✦ Lady’s Mantle ✦

First off, hi! Now that work at the greenhouse and planting season has mellowed, I finally have the bandwidth to write and share more about the plants again :). And, good timing, as Substack recently re-worked it’s subject headers and I was able to list this newsletter under Home & Garden — whereas of this morning, I was 89th out of 100! Pretty neat! I’d love to get higher on that list & more exposure + more subscribers, would be helpful! So if you liked this post — or liked some other particular piece I’ve written, please hit that heart button at the end (that helps more plant lovers see it based on the algorithm of Substack). Another awesome way to share is: copy the link and post it on your social media, or simply tell your friends to subscribe :) I’d really appreciate it!

The following article about Lady’s Mantle first appeared in Haven Making: Using Plant Medicine to Create Sanctuary. I’ve revamped it with lots of new info because I am absolutely floored by how amazing this plant is. As always, any photos are taken by yours truly unless otherwise indicated. And no AI is utilized in any of my writing, ever.

And as always, this is not medical advice.

So, without further ado…here we go!

Lady’s Mantle and I first met at Jewell Gardens way back in 2002. She’d already been planted along the edge of the boardwalk in “Paradise Alley”—once a real place in Skagway, Alaska where ladies of the night made their living. At Jewell Gardens Paradise Alley, the eccentric artist owner Charlotte, planted red Geraniums for the “red-light district.” She also seeded Nasturtiums into antique bed frames, creating “Nasty beds” which were in the little houses, or cribs.

There were three cribs: Daisy, Lily and Rose with the corresponding flowers growing nearby. And flanking all those, was the exceptionally hardy, and yet soft like a lamb’s ear, Lady’s Mantle. The Latin name of the plant shown above is Alchemilla mollis, although in the medicinal use of the plant, you see the species Alchemilla vulgaris used (I’ve read you can use A. mollis similarly).

It’s funny that this was the plant put there, because I don’t think even Charlotte knew how good it was for a woman’s reproductive system—at least that never got into the tour talks! I’m sure it was more for the name itself, Lady’s Mantle, as well as the delightful tale of those hydrophobic dew drops…