Consider connection with the help of native plants

This garden, made in collaboration with Mi'kmaq knowledge keeper and herbalist Helena Perry was designed as a learning and reflection tool for passersby at Macphail Woods. The garden is a circle, designated with cardinal points each with a distinct meaning, teaching and medicinal plant representation. A medicine wheel is a tool that can be changed based on the intention of its users and the context of natural surroundings. This medicine wheel intends to bring people closer to our native medicinal plants and to encourage reflection on the interconnections of animals (including humans!) plants and abiotic factors in our environments. 

North represents intellect, air, winter, and the color white. The medicinal plants in this direction include our native northern bayberry, white paper birch, and wildflowers such as common boneset and yarrow. 

East represents emotion, fire, spring, and the color yellow. Medicinal plants include American witch hazel, yellow birch, yellow violet, and St. John's wort. 

South represents the spiritual, water, summer and the color red. Medicinal plants include our native wild rose, hawthorn, joe-pye weed and swamp milkweed. 

West represents the physical, earth, autumn and the color black. Medicinal plants include cedar, common elderberry, heal-all, blue flag iris and blue vervain. 

In the center of the circle, there is a patch of american groundnut, significant due to its tuber high in starch (like a potato), meaning the plant is an excellent food source that has helped sustain humans and animals for thousands of years.