On Saturday 20th August Ludmila Draxlerová gave a fascinating talk on Herbs and their Uses with an insight into their medicinal properties.
Ludmila started experimenting with herbs – observing, and comparing results – from early childhood in her native Slovakia. We heard how she saved her school friend the pain of having warts burnt off by treating them with Greater Celandine. And how between one spring and winter she successfully treated her mother’s gall stones with Agrimony. And then as a mother herself, how she made her own St. John’s Wort tincture and oil to relieve her children’s itchy chicken pox.
Ludmila answered all the questions we threw at her – from what books to read, which herbs to use for our own ailments to the impact of pharmaceutical companies on generations of knowledge being lost.
She showed us a selection of her own tinctures and mixtures. And we finished with a stroll round the garden looking at, touching and smelling many of the wonderful herbs she’d talked about.
By Rebecca Wallace.