There's a Bit of Magic Here

A u-shaped driveway directs you straight back to the place you came from, should you carry with you the scent of city and speed.

For in this old house live stories of seas and herbs and manifestations.

Here is where she plants and grows, harvests and wild forages.

Here is where she infuses and concocts, distills and mixes.

Here is where she heals and soothes, livens and prevents.

Here is where she bottles and packages, promotes and sells.

Here is where she lives and works and mothers—in an old farmhouse that she dreamed into being twenty-two years ago.

We’re sitting on her deck amongst the greenery, savouring the last days of summer sun. The smell of chocolate, mint, and cinnamon basil tea, along with the fragrance of decomposing plants, is a sweet earthy musk in the crisp morning air.

“An old farmhouse on 2.5 acres—on Gabriola that’s rare, but I didn’t want a huge acreage. I wanted somewhere to garden and grow. I wanted full sun and lots of water. Old fruit trees. I wanted lots of soil. And I even went to the point of writing down that I wanted it to be on Horseshoe Road. Whenever I went down this road, I loved it so much, but you never go down this road unless you know somebody or you’re buying eggs at the end. When this house came up it was within a week of me writing down exactly what I wanted,” she states, relaxing back into her chair. “There’s a bit of magic here I think.” 

The sun slides over her face as she surveys her property, and the birthplace of Panacea Herbs—a line of all natural and organic healing products Margo creates in her sunlit workshop out back. The studio where the windowsill holds large jars of soaking flowers in yellow liquid and where she can keep an eye on the growing plants as a reminder for when it’s time to harvest. Panacea: the Greek goddess of herbology. The modern use means universal remedy. “What’s your Panacea?” she asks me.

“It was an amazing step forward when we built my studio,” she says, gazing back at it. “My kids were starting to complain of tasting soap on their toast, or essential oils in their juice. Having kids and being a single mother and running a business is exciting, but it is also very overwhelming. We do the best we can.” 

Margo’s path has been paved with magic since childhood. From finding bits of chive and peppermint as a child in the middle of a city, to being healed with a special mountain herb in Turkey. From sitting with old Voodoo ladies holding onto baskets of herbs in Thailand, to going back to Ottawa and discovering that a school for natural medicine had been just up the street from her childhood home all along.

“Living the full hippy lifestyle in a bus,” she says. “It was pretty free and exciting. We lived off the grid, which I loved: the small space, being self-sufficient. We had one solar panel so we could have music and one light. We carried water to fill up a bathtub from a spring over across a field. And we grew a big garden. It kind of felt like we were beating the system somehow. Meanwhile,” Margo laughs, “I’d always bum showers from friends. We didn’t have it totally figured out. It’s something I liked doing in my twenties. When I eventually had kids—two boys—I was really glad to have a larger roof over my head and water running out of the tap. It seemed like herbalism was a part of all that homesteading somehow,” she says. 

Yarrow, a styptic for stopping bleeding and clearing colds, is one of Margo’s favourite herbs.

“When I was younger, I used to sow the clear-cuts. I would take herbal seeds—yarrow or mullein—and go into the clear cuts and throw the seeds around. I still love foraging in the wild, and wild crafting. A lot of the herbs I use in the garden are basically weeds but they’re actually really amazing allies for the human body—for animals, too.” 

Her other favourite is Echinacea, for boosting the immune system. “The Echinacea is beautiful in the garden and the bees love it. I had four different types of bees in my Echinacea flowers this year. It was so amazing to watch.”

With a life in herbs comes a life in seasons, Margo explains. Those prone to procrastination wouldn’t do well, as they might miss the necessities the earth provides in each chapter of the year. “In the spring and into the summer, there’s not only planting the garden for food and such, but there’s the picking and drying of leaves and flowers. And in the fall, it’s roots, and barks, and berries. Along the way I sun infuse herbs in oils or make decoctions, tinctures or distillations to use in my products. The winter is for making products and sending them out. February’s exciting because nettles come up—the beginning of the herb harvesting year. Nettles are so full of vitamins and iron. So good for you to start your spring cleanse and boost your immune system by eating your nettles.”

“Herbalism is a lifelong of learning,” says Margo. “There is always more to learn.

One herb could be beneficial for the digestive system while it also warms the body, moving the blood and relieving congestion. The possibilities are fascinating.”  

And while Margo creates skin care products, her real interest lies “in the medicinal aspect of the herbs. Real medicine. I like selling at the farmers market because I get to talk to my customers. I noticed that there is a surge in people getting psoriasis and eczema. Almost in a pandemic way. I think it’s the lifestyle, or the food. I formulated an herbal lotion called Psorasoothe to help with inflammation, and itchy, dry skin. I add a lavender hydrosol that helps relieve sore skin and frayed nerves from a hectic and frenetic lifestyle. People are overstressed. They’re doing too much and I see it in their skin.”

Margo’s two and a half acres on the quiet Horseshoe Road, with the quiet horseshoe driveway, is filled with home and workshop and healing. She has manifested a sea of growing green “allies” which continually whisper of the never-ending mystery of possibilities. Growing, concocting, drinking, healing. Raising plants and family and business. And in every day on this land, through every season, the network of greenery appears in different shapes and forms, so rooted in Margo’s chosen paths, so close to the earth.

Are you sitting outside? Take a look around, for the plants growing right around you are the things you need. “That’s why they call them allies,” Margo says. “It’s incredible.”