Three Old Garden Companions
Hyssop, Borage, and Comfrey in the Early Herbal World of Plymouth Colony
In the early 1600s, a garden was more than a place for beauty.
It was pantry, medicine chest, scent cupboard, kitchen helper, comfort station, and household insurance.
For the English families who came to Plymouth, the garden near the house mattered deeply. It helped season food. It offered familiar plants in an unfamiliar land. It carried memory from England into the sandy soil of New England.
And in that small garden world, herbs were not casual decorations.
They were simples.
A simple was a single plant used for a household purpose. It might be used in broth, tea, salve, poultice, vinegar, ale, posset, syrup, or strewing. It might comfort the stomach, sweeten the room, support the lungs, soothe a bruise, or simply lift the heart on a raw New England day.
The early Plymouth garden sat at the meeting place of two worlds.
There was the English herbal tradition, shaped by books, household practice, midwives, gardeners, and old country remedies.
There was also the living plant knowledge of the Wampanoag people, whose understanding of local plants, foodways, and seasonal survival was rooted in generations of direct relationship with this land.
For Simples & Worts, this is the historic view of the herbal apothecary:
not a shelf of modern supplements,
not a medical aisle,
but a working household garden where plants carried memory, usefulness, comfort, and care.
This week, we look at three old garden companions:
hyssop,
borage,
and comfrey.
Each one opens a window into the herbal imagination of the early 1600s.
The Garden as Household Apothecary
To understand these herbs, we need to step back into the world of the early Plymouth household.
The English settlers did not arrive with modern medicine.
They arrived with inherited ways of thinking.
Health was often understood through the old language of hot and cold, wet and dry, excess and balance. Food, drink, weather, emotion, labor, sleep, and plants all belonged to this system.
An herb might be called warming.
Another might be cooling.
One might open the chest.
Another might comfort the heart.
Another might knit tissue, soothe swelling, or strengthen a weak place.
We may not use that same language today, but we can still respect what it represented.
It was an attempt to observe the body, the season, the plant, and the household together.
In a hard colony life, that mattered.
A cough was not just a cough.
A wound was not just a wound.
A sad spirit was not just a mood.
A tired body was not just tired.
Every household needed ways to respond.
That is where the garden came in.
Hyssop: The Sharp Little Herb of Breath and Cleansing
Hyssop was an old biblical and European herb before it ever crossed into the English colonial imagination.
It carried a reputation for cleansing, clearing, and strengthening.
Its flavor is strong, sharp, and resinous. It is not a shy herb. It announces itself.
In the early herbal world, hyssop was commonly associated with the chest and breath. It was used in teas, syrups, and preparations for coughs, phlegm, and cold-weather complaints.
That made it a practical plant for damp, raw seasons.
Imagine a Plymouth household in late autumn.
The air is wet.
The wind has turned.
The house is smoky.
People are tired from labor.
Food stores matter.
Warm drink matters.
A sharp herb like hyssop, steeped into a household preparation, would have felt like a plant of clearing and resolve.
It may also have had household uses beyond the body. Strong herbs were sometimes valued for scenting, strewing, and freshening spaces. In a crowded home with smoke, animals, damp clothing, and stored food, fragrance was not luxury. It was comfort.
For the Simples & Worts apothecary shelf, hyssop reminds us of the old idea that some herbs were kept not because they were soft and sweet, but because they were bracing.
Hyssop belonged to the family of “stand up straight” herbs.
It was the herb of a cleared breath, a warmed cup, a stern little remedy against dampness and heaviness.
Borage: The Herb That Gladdens the Heart
Borage is a very different character.
Where hyssop is sharp, borage is bright.
Its blue star-shaped flowers seem almost too cheerful for a survival garden.
The tender leaves have a cucumber-like taste. The flowers are edible and beautiful. Bees adore it.
In the English herbal tradition, borage was famously linked to courage, gladness, and comfort of the heart.
That phrase may sound poetic to us now, but in the early 1600s it had real household meaning.
People understood sorrow, fear, grief, homesickness, and discouragement as part of the body’s condition. A plant that “gladdened the heart” was not merely decorative. It belonged to the medicine of morale.
And Plymouth would have needed morale.
The first years were marked by cold, loss, hunger, uncertainty, and strain.
A plant like borage offers us a gentle way to imagine the emotional side of the colonial garden.
Not every herb was about battle.
Some were about keeping courage alive.
Borage might have been used in salads, cooling drinks, cordials, or household preparations. Its flowers could brighten a dish. Its leaves could bring freshness. Its reputation could bring comfort.
For the Simples & Worts historic apothecary, borage is a reminder that herbal practice was not only about treating discomfort.
It was also about tending the spirit.
A blue flower in a hard year can be a kind of medicine.
Comfrey: Knitbone and the Work of Repair
Comfrey may be the most earthy of the three.
It is large-leaved, deep-rooted, vigorous, and generous.
Historically, comfrey was often called knitbone.
That old name tells us almost everything about its reputation.
In traditional household use, comfrey was associated with repair: bruises, strains, wounds, swelling, and injuries from labor.
This makes sense in the world of early Plymouth.
People worked with their bodies.
They lifted, dug, hauled, built, chopped, planted, carried, scraped, mended, and walked. Tools were hand tools. Travel was physical. Work was constant.
A household plant known for soothing and repair would have been valued.
Comfrey leaves and roots were historically used externally in poultices, washes, and salve-like preparations. The mucilaginous quality of the plant — that slippery, soothing feel — made it especially appealing in old herbal practice.
In a colony where daily life could bruise the body, comfrey would have represented the garden’s ability to help mend what work had strained.
For the Simples & Worts apothecary shelf, comfrey is the old repair plant.
It reminds us that the household garden was not separate from labor.
It stood beside it.
A person worked.
The body complained.
The garden answered.
Three Plants, Three Household Needs
Together, hyssop, borage, and comfrey give us a beautiful little map of the early herbal household.
Hyssop speaks to breath, clearing, and the damp weight of cold seasons.
Borage speaks to heart, courage, and the need for gladness.
Comfrey speaks to bruises, strain, and the repair of a working body.
Breath.
Heart.
Bone.
That is a whole household story.
It is also why these old herbs still fascinate us.
They remind us that the herbal apothecary was never only about plants.
It was about daily life.
It was about cooking.
It was about survival.
It was about keeping the house well.
It was about making do with what grew nearby.
It was about inherited knowledge, careful observation, and the deep human wish to be comforted by the living world.
A Plymouth Garden Thought
We should be careful not to romanticize early Plymouth life.
It was hard.
It was dangerous.
It existed in a complex and often painful colonial encounter.
The English settlers depended heavily on Indigenous knowledge, especially in learning how to survive in a land that was new to them but ancient to the Wampanoag people.
Still, the small household garden remains one of the most human windows into that period.
A woman stepping outside for herbs.
A pot warming near the fire.
A child sent to fetch leaves.
A bruised hand wrapped.
A bitter cup swallowed.
A blue borage flower placed on a simple meal.
A sharp herb hung to dry.
These are small scenes.
But history often lives in small scenes.
At Simples & Worts, we look back not to copy the past blindly, but to understand the old relationship between people, plants, household care, and place.
Hyssop, borage, and comfrey are more than old-fashioned herbs.
They are reminders of a time when the garden stood close to the kitchen, close to the sickbed, close to the workbench, and close to the heart.
And perhaps that is the lesson worth carrying forward.
A good herb garden is not just planted.
It is kept.
It is known.
It is visited.
It becomes part of the household.
It helps us remember that care can be simple, seasonal, fragrant, and near at hand.
And here’s to sharing our herbal lifestyle with you.