Cultivating Jin Yin Hua

[Guest guest]

Emmanuel,

I don't know when the last time you tried to pick enough Jin Yin Hua to

produce a

dried pound was, but I just have to say keep your day job folks.

 

 

Ben Zappin

 

Emmanuel Segmen <susegmen wrote:

Z'ev, Andrea and All,

 

Dr. Liang where I work has indicated that anyone in America who chooses to grow

Jin Yin

Hua or to wildcraft it would do very well. I personally have sold tonnage of

this herb

this year and even had tonnage removed from my container in China because it

was

needed for the SARS epidemic. Dr. Liang would discourage people regarding the

growing

of roots unless you really want to engage in the development of your own new

medicine.

Of course, the great artists of the past created their own colors from minerals

and other

raw materials to do their artwork. Great CM practitioners might try to do the

same. But

trying to grow Chinese ginseng away from the Chang Bei Shan mountains in Jilin

or

growing dang gui away from Gansu would be something even the Chinese

agronomists

haven't been able to do. Huang lian on the other hand grows in quite a variety

of

mountainous locales as does huang qi. The Chinese agronomists with whom we

work

throughout the year indicate that Americans could and should produce their own

flowers and leafy herbs from the vast numbers of such in the Chinese

pharmacopoeia.

 

 

By the way, U.S. growers have offered to sell us quite a bit of Schisandra

chinensis fruit,

but none of it has ever been wu wei zi. Rather it has been one or two flavored

fruit. Wu

wei zi in China is a purely wildcrafted herb, and the people who do the work

jealously

guard their sources ... like Pacific fishermen who know where and when to look

for their

fish stocks. It's a bit heartbreaking to have to tell someone that their

beautiful,

organically grown Schisandra fruit is not useful to us. Whereas anyone who can

get their

hands on jin yin hua right now will do very well indeed.

 

Emmanuel Segmen

Merritt College, Asia Natural

-

Tuesday, September 16, 2003 10:47 AM

Re: Re: Simple explanation

 

 

I agree. In addition, I am interested in people's experience growing

Chinese herbs in the West, and finding equivalents in the wild or in

cultivation. Bob Flaws started to touch on this in his posts a few

weeks ago with his translations from the zhong yao da ci dian.

 

On Tuesday, September 16, 2003, at 10:35 AM, wrote:

 

> By the way, herbal knowledge has always arrived from experimentation -

> mostly by practitioners experimenting on themselves and then on the

> families and communities who entrusted them with their care. Whether

> or not we choose to follow that tradition today is a matter of

> accountability and responsibility. Yes, I will experiment on myself,

> but so far, not on anyone else. I imagine most of us will experiment

> on ourselves. Perhaps this is something we can use as a beginning

> point for gathering some of the data you seek - a dialog on what

> herbal combinations we are experimenting with, and what results we > get.

>

>

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

Hi Ben,

 

I was responding to people who actually indicated a desire to do this.

Regarding the last time I did this was two weeks ago with He Huan Hua. Pounds

were no problem. Tonnage is another matter. ;-) But I really like He Huan Hua.

 

Emmanuel Segmen

-

Ben Zappin

Tuesday, September 16, 2003 2:41 PM

Re: Cultivating Jin Yin Hua

 

 

Emmanuel,

I don't know when the last time you tried to pick enough Jin Yin Hua to

produce a

dried pound was, but I just have to say keep your day job folks.

 

 

Ben Zappin

 

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

Hi Emmanuel,

 

He Huan Hua, yum! I like it! I wish my life were constructed so I could be

harvesting (and growing) herbs... perhaps in the future...?

 

Thank you for your post about your folk-healing grandmother. I often wonder

where folks who pursue natural medical careers get their inspiration. Perhaps

you received it from your grandmother in some way. I have always, from

childhood, had a fascination with the plant world, on all levels. When I first

learned in sixth grade about Gregor Mendel and his hybridization of peas, I felt

I was learning for the first time about a kindred spirit in the world of

science. Rather than reading novels and fiction, I read books about plants and

herbs, and spent my time in the waste places of New York (Long Island) as a

teenager, learning to identify native species in all their growth phases, and

later learning which had been used medicinally by the Native Americans who lived

there before me. Still later, in my twenties, I began growing and harvesting,

in small quantities, a small number of medicinal plants and experimented alot

with " kitchen medicine " - using spices and cooking herbs for

various personal health issues. It was all self-study. It was not until my

late 30's, however, when I developed fibromyalgia and discovered that Chinese

herbal formulas helped me in ways nothing else had, that I endeavored to

formally study plant medicine. I am especially interested in the recent post

about American Ginseng and its effect as a shen herb; this topic is most

fascinating to me, and is an area I'd like to learn more about.

 

When I moved to California, all the plants were different from those I knew on

the East coast, and I felt like I'd lost all my friends. There are some that

are bi-coastal, but there are entirely different families of plants here that

don't grow back east. I have not taken the time to know the plants here that I

took in New York, and this contributes to my continuing to feel like a foreigner

here, even after 13 years in Berkeley and 6 in San Diego. My sense of belonging

in a place is strongly connected to my relationships with the plants that grow

there. Here in San Diego, where prickly things such as palms and cacti grow, it

is hard to forge a connection.

 

Currently I am working a day job in a church, to pay the bills, while my

practice grows - I am near the end of my first year. I entered school with a

greater interest in herbs than acupuncture, and finished with this balance

reversed! I still dream of having a large herb farm - growing both western and

eastern plants - but it feels like a far-away reality right now. What keeps me

linked to it is the realization that I never feel as whole and as much myself,

as when I am working in an herb garden. An herb pharmacy is a second best, but

doesn't even come close.

 

You mentioned that you'd like to hear more about the origins of herbal medicine.

Is this what you were looking for?

 

 

 

Emmanuel Segmen <susegmen wrote:

Hi Ben,

 

I was responding to people who actually indicated a desire to do this.

Regarding the last time I did this was two weeks ago with He Huan Hua. Pounds

were no problem. Tonnage is another matter. ;-) But I really like He Huan Hua.

 

Emmanuel Segmen