“We aren’t that different from plants,” says Babylonstoren master gardener Gundula Deutschländer, adding “even if we think we might be superior.”
Medical doctor, yoga teacher and Garden Day Friend Dr Anesu Mbizvo talks to hers. She says part of her daily ritual of caring for her plants at home involves “speaking to them kindly”, telling them “how beautiful they are or how well they’re growing”, and providing other “affirmations”.
Back in 1986, King Charles (then prince), told an interviewer: “I just come and talk to the plants, really – very important to talk to them, they respond.”
Much fun was had at his expense, but the topic of plant intelligence has broken into the popular consciousness recently with the publication earlier this year of a new book, The Light Eaters by environmental and science journalist Zoë Schlanger.
Whether or not plants are sentient, or what form their consciousness might take, remains a question for debate, but there appear to be clear signs that they demonstrate awareness, that they can communicate and are responsive.
As we approach Garden Day, celebrated each year October 20 [see sidebar for more on how to plan your celebration], consider the reverse: how do plants make us feel?
Gardens and gardening tend to make us feel good. Mbizvo, who practiced as a medical doctor before co-founding The Nest Space, the first black and female-run yoga and wellness centre in Joburg, says: “As a doctor, I’ve always felt it’s important to emphasise the healing properties of going into nature: disconnecting from technology, taking off your shoes, walking barefoot on the ground and breathing fresh air.”
Tending to the earth, interacting with plants and connecting with nature, she says, has a “significant impact on your individual health as a person”.
The human affinity for plants is hardly surprising. In fact, trying to imagine humans without plants is a tricky business. The history of human civilisations is deeply tied up with plants. Our ability to cultivate plants – the primal act of gardening – enabled human settlement, the development of cities, technology and complex social and economic structures.
Beyond that, Deutschländer reminds us: “We share many physiological traits with plants - we resonate with one another without even realising it.”
Certain plants, when we ingest them, not only have the ability to nourish us physically, but interact so readily with our own cellular structures that they can heal us [or poison us] and even alter our consciousness. That daily cup off coffee or tea to focus your mind, or that calming chamomile… those are plant structures that interact with us on a molecular level to change the way we feel, perceive things and heal ourselves.
US science and environmental journalist and author Michael Pollan writes in This is Your Mind on Plants, his book about plant narcotics — opium, mescaline, caffeine: “I’ve come to appreciate that when we take these plants into our bodies and let them change our minds, we are engaging with nature in one of the most profound ways possible.”
The first botanical gardens actually started as physicians’ gardens, says Deutschländer. One of the world’s oldest existing botanical gardens, the Orto Botanico di Padova in northeast Italy, founded in 1545, was one of the first educational physic gardens associated with medicine. The Chelsea Physic Garden in the UK, dating back to 1673, was established by apothecaries to grow medicinal plants. Today it’s home to around 5 000 different edible, useful and medicinal plants.
In these gardens, plants that interact with us physiologically were selected, cultivated and bred to enhance their medicinal properties. They are a mirror of ourselves— reflecting our bodies through the plants that interact with them. Physic gardens represent a profoundly intimate relationship with gardening. “As a doctor, I started to learn more about the medicinal properties of plants, which just made me love them even more,” says Mbizvo.
The healing garden at Babylonstoren is actually laid out to resemble a human body. “To make it easy to navigate, I’ve laid it out to represent a body at rest, head to toe,” says Deutschländer. “A water rill flows down the centre of the garden with various beds on either side representing body parts [brain, heart, liver] or ailments [diabetes, cancer].”
Interestingly, the Liberty Indwe Park in Braamfontein is laid out in a conceptually similar way, creating a kind of equivalency between body and landscape.
Deutschländer explains that the healing garden at Babylonstoren also carries with it a historical narrative. It includes plants from various plant-healing traditions, including Europe and Asia, as well as indigenous knowledge systems. This partly reflects the mixed heritage of the region: being on a trade route means that influences were brought here from all around the world.
It’s something that would resonate with Mbizvo, too. She says her own personal “path of healing” includes “trying to fuse all of the different lineages that I come from”, which she says includes Zimbabwean, Contonese and Cape Malay heritage. So Chinese tea ceremonies, sage space-cleansing rituals, cacao ceremonies and various traditional African spiritual practices all combine in her relationship with plants and healing.
Importantly, the healing garden at Babylonstoren isn’t only about understanding how to combine elements of horticultural history in the present. It’s also an example of a garden that plays a role in forging our future as a planet and as people. Botanical gardens – and medicinal gardens – have a fundamental role to play in an age of ecological fallout. “Because my mom is a conservationist and my dad a doctor, I’ve grown up understanding the importance of human health, as well as the importance of planetary health,” says Mbizvo.
