My adventure with Goldenseal started with three healthy roots I received from United Plant Savers – part of their fall 2012 “give away” to members. At the time, I was living in Fryeburg, ME (where I lived for 22 years until the fall of 2018 when I moved to NY). Goldenseal is a deciduous forest understory plant, native to my area but so rare it may not even exist in these parts anymore. While waiting for the roots to arrive, I prepared the bed by removing weeds and roots, added compost and some of the previous year’s maple leaves. I tried to envision its ideal home and create it. When the roots arrived, I received them gratefully, and with a bit of ceremony, carefully planted them in their new home, mulching the bed with more leaves to tuck them in for the winter. I wished them the best, and prayed I’d see growth come spring.
My relationship with goldenseal began long before that fall however. As a child, I spent lots of time in the woods in back of my home, and my father took me on hikes often, teaching me about the animals that lived there, and the trees and plants. Most of all he taught me to love and respect them through his example. I sought out all the now-rare woodland plants, from yellow, white, and pink lady slipper orchids, jack-in-the-pulpits, red and white flowered trilliums, may flowers . . . and so many more. I knew what to pick and what to leave and what might be growing in certain types of terrain. Today, all of these beauties are so very rare and I feel their loss deeply.
The medicine of lady slipper intrigued me as I became an adult and then a mother. Lady slippers felt like an ally to me – not to pick and take internally (though I did make some tincture from powdered lady slipper root I purchased in an herb store once, thrilled by its sweet, earthy fragrance and familiarity) – but simply to be around, to connect with on a deeper level. It reminded me of my childhood and the woods I loved so much, but it also touched something within me that I couldn’t name. Something wild, something from the the depths of mystery, of past lives perhaps . . . I’m not sure. I still feel it and I’m still trying to put words on it.
When I first started using herbs for healing about 45 years ago, goldenseal drew my attention. At the time it was often used internally as an “herbal antibiotic”. Now, of course, we know that isn’t the best use for it – and we also know how endangered it is, how it’s over-harvested in the wild, and to use only cultivated, organically grown roots, and to seek alternatives whenever possible. Indeed, goldenseal is a very powerful healer when used properly. I reserve it for wounds that are or may become infected, either using the powder directly or applying it in tincture form. It’s an ingredient in an herbal throat spray I make, a wound powder, my white pine salve, and an important addition to my medicine cabinet. I’ve used a bit of the tincture on the tip of a Q-tip to nip styes in the bud, and (with the addition of St. John’s wort) to stop a cold sore in its tracks. Goldenseal is a very powerful herb, and you don’t need much.
In addition to goldenseal’s healing ability, there’s something about it that calls to me like the lady slipper orchids. Maybe its where they grow – in shady places in the forest, how they each have one flower per plant, how rare and beautiful they are, or maybe goldenseal is also a memory or remnant of a past life as witch, healer, living on the edge of a deep forest . . . you know . . . that fairy-tale so many of us relate to?
For many years I resisted trying to grow it. I was afraid I’d kill it, that I didn’t have the right place and I put it off because my vision was to create a nursery for it in the small wooded area behind my house. However it was mostly white pines with a few birches, poplar, and choke cherries. Not the best location. Every time I’d go to scout out a location, I was overwhelmed by the work that would need to be done, knowing full-well that it would be a constant effort to maintain a “deciduous forest” environment in what is essentially a sandy, white pine environment. But when I received the offer for three goldenseal roots, I decided I would give it a shot, and see if I could keep it alive in the shady, “woodland” section of my garden. Whether through accident or design, or maybe my love and careful attention, those three roots thrived, produced flowers and seeds and babies!
That first spring after the snow melted and most of the perennial herbs were poking through the ground, I kept a careful watch looking for green to come from those roots. I was reminded of my young girl self going down back every day in spring where I knew the mayflowers were, ever-so-gently using my fingers to probe the duff for the first signs of those beautiful, waxy white, and fragrant flowers that meant SPRING is here! When they finally appeared, I remember running home to share the good news with my parents, who didn’t think that was strange at all.
The goldenseal seemed to take forever and for a while I thought the roots had died over the winter. Then, one day – long after even the elecampane had started to push through the ground – there it was! A strong, light green nubbin right where I had planted the biggest root. And then another and another and another! I was so overjoyed I did a little dance right there in the garden. The growth was quick after that, those nubbins growing up and unfurling into beautiful plants.
