This is the story of the Naturally Herbal garden – not a real garden as such - but a lifetime’s worth of being around plants in different gardens, different places, different settings. Wild, cultivated, rural, inner city, cared for, neglected, threatened, protected. A lifetime of gardens is a lifetime of living.

It is a garden of potential for all, insects, birds, animals, humans, the plants, trees and all living organisms. It is an environment both intoxicating and soothing, vibrant and still – a juxtaposition of all that are plants and the natural world. Yet totally enmeshed in and of each other as one living environment.

And in this world is the gardener – the one who tends, sees, nurtures, cares for, who plans the planting, reflects on the pruning, who toils and weaves magic through the plant world for the pleasures as well as the benefits.

Plants exist with the air, the earth, the water and sun, the animal and insect kingdom, the microorganisms above and below ground. All the while growing, communicating, being. So to with the remedies of Naturally Herbal – the knowledge, the korero of our ancestors, the ‘feelings’ for plants and their benefits to us. The soils too are vitally important both in type, location and vitality - damp, arid, depleted, abundant - all contribute to the garden’s appearance and well being. A garden rich in minerals and good health from sun and water and cared for space is full of vibrancy, vitality and impact.

And this is the Naturally Herbal garden’s intent – to provide products and services that care for those in the garden to be full of vibrancy, vitality and impact.

A lifetime’s worth of plants and gardens, flowers and floristry, creating new gardens, replenishing and restructuring old ones, visiting, absorbing and acknowledging the work of those gardeners who have gone before us is the foundations of Naturally Herbal skin and herbal remedies. Fascination with how natural remedies can support our wellbeing and recovery was a happy adjunct to being in the garden and extension of plants solely for beauty or consumption. At Naturally Herbal, plants are the heroes – supporting those who use them with a way back to wellbeing that is simplistic, effective and joyous. In the hands of experienced gardeners, plants invariably thrive, so too with herbal remedies where using the appropriate remedy can be of immense benefit.

When time is taken – like the wise gardener contemplating his plants, soil, setting and season – to understand the complaint or need, then plants will and do step forward to support us regain our health and wellbeing, regain our hope, regain our life. It may be herbal ointments, it may be natural skincare, it may be flower essences, it may even be just the time taken to listen.

The beauty of the rose, the daisy, the lily is the beauty of being alive,

to see, to feel, to smell,

to know the rose, the daisy, the lily.

And so it is in the Naturally Herbal garden.