Barbara Segall takes a look at the often hidden medicinal properties of many common garden plants
Please be aware that this article is for information purposes only. If you wish to use any of the plants outlined on these pages for medicinal purposes always first consult a qualified healthcare provider before you pursue any herbal treatments.
Igrow so many herbs to use in the kitchen and most are herbaceous perennials or annuals, and one or two are woody herbs such as bay and rosemary, that can be grown as trees or shrubs. As I am not a medical herbalist, my first thoughts always tend towards the ways these plants can be useful in the kitchen to flavour food.
Yet after speaking to Anne Stobart, a clinical medical herbalist who created the Medicinal Forest Garden Trust (www.medicinalforestgardentrust.org), I now realise that many of the woody plants in my garden also have medicinal properties. Following her guidelines in Trees and Shrubs that Heal, I could use them for that purpose, or I could continue to grow them for their own beautybut with added respect for, and knowledge of, their healing attributes.
Anne lists 8 trees and shrubs that she suggests are easy to obtain and grow and, in fact, I already grow many of them as ornamentals in my garden.
Amelanchier alnifolia
This is one of my favourite small shrubby trees that I love for its pretty and fragrant spring flowers, its dark berries, which have a sweet almond flavour, and its burnished autumn foliage. I have used the dark black fruits to make a sauce to serve with meat or poultry and they can also be used to flavour cooked dishes.
Now I also know from Anne that I can use those fruits together with wine vinegar and sugar to make a tonic that will be a good digestive.
My plant is growing in full sun in well-drained soil. The young leaves can also be used, fresh or dried to make an infusion in boiling water, and the fruit when ripe can be frozen or dried and similarly infused in boiling water to make a tonic tea. The birds love the berries so I will have to be quicker and more vigilant to harvest what I need first.
Hawthorn (Cratageus monogyna)
It is often seen growing in hedgerows, where it is usually part of a mixed wild hedge. In gardens it can be used as a specimen tree, grown for its ornamental flowers and red berries in autumn. Its thorny stems discourage me from giving it garden space, but I do love to see its flowers and fruits in spring and autumn respectively when I walk around the water meadows near my home.
Because it tolerates repeat and heavy pruning, it may sucker but it does form a dense thicket-like hedge.
Anne sugg
