A Curious Garden of Herbs : University of Georgia Press : 9780820357829 : 0820357820 : 01 Nov 2020 : "A Curious Garden of Herbs is a richly-illustrated collection of herbal fact and lore that illuminates they "why" rather than the "how" of the historical kitchen garden. Rather than offering a how-to of gardening methods, Moss and Simmons trace herbs andtheir uses back to earlier times and places. In addition to sixty historical illustrations, A Curious Garden of Herbs is peppered with reflections and observations from manuscripts and herbals to detail the historical uses and fascinating stories surrounding plants of documented interest in the early American South and mid-Atlantic. Practicality and necessity were the guiding theses for gardening in eighteen- and early nineteenth-century rural and frontier settlements in the Southeast. There were plants for food, for seasoning, for medicine, for dye, for insect repellency, and for scent. While many of these plants were also decorative, u