Salena Walker

12/06/2026

Link to tickets: https://haverhub.org.uk/event/wild-welsh-herbalism-talk-with-salena-walker/ -tickets__tickets-form

12/06/2026

Gorgeous self-heal is finally in flower. 🌿💜

One of the things I love most about this plant is what the Welsh names tell us about how our ancestors viewed it. One Welsh name is - Y Feddyges Las - The Blue Female Healer. The name I know this plant as is Craith Unnos - The One-Night Scar.

Long before laboratories and clinical trials, people named plants according to what they observed them doing. In many ways, these old names are little pieces of folk materia medica, carrying clues about a plant's traditional uses through the generations.

The Physicians of Myddfai, our native herbal tradition here in Wales, recorded a fascinating use for self-heal in cases of toothache. The herb was placed inside a dock leaf and laid beneath the aching tooth, or heated on a stone, wrapped in cloth and applied beneath the jaw.

Have you spotted self-heal flowering where you are yet? 💜

12/06/2026

This week I was giving a talk to the Llechryd Gardening Club. Before I left, I was busy brewing up a herbal tea to share as little herbal shots at the end of the evening.

It seems I've become known around these parts as the herbal girl from the Valleys who turns up with mysterious herbal shots for everyone to try. 🌿😄

There is something I love about sharing herbs this way. Reading about a plant is one thing, but tasting it, smelling it, and experiencing it for yourself brings the medicine to life in a completely different way.

So, can you guess from the photo what I made for them?

A little clue... it is one of the herbs that tells us summer has truly arrived in Cymru. ☀️🌿

Pop your guesses in the comments below. Bonus points if you can name it bilingually, in both Welsh and English. 😉

09/06/2026

09/06/2026

🌿 Join us at HaverHub on June 26th for a magical herbal talk with Salena Walker, the Wild Welsh Herbalist 🌿

Explore early-summer wild Welsh herbs, their uses as food & medicine, and the folklore woven through Cymru’s landscape. Plus, enjoy a tasting of a non-alcoholic herbal shot to experience the plants first-hand 🌱✨

Story, tradition, and healing plants — all rooted in Wales.

08/06/2026

Ysgawen - Elder

08/06/2026

I think this little plant appearing in our field has made me more excited than any other. Why?

Eyebright was the very first herb my parents taught me to use as medicine when I was about twelve years old. My dad came home from the factory one day and told me that one of the boys he worked with had suggested eyebright tea for my hay fever. I was thrilled... Right up until I tasted it... It was absolutely disgusting!!!

Even so, I knew it worked. My hay fever improved, and I was willing to drink cup after cup if it meant I could breathe easier and stop rubbing my eyes.

Seeing eyebright growing where I now live all these years later warms my heart. It feels like a message from my dad, a reminder of where this journey with herbs began, and of the people who first showed me that the wild plants around us could be medicine.

Sometimes a tiny flower can carry a lifetime of memories. 💚

04/06/2026

20/05/2026

When I teach my students I collect fresh herbs to make herbal teas. At this time of year I am especially grateful for my polytunnel, as everything is a little further ahead in the season.

There is something I love about gathering herbs straight from the garden, adding them fresh to the tea bowl and sharing a paned together between lessons. 💚

What herbs can you recognise in this tea bowl?

20/05/2026

Recently I had the final weekend with my first year Wild Welsh Herbalism students. Thankfully for many of them it was not truly the end, as lots are continuing on into the second year. The photo is of some of the group with their Welsh Elixir's they made over the weekend.

It ended up being a very special weekend, all because of the cuckoo...

I was telling the group about the Welsh folklore that whatever you are doing when you first hear the cuckoo is what you will spend the rest of the year doing. I also mentioned that the only time I had heard a cuckoo here in recent years was during Covid.

Later that same weekend we were all sat outside around the table looking through plant identification books when suddenly we all heard it. A cuckoo calling across the land... We all just stopped and looked at each other!!!

According to the folklore, that means we will all be identifying and working with Welsh plants for the rest of the year. I obviously immediately told them it was clearly a sign they all needed to do the second year course 😂

Of course we celebrated the way we always do here in Wales. The Welshies of the group all started singing... "Daw hyfrd fis..."

Sometimes folklore feels very alive here in Cymru 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