Benefits of Japanese Knotweed
with Timothy Scott

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When Tim Scott’s book, Invasive Plant Medicine, came out in 2010, it was an instant favorite of mine. In fact, it still influences the way I view plants and the natural world!  I was so delighted to finally have the chance to interview Tim, and our conversation touched on many important threads from the book – from the question “what is native” to some of the actual benefits of invasive plants, and so much more.

Tim also discussed a plant that inspires anger in many of the places it has taken hold: Japanese knotweed.  Yet there is much to love about this much-maligned plant! Tim shared all about how he works with Japanese knotweed for both food and medicine – including his delicious recipe for Japanese Knotweed Pickles. You can download your beautifully illustrated recipe card from the  section below.

By the end of this episode, you’ll know:

► Why labeling plants as “native” or “invasive” can be problematic

► Three ways that so-called invasive plants can actually often help to revitalize the land

► A surprising way that Japanese knotweed can be worked with to process stored anger

► What makes Japanese knotweed such a helpful ally for people with Lyme disease

► and so much more…

For those of you who don’t know him, Timothy Lee Scott is an herbalist, business owner, and author of Invasive Plant Medicine, which was the first book to outline the healing benefits of invasive plants and their ecological functions in the environment. He is owner of Green Dragon Botanicals, which provides herbal remedies for Lyme disease and other infectious and chronic illnesses, and has specialized in treating Lyme disease for over 20 years, after first apprenticing with the late Stephen Buhner. Tim is a tireless advocate for the plant world and using herbs as medicine, and constantly questions the status quo of the technologically-based, corporate health care system. He currently lives in southern Vermont.

I’m so excited to share our conversation with you today!

-- TIMESTAMPS -- for Benefits of Japanese Knotweed

• 01:11 - Student spotlight
• 03:28 - Introduction to Tim Scott
• 04:57 - Tim’s plant path
• 12:56 - How Tim came to know Japanese knotweed
• 16:03 - The harvesting process as a form of medicine
• 19:41 - How invasive plants can benefit the land
• 30:50 - The impermanence of nature
• 36:45 - Medicinal benefits of knotweed
• 44:14 - Preparations and dosage of knotweed
• 50:20 - Herbs for Lyme disease
• 53:01 - Japanese knotweed pickles
• 56:20 - Invasive Plant Medicine
• 1:05:02 - Tim’s upcoming herbal plans
• 1:15:16 - Herbal tidbit

Get Your Free Recipe!

Connect with Tim

• Websites | GreenDragonBotanicals.com and TimothyLeeScott.com

Transcript of the 'Benefits of Japanese Knotweed with Timothy Scott' Video

Rosalee de la Forêt:
Hello and welcome to the Herbs with Rosalee Podcast, a show exploring how herbs heal as
medicine, as food and through nature connection. I’m your host, Rosalee de la Forêt. I created
this Channel to share trusted herbal wisdom so that you can get the best results when
relying on herbs for your health. I love offering up practical knowledge to help you dive deeper
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Rosalee de la Forêt:

Okay, grab your cup of tea and let’s dive in.

First up is The Herbs with Rosalee Student Spotlight. Each week we take a moment to celebrate one of our amazing students and their inspiring contributions to our herbal community. This week’s spotlight shines on Canadian student, Carrie Dyck, from Newfoundland. Carrie joined the Rooted Medicine Circle in early 2024, and then later enrolled in our Herbal Energetics Course later in 2024. She’s been a really active and inspiring presence in our online course community, our live events, and she shares stunning photos and personal reflections along the way. 

One of Carrie’s remarkable transformations occurred early in the Rooted Medicine Circle Certificate Path. She described shifting from a farmer’s mentality of picking as many plants as quickly as possible, to embracing that foraging and gardening is more process-oriented than results-oriented. As she shared, slowing down and gathering just what we can use in a short period of time is the nourishment. 

Carrie’s academic background shines through in her beautifully cited work and meticulous attention to detail. Her capstone project included a clear, easy to follow flowchart, showcasing her organizational skills. For her presentation, she prepared a comprehensive guide to making “herbucha,” herbal kombucha, with detailed slides and tried-and-true recipes that she developed over the nine-month course. It’s really a truly impressive and valuable resource. 

To celebrate Carrie’s contributions, Harmonic Arts is gifting her a $50 gift certificate to explore their exceptional herbal products from functional mushrooms and tinctures, to herbal lattes and artisan teas. Harmonic Arts crafts high-quality products with care. As a Certified B Corp, they’re dedicated to making a positive impact and continuously strive to nurture the connection between people and planet. 

Thank you so much, Harmonic Arts, for supporting our community with your thoughtful offerings. 

If you’d like to explore Harmonic Arts’ offerings and support this show, you can visit this link, and when checking out, you can use the coupon code, “Rosalee,” to get a 15% discount on your order. 

When Tim first published his book, Invasive Plant Medicine, in 2010, it was an instant favorite of mine. I remember it was controversial! It definitely stimulated a lot of conversations. I remember getting to meet Tim at IHS a couple of years after that. I did his plant walk there and I did my best to not totally fan girl, but I probably failed. I’ve been asking Tim to be on the podcast for years now, I believe, so I’m glad it finally worked out. I really loved this conversation about the benefits of Japanese knotweed. We also talked about Lyme disease and about the importance of invasive plant medicines. 

For those of you who don’t already know him, Timothy Lee Scott is an herbalist, business owner and author of Invasive Plant Medicine, which is the first book to outline the healing benefits of invasive plants and their ecological functions in the environment. He’s the owner of Green Dragon Botanicals, which provides herbal remedies for Lyme disease and other infectious and chronic illnesses, and specialized in treating Lyme disease for over 20 years after first apprenticing with the late, Stephen Buhner. 

