Garden expert, landscape consultant and herbalist Kathy Brown will bring her show-and-tell talk to members of the Palisades Garden Club and guests at 7:30 p.m., Monday, May 5 at the Woman?s Club, 901 Haverford. Brown, who divides her time between Lake Isabella, where she gardens on an acre of land, and Hawthorne, plans to focus her talk on herbs, which she relies on for many uses. ?I?ll talk about how I eat and drink them, use them for medicinal purposes and in landscape designs,? she says. Her love for herbs began over 20 years ago when Brown lived in Denver, where she owned a half-acre of land. She developed an herb farm and display garden open to the public. ?I not only demonstrated how they look in the garden, but also showed how they could be used, in salads, dips, tea. ?Whenever I or my pets have a health problem, I immediately turn to herbs. I pretty much treat myself with what I grow.? On the day Brown talked with the Palisadian-Post, she was sipping echinacea tea, an herb known to boost the immune system, to soothe the remains of a cold. In 2002, she wrote a book on the subject ?Herbal Teas: 101 Nourishing Blends for Daily Health and Vitality? (Storey), which contains recipes and ideas for using herbs as ornamentals. Once a year, Brown travels to Tucson to the Native Seed/Search Seedbank, which houses the seeds of crops and wild plants traditionally used as food, fiber and dyes by prehistoric and more recent cultures inhabiting the Southwest. She buys seeds, which she takes home to experiment with in her own garden. This summer, she is trying out 30 different kinds of tomatoes, in addition to melons, corn and squash.
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