I did my best to keep them shaded over the summer and they stayed strong and healthy. Come fall, the plants died back, I added compost, mulched with maple leaves, and prayed they’d make it safely through another winter.
The next spring (2014), a few more plants emerged from the bed, and then, miracle of miracles: flowers! Each plant bore one beautiful white flower that gave way to a green berry that gradually turned bright red, reminding me of a big, juicy raspberry.
So now I had berries and therefore SEEDS! Three berries, each full of shiny, black, round seeds. Small, but still decent sized, a bit bigger than brassica seeds. I didn’t want to blow it, so I searched online to learn the best way of planting them. Most information on cultivating goldenseal recommends starting with root cuttings, so there wasn’t all that much information on starting from seed. I learned that goldenseal seeds cannot be allowed to dry out, unlike most seeds. I found an article (that I haven’t been able to relocate), that suggested making little screen envelopes into which the clean seeds are placed along with wet sand, then sealed (I used staples), and burying the packet in the ground until proper planting time in the fall. Which I did! When I pulled the packet out that fall, some of the seeds had already germinated, which I wasn’t expecting. So I very carefully, ever-so-gently separated them as much as I could, placed them in little depressions in the bed, and covered them with soil. I marked the seeds’ location with a stick, then mulched with maple leaves and hoped for the best.
Whenever I had visitors to the garden, I would proudly show them my little goldenseal bed of which I felt inordinately proud. As it turns out, I chose the perfect location since some of the plants already thriving in that area are plants that you might find growing with goldenseal in the wild, like may apple, for example, and ferns. Still, there isn’t enough shade – goldenseal needs 70% shade – so the first couple of seasons I used wooden teepees that I’d move around during the day as the sun moved in the sky. Three summers later, the bed had grown so much that I decided to invest in hoops and shade cloth.
The next spring (2015), once again I watched the bed anxiously awaiting the emergence of the goldenseal. Once more it seemed to take forever, but then up they came . . . . also BABIES! Baby goldenseal plants look very different from their adult counterparts and they generally don’t get their first true leaves until the second year. But from pictures I found, I was able to determine that I had successfully managed about 10 new goldenseal plants. I was thrilled! Again that summer the mature plants flowered, produced berries, and more seeds that I processed the same way and planted in the fall, expanding the bed to almost twice its size. The next spring, those first babies emerged with their true leaves, along with the older plants, and lots of new babies too. And this year, there were enough seeds to allow me to share some with a couple of friends, plus keep plenty to add to my bed in the bare places.
People always asked me when I’d harvest some roots. My response was, I have no idea. I wanted to wait to see what happened with the young plants, observe how well they grew, see how crowded the bed got. My main reason for planting the roots was for the experience and to get to know goldenseal up close and personal, to hang out with it, develop a relationship with it, to learn about it as a native plant species rather than as a resource for my use.
By the time I made the decision to move from Fryeburg to NY, the goldenseal bed had numerous plants of all ages and sizes, and if I had stayed, I would have needed to expand it. Already a few rogue plants had spread outside the rock borders of the bed. Rather than take my on the new owners being up to caring for an endangered plant, I decided to donate the bed to the town. The Conservation Committee agreed to come dig up the bed and move it to the Town Forest. Before the bed was moved, a couple of friends came and dug up a few plants to start their own beds, and the rest was nestled in its new location. I did visit it in the summer of 2019, and the plants, though not as vigorous as they had been were obviously doing fine. It was hot and dry and, being in the wild now, it wasn’t being watered or cared for like it had been. I got an update later in the summer that the plants had produced seeds. These were harvested and processed to start a new bed elsewhere in town. And so those first 3 roots grew and spread and now there are a few small patches growing in and around Fryeburg.
In my new home in NY state, I’m renting but I’m helping my landlords create a suitable bed for goldenseal, ginseng, and other forest herbs in what should be a perfect location – except the soil needs to be built up considerably first. We’re hoping to plant this fall, or next depending on how the soil looks. While planting and propagating endangered woodland plants isn’t quick (you need to take a long-term view), it is so very rewarding, and in the future you or your descendants (not to mention the forest creatures) will be very grateful for the powerful medicine. And you will be playing an important role in preserving these plants for the future.
Resources
United Plant Savers: https://unitedplantsavers.org/
Strictly Medicinal Seeds: www.strictlymedicinalseeds.com