FLORA+FUNGI

Wild Botanical Skincare+ Non-Timber Forest Products+ Botanical Distillation+ Bioregional Herbalism

05/15/2026

My favorite forest vegetable is back!

05/09/2026

I’ve been dreaming all winter about all the herbs sleeping in my garden awaiting me when spring comes- and now that it’s here I’m out in the garden like a little squirrel every day gathering handfuls of herbs to incorporate in all my food and drinks, and strong herbal mocktails have been a favorite at the moment. One of the easiest ways to make an herbal mocktail is just to muddle a handful of herbs and add in a shot of water, shake with ice and add to a glass and top with tonic water (you can definitely also use soda water but I find tonic water makes a very satisfying mocktail that doesn’t just feel like and herbal soda drink). 🌱Which garden herbs are you enjoying at the moment?

05/04/2026

If you’ve ever dreamed of distilling your own hydrosols… you’re in the right place!

My online course Botanical Distillation: Art, Science, Alchemy is now open to enrollment!

In this immersive self-paced course you’ll learn:

How to distill your own hydrosols on a variety of distillation equipment.

How to separate essential oils from your hydrosols.

How to properly clean and maintain copper, glass and stainless steel distillation equipment.

How to use plant derived preservatives to keep your hydrosols fresh, bacteria free and safe to use.

How to transform your hydrosols into cosmetics like serums, lotions, masks, conditioners and much more.

How to research the chemical composition of your hydrosols to better understand their benefits and uses.

How to implement good manufacturing practices and proper sanitation during your distillations.

How to incorporate hydrosols into culinary applications and much more.

If you’re ready to deepen your relationship with your favorite plants, comment COURSE and I’ll send you a link with all the details and how to enroll.

05/01/2026

Nettle season is in full swing in my neck of the woods! Do you eat nettles too? If so what are your favorite foods to make with them?

04/27/2026

Ecoprinting with Ferns: Tips and Tricks

Ferns are one of my favorite plants to incorporate into my textile art, but there’s a problem- most ferns don’t leave a print- so if you want to use them in your ecoprints you need to take a few extra steps to ensure you get a gorgeous result.

While most ferns lack the tannins and other dye constituents that other reliable printing leaves have, they can still be used if you use them as a resist.

Tip 1: Use a dye blanket to create a background color so that the fern blocks the dye from penetrating the fabric where the ferns are placed.

Tip 2: Find the right moisture balance for your fabric- some fabrics like velvet need to be more moist than others- too much moisture will cause blurry washed out prints. Other fabrics like lightweight silks need to be just moist enough to transfer the dye from the dye blanket into the textile being printed.

Tip 3: Bundle tightly! If you want crisp clear prints you must have good contact between the fabric, plants and dye blanket. Practice your bundling skills on small manageable sized pieces before scaling up.

Tip 4: Under-dye for richer color palettes. I almost always pre dye my fabric before eco printing with ferns so that the ferns aren’t white. Under dyeing + resist printing can create amazing color combinations that you couldn’t achieve with reliable printing leaves.

Tip 5: Reuse your ferns! I often reuse ferns several times- sometimes they will absorb bits of the color from your textile and dye blanket creating even more nuanced colors. Not ready to print more yet?- freeze your used ferns in a ziplock bag until you’re ready to use them again.

Tip 6: Dead ferns work as well as live ones, if not better. Dry dead ferns (like what you will find in winter) work great for printing and often produce crisper prints since they don’t have the moisture content fresh ferns have. —————Continued in comments………

04/25/2026

You get what you pay for! I will admit that when I started distilling eight years ago, I had no idea about the differences in quality of Copper equipment. I somehow got lucky and managed to buy a still from a reputable company without doing too much serious research into the matter- there were cheaper stills available, but something told me that I shouldn’t go with the cheapest option for a piece of equipment that would become the work horse of my business. If you’re considering buying a copper still, I highly recommend avoiding the cheap equipment you’ll find on places like Amazon and Alibaba, and opting to invest in equipment produced by a reputable and seasoned company-because that cheap still might just be an expensive decoration. If it’s made with low quality copper, and leaded solder. I have two manufacturers I trust and highly recommend to those looking to invest in copper distillation equipment- and

04/18/2026

When I first started working with natural dyes I felt like making dye swatches was a waste of fabric. But as I started working with silk I needed to keep better track of the colors I created, and a new obsession emerged.

In my ecoprinting practice I like to use layers of color, and I started creating swatches of the dyes and their respective concentrations so I could better replicate colors in the future.

Far from a waste of fabric, I began to document a library of possibility, initially starting with the familiar plant dyes I’d been growing for years, and began testing out wild plants for their dye potential and was amazed at the wealth of color in the world around me.

These slides represent a small fraction of my dye swatch library- just a handful of my favorites I made last summer. I’ve got a list of plants I can’t wait to try this year!

For those of you not versed in natural dyeing, WOF stands for weight of fiber, and the percentage is given in relation to the weight of the fiber being dyed.

Many traditional natural dye plants only require a small amount of plant material due to their high pigment concentration, however when testing out wild plants, I typically start at 100-200% WOF to ensure a rich color.

Since these are protein fibers, all are mordanted with Potassium Aluminum Sulfate @ 15% with the exception of the Silk Velvet which is mordanted with 5% Aluminum Triformate.

Additionally, Iron is used to modify colors and creates darker tones. I’ve included some of the iron modified samples while others only have the PAS and ATF mordant derived colors shown.

Address

Au Gres, MI
48703

Website

http://www.florafungiapothecary.com/

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when FLORA+FUNGI posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Business

Send a message to FLORA+FUNGI:

Shortcuts

Want your business to be the top-listed Furniture Store in Au Gres?