Gardens and Paths

Central to the education you’ll find at Bastyr, the Bastyr Gardens is home to over 250 medicinal plants.

Experience the Bastyr Gardens

The Bastyr University Medicinal Herb Garden plays a central role in your education. Many students study and cultivate a variety of medicinal plants throughout their life cycle, while others use cultivated culinary herbs and organic vegetables to create delicious meals in the University's whole-food kitchen lab. Plants are harvested at their seasonal peak for creating medicinal tinctures and salves.  

The garden is designed, cultivated and managed by students and volunteers under the guidance of the garden manager and assistant garden manager with a combined total over 30 years of experience. 

In spring 2012, Bastyr University unveiled the Sacred Seeds Ethnobotanical Trail, part of an international project that aims to help communities stay connected to native plants. The living “classroom” will be used to teach visitors about identification, seed saving and cultivation of native plants, while the Sacred Seeds Virtual Education Portal offers online ethnobotany resources including take-home curriculums and virtual field trips designed for K-12 students. 
 
The Sacred Seeds Trail will preserve ethnobotanical knowledge of how native plants have been used in the past for food, medicine and ceremonies.

Sacred Seeds Virtual Education Portal

The mile-long trail connects a series of native plant meadows and gardens to the nearby forest and wetland, advancing the University’s landscape as an educational resource for the entire community, including: 

  • Local native tribes of the Peoples of Cascadia 
  • K-12 faculty and students 
  • Herbalists 
  • Horticultural societies 
  • Bicycle associations 
  • Other colleges and university student populations 
  • Garden clubs 
  • All Bastyr University visiting neighbors and friends 

 

Adjacent to the garden is the Bastyr reflexology path, the first public reflexology path in North America. Based on wisdom from ancient Egypt, India and China, reflexology paths massage and stimulate acupressure points in the soles of the feet connected to various energy meridians of the body. 

The pressure of stones under bare feet combines with gravity to provide a therapeutic exercise that stimulates health. Bastyr's 65-foot path features smooth native Northwest river rock artistically embedded in cement. A handrail provides stability and improves accessibility, particularly for older walkers. 

  • Tours are generally scheduled Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., from spring through fall and are based on availability of a guide. Tours are not available during holidays but may be available after these hours or on a weekend with enough lead time.
  • For private groups, 1 hour tours are $10 per person, payable in cash or through paypal. Tours for non-profit groups are sliding scale, please contact us for more information. Tour donations support garden improvements and upkeep.

For more information or to schedule, call 1-425-896-6728 or email [email protected]

wooden trail in forest

path of stones