Welcome to the Southern Herbalist and Stalking The Wild...!

My life has been spent in a constant search to discover and unravel the mysteries of nature. As a child, I spent many hours in the woods crawling on hands and knees through brambles and briers, my imagination running wild. Sometimes, I was an Indian hunting deer with my trusty bow and arrow. Other times, I might be a cowboy riding for days on my trusty horse, high in the mountains of Colorado. It really didn't matter as long as I was outside playing, feeling the freedom of nature. Photo of Darryl

As an adult, I never did leave that childhood of imagination and adventure. I still walk through the woods, allowing my thoughts now to be filled with medicinal plants and all the wonderful benefits they have to offer mankind. Now, when I wander along a country path, instead of trees I see Willows and Oaks and Pines along with beautiful Queen Anne's Lace and Bloodroot. No longer do I see the forests as simply a large group of trees and plants. They have become individuals, each with their own unique characteristics and uses. Nature has simply come alive to me.

I was very fortunate in the early 1980's to become the apprentice to Tommie Bass, one of the last of the old mountain herb doctors. Born a sharecropper in 1908, Tommie began digging medicinal roots and herbs at the age of seven, continuing the art of "simpling" for 81 years until his death in 1996. For twelve years I was blessed to study with him, learning how to identify and use literally thousands of plants found here in the Deep South. People like Tommie are almost gone and our world is lessened for it. Much of the knowledge these people developed because of their close relationship to the land has disappeared and will never be rediscovered. Please enjoy this audio clip of my friend, mentor and Master Herbalist, Tommie Bass.

My mission in life is to pass this knowledge down to you. Whether it is teaching you how to make an old-timey salve passed down through generations of herbalists, how to identify and use medicinal plants, or to simply share some stories of nature which will entertain and educate, I want to fire your love and imagination for the bounty nature has to offer. New laws are constantly coming down from the government restricting ours rights to buy certain herbs and supplements. Learn plants as they grow in nature and you will never have to worry about finding what you need to treat your ills. Everything we need is out there - all we have to do is open our eyes. So -

I'll see you in the Woods!

Darryl Patton