Stella’s Chronicle of Plants

I don’t even know where to start describing my fascination with plants. At the beginning, I guess.

So I was born to parents who farm and garden. During my childhood I thought of caring for plants as a chore.

I met someone at work who became a dear friend and she guided me to a different way of looking at plants. (Shout out to JRW - I love you!)

Once I focused on how fascinating plants are rather than judging them to be a pain in my butt that prevented me from spending more time reading … a new obsession was born.

I am not allowed to read books about plants at bedtime because I will stay up all night to finish them.

I attended local herbalist classes for years in the late 2000s. I helped the aforementioned planty friend run a herbal business. Unfortunately most of my herbal knowledge is dusty from disuse. I’m working on remedying that.

I currently have a garden. It has a few herbs, but mostly annuals. And cotton. Can’t forget the cotton. I was flipping through seed catalogs in spring 2025 and thought “Cotton comes in colors?! How cool - I’m going to grow some!” Then a whole lot of learning occurred.

2025

  • I started growing cotton in my garden. Spent most of the year fighting groundhogs, which eat everything except cotton.

  • Learned to card cotton into punis, little cigar-like rolls. You use an edge of the puni to start spinning.

  • Attempted to spin cotton with a tahkli. Still working on that.

  • Started wondering what else one can make from cotton that doesn’t involve spinning it first. This will be a topic of continuing research for me.

  • Tried a Three Sisters combo in one of the raised beds (corn, squash, beans). The corn needs to be well established before planting the beans.

2026

  • One of my favorite types of class in Herbalist School is a “herb walk.” You walk around and discuss the properties of wild plants growing in an area. I led a herb walk at Festival of Elvegast: Greenwood Gathering.

  • I attempted to be scientific about the cotton in my garden this year. Everything was meticulously labelled. Then most of the plants were eaten by rabbits. So take note: Groundhogs will not eat cotton plants but rabbits surely will. After engineering a way to keep Peter Cottontail & Co from snacking on my precious cotton, I replanted. The drought was also not kind to the plants. Still waiting for the bolls to ripen in early October.