and more detail too!
135 entries for: 38 garden herbs, 38 wild herbs, 5 so far unsorted, and 40 Bushfoods! 17 Wild Fungi and 6 Seaweeds! All local, all easily grown or foragable and all written about from personal experience! Can you ask for better than that?
I knew we’ve covered a lot of plants on this website, but I’m not a big one for keeping track of things, preferring to just let them evolve and grow naturally. Recently, though, having nearly finished both my herbal qualifications course and my counselling Graduate Diploma, I thought I’d relax a bit and get back into the website. Rather than academic grind , it’s joyful work.
I’ve been updating herbs based on the research I’ve been doing at school so did a headcount and realised that there are 135 plants covered (one makes it into both herbs and Bush medicine) and 5 listed under ‘other useful plants’ that at the time, I didn’t know where to put.
Even though I had to cover a lot of herbs in my formal study, I’m staying true to form and only including those that can be grown or found locally. That list has expanded a bit since I started the website because a few more such as Mullein (Verbascum thapsus) and Ashwagandha (Withania somnifera) are being successfully grown by locals nowadays including us).
You’ll see the updated entries on the index pages. Under the plant name I indicate when it was last updated. There’s a whole bunch for March – May this year with heaps more info.
For the Bushfoods & Bush medicines, in the 2026 updates, I’ve tried to blend the original entries for each plant with a lot more sciency stuff to bring them more in line with the garden and wild herbs entries. It’s a work in progress, and some of the info, such as system affinities and energetics, comes from my personal trials and observations, combined with what we know about closely related species that have healing properties.
The same goes for the TCM entries, so don’t take them as gospel. They are based on my current level of learning and may be altered as that learning grows or someone does a TCM comparison for bush medicine (stranger things have happened).
Rather than the prescriptive ‘can be used for’ I’ve shifted to ‘has been used medicinally for’. I think that’s gentler encourages further research and experimentation by the reader.
Indigenous names now come first within the Bushfoods, before English or common and Ngarrindjeri/Kaurna names. They’re included on the index page, too, but I’ve arranged them by their colonial names to make searching easier.
Here’s the new stuff complete or nearly done – as of today!
Pigface (Carprobrotus rosii) and Inland Pigface (Carpobrotus modestus)
Weeping Bottlebrush (Callistemon viminalis)
Native Cherry, Ballart (Exocarpos cupressiformis)
Ashwagandha (Withania somnifera)
Feverfew (Tanacetum parthenium)
Loquat Leaves (Eriobotrya japonica)
Thyme (Thymus vulgaris and others)
Plantain (Plantago lanceolata)
White Hoarhound (Marrubium vulgare)
There’s a lot of academic research behinfd these now, but rather than bogging things down withrefernces, I’m creating a docment on my Google Drive where the papers and articles that I’ve used for each herb etc are compiled. It’s not up yet but will be soon. I’ll make it editable so that you can use it as the basis for your own research.
On top of all that, I’ve also added a number of posts about Bach Flower Essences, especially related to contemporary uses in this increasingly difficult life, and also focused on activism.
We’re working on community support works and also posting about ways to prep in manners that aren’t bunker building and stockpiling but connecting and sharing. Some folks had said the ideas are naive, but I reckon that they’re what will help us thrive. I call it ‘proactive prepping’, and you can find the posts easily starting with this one – A bit about prepping.
You may notice a few spelling and grammatical errors in main txts, but not in the key information. I’m joining the decolonial movement that is unshackling us from formal english writing and by allowing more personal expression and less nit-picking.
Things are getting tougher, and though I’ve never done it, I’m considering some of the more mainstream promotions in order to get its existence and content out there for more people to be aware of and so that they can use the info here for their own resilience.
If you’d like to support this work and keep it free for those who can’t afford it, please consider giving me a little dopamine rush and subscribing for a little every month using the option above. Alternatively, make Athena roll ofer in joy with a donation through the option at the bottom of this page.
Other herb pages on Ligaya Garden
We cover a lot of ground on many herb related topics here on our website. There are whole pages devoted to different topics as well as frequent posts. Some of the links are –
