“If people become more curious and get to know the hedgerow better, there are so many domino effects.” Forager Maria on the Downs, Bristol.

If you head out on a walk today in your local patch of greenery, there’s a high chance you’ll see a familiar plant. It’s usually tucked along a path in bunches with tiered leaves that have small ridges, and it has a deceptively neutral green that always seems to blend in with other types of flowers or shrubs.  

Usually, you’ll encounter it just as you turn to talk to the person that you’re with, engrossed, and you’ll forget to look down. That’s when you’ll feel that familiar creeping tingling, that frustrating itch begin, and marvel again why this plant exists, a true menace.  

We’re, of course, talking about the nettle, a British ubiquity. But, despite its hostile manner, the nettle is in fact a potential saviour for us all.  

It’s a secret superfood, known to contain vitamins A-K, zinc, magnesium, sodium, potassium, and with the power to nourish us beyond what most of us could imagine. If you know how to harvest it properly, it can turn into tea, soup, pesto, garnishes and more. 

On the open fields of the Downs in Bristol, it grows abundantly alongside other trees and flowers and it’s here that we are bound for an afternoon of discovery.  

We meet Maria on a cloudy day, in the centre of Bristol’s vast local park, a series of open spaces under a big sky. She comes towards us swinging a dainty basket, wearing walking boots. We remark that we’re all coincidentally dressed in the same shade of blue.  

Maria is in another league. Her boilersuit is a bright Yves Klein blue that stands out vividly against the grass. She’s wearing gold earrings with small leaves embedded in them. Maria looks distinctly more glamorous than anyone around. 

We begin to walk slowly, stopping at bushes as she points out a branch here and a leaf there, and we talk about how it all began. Despite her in depth knowledge that flows so readily, she didn’t always forage.  

Maria speaks about a distinct experience she remembers a few years ago that changed her outlook forever, to see the world as truly alive. At the time, she was away in Australia, first with friends and then by herself. She went camping for days alone in Tasmania and spent months working on the land in people's gardens, taking care of their chickens and plants. 

It was only when she returned to London, that she suddenly realised she was seeing the same park she’d grown up near to in a completely different way. It was overwhelming at first and it took her a while to process, then work out how to express it in a way that others could understand. 

She kept looking around her, and noticing how much she had never seen before, growing and thriving everywhere. Recounting this intense feeling to us, her bright eyes light up. It felt so life changing and yet so obvious and she knew she had to act on it. 

Having studied science, Maria started her foray into the wild with seeking to understand the scientific impact of plants. As children, we’re repeatedly told not to eat anything we come across outside, but she emphasises, the reverse is true. There is far less that can poison us, than can heal or feed us. 

To test the health benefits of plants she was learning about, Maria decided to conduct an experiment on a British staple, rosemary, after spending a lifetime of regularly feeling cold.  

“It’s really good for circulation of the peripheral body, your hands, feet and head. So, I had three cups of strong rosemary tea. And that evening, after always being cold, I was too hot in bed. I decided to test it again.” she says. 

"So, I went swimming one day to the next in the morning. On the first day, I was so cold, I was getting cramps, I had to get out. And then the next day, I had the tea. Honestly, I was able to stay in longer, and the water was the same temperature.”  

Hearing Maria speak, it’s like opening a book of stories. The bushes become chapters waiting to be read and explored. These are tales which hark back to ancient times, that have been passed down through generations that foragers like Maria are reviving, in a dialogue with the past. She gestures to another plant, Yarrow, which is very common.  

“Its Latin name is Achillea millefolium. Achillea comes from Achilles because he supposedly used it in the Trojan War, to stop the bleeding of his soldiers. I've had it before where I've got a cut and you chew up a little bit of the Yarrow leaf and you put it straight on the cut. And then after thirty seconds, there's no blood on the cut. It's like magic.” 

This expertise is being acknowledged more in the scientific community as studies are conducted on plants to show their medicinal value, confirming what has been known by some for centuries.  

Stories that have been shared by different cultures about plants before modern medicine have many grains of truth that we can still learn from today. 

Maria embodies a modern-day healer. She speaks about how she hugely values this recognition that foraging is receiving, giving it credibility so more of us become convinced and benefit from it. 

"If people become more curious and get to know the hedgerow better instead of this sea of green, there are so many domino effects. If we can change people's perspective of a food source, more people will know about foraging. They just need the confidence to go and do it.” Maria says. 

Inspiring others to show this interest in nature has always come naturally to her. She worked for years as a teacher to children with additional needs, and she found herself regularly encouraging them to get outdoors, to build a bat box with her or go to a farm.  

It was only a few years ago she felt that yearning for being in the outdoors more regularly, while experiencing a stressful job. She still experiences feelings of claustrophobia and circling thoughts when she spends too long indoors, and a need to engage with the living and breathing exterior. 

Foraging also encourages a slower pace, making you notice tiny details around you and by using all your senses, keeps you fully in the present.  

We talk about the new sensations she’s experienced that are heightened when discovering them for the first time. Sorrell, one of her favourites, is known as lemon spinach for its citrussy taste, and she points out rosehip that she thinks tastes like apple puree.  

The word curiosity comes up again and again. Science, when it began, was at its heart just ordinary people who looked at the world around them and wanted to understand it more. Speaking to Maria feels like coming closer to our most natural way of existing, propelling us forwards by always remaining curious about our surroundings.  

She loves sharing this way of thinking through the foraging courses she runs and witnessing the amazed reactions of people as they start exploring for themselves. 

But Maria is very aware of not taking too much from nature while foraging, the opposite of a capitalist approach to monetising everything we consume. As she puts it,  

“Being grateful for what you harvest and not just extracting. This recognition that something is alive, and you're taking it so if you took it all away, it wouldn't be there. I’ve had to make sure I'm not being totally extractive.” 

In an age of excessive food waste, we should remember to only take what we need. It's easy to forget that everything we consume comes at a cost to the environment and the delicate eco-systems which we extract from every day.  

On our walk, we encounter a bee sleeping in a low branch, and Maria is careful to not take any flowers from near to it. It’s not a thought that would cross most of our minds, but it’s this care for the smallest elements of nature that is clearly so important to the foraging mentality. 

Spending time with Maria feels like being with a preacher, starting a growing movement that has the potential to change our lives and society for the better, one person at a time. It’s particularly timely in the context of climate change which poses huge challenges to the sustainability of global food markets. We can all find better ways to connect with what’s closer to us. 

At a nearby bush, Maria suggests trying a green plant Hawthorn that tastes bland. She explains it used to be known as ‘bread and butter’ because it gives us so many nutrients and can be used in so many dishes. This sort of knowledge is invaluable.  

Yet, she’s still on a journey herself of figuring out how being a forager fits with her identity, pondering whether it can be called a lifestyle or a profession. From our perspective, she seems to have blended the two effortlessly, practicing what she preaches.  

The Downs is special to her, she tells us, for being this open and barren, with high bushes scattered around, abundant with foraging opportunities. You just need to know where to look. 

As we finish our walk, Maria leaves us, taking her basket full of trimmings with her, off to spread her gospel in new pastures. We’re left surrounded by a place in the Bristol we both know well that now seems entirely new.  

Her earlier words resonate about encountering plants, “I have that feeling of when you see them again, it’s comforting, like seeing something you recognise."  

And so, we acknowledge, the nettle has become an unexpected familiar friend, along with so many other plants that we didn’t know. Even more than that, she’s opened our eyes to a new way of seeing the hedgerow, brimming with boundless possibility.  

You can find Maria on Instagram @healing.weeds and on her website www.healingweeds.co.uk