Grow Your Own Drugs: Season 2, Episode 6

2 - 6: Wild Plants

It's the end of James Wong's ethnobotanical journey, and he rounds his series off with a look at the plants that have provided a free living pharmacy for thousands of years: wild plants. Taking care to point out the perils of picking in the wild, James travels to Northern Ireland, where he harvests seaweed for a luxurious seaweed body scrub, forages for elderberries and turns them into an anti-viral jam to help ward off colds and flu, and tries to offer hayfever sufferers some relief with his nettle tea.He also seeks out a tiny wild flower called eyebright, and uses it to make a compress to soothe tired and itchy eyes. For the green-fingered, James demonstrates how you can make your own mini wild flower meadow in a tiny back garden, and offers some historical and scientific background to the plants he uses.