She adds to that the “intersectionality of environmentalism and social justice”. She argues that climate change is also a threat to indigenous knowledge systems, and that environmentalism needs to relate to them as a way of navigating “the custodianship of plants and nature and conservation”.
Deutschländer points out that many local plant-healing traditions are based less on planting medicinal gardens than “wild harvesting”. In the vicinity of Babylonstoren, however, as little as one percent of the Renosterveld biome remains. This is the ground from which indigenous knowledge systems sprang. The vast tracts of this floral kingdom that once proliferated in the area have been destroyed by agriculture. What’s left is threatened by climate change.
Add to that, the fact that medicinal plants are too often no longer harvested by traditional healers with respect and care, but by proxies who pull them out indiscriminately. “Our garden inspires people to grow medicinal plants at home rather than promoting wild harvesting,” says Deutschländer.
“When collecting seeds from plants like the Cancer Bush, it’s important to take seeds back to the place where they were collected to encourage more growth the following year.”
The healing gardens of the present and future represent the possibility not only of preserving and helping to heal the natural environment, but also of reminding us of how we need to relate to the planet in a respectful and loving way. Then, it, in turn, will help not only to comfort and heal us, but carry our knowledge, beliefs and stories into the future.
Deutschländer refers to author and scientist Robin Wall Kimmerer, author of Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants. She writes: “Even a wounded world is feeding us. Even a wounded world holds us, giving us moments of wonder and joy. I choose joy over despair. Not because I have my head in the sand, but because joy is what the earth gives me daily and I must return the gift.”
Now there’s a reason to go out and celebrate on Garden Day.
From customisable invitations and recipe ideas, to guidelines on how to make your own flower crown, there are plenty of materials to help you prepare for a celebration here — hit the Toolkit tab. Share your garden party pics with @GardenDaySA #GardenDaySA or send via WhatsApp to 0742881487.
How to celebrate Garden Day
Garden Day on Sunday October 20, is an annual celebration of gardens or green spaces. It doesn’t matter if it’s a few pot plants on a balcony, a community garden or a private plant paradise, Garden Day – now in its ninth year – is about harnessing the power of plants and green spaces to bring us together. Traditionally one celebrates by wearing a flower crown and hosting a party in your green space, whatever shape, form and size it takes. Anythingand everything goes — from a lavish lunch on the lawn, to platters on the patio with your pot plants or tea for two under your favourite tree.
10 ways to celebrate on Garden Day
- Invite the neighbours for a garden picnic party.
- Have tea under a tree.
- Convert your garden into an open-air cinema by setting up a projector and a screen against a blank wall or a white sheet.
- Do lunch in the veggie garden.
- Throw a tea party with your besties.
- Serve cake at your closest community garden.
- Braai on the lawn.
- Share platters on the patio.
- Party with your house plants.
- Host the Garden Day Olympics. Turn your garden into a playful arena for a day of friendly competition and outdoor fun with the kids.
Five of master gardener Gundula Deutschländer’s favourites from the Babylonstoren healing garden:
Cancer Bush (Lessertia frutesence): “The Cancer Bush does not specifically address cancer in the body, but it allows the healing process to focus on areas in the body where the immune system has been compromised. It also dispels depression which usually accompanies debilitating health conditions. It is a plant that comes to cover the wounds of the land and restore the damage, with a similar action when taken by people who have had their immunity compromised.”
African Dream Root (Silene undulata): “(This new addition to Babylonstoren’s healing garden were) grown from seed gifted by a traditional healer from the Klein Karoo. Silene is the Greek goddess of the moon, and this plant has means of tapping into the enlightenment that is often revealed to us in our dreams. This is a plant that is deeply rooted in our traditional healing practices, and I’m really honoured to get to know it better as I tend to the plants from seed to harvest.”
A cure for a broken heart: “If you were French, you’d probably have a delectable snack of borage to boost your courage. Heart issues take a lot of courage, a word based on “cour” [French for heart]. If you were African, you’d go for something with a bit more oomph! Artemisia afra (Umhlonyane) would be more appropriate. Everyone in South Africa should grow Artemisia afra in their gardens, either in a pot or on the boundary of their garden. It’s a very attractive plant for humans and lady birds.”
Hyssop: “For bloating, belching and farting.”
Buzz buttons (Acmella oleracea): “Buzz buttons are worth nibbling when treating toothache, but it feels like sucking on a battery: simultaneously an electrifying and numbing experience!”