Tim is a tireless advocate for the plant world and using herbs as medicine and constantly questions the status quo of the technologically-based corporate healthcare system. He currently lives in Southern Vermont. 

Tim, I’m so thrilled to have you on the show. Welcome!

Tim Scott: 

Thank you. It’s good to see you, Rosalee.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

It’s so good to see you. It’s such a pleasure. We’re talking just before we hit record that it’s been awhile, so looking forward to reconnecting with you. I’m really excited to talk about Invasive Plant Medicine because this is still one of my very favorite herbal books. I think every herbalist needs it. We’re going to talk about why it’s so important, but first, I would love to hear more about your story, Tim, and just what brought you along on this plant path.

Tim Scott:

Okay. Well, I’ve been thinking about this and it does go back to my childhood days. I grew up in suburbia Cleveland, Ohio, and fortunately, had a nice wood lot behind me that I spent a lot of my summer times as a child playing around, trancing around. It was a magical time, really. I try to continue to bring that up in my life just that wonder with the world. One of the things I really loved was playing with jewelweed. There was a big patch of it and I would just play forever just popping those seeds and chewing on the seeds. I’m sure if my mom would have caught me, she would have questioned, “What are you doing? You’re eating that?” 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

I love that you’re sharing that because I would not have known what you’re talking about even three months ago. I was with jim mcdonald in Michigan in September. I can’t remember. It took awhile to figure out how to do it, but I think he managed to feed me a jewelweed seed because you have to put it in your mouth at the right moment to get that pop. I can’t believe I’ve been this—we don’t have jewelweed here really, but still I didn’t know I had gone long in my herbal career without understanding how cool that is. I’m glad you brought it up.

Tim Scott:

There was always this part of me that loved plants and animals and the wildness out there. I grew up and ended up going off to college mid-nineties. I was studying psychology in college. It got to a certain point in the studies when statistics came in and lab testing with rats came in. I’m like, “This is nothing I want to deal with,” and switched over to just general health sciences at that point--biochemistry, biology, some nutrition, diet and all that. I was disenfranchised with both of those routes because how can you talk about the body without the mind and how can you talk about the mind without the body?

Around that same time, I was getting really into Eastern philosophy, Buddhism, Daoism, and I came across a book on Chinese medicine. This is Ohio back in the ‘90s. Acupuncturists weren’t even allowed to practice and hardly anyone talked about herbs. There was a little herb shop down around the corner that you had to know about to get to. I started exploring that and I started exploring the herbs. Of course, what better herb to start with back then? Echinacea, goldenseal. That was the hype back then and it still is.

I really got intrigued with Chinese medicine at that point. I decided to drop out of college and travel west, head to California to go to Chinese medicine school. You know that interesting herbs were growing and I was reading all that I could and spending time with plants, and I had some pretty magical experiences with different plants along the way. I finally settled in San Diego for Chinese medicine school. That was a whole, in-depth process to just going into this whole new philosophy of just looking at life, health and well-being. It really resonated with me at the time, and in a way it was the first time in my life I enjoyed learning about something.

Until that point, I did enough to get by, but I finally found something. I want to learn about this more and more and it was really exciting. The schooling was part acupuncture, part Chinese herbs. In that process, I learned those are the same herbs that are growing here for a lot of purposes. Along the way, there’s a couple of books that really stood out to me and one of them was Stephen Buhner’s book, Sacred Plant Medicine. That was the first book that opened me up to this whole new way of thinking and being with plants. I never came across that in life, but it just resonated so well with me. With some of my experiences with plants, for one, I’ll speak to is manzanita traveling through the southwest and this plant just so magically took hold of me in a way, and we danced in this way that just took me to this, “There’s this plant that has this energy, almost like consciousness that grabbed hold of me. Wow! I want to know more about this.”

There was the whole Chinese medicine and then there’s this whole other branch that I took with—the sacredness of plants. I finished up Chinese medicine school, that was in 2002, and traveled east and ended up in Vermont. My ex-wife at the time, we started an herbal apothecary and acupuncture clinic, massage and all that. It’s when the practice really started when I started working with people. At the same time, I met Stephen. He was doing a workshop. He was actually living in Vermont at the time, and that’s where sort of my apprenticeship with him began too that led me on to a whole other journey with the plants, with myself, and that led me to this amazing plant too, Japanese knotweed.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

That’s a nice segue right there.

Tim Scott:

This plant changed my life in so many ways. I like to say that it’s a plant that made me and saved me. Back in 2004, when Stephen was writing the Healing Lyme book, I was in my practice and working with some people with Lyme disease. He suggested, “Hey, here’s this plant I’m writing about. You should try it.” I dove right into that. I started harvesting it. At that point, in the plant supplement world, you couldn’t find Japanese knotweed as a supplement. Maybe there’s a couple of people making some tinctures out there.

At the beginning, Stephen was stressing capsules or whole herb or tea, more so than tinctures. There were resveratrol products out there, which we’ll get into more what resveratrol is, but that’s one of the main components of knotweed, and was at that point, the only source of any kind of knotweed you could get because they’d extract the resveratrol from the knotweed.

So, I began harvesting it, grinding it up, putting it in the capsules. You know those hundred capsule mil units at a time? And then started giving it to my patients and it worked wonders. It is something that made all the difference for a lot of folks and it really captivated me and that’s when not only this herb, but Lyme disease took over my life too at that point, and became my main focus in my practice. It just expanded. Everything has grown from there as far as my life and my practice and my business.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

I’m so glad you chose Japanese knotweed to share with us today. I love the image of you going out there and harvesting it, then drying it, grinding it and capsulating. Those are no small feat, but it’s just like there’s something very real about that. That’s very real grassroots herbalism. In the book, you talk about—I can’t remember the exact quote now—but you said something like harvesting Japanese knotweed requires “something, something” and might make you mad. Because it is how hard it is. This is not a simple I’m-going-to-pluck-a-flower kind of harvest.

