Reviewed by annieb123 on
The Healing Garden is an encyclopedic herbal and guide to medicinal plants and herbal medicine by Juliet Blankespoor. Due out 8th April 2022 from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt on their Mariner imprint, it's a substantial 448 pages and will be available in hardcover, and ebook formats.
This is a well written and accessible beginner-friendly guide (with recipes and tutorials) for herb gardening and herbal medicine.The author writes with competence and experience on choosing, growing, harvesting, processing, and using herbs and the active ingredients they contain. The first section (~25%) covers culture, siting, soil building, pest control, and propagation (very useful info here). The chapters in section 2 introduce methods for harvesting and preparing/preserving plant material without destroying active ingredients. The third and largest section contains a survey of active ingredients, safety issues, and a comprehensive herbal with profiles for 32 common herbs from anise hyssop to yarrow.
The tutorials and recipes include tools and ingredients in a bullet style list. Measurements are in American/imperial units with metric/standard measures in parentheses (yay!), followed by step by step instructions. Plant profiles in the herbal chapters include common and botanical (Latin) nomenclature, culture info, habit (size, spread), propagation, medicinal uses, and recipes and tutorials for specific uses.
The book is lushly illustrated and photographed throughout in full color. The author has also included a resource and links lists, bibliography, and index.
Five stars. This would be a superlative choice for public or school library acquisition, community garden/allotment member libraries, or the home gardener's library.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.
Reading updates
- Started reading
- 20 March, 2022: Finished reading
- 20 March, 2022: Reviewed