Wayward Garden & Apothecary is a link in the chain of traditional herbal knowledge stretching back centuries. We are an herbal dispensary providing accessible solutions for the modern era.
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Hi, I am Lauren, the sole owner and operator of Wayward Garden. I have been working with herbs for the entirety of my life starting with foraging wild plants and the playful creation of lotions and perfumes as a very young girl, evolving into a legitimate and well-studied topicals business as a young adult.
My rural farm-y upbringing awakened a love of animal husbandry, botany and horitculture, but where I get truly excited is at the intersection of animal care, food growth and medicine production. I have extensively studied permaculture practices and played with urban agriculture and animal husbandry which has since blossomed into Wayward Garden and Apothecary. I have over 1300 official study hours and am constantly submitting myself to well respected teachers, leaders and elders in order to continuously absorb information that I then digest and use to produce artful herbal creations.
While I may not always boast it, I use earnings from my very small business to make donations to mutual aid funds, free food fridges and free stores. I am very passionate about decarceration and as someone who is very vocal about the medicinal aspects of cannabis, I feel it is my duty as a white woman to fight for minorites who are incarcerated for the same plant I make money off of. Organizations that fight tirelessly for these victims are my favorite to give my money to.
In a previous life, i studied metalsmithing and fine jewelry. You may see some of those products pop up here and there. While it is a practice I greatly miss, I am convinced many of the chemicals i had constant exposure to were having a massively negative impact on my health. Friends began asking to purchase products i was making to restore my health, and now here we are.
I hope you love them as much as I do.
My gratitude is endless.