Via Community News Service, a University of Vermont journalism internship
ORANGE — When people think about land stewardship, they may imagine efforts to conserve vast swaths of Vermont’s wilderness. But herbalists at Sage Mountain Botanical Sanctuary in Orange argue that all land is sacred, including the weeds in your yard. For nearly 40 years, legendary herbalists have embodied that ethos as they protect 600 acres of land, and teach the next generation how to do the same.
“What I hope people take away,” said Emily Ruff, the sanctuary’s executive director, “is a knowing and understanding that they are part of nature. We are not separate from nature.”
Located at the base of Knox Mountain, the sanctuary is nestled within 82,000 acres of contiguous forest. The area is a significant riparian wetland corridor, with vernal pools weaving through the landscape and connecting to the Connecticut River watershed.
The land is also home to over 500 plant species, including lady slipper orchids and trillium, and is designated as highest-priority landscape for protection by the state of Vermont.
The sanctuary was founded in 1987 by Rosemary Gladstar, the deeply influential herbalist often nicknamed the “mother of modern herbalism.” Gladstar moved to Vermont from Sonoma County, California, where she had previously opened an apothecary and founded the California School of Herbal Studies, which offers a variety of classes and workshops.
Gladstar said she founded Sage Mountain with the hope of giving people the opportunity to develop the same relationship with plants that has guided her own life.
In the early days, the only building on the property was a single log cabin. Since then, the staff have built kitchens, extensive gardens, classrooms and cabins to be able to host students.
In 2018, Gladstar handed the land over to Ruff, a decade-long student of hers.
“Being in relationship with plants has brought me so much joy in a time in the world that is fraught with so much crisis and trauma and grief,” Ruff said.
This summer, the sanctuary is hosting a series of weekend retreats to teach Vermonters how to use the plants they find in their environment every day. Each retreat centered on one of the four elements: earth, air, fire and water.
At the first retreat weekend in late June, the air theme, herbalist Betzy Bancroft led a small group through the overwhelmingly green forest.
Bancroft first pointed out a patch of ginseng slightly off the trail that Gladstar had planted decades before. She crouched to inspect the low-growing plants and noticed one carrying a brand-new flower bud. She gently cradled the seed-sized bud on the pad of her thumb.
The stewards of Sage Mountain watch the land ebb and flow, generating friendships with the plants and wildlife. That relationship, Ruff says, begins not with harvesting plants or reshaping landscapes, but with paying attention.
When she first arrived at Sage Mountain eight years ago, Ruff intentionally kept programming to a minimum.
“I wanted to listen to the mountain and see what the land wanted,” she said.
Instead of considering what the forest could provide for people, Ruff spent months observing how water moved across the hillsides, where birds nested, which plants returned year after year and which places seemed to ask for quiet.
“We are guests on this land, sharing it with our more-than-human community,” Ruff said. “It’s important that we get to know them, so we’re not stewarding the land, but letting the land guide the practice.”
That philosophy shapes everything from where trails are maintained to how the sanctuary manages invasive species and wetlands. Decisions aren’t rushed. Staff members spend time simply reading the landscape before intervening.
The approach stands in contrast to the impulse to constantly improve or manage land. Instead, the herbalists see stewardship as a conversation.
Gladstar believes that cultivating that relationship doesn’t require 600 acres of protected forest. It can begin in an ordinary backyard.
“All of these plants that you think of as useless weeds have thousands of years of medicinal history,” she said.
Dandelion, plantain, wild violets and self-heal — a flowering plant in the mint family — are among the plants that most homeowners mow over without a second thought. To herbalists, they are longtime companions with generations of medicinal knowledge.
Learning their names changes the way people see the places they live, Gladstar said. A lawn becomes a living community instead of empty green space. Weeds become neighbors, and that relationship naturally grows into responsibility.
“The plants have been taking care of us so well,” Gladstar said. “We need to take care of them.”
For Gladstar, stewardship isn’t reserved for conservation organizations or people who own large tracts of land.
“When people live on land that hasn’t been sung to or thought of as sacred, there is a greater responsibility to awaken it,” she said.
In practice, that can be allowing native flowers to bloom for pollinators, learning the history of backyard plants or paying attention to the rhythms of a familiar patch of woods.
As a way of passing along that ethos, Sage Mountain offers after-school and summer camp programs for kids in grades three through eight and is working on developing a high school program.
The children tend to the gardens, walk the forests and learn about traditional plant uses.
“It’s our hope that the kids that we work with here will feel a greater sense of place and will be able to call the forest home,” Ruff said. “Also as they grow up, that will lead to them being able to make choices about protecting those spaces.”
Ruff said hopes that sense of belonging will encourage people to see the forests, fields and even backyards they know best as places worth caring for — not because they are pristine wilderness, but because they are home.