The Herb Society has a network of ambassadors across the UK, people who are passionate about herbs and active in their local area promoting the use and enjoyment of herbs, as well as highlighting the work of the UK Herb Society.

On the Isle of Man, Jane Prescott is the Herb Society Ambassador. Also known as The Manx Herbalist, she has a wonderful year-round collection of events and activities that bring together herbal awareness with local folk stories, language and rituals to enable a truly Manx appreciation of all that their herbs have to offer.

Just prior to meeting Jane at the Herb Society AGM and Members Day at Sheffield Botanical Gardens – a place familiar to Jane as the location of her University studies in Landscape Architecture – we chatted about her herbal life.

The Manx Herbalist – growing into a herbal life

There are those who grew up stringing daisies together and learning at their grandmother’s knee, and there are others for whom plants entered their lives a little more stealthily. It’s always fascinating to hear the personal tales of people and their plants. Here’s a little potted history of some of the twists and turns that have gone into creating The Manx Herbalist.

Jane comes from a family of medics but was determined not to follow her father in becoming a Doctor. Instead it was her passion for the environment, sparked by films like ‘Ring of Bright Water’ and understanding the influence of natural habitats, that led her to conservation, initially focusing on whale and dolphins. The appeal of also being able to learn art alongside environmental science drew Jane to Sheffield’s Landscape Architecture course, and a beautiful consequence of this was the incorporation of botany into her studies.

Skills in plant identification learnt within her degree later earnt her a role with Knowsley Borough Council for which the interview involved identifying ten plants. Not only did Jane recognise them all, she also impressed by picking up the sage to smell it. A true give-away of her affinity with herbs. While not yet homed in specifically on herbs, Jane enjoyed being able to work with native plants, incorporating trees, shrubs and wild flowers into urban landscapes, somewhat ahead of her time in design work.

Her move to the Isle of Man was a heart-over-head decision, made by Jane and husband Steve. Rather than sell their landscape design business into a corporate environment, they chose to relocate to the grounding environment of the Isle of Man, described by Jane as a ‘sound and beautiful place’, where it’s a privilege to be able to live and work. With family roots to the Isle of Man through Jane’s grandmother, an instinctive connection with the place and its stories comes through the design work and projects Jane completed within her studies for the Diploma in Herbology at Edinburgh’s Royal Botanic Gardens.

As landscape and garden designers with a clear sense of cultural history, Jane and Steve were asked to work with Manx National Heritage to use the archaeological evidence uncovered at Rushen Abbey on the Isle of Man (a Benedictine abbey, demolished by Henry VIII) to recreate its gardens as a Millennium project. These included a small Physic Garden, showcasing three groups of plants: the medicinal, the useful and those used in their religious practices, that may have been used by the monks.

It was a trip to Canada that cemented Jane’s focus on plants, inspired by the native indigenous uses of local herbs. Among the other guests was a naturopath with whom she was able to share guided walks through the forest. ‘But there’s nothing but trees there’, said one of their companions quizzically, it seemed not everyone was a quite so captivated by the opportunity to be surrounded by and learn about plants and their importance to the First Nation tribes!

Jane’s happy association with Edinburgh came through her son. Living in the city he gifted her membership to the Royal Botanical Gardens there so she could enjoy them on her visits. It was through their newsletter that she became aware of the ‘Diploma in Herbology’, and it was clear to the family how much this piqued her excitement. Encouraged by her husband, she enrolled, little knowing what a life-changing experience it would be.

Approaching with a scientist’s mind and a designer’s flair, Jane hadn’t reckoned on the dominance of the spiritual nature of the herbs. Beyond any medicinal properties, being present among these plants, learning with them and through them, was transformational in helping truly understand what plants bring to life.

Jane was to learn in the hardest way how plants support through death too, as it was during her studies that Steve’s illness took a turn and left her to complete the final six months, including the dissertation, amid grief. Plants have now become fundamental to her life, as she’s taken on the recommendation of course tutor Catherine Conway Payne to use her knowledge to teach others.

As Jane shifts her business interests from the landscape design of Prescott Associates to The Manx Herbalist, she’s choosing to take on more private garden design work. It’s working directly with people that she enjoys, seeing how their lives can change through having a thoughtfully designed garden. Like the couple who told her they’d hardly noticed the lousy summer we’ve had this year, because they were so enjoying the novelty of their garden as such a wonderful place to be in!

While there are no practicing medical herbalists on the Isle of Man, just one naturopath and one specialist in Chinese medicine, Jane is certainly bringing garden therapy to her local population.

