Medicinal Herbs- Shipton Mill  Garden

 Summer 2025

The medicinal herb garden at Shipton Mill has lapped up every sunray of this abundantly hot summer. While the grass has cindered to a brown and the heavily cultivated roses hung their weary heads, forgetting their Eastern ancestry… the herb beds have been flourishing.

An often overlooked bonus of growing herbs is that the most medicinally vibrant varieties are often the most robust. The beds are full of ‘officinalis’s’. This translates as the storeroom or ‘office’ of the monasteries where the monks would store their medicinal harvests. I’m imagining the monks (more likely ancient indigenous peoples before them) discerned certain plants in the wild that worked particularly well with the human biological system in a way that healed and fortified, and brought them home to be cultivated. These plants have been doing their medicinal thing a long time and in a lot of different climates. So when it comes to a deliriously hot summer in a Gloucestershire garden, they’ve got some backbone. And I have my own intuition that a bit of environmental challenge actually makes these species more potent, it catalyses them in a way. As a gardener it can be habit to mollycoddle, but these plants pack their own punch both in their natural habitats and in the garden.

This is not to say some mindful watering hasn’t been done! The Marshmallow for example might have had to change its name completely to adapt to this unmarsh-like summer. We are also very lucky to be bound by the river, the Tetbury Avon. The watercourse snakes through the middle of the garden, dividing it in two. I’ve delighted in this (so far) constant river this year more than most. It briefly flooded much of the garden last Winter, and now, even at the end of several bone-dry months it flows still. There’s a lot to be said for our rivers these days, a lot of it sobering. I feel so grateful to still hear the occasional toot from a Kingfisher, catch the mighty arched wings of the Heron above, and imagining Otter as I discover their scat markings on the river steps. All within ear and eye shot of the herb garden. These are dearly precious and rare things for most of us

Resilience and the gift of clean water aside, I have noticed the crops mature much sooner and quicker this season than others. The turnover of crops has been hasty, and I’ve been adopting every available drying and processing space to keep up. One moment in full flower, the next spreading seed far and wide… I have Valerian in mind! I have to remind myself that August is still in full swing while the apples are ripening off and the blackberries have just started to turn over. I do wonder what will be left for September, nature’s month of ripening? I hope for rain, and lots of it. And despite some hot weather successes like the Ashwagandha, there have also been some crops that suffered, the chamomile didn’t come to much and the Echinacea has been so thin and short. But that’s always the way, each season some of my plant friends do well and others don’t, it's ok, they tell me, there’s another year coming!

I carefully dry and cut most of the herbs to sell as medicinal teas, both as simples and blends. I also make hydrosols with fresh herbs in our copper alembic. It’s a beautiful piece of kit, and I love dusting it off at the beginning of summer for the first crop, the mints. It’s a very rudimentary still but it effectively distils a lot of herb material into wonderful and uplifting plant waters, and sometimes, if the herb gives, some essential oil.  I’ve been distilling mint, rose, lavender and lemon balm this year.

If you are interested in any of herbs I grow please do get in touch with Emily via enquiries@shipton-mill.com.

Some of the herbs I’m growing are:

• Aloysia citrodora (Lemon Verbena)
• Althaea officinalis (Marshmallow)
• Angelica archangelica (Angelica)
• Artemisia absinthium (Wormwood)
• Artemisia vulgaris (Mugwort)
• Betonica officinalis (Wood Betony)
• Calendula officinalis (Calendula)
• Echinacea angustifolia (Echinacea)
• Matricaria recutita (German Chamomile)
• Melissa officinalis (Lemon Balm)
• Mentha (Mints – Morrocan, Peppermint, Spearmint)
• Scutellaria laterifolia (Skullcap)
• Tilia (Lime flower)
• Urtica dioica (Nettle – wild harvested)
• Valeriana officinalis (true Valerian)
• Verbena officinalis (Vervain)