. Call me for information.

The first couple years all refuse was recycled into the compost piles. At that time, the herbs were primarily for demonstration purposes. Friends, patients and even students from the local TCM school visited to see Chinese herbs growing in the garden. Then in the clinic, a patient with breast cancer wanted herbal support. I knew fresh pokeroot poultice was one of many useful herbal preparations to use in her case. And where was I to find fresh pokeroot? In the garden of course.

Another lightning bolt: Instead of piling the herbal excess onto the compost pile, why not begin harvesting these wonderful, fresh herbs grown in increasingly organic and excellent soil watered with well water, and use them in preparations for patients in the clinic? I now love harvesting the herbs and making them into infusions, decoctions, salves, poultices, pessaries, and tinctures. It's a lot of effort. Nevertheless, I find it the most satisfying experience to deliver these products to my patients. Hence, the demand for these organically grown herbs and herbal products has spurred me to launch my new website: http://www.benedictineherbs.com.

So, five years later, I have a beautiful garden. I've made the passage from fertile woman through menarche into the incredibly powerful phase the Chinese refer to as "second spring." And, I haven't had a hot flash yet.

Martha Benedict, LAc, OMD, was one of the first acupuncturists licensed in California and a founder of the America college of Traditional Chinese Medicine. Martha practices in Santa Cruz, CA, where her herb business, benedictineherbs.com, has evolved from her love of the garden, commitment to the environment, and education of patients about the advantages of living organically.