Garden Talk #1 Spring 2025: All About Herbs and How to Use Them

Online registration form below. The Garden Talk programs are FREE. Registration is preferred due to limited space, but not required.

Buttonwood Nature Center announces the 2025 spring series of small-group garden talks. Talks will be held on four Thursdays in May from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. in the Civil War era garden adjacent to Monterey Pass Battlefield Museum.

#1: All About Herbs and How to Use Them

The first of a series of four spring Garden Talks is presented by Penn State master gardener volunteer, Annette Spry.

Learn about the wide variety of herbs you can grow successfully, including both perennial and annual herbs. We will talk about the needs and growing habits of each plant.

Culinary herbs are easily used fresh or dried to enhance your meals. The talk will cover simple harvesting methods as well as how to dry and preserve fresh herbs for use at later time. Free, but space is limited and registration is required.

The Monterey Pass Battlefield Museum will be open especially for attendees of this event.

Annette Spry retired in 2013 after more than 37 years with the Department of Defense. She now enjoys her time as a full-time gardener. She has been a master gardener volunteer since 2008. Spry is a co-lead in the Herb Demonstration Garden on Franklin Farm Lane in Chambersburg, Pa. She also leads various workshops for herbs, container gardening and wreath making.

Participants should wear shoes appropriate for being inside the garden. Seating is provided, but feel free to bring your own chair if you prefer.

Check out the upcoming programs:

Thursday, May 15: Small Space Gardening
Thursday, May 22: Cooking with Herbs—What’s the Buzz?
Thursday, May 29: Garlic 101: Planting, Growing, and Harvesting

About the garden:

Created in partnership with the Friends of the Battle of Monterey Pass, the garden was based on extensive research and was planted by The Institute’s (now Buttonwood Nature Center’s) garden director and volunteers. It will be an educational tool for visitors of all ages to Monterey Pass Battlefield Museum.

“The garden is an interpretation of a Civil War-era garden, not a literal reproduction,” said Rowland, Buttonwood Nature Center’s educational site coordinator and the garden director. “In addition to traditional vegetables, 19th-century gardens often included a variety of herbs, used for both medicinal and culinary purposes.”

The garden will have a significant number of such herbs. Many of these were used historically as “backyard medicine” by households, and were also used by surgeons and doctors tending to wounded Civil War soldiers.

“For example, lamb’s ear was used on wounds,” Rowland said, “and lemon balm was used to relieve headaches.”

The 25-by-28-foot garden is enclosed by a period style wooden fence, constructed with reproduction 19th-century-style nails.

With six raised beds and one 24-foot-long bed, the plantings will change from year to year, always with an eye to reflecting period gardens. This year, veggies like rhubarb and onions have been planted with the herbs.

A corps of Buttonwood garden volunteers and Blue Ridge Garden Club members work with our staff to maintain the garden throughout the season.
Participants should wear shoes appropriate for being inside the garden. Seating is not provided, but feel free to bring a chair.

Programs underwritten in part by M&T Charitable Foundation and Younger Toyota, and also by Marge Kiersz, Lucinda D. Potter, CPA, and SEK CPAs & Advisors.

The program is presented in partnership with Friends of Monterey Pass Battlefield.

Additional program support is from our Today’s Horizon Fund contributors: The Nora Roberts Foundation; Alma W. Oyer; Marge Kiersz; APX Enclosures; Don Gibe and Nancy Erlanson; and the family of the late Carolyn Terry Eddy, with daughters Connie Fleagle & Kim Larkin. Facility support courtesy of Monterey Pass Battlefield Museum.

Created by Buttonwood Nature Center in partnership with Friends of the Monterey Pass Battlefield, the garden project was made possible through financial support by the M&T Charitable Foundation and Younger Toyota, and in-kind support by GRC General Contractor, Inc. 

Register for Garden Talk #1 here.