Herbs on the Isle of Man

The general awareness and use of herbs on the Isle of Man is perhaps not too dissimilar from elsewhere in Britain. There are a few who know their herbs, but in the main it’s a lost tradition, not often turned to. Jane’s work is opening eyes, and hearts, to their native herbs, particularly through showing their connection to the local places and folklore the Manx people are proud of.

For example, there are six medicinal herbs that are particularly associated with the Isle of Man. Jane teaches about them using their Manx names and bringing in familiar stories. Elder, the herb featured in the Manx Herbalist logo, is known as Tramman. Its important role is as the home of the Faries. Mugwort, or Bollan Bane in Manx, is considered to ward off evil – sprigs are worn on Tynwald Day on July 5^th in particular. St John’s Wort is also associated with this National Day, when Parliament meets on Tynwald Hill in the village of St Johns, as it has since Viking times. Rowan, known as Cuirn, has special significance at Beltane when crosses made from its wood and tied with sheep’s wool gathered from the hedges are hung over doors to protect from evil.  Vervain is known as Yn Lus, simply ‘The Herb’, and Hawthorn, or Drine, also has rich folkloric traditions associated with it.

Year round celebrations

Jane has woven herbs into activities and celebrations across the Isle of Man through collaborating with others. For example, she’s brought her knowledge of sea weeds in collaboration with a local artist to create botanical prints; together they’ve run workshops in which people make herbal journals. Jane’s also finding fun and creative ways to learn such as encouraging art through studying plant families and exploring healing through creative writing.

Cycles and seasons

I was intrigued by the fact that Jane sends her newsletters out at the new and full moons, even more so when she described how this guides the content too with more reflective themes coming through in the darker moon times. It seems the moon is also Jane’s helper, gently reminding her that it’s time to send out a missive and allowing the natural, cyclical nature of time and events to dominate above our artificial linear time.

On the Isle of Man there’s the special seasonal celebration of Oie Voaldyn to mark the change of winter into summer and also Oie Houney on the balancing side of the cycle, a fire festival celebrated on 31^st October, like Halloween. Jane takes inspiration from these to select herbs to feature in her workshops – so in late October you’ll find her talking about all the herbs that have traditionally been used to ward off evil.

Herbal allies

Perhaps following tradition too, Jane finds that a lot of her audience are women. However wherever the herbs are, they seem to entrance new audiences. People are fascinated by the herbs and their stories. It’s by taking the plants to people, encouraging interaction, that their importance and people’s familiarity with them will grow.

It’s a gradual unfolding of understanding, as Jane finds people most often focus first on the medicinal properties of herbs, what they can ‘do’. It needs explaining that herbs are not simple substitutions for the drugs a doctor might prescribe, they work differently. Herbal energetics is not a conversation for beginners.

So how would Jane recommend people start getting to know herbs and incorporate them in their lives? Her answer is simple: grow them. Whatever’s calling to you, find the real plant, get to know it by seeing where and how it grows. Familiarise yourself enough with it that you can identify it with certainty.

Herbal resources

Once the interest has been stimulated, Jane has a list of go-to resources to help solidify and enlarge understanding of plants. She’d recommend Bartram’s Encyclopaedia (which was central to her Herbology Diploma studies) and also Hoffman’s Holistic Herbal. Online, Learning Herbs with Rosalee de la Forêt, jim macdonald (HerbalCraft.org), Sajah Popham (The Plant Path) and Herbal Academy provide some great inspiration, though we do need to be conscious of the slight differences between native plants here and in the US. At times there’s almost an over-supply of information and the need to contain attention. Having an in-person connection with other herbalists helps focus the continual learning and Jane has this through community herbalists Grass Root’s Remedies, she’s currently studying Plant Allies: 13 Moons with them, which focuses on a particular herb for the whole of a lunar cycle.

Herb Society

As the leading organisation bringing together all those with a focus on herbs in the UK, Jane considers the Herb Society to provide a vital role as interest in herbs grows. It is very encouraging to see membership of the Society strengthening and her hope for the future is that such growth can be sustained alongside other financial support for the organisation enabling it to move from a dependence on volunteers and be able to take on the kind of ambitious strategy that needs full time leadership.

A herb among many

It’s not fair to ask any herbalist to single out their favourite herb, but we all have certain plants that call to us at particular times. For Jane the enduring herb is elder, but this summer linden has been a strong contender for her affections, especially included in a dreamy night-time tea. Mullein is making a bid to be better known too – although she’s not seen it anywhere locally, somehow, seedlings have established themselves within the block paving of Jane’s drive so they are happily becoming acquainted.

Weather and tides permitting, Jane will be at the Members Day in Sheffield this September, so those joining the event in person will have a chance to talk more with her, or maybe even practice your Manx.

Also, do take a look at her website – the Manx Herbalist