Step in to this medicinal garden and learn about the healing power of plants.
Clarence ventures into the jungle garden of a traditional herbalist to talk herbs and healing across generations and cultures.
Rusel Last is a Traditional Chinese Medicine Practitioner (TCM) and grows a lot of plants for his own use, as well as for his practice.
He also favours plants that can thrive if he is away.
His one-acre block was once an old dairy farm and before that, it was rainforest. When Rusel took over the property, it was covered in lantana. The bonus is its rich volcanic soil.
Since the age of 17, Rusel has been fascinated with the herbs. He grows herbs that have been traditionally used in cultures around the world for their medicinal qualities. He uses herbs for food, to use in teas and for medicine.
However he warns against using plants that you’re not familiar - some plants can be both curative and toxic at the same time, depending on how they’re used. Also some medicinal herbs from overseas are noxious weeds in Australia.
He makes Clarence a tea using dried liquorice, native nettles and coriander seeds.
Wado. G'day. I'm here on the traditional lands of the Wadi Wadi,
to pay my respects to the Tharawal. I'm here to meet a gardener who knows a thing or two
about the healing power of plants, and he's certainly got a lot of them.
So I'm going to have to dust off my bush skills and see if I can find him.
Russell, how are you mate?
Good to see you mate.
I haven't seen you for ages.
Absolutely. Come on, let's have a wander.
Excellent. I'm really looking forward to seeing your garden.
Now weren't you the garden?
My favourite salvia.
Russell is a registered Traditional Chinese Medicine Practitioner,
and his jungle garden, tucked away in the hills just outside Jambaroo, near Kiama,
is a treasure trove of interesting and useful plants.
Because I'm busy in clinic a lot of the time, I've got to have a selection of plants in the
garden that will survive, and I can walk away for whatever amount of time, and they just thrive.
Not only are you a gardener, you've expanded
from your personal passion into your professional life.
Yeah. It was one of the reasons why I chose Oriental Medicine,
was the philosophy about it and the understanding of how herbs are used
just matched my developing sense of herbs as part of nature, as part of what we do.
It's quite amazing, the experience and the joy of it that I have,
being able to help people through herbal medicine. It's just so rewarding.
When we talk about traditional medicines from an Aboriginal perspective,
60,000 years of reliance on plants, people don't realise that a lot of the medicines they take
originally stem from plant products or plant chemicals.
Exactly.
Because it's a steep slope through here, I've built the rock walls and the garden beds just
for me, so it's single person access, but also it's easy to reach in and taste, test,
weed, all the bits and pieces. So for instance, the watercress here.
It's one of my favourites, actually.
I love it. Watercress as a vegetable has the highest nutrient density of any of the vegetables.
So, watercress sandwiches.
Nice. I don't think I've seen this one over here in the pot before.
The house leek. So, this is Sempervivum tectorum. It's an old plant, traditionally used
to plant in thatched roofs. House leek means plant, so house plant. Head and chickens,
common name. Most gardeners out there will know it as that. But the leaves are a renowned skin
herb, used for any blemishes. Pick one of the basic leaves and then just rub that on
as you would aloe vera. But you can also eat it. If you try some of that,
there's a bit of sweetness and sourness to it. It's got high sugar content. It stimulates
cell repair. Really interesting stuff. This is my bush tucker garden.
There's a fair bit going on in here.
Yep. Warrigal everywhere. Makes a fantastic ground cover. So, in the back there,
that's the native indigo. Indigofera australis is a perfect
plant for nitrogen fixing. It's beauty, yep. Farming, it's being used
experimentally on farms now. Used as a skin wash, but be really careful with any of the
plants that are toxic. The interesting thing with this is it was used traditionally in
Aboriginal culture as a dye. Dyeing fibres and things like that. But it has a beautiful flower.
And a fish poison. Yeah.
It's best to tread carefully when using unfamiliar plants from your garden. But Russell also has
some easy tea that anyone can make using some well-known old favourites.
This is shredded licorice root for a bit of get up and go and nettle. Just take the leaves.
Wouldn't worry about the stems. We'll put a couple in there. I find that the native nettle
gives a stronger colour too. Now, some coriander seed. It's good to
bruise the seeds, crush them, just to release the oils within the seeds.
I hope that the hot water will extract from the way we go from there. Normally,
you'd leave these sit for quite a few minutes. So, the longer the time, obviously,
The licorice in particular has an effect with adrenal glands and absorption,
so it'll pick the metabolism up. You should get the aromatics and the sweetness
from the coriander and the licorice. Yes. And the natural sweetness there,
licorice is 30 times sweeter than sugar, but there's no calories to it.
The connection between humans and plants goes back a long, long way. And for Russell,
it's a journey of healing and discovery that's as close as his garden.
This is my sanctuary. I say goodbye to my patients when I shut the door.
I say hello when I'm driving up the mountain. I come through my gateway and the world goes.
This is for all gardeners. This is why we garden, because it is beauty and it's
fulfillment and joy and all those wonderful things.
