Category: Herb Walks
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Canalside Herb Walk
Stroud Valleys Project, working with Heritage Lottery funded Cotswold Canals Connected, are providing a series of events, workshops and happenings to encourage enjoyment of the canals and their surrounding natural heritage. As part of this, Cotswold Herb Centre were invited to lead herb walks along the canal with a specific aim to enable women to…
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July Herb Walk
July found us in the colourful surroundings of the Chantry Centre Garden, the hidden green space behind the Chantry Centre on Long Street. Do visit if you can, it’s open on Wednesday and Saturday mornings when the volunteer run café has a wonderful selection of home baked cakes and a warm welcome for all. While…
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June Herb Walk
June’s Herb Walk was part of Dursley’s new OffBeat event, happening alongside a Bee Walk and an Historic Rope Walk. Participants could join either at the Market Place or at the walk location, St Mark’s Churchyard on Woodmancote. The churchyard is a green oasis a stone’s throw from the centre of town, largely unseen from…
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May Herb Walk
For May we returned to Cam’s Vale Hospital, there is so much to see in the beds around the carpark, the quiet garden beside the hospital, and the healing allotment beds. We were here last year in July, wanting to enjoy the lime trees, but catching them just after their best. This year, we arrived…
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April Herb Walk
April marks the true awakening of the herbal world with new treasures blooming at our feet and blossoms overhead. Since the days of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales it has been considered a month of sweet showers (‘shoures soote’) and rejuvenation. Following the lead of the Medieval pilgrims, who set out as the sap started rising, for…
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March Herb Walk
Our last walk before the Spring equinox, nature’s start to spring, when the unfurling begins. A visit to the Rackleaze Nature Reserve (behind Tesco’s in Cam) was a chance to catch the awakening in action! Promise of Spring Appropriately, our first plant was Primrose (‘the prime rose’ or ‘first flower’) – an embodied promise, heralding…
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Wild Resources
We’ve reached the time of year when green shoots entice us outdoors more, and their growing abundance may lead to ideas of gathering and foraging. Our definition of herbs as ‘plants with a purpose’ recognises the many ways herbs can be used for medical, creative, culinary, utilitarian, or other purposes. However, we’d still caution care…
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February Herb Walk
Typical of most our days this February, it was raining on the morning of our monthly herb walk. However, a trusty group were undeterred so the dozen or so of us, and slightly fewer umbrellas, enjoyed the walk along the Cam in Littlecombe. First leaves Our first pause was appropriately by the willow. This is…
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January Herb Walk
Breakheart Quarry was our chosen location for our January herb walk as a space of renewal, a good place to start the new year. This 54 acre area of land has been a community space now for over 15 years. In nature’s terms this is still young, a gradual recolonisation taking place so we expected…
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December Herb Walk
On our December herb walk we were particularly looking out for the winter plants that have become a natural part of our festivities at this time of the year. Having met at the tall pine trees outside the police station on Dursley Road, we didn’t need to move far to find copious examples of fantastically…