New Herbs to Grow

I love growing new plants, trying new things. As an herbalist, I have my tried and true plants that I know are most commonly used by me, and the folks that run the free clinics we donate herbs to. I also love the challenge of growing new plants that I have not grown before. I love growing new herbs to try - culinary use and medicinal use - tasting and smelling the amazing diversity of plants on this planet. I also just love to learn more about plants and herbalism around the world and the similarities and differences of the different herbal practices and plant uses in the many global herbal traditions. I try to add a few dozen new herbs every year, to experience and learn about. Some things I keep growing year after year because they are amazing and I love them. Some things I try once and let it go.  There are so many plants I still want to grow, so we will continue adding every year!

Over the past few years, I have been compiling herbs used in Asian Medicinal Practice as well as other Central and South American traditions. Many of the more tropical and subtropical plants I cannot grow (without an insulated greenhouse), but many of the herbs used in Chinese, Korean, and Japanese Herbalism, are plants that I do already grow, or that can grow in my zone. We have slowly been cataloging what we are growing that is used in many traditions, so that we know we have herbs to donate that will work for different herbal practices. 

There are many plants that overlap in Asian herbal traditions what we grow for western herbalism - yarrow, anise, monarda, blackberry, calendula, hyssop, lemon balm, lovage, meadowsweet, peppermint, nettle, parsley, rue, St. John's Wort, and so many more. There are also many herbs we have from Asian medicine such as ashwagandha, astragalus, schizandra, tulsi, and so on. Over the past few years we added plants such as Schizonepeta,  Codonopsis, Gingko, and a few more.

So, in compiling what we already grow and what to add to our list, we decided to add several new plants this year so we can use them, share them, and save seeds. 

I am working on compiling our master list of herbs that are used in multiple traditions, but we did also get seeds to start a few key new plants. We have been using the list from Mountain Gardens to organize our lists. Access their list and info here. 

New plants we are growing this year in this category include:
​Artemisia princeps
Belamcanda chinensis
​Angelica sinensis
Leonotid nepetifolia
Impatiens balsamina
Salvia militiorrhiza
Siesbeckia orientalis
Leonurus heterophyllus
Schisanda chinensis
Scutellaria barbata
Dianthus superbus
And a few more. 

I hope to see how well they do this year, how much we can grow! Are you growing any new for you herbs this year?