Ravensong Seeds & Herbals, Courtenay, BC (2026)

10/21/2026

The Healer’s Healer 🌿

There is something I have observed in the way Devil’s Club grows that has profoundly shaped my understanding of this plant.

To spend time in a mature patch is to sit among a community of fierce warriors in slow motion. Their great spiny stems reach upward and outward, sometimes twice my height, while enormous palmate leaves form a luminous green canopy overhead.

Everything about Devil’s Club seems to say: hold the space.

Its boundaries are unmistakable. Every stem, every petiole, even the veins beneath its leaves are armed with spines. It takes up space unapologetically.

And yet, when I began paying closer attention to how these plants grow over the course of their long lives, I noticed something that completely changed the way I understood them.

After years of reaching upward, the tall arching stems eventually become too heavy to support themselves and begin to bend toward the forest floor.

And finally, the warrior rests.

Surrender and transformation begin.

The stem settles into the damp moss and soil, slowly becoming covered by the forest floor. And something extraordinary happens.

It begins to lose its spines.

The old stem becomes smooth where it rests against the earth. It sends down roots. What had spent years fiercely holding itself upright now allows itself to be held.

And from that surrender comes transformation.

This is what I have come to think of as the secret medicine of Devil’s Club.

The fierce warrior eventually has to surrender. Not because its strength has failed, but because strength cannot exist indefinitely without nourishment.

There is a time to stand tall.
A time to protect.
A time to hold the space.

And there is a time to lay down your spines and allow yourself to be held.

For me, this is why the spirit of Devil’s Club embodies the healer’s healer.

Those of us who spend our lives caring for others can become very good at holding space. We learn to sit with pain without being undone by it. We learn boundaries. We become strong enough to support the people around us.

But Devil’s Club reminds me that the healer must also know how to surrender.

To return to the earth.
To receive nourishment.
To become vulnerable enough to be cared for.

Because it is from that place of replenishment that we become capable of rising again and holding space for others.

Devil’s Club has taught me that boundaries and vulnerability are not opposites. Neither are strength and surrender.

Perhaps the strongest boundaries are the ones that protect our ability to remain tender.

And perhaps surrender is not the abandonment of strength at all, but the place where strength is renewed.

This understanding has come slowly, through years of sitting with and observing this plant. And I know I have barely begun to understand it.

I am grateful to know Devil’s Club as an ally, and humbled to remain its student. 🌿

10/20/2026

Devil’s Club in the Apothecary 🌿

Devil’s Club is a relative newcomer to the Western herbal materia medica, but its history as a medicine reaches back countless generations.

Much of the foundational knowledge of this plant comes from the Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest, among whom Devil’s Club has long held profound medicinal and cultural importance. Documented uses vary among peoples, but include respiratory illness and tuberculosis, arthritis and rheumatism, digestive complaints, wounds and infections, and its use as a strengthening medicine for a wide range of ailments.

Western herbalism has adopted many of these applications, while modern research has added another fascinating layer to our understanding of the plant.

One example is infection.

Devil’s Club contains polyynes with demonstrated antibacterial, antifungal and antimycobacterial activity, including activity against Mycobacterium tuberculosis. This is particularly interesting alongside the long-established use of Devil’s Club for tuberculosis and respiratory illness.

In our own apothecary, we think of Devil’s Club as a warming, stimulating medicine particularly suited to cold, damp and congested respiratory conditions. We gather the fresh inner bark to make tincture, and also use it in our Devil’s Fire C***r, where its spicy, aromatic character combines beautifully with other warming herbs.

I also value Devil’s Club for pain and inflammation, particularly sore muscles, rheumatic and arthritic pain. These are among its traditional uses, and modern research has also identified significant anti-inflammatory activity in Devil’s Club extracts.

Topically, we prepare the inner bark as an infused oil and salve. One of the things I have personally seen Devil’s Club heal particularly well is stubborn staph infections of the skin. Even after other treatments have been tried, in my experience Devil’s Club salve has worked remarkably quickly to clear these infections.

Devil’s Club has also long been valued as a strengthening and restorative medicine. In my own practice, I find it grounding, fortifying and energizing, particularly during periods of stress, fatigue and depletion.

