I have also had a life-long fascination with plants. I have been a gardener since my early 20s. I went back to school for a degree in environmental horticulture and landscape design in midlife. And I have always been interested in herbal remedies. No one in my family gives a hoot about these things and I wondered why they were so important to me, until I started doing some genealogy. I found out that my 4th great-grandmother was a midwife and what was called a "yarb woman" - yarb being an old pronunciation of the word "herb." She was the woman that folks in her area called on when a baby was ready to be born or someone was sick.
Perhaps my affinity for botanical medicine has been, in its own way, a sort of time traveler, passing through the genes, through the generations, from Grandma Maggie to me.
I have been a writer, both professionally and as a blogger for many years. (My other blogs are Where I Am Now and Seattle Garden Ideas.) It is only natural for me to write about the plants found in the Outlander books, but these posts don't seem to fit the websites I already have. So it makes sense to create this separate blog and give these posts their own home.
My intention for this blog is that it be a companion for readers of the Outlander series who also have an interest in plants and gardening. I know that when I see the name of a plant I am not familiar with or that I can't remember much about, I want to know more. Sometimes I wonder if that plant will grow in my part of the country. Or if it is related to a plant I think is similar. If the plant has a place in traditional medicine, I would like to know about that. I am also entertained by bits of folklore that surround these trees, shrubs and flowers. I don't plan to write only about plants with medicinal uses, although there will be quite a few of those I am sure.
As the list of posts grow, I hope you will find something of interest and answers to some of your questions.