Tim Scott:

No, no. It’s definitely a warrior plant and takes hold of wherever it grows. To get in there, it requires a lot of blood, sweat and tears to really get to it and to get those roots out. They’re all intertwined. Not just a shovel, sometimes the hatchet just to break it loose, so it definitely can make you mad. That’s part of the medicine too, I found. That’s what it was working on with me, anyway, to help release some of these underlying angers that I was holding on to. That’s a lot of what the plants taught me, personally, and how I’ve worked with it personally too to get into those crevices in myself that are stuck and hardened, this unresolved anger in a lot of cases that I held on to.

It’s stubborn. It’s a stubborn plant. It’s going to hold on. It’s going—it takes not only digging and getting out, but then you got to chop it into little pieces before it dries because it gets so hard, you can’t even grind it after in big chunks, the root. That was really the first time I did that sort of grassroots, get in there and make medicine from scratch and become so entwined with the plant this way. It’s really a special, special experience.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Yeah. To hear you say that part of the medicine was your harvesting of it, because—I’m just going to be really honest, when I hear what goes into harvesting I think that’s something I’d like to buy. I kind of want to sidestep that, but when we do sidestep that direct interaction with the plant, we’re sidestepping a lot, not just effort, but part of the healing process for our self as well.

Tim Scott:

This is true. This is true. I have allowed other people to harvest for me at this point.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

You went through your process. You’re on the other side of it now.

Tim Scott:

Jeff and Melanie Carpenter harvest it for me. They go out in tractors now and dig it out for me, and so I’m grateful for them to do this work.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Melanie.

Tim Scott:

You know that piece, that warrior piece that this plant isn’t afraid of a shovel. It’s not afraid of poison. It’s not afraid of tractors. Any little piece that’s left behind is going to grow another patch again if it’s allowed. That’s testament to this power of the plant and translates, I feel into the power of the medicine that this plant provides. There’s such a strength to it and a depth to it to go into those places in distress hold on to and help transform those areas where it grows too. That piece of it also gave me that strength and courage in a way to begin to write this book as well.

I did write Invasive Plant Medicine from a place I really drew on some of that anger that I had in me that people were going out and poisoning all these plants that had benefit. They’re going out and ripping them in a vile way and having no respect, so that I really drew on knotweed to help me write the book because, one, I had made use of this plant. It is quite extensively growing everywhere around me here in Vermont. There are articles and workshops all the time, “Let’s get rid of this plant. It’s taking over the river ways.” I felt I need to step up and say, “Hey, wait! This plant is growing here for a reason. There’s this disease spreading in here too that this plant can treat. There’s this symbiotic relationship between them and it’s not all bad. Okay. If you want to get rid of the plant, let’s make use of the medicine too.” Treat it with respect. There’s a reason plants grow everywhere. I don’t believe nature makes mistakes with all this.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

I love your—the first half of the book is very fiery in nature, for sure. I hear what you’re saying that we’re pulling that up because I read it and I get all ramped up too like, “Yeah!” because it really is—I wish I said every herbalist should have this book, but man, do I wish any person who’s a homeowner or anybody who hates – thinks they hate bad plants or invasive plants could read it. Because there is—I think those opening chapters are really offering a paradigm shift of how we are looking at these things, which is what you’re talking about: nature doesn’t make mistakes.

One thing that you talk about is this—oh, gosh. There are so many things I want to bring up. Let me just start with one. I feel I get pretty angry even still. I just recently had the occasion that I got to feel angry again about this. Somebody was on my property and I have mullein growing in my garden along the edges and stuff and they were upset about that that I would allow that to happen. Then they said, “I hate mullein because it’s a bad plant.” It’s been a long time since I felt like a reactionary anger about this because one, I’m just habituated to it and I know from decades of experience, getting mad doesn’t really help in the moment or whatever, but I did get a little mad in the moment, I have to say.

The thing that annoys me about that is that people quickly hate the plant almost like a scapegoat or something, without recognizing the larger roles that are playing into these things happening. You have a whole section on that of what contributes to invasive plants, which are things like roads and agriculture, and basically, a lot of human causes. So, instead of somebody taking responsibility to say, “I’m not participating in natural regeneration of the soils through fire because of this or that. I’m contributing to these other plants happening.” They just hate the plant instead, which I got mad at them just recently and then later on, I was like, “I wish I would have kept my cool a little bit better on that one.”

Bringing it back to Japanese knotweed, it’s easy for people to look at Japanese knotweed and the incredible way that it spreads and how difficult it is to remove, but one thing that you talk a lot about Japanese knotweed is how it does cleanse the waters where it grows.

Tim Scott:

Right.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

I wonder if you would speak to that a little bit.

Tim Scott:

This knotweed and most all these invasives gravitate to those areas that have not only been disturbed by human influence, but also natural influences, flooding and whatnot. They go to the roadsides where we’re spreading into the natural environment. It spread on riverbanks. This knotweed really is all along the riverbanks here in Vermont. It has been shown to help clean some of those pollutants.

There’s the practice of bioremediation where some people purposely plant plants to help remove toxins from the soil or the water to help cleanse it. Whether it’s heavy metals or otherwise, these plants can take these elements into their roots and into their bodies and transform it into less toxic forms in some cases and then sometimes, those toxins can be stored in the plants themselves, and then in the bioremediation process you harvest that. There’s even potential of—I can’t remember the plant exactly, but there’s one plant that takes up nickel, I believe. They plant this in all mining areas where nickel is mined and then the plant brings up the nickel into their plant body, and then they harvest it, and then they can transform that. They can burn it back and capture the nickel back out of it.

