Today we received a package in the mail from United Plant Savers. UpS has welcomed the Serpentine Project into their botanical sanctuary network. A bit from the UpS website:
“The mission of United Plant Savers is to preserve, conserve and restore native medicinal plants and their habitats of the US and Canada, while ensuring their abundant, renewable supply for future generations. To this end, United Plant Savers established one of our most important projects: the Botanical Sanctuary Network. As we became more deeply involved in the complexities of plant preservation, we realized that in order to preserve plants we must first preserve and protect the habitat in which our native plant communities thrive. What better way than to create a network of sanctuaries dedicated to restoring and preserving habitat for wildlife, both plants and animals.” Read more here if you are interested in developing your own sanctuary: https://www.unitedplantsavers.org/content.php/43-Botanical-Sanctuary-Network
I decided to work toward developing a UpS sanctuary for medicinal plants while I was studying plants in Oregon. Much of my studies centered on indigenous or native plants and naturalized plants. Some of the indigenous plants are rare and require ethical wildcrafting and propagation to ensure that they continue to exist. So I invite them to the places I live and hope that they settle in and get comfortable. Right now I’m inviting plants to NE Ohio. I had a garden in Oregon and then later started another garden around the meditation center at Anathoth Community Farm that is still doing well.
At BLD farm in NE Ohio, a learning garden with the at-risk species has been established closer to the house so that people who want to come learn and see the plants can do so without braving ticks and mosquitoes. So far that garden has a few plants each of Jack-in-the-Pulpit, Black Cohosh, Bloodroot, Goldenseal, Wild Ginger, Great Blue Lobelia, and Red Trillium. The other medicine gardens are in open areas near the garden and the work site for the green house.
Our long-term plan is to establish a center at BLD farm that emphasizes Earth-based skills (such as herbalism) and other folk arts that can contribute to a more sustainable society. We are currently working on the design of the primary classroom and apothecary. If you would like to help us make this dream come true, please donate or volunteer. Send checks payable to Serpentine Project to:
Serpentine Project
c/o Leah Wolfe
715 Furnace Road
Conneaut, OH 44030
Or donate online via PayPal by clicking below:
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Trillium Center 
