The library garden has a good number of volunteer mullein plants. (That’s the tall spiky plant in the photo with large gray-green fuzzy leaves.) Many think these are weeds, but a quick look in one of our new gardening books, Homegrown Herbs by Tammi Hartung (Storey Publishing, 2011), tells us that this plant may be worth saving some room for in our garden (in limited quantities, perhaps.) Besides its medicinal properties, it “is a great indicator of soil contamination. If the soil is high in heavy metals or chemical contaminants, mullein’s normally straight stalk will often grow twisted or distorted.” Happy to see that our mullein is straight!
Friend or foe?