It is something that—one of the big things that people come to me asking is, “How harmful is it to be harvesting these plants from these areas to?” I think it is important to look into that ahead of time. It’s hard to say in so many cases without specialized kits to test for various heavy metals and toxins. To look at what’s upstream is important. If it’s also growing near roadsides or where there’s runoff, that’s important to stay away from. In general, most of the rivers are fairly clean where there isn’t a lot of human influence directly there though it can lead to some questions about how much of the toxins that they’re bringing in into their plant body.

There’s still a lot to learn out there about this process, so I generally recommend away from roadsides, away from heavily-traveled areas. If there is known industry upstream, maybe don’t harvest there. Go even beyond that to harvest. That’s it. It is a fascinating thing to look at.

One of the reasons why knotweed, for example, grows where it does is that potentially, these areas are contaminated and toxic, and other native species don’t have the ability to grow there because of the toxicities that are there. It’s not necessarily—it’s often said that the knotweed is pushing out the native plants. In reality, these native plants can’t necessarily grow there anymore because of the change in the soil whether it’s with toxins or pH change or whatnot, those native plants aren’t as adaptable to these kinds of harsher environments as plants as like knotweed, which is very adaptable to all sorts of kinds of environments and soil conditions. It’s obvious, we humans have changed the composition of the soils and the waters dramatically, so it makes these more sensitive plants that have historically grown there—it has made it very difficult for them to grow there now because of the change in the composition of the soils and water.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Let me see. I think of mullein again. I don’t have a lot of Japanese knotweed near me where I live now, but the mullein, something I’ve noticed with that over the past couple of decades is that I’ll watch a land get disturbed and mullein will move in and just cover the area. Then because I have the blessing of being here for so long, I’ve watched that shift too. It’s not that it stays a mullein patch. I want to say that I’ve learned that from your book way back when. It was like these plants are coming in like a Band-Aid and helping to revitalize, restore the soils and they aren’t forever. So, you could look at a mullein patch, a strong mullein patch and be like, “Now, there’s no plant diversity there. Now, there’s just mullein.” You could have negative thoughts like that, but in time, the mullein decreases as other plants then come in and there’s more diversified soils or diversified lands because the soils are being revitalized after the disturbance.

Tim Scott:

Right, right. You know the time scale of the plants are working on a very different time scale than what we, humans, tend to look at. I’ve seen that with mullein on my land too. It was so abundant for a number of years after I moved in here and I did a little clearing. It moved right in there and for about four or five years, it was just all mullein in that area. Since last year, I saw one or two plants last time. I’m like, “I miss you, mullein. I want more of you. Maybe I should disturb some land so you can come back.”

Rosalee de la Forêt:

The things herbalists say. That was actually one concept in Invasive Plant Medicine. I feel like so many concepts are just easy for me to—either I’m like, “Yeah, I’ve often thought that,” or was easy to get onboard with. But this, you talk about the impermanence of nature and how we can sometimes have this idea that what we see or what we imagine the past to be that we think that there’s like this permanence there like that’s what nature is. That one was something that took me awhile to be like, “Oh, right,” because I felt I did subscribe to have these idealized views of what is nature and what it should be, that it’s almost like this moment of time rather than this impermanence of nature is always shifting, always moving.

Tim Scott:

What is native too because plants have been moving around the globe for hundreds of thousands and millions of years. There’s been gigantic shifts in climate. For every 10,000 years, there’s a giant shift in our climate system. Whether it’s the—whether it’s temperature or whatnot, there’s a lot of factors going on. Like we’re saying, there is a different time scale that the earth works on than what us, humans, can easily see. With knotweed as an example, in its native land in Japan, it grows in the volcanoes where – recent volcanoes. It’s a pioneer plant of those areas. It’s the only plant that really grows there for 50 years or so, and that’s almost a human lifetime. Then once it’s built back up to soil by all those years of growth and decay and building it up, then other plants can start to move in and then that mountain can grow other— more diversity of plants that can move in there at that point.

So, yes, there is this—a lot of people do get caught up in that idea that what is native and how have plants moved throughout the ages, whether it’s by humans where the greatest dispersal of seeds throughout the world have always been. Other animals do that. The wind does that. The water, the currents all move plants. That’s part of the show that’s happening. So we’re just living in a unique time where there’s a lot of disturbance that humans are creating, which makes enormous opportunity for these plants to move in. It’s interesting that way. It is a certain mindset that people have of native vs. foreign and all that. We’re living in a lot of that whether it’s with plants or animals or people for that matter. That’s a whole other topic.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Slightly different, tangential thing. I would like to shift back to Japanese knotweed and talk. I know people want to hear about the medicinal applications and the gifts of Japanese knotweed. You’ve mentioned working with it for folks who have Lyme. It would be interesting to hear more about that. I know it’s not just a Lyme disease plant, so other gifts as well.

Tim Scott:

That’s what it’s most known for these days working with knot, Lyme. It has its unique ability to go to those different areas of the body where the Lyme likes to hang out. Lyme is really known for liking the brain, the nervous system, the joints of the body, the skin, the heart. Those are usually the four main areas that people talk about Lyme affecting them. It can affect virtually any bodily system. 

The unique thing with the knotweed is that it has significant influence on all these areas in the body and this is why Stephen shows this as one of the most primary herbs to address Lyme disease. It’s very good for addressing inflammation and the infection in the brain and nervous system. It contains the compound resveratrol, which I touched on earlier, which you can look through all the scientific studies. It’s – resveratrol is that notable antioxidant that people talk about that’s in red wine that gives people the liberty to drink as much wine as they like because it’s so beneficial. It is very specific to—it’s been touted as the cure-all, anti-aging element, and is really good for the neurological system dealing with the degeneration of the brain and addressing all those common neurological disorders we’re seeing these days, like Alzheimer’s and dementia, and helpful for strokes and whatnot.

