![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/news\/sites\/16\/2025\/08\/specimens-1024x428.jpg\")
Elizabeth Leibovitz, medicinal garden coordinator in 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s College of Pharmacy, would like to welcome more visitors to explore the garden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Good medicine<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Gardens are good medicine with \u2018outdoor therapy\u2019 increasingly recognized as a useful antidote to a stressful day or news cycle. During the school year, Leibovitz is busy as a resource for students and faculty in 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s Medicinal Garden, but she is also available to share her knowledge with visitors at any time of the year.<\/p>\n\n\n The medicinal garden lies between Woodward, Avedisian and Tyler Halls, where that former parking lot used to be. The garden was originally started near Fogarty Hall in 1957 by Youngken, 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s first dean of pharmacy. He wanted students to know and understand pharmaceutical plants, many of which have a long history for treatment or use. Today, the garden is an outdoor classroom for 溏心vlog免费B站 pharmacy classes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe garden still serves that purpose today as Heber wanted,\u201d Leibovitz says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cPharmacy students need to know about the plants that patients are consuming and can interact with,\u201d Leibovitz says. \u201cThere is a perception that natural is always better or safe, and that\u2019s not always true. There can be interactions between herbal products and medicines such as blood thinners. It\u2019s important for our graduating students to understand this.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Leibovitz assists students with selecting and harvesting plants on the first day of BPS 451 (Techniques in Medicinal Chemistry and Molecular Biology). Students later dry and purify these extracts and become proficient with using HPLC to analyze the constituents. HPLC (High Performance Liquid Chromatography) is an instrument widely used in the pharmaceutical industry, and is a skill that helps land students summer internships and jobs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Leibovitz\u2019s enthusiasm is contagious as she points out plants and their uses, from cinnamon for blood sugar to foxglove (Digitalis purpurea<\/em>), used to make the heart medicine digoxin, to plants that form the basis of bitters for cocktails. She also grows hops (Humulus lupulus<\/em>) on tall vines, showcasing the plant\u2019s historical use and therapeutic, antimicrobial actions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This summer, the garden welcomed students who put an invasive species to good use, transforming mugwort into paper, and students from the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe on Cape Cod, part of a program for Native youth in science. Leibovitz says that young people are excited to learn about plants\u2019 medicinal applications.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Leibovitz can also point out plants that have dangerous properties and regularly presents at the annual Rhode Island Herb Festival, discussing drug interactions with herbs. She hopes to find common ground between integrative and traditional medicine, seeing value in both.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThey have different strengths,\u201d she says. \u201cThere can be a synergy between the two approaches.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Leibovitz is glad to see visitors build not just knowledge, but also enthusiasm for plant life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI like seeing people come here and get excited,\u201d she says. \u201cWhen someone has a recognition of a plant, they are building a connection with it. You can take that wherever you go and see its story in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Leibovitz enjoys talking to high school students and the prospect of piquing their interest in a future career or subject of study: \u201cStudying pharmacy might not be on a student\u2019s radar but there are lots of career opportunities in this field,\u201d she notes. \u201cThey might be a pharmaceutical researcher and look for new drugs someday.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Plants from the medicinal garden are also included in the University\u2019s new online plant database<\/a>, which debuted this past year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOur hope is to be a plant source and also build plant awareness and connections,\u201d Leibovitz says. \u201cThis used to be a parking lot, but doesn\u2019t feel like it any more. This space serves as a community hub where special things can be found and are happening. The real point of the garden is to share the green world and the amazing parts of nature, to get people away from desks and screens and just enjoy the wonder that is nature.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n To request a tour of the <\/em>Heber W. Youngken Jr. Medicinal Garden<\/em><\/a>, email <\/em>elizabeth_leibo@uri.edu<\/em><\/a> or call (401) 874 -2849. Tours are free year-round, but must be scheduled in advance. The garden is open to the public dusk-dawn and also offers curriculum for school groups. Follow for updates at @urimedicinalgarden.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 Aug. 12, 2025 \u2013 We don\u2019t know if Heber W. Youngken Jr. was a Joni Mitchell fan but his namesake garden at the 溏心vlog免费B站 neatly reverses her 1970 hit, replacing a parking lot with a paradise. The garden is named after the College of Pharmacy\u2019s founding dean, a pioneer […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":103463,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[41,1913],"class_list":["post-103462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives","tag-college-of-pharmacy","tag-public-engagement"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103462"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103462\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":103469,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103462\/revisions\/103469"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/news\/sites\/16\/2025\/08\/students-768x1024.jpeg\")