The Medicinal and Food Garden

Jane tending plants in the Medicinal Garden

The Medicinal and Food Garden is a collection of plants which the Aboriginal peoples and the early European settlers historically used. This is the only garden in the Harriet Irving Botanical Gardens which exhibits non indigenous plants of the Acadian Forest Region. Many of these plants escaped early farmstead cultivation, became naturalized and can still be seen growing all throughout the region.

The garden is enclosed within a hedge of eastern white cedar and is laid out as a formal grid with a central path running north south. The path is lined on either side with two rows of linden trees. These are underplanted with the native high-bush blueberry and, the native low-bush or wild blueberry.

The west half of the Medicinal Garden features three separate gardens: the Native, Scented and Acadian Garden.

The Native Bed includes plants indigenous to the Acadian forest region that were used by the aboriginal population prior to the European migration. Plants were used for medicine, food, warfare and in Religious Ceremonies. For example, the humble woodland strawberry (Fragaria vesca) besides having edible fruit was used as a laxative, diuretic and astringent. The fruit was invaluable for fevers, removing discoloration of the teeth, whitening skin, and removing slight sunburn.

The Scented Garden is a mixture of introduced and native species that are aromatic. These plants also have medicinal value or are used as culinary herbs and will be the most familiar to visitors acquainted with modern herb gardens. An unusual subject in this garden is the mugwort. It has been used to scour and polish, as a pesticide to repel midges from the pantry, and placed among woolen clothing to prevent and destroy moths. Tea made from leaves was used as a diuretic, to promote appetite, and against illnesses such as bronchitis, colds, colic, epilepsy, fever, kidney ailments and sciatica. In Europe, mugwort was occasionally employed as an aromatic culinary herb, being one of the green herbs with which geese are often stuffed during roasting. You are likely familiar with many of the plants in the scented garden including oregano, basil, and thyme.

The Acadian Garden is an early potager style garden, similar to what the first French habitants would have planted. It combines vegetable plots, aesthetic flowers, aromatic herbs and curative plants together in one pleasing design. The plants are mainly introduced species that the Acadians brought with them from the old world. The vegetables are mainly root crops that could be stored over long winters, such as carrots and turnips. Early greens such as chicory were also used as a diuretic, a laxative, for jaundice, skin eruptions and fevers. The dried and ground chicory root is known as a coffee substitute and the leaves yield a blue dye to match the pretty blue flowers that bloom in summer. It is listed as a noxious weed in many American states.