For generations, Indigenous knowledge holders have understood Devil’s Club as a powerful and multifaceted medicine. As it has found its way into the modern Western materia medica, both herbalists and researchers continue to explore pathways of medicine that have been known and worked with here for a very long time.

But there is something about Devil’s Club that seems to invite us to look beyond its medicinal actions alone. This is a plant with a long history of reverence, one whose medicine has extended beyond the physical in many of the cultures that have known it longest.

Tomorrow, I’ll share some of my own observations of the spirit medicine of Devil’s Club, and what years of sitting with and observing this extraordinary plant have taught me. 🌿

10/19/2026

Spiky warriors in slow motion. 🌿

Devil’s Club (Oplopanax horridus) is a slow-growing deciduous shrub native to the Pacific Northwest. Its great arching stems can reach 10–12 feet tall, although they may grow only a few inches each year.

And if you look closely, you can actually read this slow passage of time along the stems.

Each spring, growth emerges from the large terminal bud at the tip of the stem, extending upward before forming a new dormant bud that will wait through the winter for the following spring.

Look down the stem and you’ll notice distinctive bands where the prickles become especially dense. These mark the regions of the old terminal buds and their bud scale scars. The length of stem between each of these annual growth markers represents approximately one year of growth.

On some plants, that might be only six inches! When you stand beside a Devil’s Club towering 10 or 12 feet above the forest floor, you begin to appreciate just how many years of slow, determined growth you are looking at.

But Devil’s Club doesn’t simply keep reaching upward.

As the stems grow longer and heavier over the years, they begin to arch toward the forest floor. Eventually they may come to rest against the damp moss and soil, where they can develop adventitious roots.

This process is called layering, a form of vegetative reproduction. Once rooted, these stems can send up new upright shoots, allowing a single Devil’s Club to slowly spread outward into an extensive colony.

Although Devil’s Club can reproduce from seed, much of its expansion happens this way, one slowly growing, rooting stem at a time.

Understanding just how slowly these great spiny stems grow gives me an entirely different appreciation for a mature Devil’s Club patch.

What looks like an impenetrable tangle of spines is the architecture of many years of growth.

And understanding how Devil’s Club grows is also the key to understanding how I harvest it.

We’ll explore that later this week. 🌿

10/18/2026

There are plants you learn about, and there are plants you develop a relationship with. Devil’s Club has been the latter for me. 🌿

This week we’re exploring a very special plant, one that has captured my heart and taught me so much over the years.

Devil’s Club (Oplopanax horridus) is one of the most extraordinary plants of the Pacific Northwest rainforest.

Thriving in the dappled shade of moist forests, along creeks, streams and wetlands, this magnificent member of the Ginseng family is unmistakable.

Its great arching stems can reach 10–12 feet tall, supporting enormous maple-like leaves that form a luminous green canopy overhead. Almost every part of the plant is armed with sharp, brittle spines, from its woody stems and leaf stalks to the veins beneath its leaves.

In spring, mature plants produce clusters of small greenish-white flowers, which ripen into brilliant red berries by midsummer.

Devil’s Club is a slow-growing deciduous shrub that spreads primarily through a fascinating process called layering, gradually forming extensive colonies beneath the forest canopy.

But there is much more to this remarkable plant than its imposing appearance.

Devil’s Club has been revered by Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest for countless generations, holding profound medicinal, cultural and spiritual significance.

Its traditional medicinal applications are extensive, including respiratory illness, infections, arthritis, digestive complaints and its use as a strengthening and restorative medicine. Many of these applications have since found their way into Western herbalism.

And beyond its physical medicine, Devil’s Club has a spirit medicine that I have come to know through years of spending time with the plant, observing the way it grows and reflecting on what it has to teach us.

Throughout this week, we’ll explore the many fascinating aspects of Devil’s Club.

We’ll look at its unusual growth habits and how it spreads through the forest, its traditional and modern medicinal uses, and the spirit medicine that has revealed itself to me through my relationship with this extraordinary plant.

We’ll also venture into the forest to explore how we respectfully harvest Devil’s Club, and how its wonderfully aromatic inner bark is gathered and prepared for medicine.