The thing with knotweed is that it contains more resveratrol than any other plant in the world. Many pharmaceutical companies, supplement companies use the knotweed and then extract out this compound, resveratrol, and sell it as that single extract, that chemical compound. That’s one of the beauties of this plant is that it really helps with that aging, the toxins and the neurological system. It’s also—in Chinese medicine it’s called, “hu zhang.” It is an herb that is said to invigorate the qi in the blood for pain issues, so that ties in with our joint issues, arthritic issues, with Lyme disease too. It’s helpful for removing toxins from the body and dispelling inflammation. Chinese medicine also talks about it – good for the lungs, for cough and phlegm. It’s been used for thousands of years in Chinese medicine, this way.

With its specific nature to address these different areas where Lyme likes to hang out is why I’ve really and Stephen really chose this and began using this as the center of treatment in a lot of ways. I see the great benefit, especially in the nervous system helping with the brain function and such.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

I wonder about a couple of things about resveratrol. I often think if I was a millionaire, I would have a lab. I would employ people to do all the studies that I wonder about. I don’t know if you can answer this, maybe you can. I’m just curious because often times when we see these isolated chemical constituents from plants, we also see that they don’t actually work as well as whole plant medicine, so I think that would be an interesting thing to see a comparison between one group taking resveratrol, one group working with Japanese knotweed directly, and then, of course, our placebo group, but that would be fascinating to me.

Tim Scott:

Yes, there are dozens if not hundreds of compounds, beneficial compounds in knotweed. Yes, resveratrol is one of them. The next one that has come along the lines or has been for a little bit is trans-resveratrol. It’s a similar compound. Emodin is another one that is found there. Like you said, there is a synergistic effect with plants and all their compounds that work together that bring the best effects and less side effects too. There’s often if you isolate one compound, you might end up—you usually end up getting some side effects if they’re isolated compounds just like pharmaceuticals are. You get side effects. But within the plant, there’s often another compound in there that can help mitigate those side effects. It balances it out. There’s not much energy, money to be made, setting plants like that as – go out and harvest it.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

That’s the other thing I wonder. I can’t even—I’m sure—imagine how many resveratrol products are out on the market. I wonder. Are they cultivating it? The Japanese knotweed? [crosstalk]

Tim Scott:

That’s a good question. I think there’s a lot of cultivation in China these days. I think that’s where most of it is coming from, and even a lot of supplements out there are coming from knotweed from China.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Okay. These days you mentioned that you’ve worked with it with your clients powdered and capsules. You mentioned tea and tincture too just briefly. Do you have a preferred way of working with Japanese knotweed?

Tim Scott:

I make use of capsules and tinctures. I’ve always preferred the capsules myself, but plenty of people benefit from the tincture as well. I don’t get too strict about that. I usually say it’s personal preference whether you want to take it as a capsule or tincture. Some of my feelings about the difference between capsules and tinctures is I feel like the capsules potentially might stay in one’s system a little longer. It takes maybe a little longer to digest and assimilate, but I feel like they might stay in the system a little longer, whereas a tincture gets in the system really quicker, really quickly, but I feel like it might be processed a little quicker too.

With Lyme disease, I think that’s really important because the idea is to really build up these herbal compounds in one’s system and keep that pressure upon these bacteria constantly so that there really isn’t any wiggle room for them to migrate or change form or replicate. Having that constant pressure upon them with these herbs in the system is important.

As most anything we put in our body, herb or food or otherwise, it’s usually processed through our body within six hours or so, it’s usually already been processed. Having that constant, especially with Lyme disease, that constant saturation of these herbal compounds is important. That’s why taking the herbs three, if not four times a day, is usually my recommendation.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

That’s cool to hear. I often have a bias against tinctures. Not all the time, but in many situations because I also have a background in Chinese medicine where dosages are very different than they are in Western herbalism or whatever Western herbalism is. I often feel like you’d have to take a lot of alcohol to get the dosage amounts that Chinese medicine or Ayurveda does. I’m curious since you have your—you’re on both sides there—what you think about-

Tim Scott:

That’s a good question. What I’ve seen over time, everyone is different. Everyone I worked with is different. Some people respond really strongly and quickly to things. Other people, it does take getting up to really high doses to really feel the effects. You’ve talked to people, I’m sure. You just do one drop at a time for tincture and that’s enough. I don’t really adhere to low dose botanical medicine like that, but some people do have huge responses just to low dose so I think I have adjusted my thinking to it’s an experiment with a lot of folks, see how you do. It’s not based on weight. It could be 250-pound men who can barely take the base dose and then it’s a 90-pound woman that needs the maximum dose before she even feels it. It does vary greatly. Maybe it is based a little bit on someone’s experience using herbs or the amount of—because I need high doses of most herbs that I take at this point. I think it is because of just this accumulation in my body and tolerance, I guess is the word. My body has adapted to those sort of wild compounds in a way that maybe somewhat domestic people haven’t had any of those wild compounds in their system before, so just a little bit hits them hard.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

That’s an interesting perspective. That’s a great answer, Tim, because you’re so right. It does depend on the individual. I also work best myself with large dosages so I can have that kind of bias inherent in my own experience. You’re so right. It really does vary with the person dramatically. I think dosage in herbal medicine is one of the most fascinating topics because it can maybe answer between what works and what doesn’t.

