Plants are Medicine: Early Winter Essentials

In Plants are Medicine: Early Winter Essentials, students will learn to identify common plants and trees found in early winter that offer food, drink, and medicine. Wild foods are often nutritionally superior to conventionally grown and commonly consumed foods. In this class, students will learn how to use these beneficial wild edibles for their nourishing and healing benefits.

Weather permitting, students will do some hands-on foraging to see how and where to find nutritional nuggets in plain sight. There will also be examples of the most helpful reference books for this region. Students will also do a make and take to get them started on the path to natural healing. The instructor will also offer premade herbal tinctures, dried medicinal herbs, and organically grown potted medicinal plants as an optional additional purchase.

The cost of the class is $50 + a $10 materials fee due to the instructor on the day of the class. There will be a minimum of 7 and a maximum of 15 students. The class will begin at 10:00 am and end at 2:00 pm. There will be a lunch break at 12 noon. Lunch is not provided. This class is an excellent beginner to intermediate class. You will be walking on level ground for approximately a ½ mile. It may be useful for you to bring a hat, a backpack or shoulder bag, paper lunch bags, a pencil or pen, a small notebook, and a camera/phone. Please refrain from wearing perfumes or sprays. The site is a non-smoking area.

This class is taught by Donna Putney. This “plant medicine lady" lives life with a love and enthusiasm for living in harmony with nature. She has been studying and working with ornamental plants and flowers, plants for medicine and food (both wild and cultivated), growing for market, with a focus on medicinal herbs and nutrition for 55 years. She presently teaches foraging, plant ID, and Plant Medicine. Donna and her husband enjoy living in "paradise" on their 10-acre herbal medicine/foodscape/food forest homestead in Honea Path, SC. Donna lives to pass on the plant wisdom she has acquired in her lifetime of botanical study and has mentored many eager learners in the Upstate.

Why take plant medicine classes at the Hagood Mill?

The Hagood Mill Historic is on the National Registry of Historic Places. Stepping on the grounds here is like stepping back in time. There are over 50 acres of fields, forests, and creek bank that lie within the shadows of one of the oldest surviving working grist mills in the state of South Carolina. The site also boasts historic log cabins, a cotton gin, a moonshine still, and a visitor center and gift shop. Hagood Mill is also home to the Hagood Creek Petroglyph Site, the only protected and most accessible rock art site in the state.

Schedule a private group class

The Hagood Mill can schedule a class based on the availability of you and your friends. If you can gather a group of 4-6 people, we can work with you on creating the class when you want. We are also available for wedding parties or any other special occasion that you would like to celebrate creatively. Contact Kim Clevenger at [email protected] to learn more.

Host or Publisher Hagood Mill Historic Site