I hope you’ll join me for a week of getting to know one of the most remarkable medicinal plants of our coastal rainforests. 🌿

10/16/2026

Some of the most valuable flowers in the garden are the ones that bloom last. 💜

While most of the garden is winding down for the season, our beautiful Douglas Asters (Symphyotrichum subspicatum) are still putting on quite a show!

Native to the Pacific Northwest, Douglas Aster is a wonderfully vigorous perennial that produces an abundance of delicate lavender-purple flowers from late summer well into autumn.

Here at Ravensong, they begin flowering around mid August or early September and continue blooming throughout October, depending on the weather.

And all those lovely flowers are doing something rather important!

As the days grow shorter and fewer plants remain in bloom, Douglas Aster provides a valuable source of nectar and pollen for our native bees, butterflies, hoverflies, and other late-season pollinators. 🐝

It’s also a remarkably adaptable plant. Although naturally found growing in moist meadows, along streambanks, and at woodland edges, established plants are surprisingly drought tolerant and thrive in a wide variety of garden conditions.

And once the flowers have faded, their abundant seeds provide another autumn food source for wild birds.

I absolutely adore plants like this. Beautiful, easy to grow, native to our region, and quietly supporting the creatures we share our gardens with.

If you’re looking to add more native wildflowers to your garden, Douglas Aster is a wonderful one to consider!

We grow and gather our own Douglas Aster seeds here at Ravensong, and they’re available in our online seed shop. 🌱

💜 You can find them here https://ravensongherbals.com/seeds-a-m/p/aster-douglas

10/15/2026

Fall days with our herb farm interns. 🌿

Over the past couple of weeks, we’ve been digging deep into some of the work that comes with the turning of the season.

Together we harvested Mullein roots from the garden, washed and processed them for the apothecary, and spent a day working with Devil’s Club, carefully stripping and preparing the inner bark.

This is such a big part of our internship here at Ravensong. Learning about medicinal plants is one thing, but there is another kind of learning that happens when you actually have your hands in the soil, dig the roots, wash them, taste and smell them, learn how they are processed, and follow a plant all the way from the garden or forest into medicine.

Our interns also become valued members of our farm team. There is something pretty special about the community that grows over a season of working alongside one another. Many hands really do make light work, and some of our biggest harvest and processing days become afternoons spent working, chatting, laughing, sharing stories, and getting to know one another while the piles of plants slowly disappear.

Throughout the growing season, our interns join us one day each week and take part in whatever the season is asking of us. There is lots of harvesting and medicine making, but also planting, tending the gardens, plant walks, seed work, propagation, and all of the ordinary work that goes into growing and making herbal medicine on a small medicinal herb farm.

We have just a few weeks left together before our fall internship comes to an end and the farm settles into its quieter winter rhythm.

And then, come April, we begin again. 🌱

If spending a growing season learning medicinal plants through hands-on work on the farm sounds like something you’d love, keep an eye out over the winter for information about our 2027 Herbal Internship.

10/13/2026

Hawthorn teaches us that an open heart can still have strong boundaries. ❤️

As autumn deepens and we draw closer to Samhain, the Hawthorn trees are heavy with clusters of ruby-red berries, ready to be gathered for medicine.

Hawthorn (Crataegus spp.) is one of our most cherished heart remedies, offering medicine for both the physical and emotional heart.

Rich in flavonoids and other protective plant compounds, Hawthorn has a long history of use as a cardiovascular tonic. It supports circulation, encourages healthy blood flow through the coronary arteries, and helps nourish and strengthen the heart over time.

But Hawthorn’s medicine reaches beyond the physical.

Hawthorn is also treasured for the emotional heart, offering comfort through grief, heartbreak, and times of vulnerability. It is a plant of tenderness, courage, and the capacity to remain open to love.

And observing the tree itself offers one of its most beautiful teachings.

Hawthorn gives generously, covering its branches with blossoms in spring and abundant red berries in autumn. Yet those same branches are armed with sharp, formidable thorns.

A reminder that generosity does not require us to give without limits. That we can be loving without leaving ourselves unprotected. That a healthy heart needs both openness and boundaries.