Tim Scott:

This is true.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

The herb might be the most obvious thing that we think about or the formula or whatever, but dosage plays a huge role. I think it’s often missed unless you have extensive clinical training and experience, that’s a missed part of it. It’s interesting how complex dosage can be.

Tim Scott:

Very much so. Also, thinking of what I can put on the label is only the base dose, whereas what I’d recommend to my client would be up to this high dose, but you can’t put that on the label. Some people are working with people so they just do what’s on the label. There’s all that.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

That’s something I share with my students all the time. Just because it’s on the label does not mean that that’s what an herbalist would recommend. Sometimes the FDA decides that or some other body decides that, not actual practicing herbalists. So, that’s a good point. I have a question that I’m just thinking of. Someone’s out there listening and they’re thinking, “I have Lyme. Should I just go ahead and take Japanese knotweed?” Is this something that you generally recommend or are there specific indications for it that you’re looking for?

Tim Scott:

I recommend knotweed for most everyone with Lyme.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Okay.

Tim Scott:

I don’t use it by itself. I think there’s a multitude of other herbs to use as well. With Lyme it’s important to not only address the infection and inflammation that it’s causing. It’s also essential to help support and strengthen the immune system along the way. It’s also important, especially early on in treatment, to help support the body’s detoxing, liver, lymph system, kidneys. It’s a multi-pronged approach. There are different herbs that are more specific to different areas of the body that I would be recommending depending on the person. Some people get purely the arthritic issue Lyme. Again, just joints problems. Other people it’s just neurological Lyme, but other people it’s everywhere. It really depends on the person, but knotweed, I think, is a good place to start, especially if someone is hesitant to jump in with a whole bunch of other things. I think that’s the center of my treatments with Lyme, anyway. Most important herb.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

I’m so glad you mentioned the complexity of treatment for Lyme. When I was in clinical practice, I’m on the West Coast which Lyme does exist here but not nearly as prevalent as in the northeast. When I had people contact me and their main complaint or main thing that they want to work on was Lyme, that was an easy refer out for me because I just felt this is not—I just really feel like you need a specialist for Lyme. That wasn’t something that I felt like I had the—kind of like yourself. You’ve worked with so many patients extensively and that’s what Lyme takes. There’s no quick formula and quick, “Do A, B, C, D. Done.”

Tim Scott:

Right, right.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

So, if someone is out there listening and they have Lyme, I couldn’t recommend more highly working with an experienced practitioner to really get that help and so you move forward because it requires that.

Tim Scott:

Yeah, it does.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Before we move on, is there anything else that we might have missed about Japanese knot—oh, there is something we missed, actually.

Tim Scott:

Okay.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

We talked about teas and capsules, but we have not talked about fermented pickles.  We should mention that as well. That’s the recipe you shared with us and let’s hear it.

Tim Scott:

Here’s a recipe from a friend of mine who had a restaurant, Lorie. She turned me on to this. I was so happy to see it and see her doing this. They’re really tasty. It’s a great way to make use of knotweed. You harvest the young shoots usually before they’re a foot tall or so and before they turn more woody. As they grow, the shoots turn woody and harder to break down. The young shoots, early springtime. It’s a simple brine fermentation as you would with dill pickles or any other vegetables, essentially. You can add whatever additional flavorings like garlic, peppers, whatnot. It’s a nice condiment. It’s a great conversation starter too. My friend loves talking about it just, “Hey, you want some knotweed pickles to go with your dinner tonight? It’s that plant growing out there.”

Rosalee de la Forêt:

I love that. It reminds me how I work with dandelion pesto. It’s kind of the same thing. I love to bring dandelion pesto to potlucks. It’s a great conversation to talk about how amazing dandelions are. It’s very – kind of a similar idea. “Check out this amazing plant that makes incredible pickles!”

Tim Scott:

You can eat knotweed too! It’s also other people view it as a rhubarb substitute, like a strawberry rhubarb pie, but strawberry knotweed pie. It has sort of that tanginess like rhubarb too. But I would stick still with the young shoots. That’s same timing as rhubarb too.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Anyone wants to make me a strawberry Japanese knotweed pie, I’m very open to that.  I’m accepting deliveries! That sounds awesome. For the listeners, you can download your beautifully illustrated recipe card for Japanese knotweed pickles above this transcript. Alright, now I’ll ask one last time, is there anything we’ve missed about Japanese knotweed before we move on?

Tim Scott:

I’m sure there is, but I think that’s a good place to turn to something else.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Okay. Cool. I want to turn back to where we’ve been, which is Invasive Plant Medicine. There’s just so much in this book that’s so good. One of the premises of the book is that we can really, as herbalists, turn to so-called “invasive plants” as our medicine and help turn the conversation around. Like you had said, nature doesn’t make mistakes. These plants are going around us and there’s a need for them.

One thing that really jumps out at me with this book too is thinking about who has created the narrative around killing these plants. You point out it’s the machine of war. It’s the same businesses that are creating poisons that kill people that are creating poisons that kill plants. I think that’s a really interesting thing if we’re looking about the narrative of what’s happening, so I wonder if you could just speak to that a little bit.

Tim Scott:

It was interesting to look into that when writing the book and to really dive into where all this narrative is coming from. It is fairly recent concept, this idea of invasives. It’s not something our grandparents really had any idea about. They didn’t call anything invasive. It was just a plant. 

I started looking at, for one, the different groups out there that were starting to promote this idea of invasive. There were some groups out in California I think that really maybe started the ball rolling, that had deep ties to these chemical companies--Monsanto, the BASF. They had all these—they also around the same time or maybe even a little before, they started promoting all these pesticides and herbicides back after the World Wars. They had all this leftover chemicals to make use of, so that’s when chemical industrial farming came into play too was after the World Wars and it was because they just had all this Agent Orange and whatnot to get rid of. They began promoting it this way. They didn’t have any people to spray it on and so they decided that they could use it on plants instead and effectively kill off plants. It was just the offspring of that that then led to this concept of invasive plants, these widespread plants that were growing.

