About Me

Welcome! My name is Becky Stockton. I’m a historian, researcher and plant enthusiast, and I get REALLY excited when my interests collide!  I hold a J.D. and a B.A. in history & social studies education.  While I have many historical interests, my passion is medieval and early modern European history, especially England from the Norman Conquest through the Tudor dynasty (1066-1603).  Sitting on the English throne for the majority of those years was the Plantagenet family, and I find their era endlessly fascinating.  

Much of my study has centered around the lives of women of every social standing and the roles they played in their families, communities and wider spheres of influence.  A recurring responsibility for many women was to manage their families’ health, creating healing remedies using a knowledge of plants and herbs passed down through generations, and I found myself drawn into this facet of medieval lives that I’d not previously considered.

I’m also a gardener, though with only a suburban deck instead of access to a full garden, I’d long felt something missing from my annual container gardening: a purpose. One day, inspiration struck: what if i tried growing some of these medieval medicinal herbs, just to see what they were like?  And what if I tried a few simple herbal remedies that might’ve been used by my European ancestors, just to see how it was done?  What an opportunity to not only connect with the past on a more personal level, but to also expand my historical research!  

I’m now into my third year of cultivating, preserving and using small samples of various medicinal and culinary herbs, and while I’m certainly not a master gardener by any stretch of the imagination, I’m gaining some confidence as I learn about, with and from the plants.  My experimentation has drawn interest from friends and colleagues, so I’ve created this site as a way of sharing my jaunt through history and herblore.  

About P&P

Plants and Plantagenets is intended to share the things I am learning, through both study and hands-on experiences, about our longtime herbal neighbors, their human companions across the centuries, and how the two were and continue to be interconnected.  Some of the herbs I grow will be familiar to many folks, while some others, particularly native species or those often considered weeds, may be less known to readers who aren’t actively involved in wildcrafting.

I’m no expert; I’m a student of all these things. I’m learning through my own experience; I’m not a professional grower, nor am I necessarily looking for advice, as growing “the best” isn’t my purpose.  This is me, sharing the things that bring me joy or make me think, in the hopes that they bring a bright spot to your day or give you something to ponder as well.  

So whether you are a medievalist, historian, or fellow plant enthusiast, I hope you enjoy following the growth and usage of these plants, and perhaps will take away something to enrich your appreciation for these gifts of nature.