Grab Your Spot To Join
How amazing would it be…
To step outside your door and see fresh, abundantly growing herbs surrounding you? To smell the sweet scents wafting on the breeze while you take a moment to pause and inhale…
To know that as you snip the green shoots for today’s calming tea or tonight’s nourishing dinner, that growth will continue, throughout the growing season.
To simply be in the presence of plants every day, which creates the space for healing to occur.
You absolutely can create this. How does that sound?
Here’s how it happens:
This masterclass interview series brings together visionaries in the fields of herbalism, organic growing and gardening, natural health and wellness, and community education, from March 4th-8th, 2024.
Each interview gives you a practical step or mindset shift you can take on your journey into growing and connecting with herbs for food, medicine, and joy!
When you register for The Healing Power of Plants, you’ll get
Exclusive Access to Interviews with Visionaries, Herbalists, Growers, Health and Wellness leaders, Community Educators who will help you:
- Understand why simply BEING with and around the plants is healing
- Find the answer to “I don’t know enough” that keeps you from growing what you desire
- Expand your idea of what a “garden” can be
- Discover the steps to start growing in a way that works for YOU (even if you think you “can’t keep anything alive”)
- Create a sense of community and belonging, starting with yourself
Margot Freitag
Health and Leadership Coach/Consultant
Lisa Estabrook
Flower Wisdom Guide
Steph Zabel
Herbalist, Teacher & Writer
Vanessa Nixon
Traditional Naturopath
Samantha Holmgren, RD
Registered Dietitian
Sarah Corbett
Clinical Herbalist, NTP, CIEC
Jane Metzger
Herbal Academy Co-Director
Karen A. Spiller
Boston Food Forest Coalition, Board Member & Coalition Site Steward
Safiyat Hamiss
Food Garden Coach
Andy Brooks
Bootstrap Compost CEO & Co-Founder
Jenny Hauf
Farmer, Teacher & Writer
Benoit Azagoh-Kouadio
Farmer, Orchardist, Herbalist, Educator, Advocate
You’ll also get:
The basics you need to know: how to start, how much sunlight do you really need? Soil basics (compost, anyone?), how to harvest, and how to grow your own herbs while living your busy life!
Plus, the mindset and energetic shifts so you can: trust yourself to begin, to make mistakes, and to learn, open up to receive wisdom and medicine from plants, learn ways to connect with and communicate with plants in your own way.
Who is behind all this?
About Your Host
Lauren Almquist is an herbalist, garden consultant and educator who helps people grow their own herbs for food, medicine, and joy, with ease and confidence, season after season.
She facilitates connection, communication, and deep relationships among people and plants to create nourishing, abundant spaces that support the ecosystem (including humans).
Lauren lives in Boston, MA, where she co-creates and tends to gardens of all sizes, food forests, and porch paradises. She studied herbalism and plant spirit healing at the Gaia School of Healing in Vermont, is an Accredited Organic Land Care Professional (AOLCP), and a certified Gardendary Consultant.
When not wandering in the garden, sitting with plants on her porch, or walking around town, you can find Lauren under a weighted blanket, doing a crossword with her husband and cat, or reading non-fiction books. She also dances amongst her collection of disco balls of various sizes, appreciating all things sparkly and magical.
Let’s talk about this
“growing your
own herbs”
thing for a second.
You may have bought some herb plants and they didn’t last very long, and that made you sad or feel bad. You think to yourself, “I don’t have a green thumb, I can’t grow things.”
Maybe you are not an herbalist, and don’t think you can grow plants that could be medicine.
Maybe you want to grow your own plant medicine, but you just aren’t sure what to do when, what plants to plant, when and how to harvest, how to make remedies, so you start googling and it starts feeling complicated really quickly.
So you put it off until next season, or never.
I get it.
You are busy. You don’t want to set up a great thing and then literally watch it wither away. Maybe you’ve already done that! There’s so much info out there (hello endless Googling) and it’s hard to really know the best way to invest your time, money, and energy when trying to grow a thriving collection of herbs, whether in a garden bed or containers on the porch.
But here’s the thing: There’s no such thing as a green thumb. Growing your own plants is the most direct way to deeply connect with the magic that herbs have to offer. And it is available to everyone.
To grow your own herbs, for food, medicine, and joy,
you need to believe that you can!
If you’ve ever wondered how some folks seem to magically grow abundant gardens or a steady supply of herbs on their back porch, while you seem to kill plants you buy at the store, or your carefully planted seedlings suddenly wither away.
Or maybe you have grown herbs, but want to understand how to use them as tea or home remedies, but the last time you tried to dry the herbs for tea, they went moldy and you gave up.
Here’s some encouragement: it’s not your fault, and there is nothing wrong with you.
Growing herbs is one of the easiest, most direct ways to connect with the healing and nourishing powers of plants. Simply BEING in the presence of growing plants is in itself calming, healing, and nourishing. Especially if you allow yourself to pause, give some energy to the plants, and receive.
Being close to the life cycles of the plants, aligns you to the natural rhythms of the seasons, and the ecosystem of which humans are an important part. As humans, we have the power to POSITIVELY impact the world around us…
So, join the plant party!
You in?
If you still don’t know if you want in,
Here’s Why You’ll Want to Join Us!
This is a rare and unique opportunity to have this group of amazing humans’ pro tips and insights, not only on growing herbs, but growing community, abundance, health and vitality. I have been so moved by the depth and power of this group!
Each interview is going to dig into an aspect of working with plants and growing them to make it easy to integrate into your everyday life.
In case you missed it: These interviews are FREE to listen to!
Is it reason enough to do something just because it’s free? No!
But this is different.
Walk away knowing how to trust your instincts, have confidence to learn from experience, create your own relationships with plants, and experience the magic that is happening everyday, right outside your doorstep.
If you’re still reading all the way down here, then you want to make sure this is for you. I get it, I like to read all the things too.
Instinctively, you know that being in and around nature can have a calming and uplifting effect. If you ever go to the beach, walk through a forest, hike on a trail, you’ve experienced it.
The late neurologist and author Oliver Sacks, noted in his essay Why we need gardens that “in my 40 years of medical practice, I have found only two types of non-pharmaceutical “therapy” to be vitally important for patients with chronic neurological diseases: music and gardens.
Did you know that simply looking at plants has been shown to reduce stress, fear, anger, sadness, blood pressure, pulse rate and muscle tension?
So, how can you get started creating your own nourishing, abundant space wherever you are?
Come listen in on conversations with planty people who’ve learned from plants about growing, growing themselves and growing community so you can create your own herbal oasis for health, nourishment and joy.
That’s what The Healing Power of Plants is all about!
So, are you ready to get inspiration and practical tips from me and my friends so you can create your own sanctuary, outdoor oasis or porch paradise?
One Last PS…
You don’t need to become an herbalist in order to start growing your own herbs.
And you don’t need to grow all the herbs you would ever need or want to know what to do with!
What if it were as simple as finding one or two plants that you connect with deeply, and experiencing the relationship that is possible by planting, growing, and tending those plants, right where you live, everyday? What if there was a profound healing journey in that simple act?
That can be true for you.
I’ve witnessed it many times, for myself and others, and whole communities.
I’ve gathered together some of the people I respect most to help you do just that.
It’s my gift to you and I hope you take me up on it, because it could be exactly what you need to hear. And the plants are waiting for more of us to listen and grow with them.