There was deep ties with executives in these chemical companies that began these different kinds of invasive plant groups. They also began getting into the government systems. They had deep ties into the government, which then helped promote this idea through the various government agencies of these plants that are widespread and are not from this land. So, there is this whole deep, subversive connection between all these chemical companies and this whole idea of invasive plants that then reached into government, and policies being made and laws being created where you cannot spread plants. If you did, you had to—if they did spread then you have to come out and get rid of them whether by herbicides or manual removal labor.

Just like all these things in our society and in government, it ties back to money. It’s about making money for the right people, so whether it’s in the government or with these big corporations, they go hand in hand. They’re all just helping each other out to make the biggest buck and this is just one example of that happening.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

I remember a few years ago, I was driving on our local highway, and in front of me was a big tank truck. All of a sudden, it just started spraying this massive spray on the side of the road. Of course, I know the roads are sprayed but I was just seeing it with my own eyes and I was just horrified! How is this legal that they could just spread these poisons and toxins? Our highway—I live in a beautiful valley and the highway is right along the river. It made me sick to my stomach.

When I was looking at this book getting ready for this interview, you have that line in there that was like—I think it was about mining, actually, but it said, “How is this even legal?” I wish there was more of us asking that and taking action on it. You’d have to fact check me on this, but I remember looking it up and there was years ago that these deals made that local government have to spray so much. They have to spray so much poison, basically, to reach these criteria. You’re saying those are all deals that are made, right? Of like the company will say, “Okay. We’re going to give you this much poison. You got to spray it.”

Tim Scott:

Yeah, and then you get the actual funding for it.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Yeah, exactly. It’s so easy for me to imagine that board room meeting too, post World Wars where they’re like, “Okay. What do we do? We got all this stock. The manufacturing is already in process. How do we keep the money rolling in?” That’s what the question is. Again, I’ll just be very open and honest. I want everybody listening to this show to get Invasive Plant Medicine. The first part of the book there’s just so much in there. We’ve touched upon some things. There’s so much more. I want to say you are the King of Quotes. There are the best quotes in here that are so well-placed too because they bring the conversation forward. Great quote and touches on so many different topics. The second half of the book is about the invasive plants themselves, which there are things like English ivy, garlic mustard, honeysuckle, knapweed, which is one I struggled to love, a favorite, plantain, purple loosestrife, Scotch broom, tamarisk. So many of them are in here. There’s such a wealth of knowledge in there. I love books that are—it’s like this paradigm shift amidst the knowledge as well. It’s like you can read a book like this and see the world differently when you set it down, which is no small feat and something that I appreciate immensely. It’s a book everybody needs to have.

Tim Scott:

Thank you.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

I think we’re ready for—thank you writing the book. Thanks for Japanese knotweed for supporting you along the way. It’s just a true gift. Before we end, I have one last question for you. I’m curious to hear what your answer is for this. The question is, “What new things or new skills are you currently cultivating with herbs?” 

Tim Scott:

I’m going through this transition in life right now. I see a lot of change happening. There’s this new dynamic that I’m being drawn to as far as working with plants in a different way. Part of that—there’s a couple of things, like I say. I don’t know how much detail I’ll go into, but there is this—I’m working to—I want to work with people more directly. I took some time off from doing consultations and working with people. I was sort of burned out, but I’m starting to get into that more in the last year, so I’m starting to take a step back from my business life with plants. I’m actually looking to sell my business at this point.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Oh, wow!

Tim Scott:

Green Dragon Botanicals. This is going to allow me to, one, work with people more directly. It’s also going to allow me to go study some new plants that I’m really fond of, specifically in Costa Rica and some tropical plants. I’m looking to—I’ve worked with a lot of those plants already in my practice, but I want to get more in-depth with them and intimate with these plants like cat’s claw, sarsaparilla, ginger, turmeric, all these, so that’s where I’m getting—I’m really excited about that--to go into a whole other environment and immerse myself in a whole other plant world. I’ve been here in the northeast for 22 years and I love it. It’s beautiful, but I’m ready for a change and it ties in with my-

Rosalee de la Forêt:

You think you’ll be moving to Costa Rica then?

Tim Scott:

Yeah, I think I am.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Wow!

Tim Scott:

My youngest graduates from high school this year and I’m looking to sell the business and start something new down there. So, if anyone out there listening and wants to create herbal-

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Tell us about Green Dragon Botanicals. Let’s hear about it.

Tim Scott:

Green Dragon Botanicals is what I—which emerged from my use of knotweed and all these other medicinal plants for treating Lyme disease primarily. That’s where it started. I started back in 2009. It’s been 15 years that I have been doing this and it’s been another five years before that that I’ve been working with all these plants. So, it’s 20 years now that I’ve been focused in this way with these plants in this world and business of plants. It’s great and it supported me. It supported my family, but I’m ready for focusing my energy elsewhere which includes working with individuals. It includes working with new plants and moving. It also will allow me to work on my next book. I got a deal to write a new book. I don’t know if I can really talk about that too much right now, but that I should be finishing that up in the next year.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

That’s so exciting!

Tim Scott:

Maybe I’ll just say it’s almost as controversial as invasive plants.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Alright.

Tim Scott:

It might make some people mad too just like Invasive Plant Medicine did.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Yeah, it made people mad.

