Welcome to Dragonfly Nursery! Meet the Team

MICHAEL

I first started gardening with my mother as a child.  In the 1970s I first grew herbs indoors.  In the 1970s and 1980s I worked in a few group gardens.  I have made use of medicinal plants since the 1970s. I have been growing many species of medicinal plants since the late 1990s.  And I have been making and using medicinal teas, tinctures, and oils from plants I have grown since then also.  In the late 1990s and early 2000s I attended many regional medicinal plant conferences and took classes from regional experts.  I have read over 30 books on medicinal plants including a number on growing them. On our property I have been growing over 50 species of medicinal plants since 2003 when I moved there, without the use of toxic pesticides.  By building healthy soil and planting a wide diversity of native, medicinal, culinary, and edible plants that diversity has attracted a range of beneficial insects and birds and helped our plants to be resistant to most diseases.   For the last 7 years I have been growing many medicinal and culinary plants mostly from seeds, but also from cuttings and root divisions to sell at the Vashon Farmers Market and other Vashon sales.

 I have recently had much success with an antiviral tincture I made that has helped many people with colds, flu, and COVID.   I have also had success with tea mixtures to help people relax and fall asleep.

I also have completed a number of trainings on gardening and landscapes including Master Gardener.

A few of the books that I recommend for learning how to grow medicinal plants are:

“Growing 101 Herbs That Heal” by Tammi Hartung, Medical Herbalist, 2000, Storey Books

“The Organic Medicinal Herb Farmer” by Jeff Carpenter with Melanie Carpenter, 2015, Chelsea Green Publishing

"Medicinal Plants of the Pacific Northwest" by Natalie Hammerquist. Excellent up to date book on medicinal plants that is concise, has great photos, covers many native plants, has good formulas, and explains the healing value of the plants. 

And by far the two best books on how to grow a wide range of medicinal plants in the U.S. are:

“Growing Plant Medicine, Volume 1” by Richo Cech and Sena Cech, 2022, Herbal Reeds

“Growing Plant Medicine, Volume 2” by Richo Cech and Sena Cech, 2024, Herbal Reeds

Here is an excellent web site on medicinal plants by long time medicinal herbalist Christopher Hobbs.  You can search either by ailment or medicinal plant common name. https://christopherhobbs.com/herbal-therapeutics-database/

Diane

I started my first plant nursery when I was 4 years old, selling violets door to door in small Dixie cups. Growing up in Minnesota, I decided not to get a degree in horticulture because the place was frozen shut so much of the year, and kept gardening as my love instead.

Garden clubs, the Minnesota State Horticultural Society, my own garden on tours and in Better Homes and Gardens, and helping to lead global garden tours all followed. It wasn’t until I met and married Michael that we both started selling our favorite plants together.

I was always interested in native plants, but it wasn’t until I read the books by Professor Doug Tallamy that I learned how critically important they are for our planet’s future. These two books especially changed my life: “Nature’s Best Hope” and “Bringing Nature Home”. After that, I composted most of the non-native plants in my part of the nursery. I still have a few that I cannot yet part with, but not many.

Now into the 9th year of running the native plant side of the nursery, I now am curating over 100 species of Pacific Northwest native plants.