You may have heard the recent buzz about North America’s only native caffeinated plant, yaupon. Yaupon (Ilex vomitoria) is making a resurgence, and it took concerns of tariffs and increased tea and coffee prices to bring this domestic caffeinated plant into the mainstream eye. However, Mountain Rose Herbs’ interest in this plant preceded the tariff-driven trend, and we are delighted to share more information about the relationship we've developed with this plant over the past 7 years. 

Mountain Rose Herbs is proud to partner with the Ocean Blue Project to advance our commitment to protecting waterways from the harmful impacts of trash and microplastics. Recently, we initiated a community cleanup event with our dedicated staff along the Bertelson to Meadowlark Prairie Bike Path, a vital ecological corridor we have formally adopted for ongoing stewardship.

Natural Energy and Adaptogenic Herbs

Are you feeling drained, unable to sleep well, or struggling to maintain consistent energy throughout the day? Modern life often pushes our adrenal glands—the small but mighty glands responsible for our stress response—into overdrive. This leads to fatigue, stress, and a cascade of health challenges. Fortunately, there’s a natural way to support and restore balance: adaptogenic herbs. Adaptogens are nature’s solution to helping the body adapt to stress, regulate energy levels, and support better sleep. In this blog, we’ll dive into what adaptogens are, how they work, and the steps you can take to maintain natural energy and adrenal health.

Under the sweltering sun during the long, lazy days of summer, chances are you’ll find me on my patio, melting away with a good book in one hand and an ice-cold beverage in the other. Sipping a cold, creamy drink while lounging in the shade is something I cherish so much that my fridge always has a few options prepped and ready for whenever that cool-off craving strikes. When I’m not reaching for my go-to iced matcha latte or an herbal tea on the rocks, I’ve lately been whipping up batch after batch of a delightfully creamy, dreamy beverage that is as rich as it is refreshing—horchata!

This nourishing facial serum is a very special one in my recipe book. Made with four of my favorite skin care oils, this blend is deeply hydrating and yields a lovely bronzing hue that can be tailored to many skin tones. The star of this recipe is sea buckthorn oil, which in my opinion, is an underutilized oil that doesn’t get the recognition it deserves. While most skin care oils are pressed from the seeds of a given plant, sea buckthorn oil is pressed from the seeds and berries which yields a vibrant golden hue and contains abundant antioxidants, vitamins, minerals, and essential fatty acids. Sea buckthorn oil also contains linoleic acid which has been shown to support the skin’s lipid barrier,  helping to reduce overall moisture loss. For all of these reasons, it remains high on my list of favorite skin care ingredients.

The ambition of the budding herbalist’s apothecary can quickly overwhelm the kitchen cabinets. It’s easy to make herbal remedies, the harder part is using them up before next year’s harvest. I have an easy solution for culling old (and new) remedies from your apothecary to make space for fresh extracts: DIY body care products!

There is a lot that goes on behind the scenes at Mountain Rose Herbs. The things that appear as “new” are often the result of years of hard work and ongoing collaboration before they reach your apothecary shelves. Our domestic FairWild initiative is no exception to this. 

The moon, in all her changing phases, offers a rhythm we can root ourselves into—an ancient mirror for our inner terrain. Just as she waxes and wanes, we too move through cycles of nestling, emergence, release, and renewal. Working with herbs attuned to each moon phase can help us deepen our connection to the Moon. Moon carries wisdom and offers fertile grounds for rest, action, healing, or insight depending on where we are in the lunar cycle. The lunar cycle can serve as a visual guide to the seasons of our lives. What follows is a soft guide to working with plant allies through each moon phase—an invitation to align your intentions and energy with the moon’s path. To walk alongside the moon is to internalize what it means to move with nature and live in its flow. It is also a radical act—one that reconnects us with ourselves, with community (especially when shared with a friend or two), and with the natural world.

For many neurodivergent folks, balancing the nervous system between hyper and hypo arousal can be a challenge. Getting overstimulated is very common, and can lead to shutdown and hypo (or under) arousal in the nervous system. Folks can also overcorrect in trying to get out of a hypo-arousal state and then become overstimulated. I believe in the potential for aphrodisiac herbs to be supportive outside the bedroom, and specifically for this nervous system pattern. 

What adaptogens are and aren’t, how they work, and why we love them—though not more than any other classification of herbs, of course—is the single most common topic I’ve been asked to speak about in my career as an herbalist. To be an adaptogen, a substance must be nontoxic in therapeutic doses, nonspecific, and systemically normalizing. The ingredients must also work through the sympathetic nervous system and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis—the sort of master-control system that regulates the body’s response to stress, comprised of the hypothalamus, pituitary gland, and adrenal glands. Adaptogens also coordinate the release of hormones such as cortisol to mobilize energy reserves and enable us to adapt to stressors.

Just outside Salem, Oregon, Elderberry Wisdom Farm is a small, Indigenous-owned nonprofit organization doing inspiring work. They're focused on native plant cultivation, ecological restoration, and, most importantly, passing on Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) to future generations. TEK combines centuries of Indigenous understanding of the land with modern conservation practices, and it's at the heart of everything they do.