Hawthorn also holds a special place in Celtic folklore. Known as the fairy tree, it was believed to stand at the threshold between worlds, a sacred tree associated with protection, enchantment, and the unseen.

As we approach Samhain, when the veil between worlds is traditionally said to grow thin, gathering Hawthorn feels especially meaningful.

A little medicine for the heart, in all its forms. 🌿

10/08/2026

Some flowers loudly draw your attention. Others reward you for taking the time to look a little closer. 🌿

Figwort (Scrophularia nodosa) is definitely one of the latter.

From a distance, its upright branching flower stalks are rather unassuming. But look closely and they are covered in the most curious little maroon and green flowers, each one looking almost like a tiny orchid.

Figwort has become one of my favourite plants for adding airy texture to bouquets, where those long stems and tiny flowers make a beautiful, unusual filler. But I think its greatest value may be in the garden.

Figworts have been described as among the most prolific nectar producers in the plant world. Their flowers attract an assortment of insects, including bees, pollinating flies and especially wasps. In fact, figwort is particularly adapted to wasp pollination, making it a wonderful reminder that our gardens support many important pollinators beyond the bees and butterflies we usually think of.

It also has a long history as a medicinal herb. Traditionally, figwort has been used for the lymphatic system, swollen glands and chronic skin conditions, with both the leaves and roots used in herbal medicine.

And here we are in October, and the figwort is still blooming on the farm.

At a time when so many flowers are fading and the garden is beginning to settle into autumn, these strange little flowers are still opening, taunting the late season pollinators with their nectar.

A perennial, a medicinal herb, a cut flower, and an exceptional pollinator plant.

Figwort may not be the showiest plant in the garden, but it is certainly one worth looking closer at. 🌿

We grow figwort here on the farm, saving our own seed each year to offer through our seed collection.

10/06/2026

Fall is nature’s planting time. 🌱🍂

As the growing season winds down, plants are ripening their seeds and releasing them back to the earth. With the arrival of cool weather and fall rains, those seeds are left in the care of Mother Nature until the conditions are just right for them to grow.

For many of our medicinal plants, especially those native to temperate climates, fall is actually one of the very best times to sow.

Some seeds need several months of cool, moist weather to break dormancy, a process known as cold-moist stratification. Others don’t require stratification, but still benefit from spending the winter outdoors, germinating naturally when the timing is right.

Here in the Pacific Northwest, I generally wait until the warm, dry weather is behind us and we’ve settled into the cool, moist days of fall before I begin sowing. Mid-October through late November is usually a lovely window.

Seeds can be sown directly into prepared garden beds or into pots and left outdoors for the winter.

Then, quite simply, we let nature do the work. 🌱

Come spring, some of the earliest little seedlings will begin appearing long before we would normally think of getting out into the garden to start seeds.

I’ve put together a complete guide to fall seeding, including which seeds benefit from fall sowing, timing, stratification, direct sowing vs. pots, drainage, mulching, and protecting your seeds from hungry wildlife.

You can find A Guide to Seeding in Fall | Nature’s Planting Time on the Ravensong blog. https://ravensongherbals.com/blog-post/fall-seeding 🍂

10/04/2026

As the seasons change, so does the medicine we reach for. 🍂

Autumn is ashwagandha harvest season here on the farm.

We start these heat-loving plants in spring and give them the longest growing season we can. By fall, beneath all that leafy growth is a beautiful network of pale, fleshy roots ready to be dug, washed, chopped and made into fresh root tincture.

Ashwagandha (Withania somnifera) has been used for centuries in Ayurvedic medicine and is perhaps best known today as an adaptogen, a group of herbs traditionally used to help the body adapt to physical and emotional stress and support resilience over time.

That feels especially fitting as we move into autumn. The days are getting shorter, energy can begin to shift, routines change, and cold and flu season arrives. Rather than acting as a quick stimulant, ashwagandha is traditionally used as a restorative tonic, particularly when stress, fatigue and poor sleep have begun to wear us down.

We make ours from the freshly harvested roots grown here on the farm, tincturing them fresh shortly after they come out of the ground.

There is something I love about harvesting roots at this time of year. As the visible garden begins to retreat, our attention turns underground, to the medicine the plants have been quietly building beneath the soil all season. 🌱

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