Tim Scott:

It might shift some people’s realities about certain topics. Maybe next year we can sit down again and we can talk more about my book that’s going to be coming out.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Yeah, let’s do that. It’s funny preparing for this and just remembering what an amazing book this is. Like I said, it’s one of my favorite herbals out there. I was thinking like, “This guy really needs to write another book.” But I know from my experience, I feel like the day my first book was published, people started asking when is the next book because people can relate to it. People ask me all the time, “When is the next book?” I just think I want all my books to move the conversation forward. I have probably had five publishing companies offer me a beginner’s herbal book and I’m like, “There’s already 20 great beginner herbal books out there. I don’t need to add to that. I want it to be the next thing.” Anyway, just saying I was thinking that when is—“This guy needs to write another book because this was just like groundbreaking,” it still is, but I wasn’t going to ask that because I just know you get asked that all the time. So, I’m super thrilled just to hear that.

Tim Scott:

Surprise!

Rosalee de la Forêt:

That’s exciting.

Tim Scott:

I have to sell my business first though to open up some time.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Alright. Green Dragon Botanicals. Go check that.

Tim Scott:

Green Dragon Botanicals. I’m looking for the right person. It will serve anyone who buys it really well. It will serve many people really well who are suffering with Lyme and other chronic and infectious diseases. I hope to do this soon.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

May you find the right person because I know that this apothecary is really important, serving a population that really needs the help, so wishing you the best in that. It’s exciting to hear that you’re just thinking about next chapters. I often say I look forward to seeing who I’m going to grow up to be as an herbalist just because I’ve had so many different manifestations of what I’ve done. That’s the wonderful thing about plant or about herbalism. There are new plants that we can get reinvigorated about and new chapters of being. It’s exciting to see you on the precipice of that and [crosstalk]

Tim Scott:

I’m almost there.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Tim, this has been excellent. Thank you so much-

Tim Scott:

Thank you, Rosalee.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

For being here and for sharing your wisdom with us, for writing your book, all the wonderful gifts you’ve given to the herbal community and look forward to seeing where you end up next. 

Tim Scott:

Thank you. Thank you so much.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Thanks for being here. Don’t forget to download your beautifully illustrated recipe card above this transcript. Also sign up for my newsletter below, which is the best way to stay in touch with me.

You can find more about Tim’s offerings at greendragonbotanicals.com. If you’d like more herbal episodes to head your way, then one of the best ways to support this podcast is by subscribing on YouTube or your favorite podcast app. 

I deeply believe that this world needs more herbalists and plant-centered folks, and I’m so glad that you’re here as part of this herbal community. Also, a big round of thanks to the people all over the world who make this podcast happen week to week:

Emilie Thomas-Anderson is the Project Manager who oversees the entire podcast operation from guest outreach, to writing show notes, and on and on. I often tell people I just show up! Emilie does most of the heavy lifting. 

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Francesca is our fabulous video and audio editor. She not only makes listening more pleasant. She also adds beauty to the YouTube videos with plant images and video overlays. Tatiana Rusakova is the botanical illustrator who creates gorgeous plant and recipe illustrations for us. I love them and I know you love them. Once the illustration is ready, Jenny creates the recipe cards, as well as the thumbnail images for YouTube. 

Alex is our behind-the-scenes tech support and Social Media Manager, and Karin and Emilie are our Student Services Coordinators and Community Support. If you’ve written in with a question, undoubtedly, you got help from them. 

For those of you who like to read along, Jennifer is who creates the transcripts each week. Xavier, my handsome French husband, is the cameraman and website IT guy.

It takes an herbal village to make it all happen including you. Thank you so much for your support through your comments, reviews and ratings. 

One of my favorite things about this podcast is hearing from you. I read every comment that comes in and I’m excited to hear your herbal thoughts on the benefits of Japanese knotweed and invasive plants. 

Okay. You’ve lasted to the very end of the show, which means you get a gold star and this herbal tidbit.

I absolutely loved this conversation with Tim and it made me think of 10 different herbal tidbits to share with you, but sharing 10 is not really a tidbit so I had to choose. 

One of the things that Tim shares in his book is about the importance of controlled fires and he shares how moving away from this indigenous practice to a more fire-suppressive culture has negatively impacted landscapes. This is a topic near and dear to me, as well as to my husband French husband, Xavier. In fact, just a couple of months ago, we set our forest on fire. But I should probably back up and explain. 

Years ago, Xavier read the book, Tending the Wild: Native American Knowledge and the Management of California’s Natural Resources by M. Kat Anderson. He was really inspired by the wise ways that fires have been used to regenerate the land. But when he read that book, he never thought he’d see a time when this would become an accepted practice again in the West. It’s still being practiced all over the world, but here on the Western Coast, United States, was not in strong practice. 

So, it is becoming more and more of a reality, and when Xavier first told me about his idea to do a prescribed burn on our property, I was a bit hesitant. Don’t get me wrong. I‘m 100% onboard with understanding how important fire is for this landscape, but when we talk about setting the backyard on fire, I was thinking, “Is this safe?” But watching the process of doing an approved prescribed burn has been so fascinating. The prep that goes into this is just mindboggling. There are weeks ahead of time. There’s prepping the land by digging fire perimeters around the proposed area and then there’s so much weather observation. You have to have so much hoses that go all the way around the unit. You need specific amounts of people that go all the way around the unit to look for—make sure fire doesn’t escape from where you want it to be, etc. I can’t even begin to explain it all, but suffice to say, I’ve been so impressed with all the care and intention that’s gone into it. 

Finally, after months, like over a year really of prep work from Xavier and friends, everything came together one Friday in October, including things like the weather and getting an approved burn permit, and a generous group of folks that were willing to donate their time and labor. The fire was this complete success. What we wanted to burn, burned and it stayed within the perimeter and everyone learned a lot. 

I really can’t wait to see how that section of the forest looks in the spring and in the coming years because, of course, the main question on my mind is, “What plants will flourish?”